Indian hawk gets key US intelligence post!

Daily Times, Setember 11, 2005
Indian hawk gets key US intelligence post

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The man put in charge of the newly-created South Asia bureau in the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, is an Indian-American academic known for his hawkish views on Pakistan.

Sumit Ganguly, director of the Indian Studies Programme at the Indiana University, Bloomington, will join the new unit as National Intelligence Officer. Up to now, South Asia was clubbed with the Middle East in the Near East and South Asia bureau.

According to one account, “The NIC is the intelligence community’s centre for mid-term and long-term strategic thinking. The National Intelligence Estimates it produces on behalf of the director of National Intelligence, who also heads the CIA are the most authoritative written judgments concerning national security issues, comprising collated judgments of the intelligence community regarding the likely course of future events.” The NIC has a reputation for providing the president and top administration officials with frank, unvarnished and unbiased information.

Ganguly was third on a short-list of three for the position, the other two being South Asia experts from two of Washington’s think tanks. Ganguly was chosen when the first two on the list declined because they did not wish to work 14-hour days or undertake long and frequent foreign trips. The position is initially for a two-year period. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Ganguly made a strong case in favour of the Indo-US nuclear deal signed by President George W Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July this year. He argued that those who were opposing the deal were looking at India “through the narrow and parochial prism of nonproliferation”.

In a review article published in Foreign Affairs in December 2002 under the title ‘Pakistan’s slide into misery,’ Ganguly wrote, “ only the United States can force Pakistan to reorder its domestic and external priorities. In the absence of substantial American economic assistance, diplomatic support, and multilateral loans, Pakistan would plunge into economic distress and social dislocation. Washington’s clout is therefore enormous, and it could demand meaningful and long-lasting changes to address Pakistan’s myriad woes. Whether the United States will prod Musharraf into changing the course he is so carefully plotting - a route toward ever increasing military dominance and ever more limited democracy - remains uncertain, however. Meanwhile, the fate of Pakistan’s 140 million citizens hangs in the balance.”