Those WikiLeaks documents released yesterday continue to reverberate in Washington, where it appears government officials have downplayed the idea that the biggest terrorist threat, by far, to the United States may be Pakistan – not Afghanistan or Iraq or Iran.
The materials indicate that what U.S. officials have said publicly about Pakistan and it’s intelligence agency and the fight against terrorism has not squared with what was happening behind the scenes.
U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention center ranked Pakistan’s main intelligence agency as a threat on a par with terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. That revelation shows again just how fraught the relationship is between the two countries and how suspicious the U.S. has been of Pakistan for years.
Ever since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has treated Pakistan more like a “frenemy” than a friend, according to UK’s The Guardian. U.S. officials have often publicly praised Pakistan’s efforts in the war on terror while privately complaining that the army and intelligence services should do more.
Pakistan, and particularly the ISI intelligence agency, has been blamed for harboring some terrorists — such as the country’s former Taliban allies.
Initially, U.S. assessments of the ISI blamed “rogue” elements for supporting terrorists, the documents show. But by 2007, that caveat seems to have been removed.
This is not entirely new information. Last summer, documents that were uncovered suggested that Pakistan allowed ISI agents to meet with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions. But these WikiLeaks documents are the first showing that some U.S. officials actually equated the ISI with other known terrorist groups — hardly an indication of trust.
According to The Guardian, there is a striking contrast between the documents and rosy public comments made by U.S. officials at the time.
