Email This to a Friend
Drone Attacks in Pakistan: The Mystery Deepens
Al-Qaeda operatives are being taken out in Pakistan. Why the secrecy about it?
I called the Pentagon recently to talk with the press office about how the drone campaign is going in Pakistan. Drones, or pilotless aircraft, have been taking out al-Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas of Pakistan with great aplomb since last summer. Consequently, the attacks continue to remain page A-1 headline news.
When I asked about the campaign’s progress, Department of Defense Spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Wright laughed out loud for 20 seconds. That seems like a long time for a Pentagon official to have a chuckle with a reporter these days, and it was refreshing in its own way. Nonetheless, I asked, “Why are you laughing?” I thought I knew why, but I wanted to see what Wright had to say.
“I can’t give you any information on that,” Wright said. He was careful to say “that” and not “drone.” While the drone strikes are front page news in every major paper in America these days, officially they are not happening. They don’t exist.
“And why is that?” I asked.
Wright laughed again. “I can’t give you any information on why I can’t give you any information,” he said. It seemed like he knew how funny this sounded. How clichéd. We then discussed the history of drones for a few minutes, reflecting on their use beginning in the early days of the Cold War. Drones were first used on intelligence gathering missions back when Eisenhower was president. “We’ve had drones and we’ve used them for years,” Wright said, carefully choosing the grammatical tense. Drones never use to be armed with missiles — weapons weren’t married to drones until the year 2000.
The original government partnership on the use of drones began then as it continues today: as a joint CIA/Air Force endeavor. The ties that bind these two services in the use of drones — services that generally spend more time at odds with one another than working together — is the concept of plausible deniability. This serves both organizations. The CIA doesn’t have to say what it does in the skies over Pakistan, certainly not in the same way the U.S. Air Force has to.
“We’re loathe to comment about any involvement in this at the request of the agency,” Wright said, adding, “and as a rule, the CIA doesn’t comment on classified missions and these are all classified.”
I told Wright that I had a specific question about a specific war on terror player, a man on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. It was newsworthy and should not be classified, I argued. According to a January 8 story by ABC’s investigative team, al-Qaeda operative Fahid Msalam had been taken out by a CIA drone strike on New Year’s Day. I wanted to know if it was true.
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Annie Jacobsen writes about aviation and intelligence. She blogs at TheAviationNation.com and is working on a new book for Little Brown and Company.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
35 Comments
1. Delia:“al-Qaeda colleague”?
Good grief. Our country has turned into a bunch of pansies. Great. JUST GREAT.
Annie, you are a brave soul. I commend you for pushing towards the truth.
What next? I’m afraid to even ask.
Mar 30, 2009 - 3:06 am 2. canuck:Strange as this may seem, it is probably necessary to protect the program from our nation’s enemies within our own Congress. Keep it classified, keep the command and control of target selection out of sight and it is harder for the Barney Fwanks of the world to attack it.
Meanwhile, this will keep the targets looking upward for the silent death to arrive. Great psychological weapon as well as a totally practical one.
Mar 30, 2009 - 3:54 am 3. Blackwater:Just let them do their thing. I don’t want to give any information to the islamists. These drones sure do kick some serious ass though. They’re very effective. We need better ones and a lot more of them.
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:19 am 4. howiem:I don’t see the word “colleague” in this article. At any rate, I fail to see why it matters besides the writer wanting a story. I don’t think we need to tell the enemy which of their people we are killing. Let them figure it out for themselves. If they can communicate over long distances from their caves, they will know soon enough. If not it keeps them off balance, unsure of what is happening, and delays appointing successors immediately. This has nothing to do with getting to the truth. It has everything to do with a hournalists desire for a story.
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:49 am 5. Tom H.:The reasons for not releasing the information are many fold.
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:52 am 6. dmgold:1. Insurgents may not have actually been killed but snatched and are being ‘used’ for additional intel.
2. Not releasing names allows for confusion within the ranks of al-Qaeda as to who is still viable or not…
a. false(counter-intel) messages to be sent to other cells
b. allows for the insertion of a double agent.
3. Stating who is dead or killed when and were can possibly tie a HUMINT source to the deaths and thus allow the enemy to eliminate that source.
4. The new administration doesn’t want to give the old administration credit for a successful program.
WARCRIMES WARCRIMES WARCRIMES thats why the US administration is ‘mum’ on this. If any info comes out the Spanish will be charging Gates and US Generals galore with WAR CIMES.
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:10 am 7. Battlescar:Cool stuff. I hope it doesn’t turn out badly though. We are in the process of inventing the Cylons and they seem to be evolving.
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:26 am 8. jjkrn:small tactical nukes would work so much better…but hey..i’m crazy as heck….
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:44 am 9. Tcobb:We’ve been doing this, by bullet, JDAM, or drone, since 911. I think the main reason for the secrecy is to avoid producing fodder for the whining little bastards who would wring their hands and cry aloud that these people weren’t given a trial in front of a UN tribunal.
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:58 am 10. Mary S.:I’m with Tom H on this. There are a lot of reasons not to blab it all over the press. Am I the only one who feels like saying, “Duh”?
And I have some questions: if these missions are going on in Pakistan and not Afghanistan, isn’t part of the secrecy because we’re technically not at war with Pakistan? Couldn’t things get tense if we came out saying we’re running missions in an allied country even if they’re unmanned? I guess that’s where the CIA comes in? I’m honestly just curious…
Mar 30, 2009 - 7:58 am 11. Middleman:Considering how Al Qaeda and Islamists are all around mediawhores, it’s best a lot of things are kept quiet about as you can bet they’re watching.
Mar 30, 2009 - 8:26 am 12. Saltherring:Killing sub-human Islamic terrorists is a good thing. I don’t need to know which ones, only that we are continuing to knock them off.
Mar 30, 2009 - 8:31 am 13. Professor Guvinoff:In the big Hoopla about Gitmo, the intensity of the Bush bashing campaign preempted any serious discussion of what a better alternative could conceivably be.
No consideration was ever given to the fact that capturing these guys alive is far more difficult, more dangerous and more expensive than killing them on the battlefield.
Two reasons to keep them alive. One, the intelligence value; Two, preventing them from returning to the battle, since killing them (which might well be compatible with their values), is not compatible with ours, unless the judicial system arrives at a death sentence by due process. Which judicial system? The same afforded to US citizens? That would be absurd, and even if it was reasonable, it’s unprecedented.
The drones are far more dispositive than all of this, but they consume intelligence instead of producing it. As long as we have an adequate volume of intelligence, the drones are a bargain, since they also avoid an invasive presence in Pakistan.
One could argue that our spies in Pakistan constitute an invasive presence, but by definition it’s not a conspicuous one, so its political footprint is tolerable. As long as we eliminate people who are also considered unwelcome by the Pakistani government, the drones are a hell of a deal! As long as Allah can still get a wholesale discount on the celestial virgins, (72 at a pop!) everybody wins!
In the meantime, Obama is trying to dispose of the political cost of Gitmo, as if internment outside of the US was less onerous than a failure to address the real threat. Watch out for the guy who puts political unconvenience above national security: There is a slippery slope between trying to erase Gitmo from the public radar screen and denying the existence of the threat altogether.
How long can a thinking person be satisfied with a “perfect” solution?
Mar 30, 2009 - 8:35 am 14. Ian Thorpe:@13 Professor Guvinoff.
I’ve had to correct this mistaken idea about 72 virgins before. It’s a mistranslation from ancient Aramaic to modern Arabic.
What the martyrs get when they arrive at the penthouse is 72 raisins. It will probably be a great disappointment to them.
Mar 30, 2009 - 9:25 am 15. Franklin's Locke:All of good points why this is all a mystery and I agree. I am just happy we are killing our enemey and they are not killing us. Our military is doing such a great job and need our support. Hopefully, they will get a high profile target soon.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
Mar 30, 2009 - 9:31 am 16. David Thomson:“What the martyrs get when they arrive at the penthouse is 72 raisins. It will probably be a great disappointment to them.”
Israeli counter-terrorist experts have interviewed failed suicide bombers. And these guys most assuredly believe they are getting 72 virgins in paradise! They take it for granted that the next life of an Islamic martyr will be one of endless sexual bliss. This is a key motivator for a Muslim male to sacrifice his life in behalf of Jihad.
Mar 30, 2009 - 9:50 am 17. Professor Guvinoff:Ian Thorpe (14)
Thanks for the data point.
I’m not an expert on Islam, but it is clear that the islamic scholars (from more than thousand years ago) have been debating which interpretation of the books is legitimate and which one is not, etc…
How are we supposed to answer the question of which believer is most belief-worthy?
About interpretation, in the modern age, considering all the oil reserves under the arab lands, one can wonder whether Allah is no longer such a cheapskate as to dispense raisins when the customers are asking for virgins?
If these items were traded on the Chicage commodities exchange, we could price them, but is it not better to keep the mystery intact?
Mar 30, 2009 - 10:25 am 18. David Levavi:Lots of good reasons to keep mum in the comments. Official announcements of anonymous successes by ‘overseas contingency operatives of an unmanned airborne nature’ would be helpful, however. Allow us to raise a glass to American knowhow and an active and robust American intelligence community.
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:13 am 19. gordo 12:Why has the NYT not revealed locations and code to the public of the drones.. Anything to help our enemy.
Oh yea they already did. Obama was elected and he is still protected by them.
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:34 am 20. Richard:Loose lips sink ships!!!
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:52 am 21. river:Forty years ago. March 1969. Nixon. Cambodia. Secret bombing raids.
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:27 pm 22. Moogie:#4 howiem: “Shortly after the ABC story claimed Msalam and his long time al-Qaeda colleague Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan were killed,” <—- there’ the word “collegue.”
#14 Ian Thorpe: Are you sure it’s raisins? I thought I’d read somewhere that “craisins” will be their reward.
LOL – sorry… that’s my own version of “gallows humor” -except that I’m a lot funnier than Obama.
#5 Tom H: I agree. Good points made.
Mar 30, 2009 - 1:19 pm 23. fireyourguns:No “outrage” from the left? No “body count” for Obama? No daily “civilian atrocities” being hammered home by the left-wing press? I wonder why not! Did fighting “thugs and killers” suddenly become fashionable? The Obama sheep have got to be swallowing Maalox by the gallon, and popping Valium by the handfuls in order to come to grips with this…dialogue!
“Overseas Contingency Operation”! Has a nice ring to it…doesn’t it? Kind of like “War on Terror”!
Mar 30, 2009 - 2:41 pm 24. Moogie:oops: “collegue” = colleague
Mar 30, 2009 - 2:56 pm 25. howiem:stupid keyboard
Moogie, thanks, I missed it – probably forgot to search page 2
Mar 30, 2009 - 3:08 pm 26. typos_R_us:“This has nothing to do with getting to the truth.”
Truth is a slippery, vague and vaporous concept. Settle for “the facts, and just the facts,’mam”. You will be better off. Better informed too.
“The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.”
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:19 pm 27. Aarbrow:Mark Twain, Advice to Youth
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 – 1910)
Not raisins, actually dates. Hence the misunderstanding.
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:30 pm 28. aloysiusmiller:Maybe the more secret it is the more AQ it will kill.
This is a pretty neat capability as long as it is working for us. Can you imagine a day when drones will be flying over America looking for political dissidents?
I think we need to make sure that the right to bear arms includes a capability for shooting down drones.
I am very serious.
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:57 pm 29. Derek:I’m surprised it took 20 posts to get a Cambodia reference.
Our engagement with Pakistan going forward isn’t clear, but it is clear we are escalating attacks in pakistan and putting more troops on the border. I don’t think the Obama admin wants to give any credence to the idea that these operations might lead to something bigger in Pakistan. So he’s downplaying attacks in Pakistan, and playing up the surge as being focused on Afghanistan.
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:35 pm 30. john from cinncinatti:why don’t we put the videos of the missions on you tube so the al queda guys can glean intelligence from them. maybe a reality show were we put all our cards on the table and give out names and hometowns of all the people involved or better yet lets have some operational security here and lets not be braggarts like the jihadist are. supposedly our G2 has some experience in getting intel from info that leaked out. let God sort them out.
Mar 30, 2009 - 5:39 pm 31. BD57:I’m not surprised; we don’t acknowledge it, Pakistan doesn’t have to deal with the US acknowledging it. We have enough trouble there already.
I support the constitutionally guaranteed right to arm bears.
Mar 30, 2009 - 6:54 pm 32. ding:When the story is told of special warfare ops in the past eight years, jaws will drop to the floor.
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:59 pm 33. Joe Mudd:If Bush does it, it’s a crime, if Obama does it it’s fine.
Mar 31, 2009 - 12:21 am 34. deepthought:#19 Gordo12–
Actually it was the Times of London that released a Google Earth image of drones at a Paki airbase.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5762371.ece
Mar 31, 2009 - 6:21 pm 35. George of the Bungle:Hate to bungle this up. Did anyone hear of the Israeli attacks on Sudan by drones of their own. They sank one Sudanese ship and attacked two convoys all carrying Iranian missiles for Hamas.
Mar 31, 2009 - 10:17 pm