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April 12th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Documents released by Wikileaks
suggested that in 2008 the US ambassador to Islamabad had the consent of the
then prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, who said: “I don’t care if
they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the
National Assembly and then ignore it.”
Mr Musharraf’s comments, made as he attempts to win a seat in elections next
month, appear to confirm that a deal was done.
He said the strikes were “discussed at the military intelligence level” and
cleared only if “there was no time for our own special operations task force
and military to act. That was … maybe two or three times only”.
The admission will harm Mr Musharraf’s chances of election, deeply embarrass
Pakistan’s military establishment and further anger militant groups, which
accuse the government of selling out to Washington.
Earlier this week, McClatchy, an American news organisation published evidence
that the CIA were Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency were sharing
information and working together on selecting targets.
The CIA programme is officially classified as “covert”, which means officials
are not allowed to discuss details, but the US is under increasing pressure
to bring it out into the open, setting out the legal basis for launching
strikes.
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