"US helped ISI create extremists: Petraeus" - The News

US helped ISI create extremists: Petraeus
The News, March 07, 2010

WASHINGTON: Noting that Pakistan has made significant progress in its fight against extremism that threatens its existence, a top US military general has refused the certificate of “American satisfaction” to Islamabad in its war against terrorism.

“I wouldn’t allow you to put words in my mouth,” General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command told Charlie Rose of the PBS in an interview when he asked: “So the bottom line is you are satisfied with the Pakistani effort and the Pakistani cooperation and the Pakistani effort to wipe out the Taliban in Pakistan?”

Rose posed such a question to Petraeus, when the American general was praising Pakistan for its recent success against the Taliban and arrest of its top leaders inside the country. “What I would say is that Pakistan has made significant progress in its fight against extremists threatening its existence. And there is a growing recognition that the other extremist elements, also in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, have a symbiotic relationship with the tribal areas threatening them, and over time they are dealing with them as well,” Petraeus said.

“But, again, look, we have a chequered past with Pakistan, and we need to be up front about it and recognise it. We’ve walked away from that country three different times, including after Charlie Wilson’s war after we established the Mujahideen,” he said.

“Our money, Saudi money, others joined together, helped the ISI, indeed, form these elements which then went in and threw the Soviets out of Afghanistan with our weaponry. And then we left and they were holding the bag,” he said, acknowledging that it was the US which helped ISI to form these extremist elements. General Petraeus, however, acknowledged that the interests of Pakistan and the US differ in Afghanistan. He said Pakistan and the US has the same interest in Afghanistan in not allowing al-Qaeda to re-establish safe havens. “But it also has an interest that is somewhat different than ours, and that is their strategic depth and always has been for a country that’s very narrow and has its historic enemy to its east. So again, we just have to appreciate this.

“This is not unique, of course, just to Afghanistan and Pakistan and throughout the world. We have interests, they have interests. What we want to do is find the conversion interest, understand where they are divergent and try to make progress together,” Petraeus said.

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