What Adm. Mullen Really Said about Pakistan
Islamabad is furious with Washington, again.
At the heart of this particular furor is the implication that Pakistan was involved in the brutal kidnapping, torture and murder of Asia Times Online journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad. Days before he went missing, Shahzad had penned a searing report asserting that an attack on Pakistan’s primary naval base was carried out in retaliation for crackdowns on Al Qaeda-affiliates within Pakistan’s navy.
Since (and even before) Shahzad’s waterlogged, tortured body was found in early June, many — including Pakistani journalists, human rights advocates and even unnamed Obama administration officials — have suspected or specifically cited the involvement of the ISI, Pakistan’s main intelligence service. [Sorry, there’s much more to be said here; I’ll be writing about it elsewhere more eloquently soon.]
But on Thursday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff, was the first U.S. official to publicly call out the Pakistani state for the murder, in comments he made at a press luncheon at the Pentagon.
Here’s where it gets a bit tricky. Early press basically reported the story like this: Adm. Mullen says Pakistani state sanctioned murder of journalist.
Almost immediately, Pakistan lashed out. Information minister Firdous Awan called it an “extremely irresponsible and unfortunate statement,” and issued a thinly-veiled (if often invoked) warning to the U.S., “It will definitely deal a blow to our common efforts with regard to the war on terror.”
But after getting the full transcript of Adm. Mullen’s conversation, I’m not sure Mullen was really speaking with any hard evidence. In fact, he said he wasn’t, and that tidbit is significant. It shouldn’t have been left out of early reports. My point is merely about the importance of context in reporting, not about whether or not the Pakistani state is involved.
I’m pasting the relevant excerpt below, so judge for yourself.
QUESTION: I have heard you talk about what [Americans] just believe is the murder of the Pakistani journalist by the ISI. … So what are your concerns about this?
ADM. MULLEN: Huge concern I’ve had with respect to both the disappearance and obviously finding him dead. And it’s been reported recently. And I haven’t seen anything that would disabuse that report. And so I am hugely concerned about, obviously, his death.
His isn’t the first. For whatever reason, it has been used as a method historically. There are other, certainly, claims, historically. I’ve seen Pakistani officials, I just can’t remember whom, who deny it. Certainly, from my perspective, it’s something we all need to pay a lot of attention to, including the Pakistanis. It’s not a way to move ahead. It’s a way to continue to, quite frankly, spiral in the wrong direction.
QUESTION: Admiral Mullen, you said, I haven’t seen anything to disabuse those reports. Which reports? The reports that the journalist killed or the reports that the ISI was involved?
ADM. MULLEN: The reports that he was killed and that there were government officials who sanctioned that.
QUESTION: Actually, the reports said that the ISI did it. Is that what you’re talking about?
ADM. MULLEN: This is the The New York Times report?
QUESTION: Just this Times story a couple of days ago: the ISI effectively murdered him.
ADM. MULLEN: Yeah, and I haven’t seen anything where I could confirm that.
MODERATOR: That it was the ISI?
ADM. MULLEN: That it was the ISI.
QUESTION: You haven’t seen anything that can confirm that?
ADM. MULLEN: Yeah.
QUESTION: But you had said, now you couldn’t disabuse the report.
ADM. MULLEN: In specifically identifying who did it, I just don’t have that. I haven’t seen anything –
QUESTION: But it was the government.
ADM. MULLEN: Yeah, that it was sanctioned by the government.
QUESTION: So your answer do that is that you can’t – OK. It’s the opposite of whatever I said originally.
ADM. MULLEN: No, no, no, no. I mean, they did – I have not seen anything to disabuse the report that the government knew about this. I cannot – I would not be able to walk in and say, here’s the string of evidence I have to confirm it. [Emphasis added]
