CIA 'Considering' Intelligence Deal With Pakistan: Officials
U.S. would share more info on agents, but not drone targets.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- April 13, 2011 — -- In response to requests from Pakistan's premiere intelligence service, the Central Intelligence Agency is considering sharing more information about its operatives inside Pakistan but has refused to reveal drone targets before CIA can strike them, according to a U.S. official and two Pakistani officials.
The possible change to a complex, difficult relationship between the intelligence agencies would be designed to heal a rift that threatened operations inside Pakistan that are among the most important in the world to finding senior al Qaeda and Taliban commanders.
The give-and-take occurred during a two hour and 25 minute conversation between CIA Director Leon Panetta and Inter-Services Intelligence Director General Ahmed Shuja Pasha in a rare meeting in CIA headquarters Monday, followed by a lunch with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen.
In a sign the CIA has no intention of stopping the drone campaign, at least six CIA missiles slammed into a Taliban safe haven in Pakistan this morning, less than two days after the meeting.
The missiles, delivered by at least two unmanned drones piloted from the United States, killed Afghan and Arab fighters in the same house where a senior al Qaeda official was killed in 2003, according to local residents.
A Pakistani military official seemed put off by the strike, calling it a "show of strength" by the CIA. The prime minister criticized the strike in parliament, and in a press release, the Pakistani foreign ministry said the foreign secretary had "lodged a strong protest with the US ambassador."
Pakistani military officials said that in the meeting with Panetta, Pasha pushed for a formal "framework of engagement" that would restrict the operations CIA agents are allowed to pursue on the ground inside Pakistani borders.
