TOP SECRET US RAID ON ABBOTTABAD A MILESTONE.

TOP SECRET US RAID ON ABBOTTABAD A MILESTONE.

The President required surgery for a potentially incapacitating ailment, but didn’t want to attract the attention of a nosy media and become the subject of political gossip. Instead of flying to a foreign hospital as was the wont in the country then, the President checked into a local city hospital. That was the tale of a former President of India in the recent past, and he was operated upon in Delhi’s Army Hospital (Research & Referral) — R&R in common parlance. Why he chose the premier military hospital in the country becomes plain to the eye from the dramatic events that have unfolded in Abbottabad, home to the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.

The army  is trained to maintain secrecy against all odds and suppress the human instinct of gossiping. Even the South Asian militaries have been able to maintain commendable degrees of secrecy, going totally against the grains of their societies. So the President of India checked himself into R&R, went through a highly technical surgery, and was out in a matter of days without the nosy media getting a whiff of his absence from work. The Indian Army, which runs R&R, maintained the dignity of the President and a silence that is quite at odds with national trends.

A six-foot-four-inch Arab man, with flowing robes and a beard to match, evaded all the eyes in the skies and on the ground aimed at him since over a decade. And this despite suffering from a kidney ailment that reportedly required dialysis. Osama bin Laden evaded all those hunting him only because he had the protection of the most secretive institution in the region, the Pakistani Army. The only hospitals that could cater to his frequent needs, and maintain silence, would thus have to be those run by the Pakistani Army.

Civilian medical establishments would have been no-go areas to avoid when there is a $25 million bounty on one’s head. So, for over a decade on the run, Osama bin Laden avoided detection because his movements were restricted, and his medical care was provided in secrecy. Which logically means that life would obviously have to be lived within, or near, military cantonments. Any analysis of his decade-long escape and evasion exercise must begin from this most basic of live facts. All else will then fall into place.

It is also a certainty that the Government of Pakistan, as well as its military and intelligence assets, were not in the loop when the United States of America began preparations to launch a military operation to neutralise Osama bin Laden. Just as the Pakistani Army maintained extremely strict secrecy in providing cover for Osama bin Laden, the US Administration reciprocated in kind. It isn’t a matter of trust, simply an operational requirement and a mandatory one at that.
No military operation, especially not one of this nature, can be planned and launched without keeping the barest minimum people in the loop. Even the US Ambassador to Pakistan, the point person for the most crucial contemporary relationship globally, was not in the loop. In the world of intrigue and operations this phenomenon is called ‘need-to-know’, and there was no need for more than the barest minimum number of people to know. So when Pakistani officialdom makes claims to the contrary, they are aiming at perceptions within the country. For that is where the next big showdown is expected to happen.

There are three theories about Pakistan’s role in the operation to get Osama bin Laden. All three rule out Pakistan having played an active role in the operation. And all three options suggest Pakistan will suffer serious consequences. Pakistan, for starters, could not have helped for the simple reason it was not in the loop of the operation. Elements within the state who knew the whereabouts of the dialysis-requiring fugitive wouldn’t have participated in the operation since they wanted him to remain alive or, at worst, be nabbed outside Pakistan. They think logically, and in none of their scenarios does an Osama bin Laden caught in Pakistan suit their agenda.

About Pakistan betraying its guest. Had the Pakistani state known about the operation, which it would if it were betraying Osama bin Laden, someone would have leaked the plans. For this is exactly what happened with the cruise missile attacks on Khost in 1998 in retaliation for the attacks on American Embassies in East Africa. The US obviously learnt a lesson from informing the Pakistani state beforehand, for Osama bin Laden is known to have escaped minutes before the missiles struck. Most important of all is the fact that the consequences of betrayal are far worse than helping or not helping. None of the scenarios, therefore, suggests Pakistan’s involvement in the plot, not from a mile.

What this episode does for the people of Pakistan is that it unequivocally demonstrates to them the duplicity of their Army and the ISI. Fed on a policy of denial ever since his escape from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden’s residence in Thanda Chuha, Abbottabad, is the most damning piece of evidence possible. What it does is to further lower the image of the Army as a provider of stability in a country habituated to political upheavals. The baton has to be picked up by political parties in Pakistan, but India, and Indians, can do their bit by not gloating.

In the annals of special operations Thanda Chuha will be remembered as a milestone. It involved only one strike force, SEALs Team Six; used transport from one source, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade’s Task Force Raptor that moved to Ghazi Air Force Base for flood relief operations last September; and, on completion of the raid, the team exited using a different route from the one taken to target. All common sense, the most important tool needed to win a war