US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter had phoned Washington on March 17 with an urgent plea to stop an imminent drone strike against militants in the tribal belt, a private channel reported on Tuesday.
Munter feared the timing of the attack would further damage ties with Islamabad, coming only a day after the government grudgingly freed Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor held for weeks for killing two Pakistanis. The request, disclosed by several US officials, was forwarded to the head of the Central Investigation Agency (CIA), who dismissed it.
US officials said Panetta’s decision was driven by anger at Pakistan for imprisoning Davis for so long and a belief that the militants being targeted were too important to pass up.
The timing of the strike, and others that followed outraged Pakistan, complicating US efforts to win Islamabad’s cooperation on the Afghan war and retain support for the drone programme.
Forty-eight people were killed and 50 wounded when several missiles fired from drone aircraft hit a gathering, stated to be a jirga, at Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17.
The details were provided by US and Pakistani officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the programme.
Among them were attacks that followed an April visit by Inter-Services Intelligence Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha to Washington as well as trips by Senator John Kerry and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Pakistan after the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The TV channel said the attacks had also strained the relationship between the US State Department and the CIA, where officials argued that killing militants who threatened US interests should take priority over political considerations.
That tension was clearly visible between Ambassador Munter and the CIA station chief in Islamabad, who recently left his post because of illness, said a senior Western official in the region.
The hard-charging station chief also clashed with the head of the ISI over drone strikes, said a Pakistani official.
“It is very, very rare for the chief of mission to express concern about any particular operation,” the official said, referring to the ambassador. “When concerns are raised, they’re always given close consideration.”
Munter must sign off on every planned drone attack in Pakistan, although he rarely voices an objection, said a former aide to the ambassador. If Munter disagrees with a planned strike, the CIA director can appeal to him, said two US officials, providing the most detailed description of the process to date.