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CIA Director Leon Panetta has said that the United states has a "very complicated relationship" with Pakistan, and its being a nuclear power was one of the complicating factors. Responding to a USZ lawmaker's question at a Congressional hearing as to why Pakistan was building more another nuclear weapon at a time when it was confronted with so many difficulties, including flood damage, the American spy agency chief said Islamabad had kept up development of atomic weapons. "One of those other complicating issues is the fact that they're a nuclear power. They have a number of nuclear sites throughout their country, and they have proceeded to keep up development of their nuclear weapons", he said while testifying in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday. "As far as the broad policy implications of the economy, the politics, the stability of that country dealing with the flood damage, you need to ask them (Pakistanis) why they're not paying attention to those other problems", Panetta told Senator Diane Feinstein in reply to her question. "I have to tell you that it (USZ-Pakistan) is very complicated and it does involve often times conflicting viewpoints of how we deal with issues", the CIA chief said. The relationship between Pakistan and the USZ is one of the most complicated relationships that he has seen in a long time.
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CIA chief Leon Panetta |
"On the one hand, obviously we are involved at targeting the leadership of al-Qaida there in the FATA. And we do get the cooperation of the Pakistanis in that effort in trying to target those individuals that concern us and that threaten this country, and threaten their country as well", Panetta noted. "In addition to that we have gotten their cooperation on a military basis, being able to go into places like South Waziristan and have a military presence there, moving some troops from the Indian border for the purposes of doing that. And that has been appreciated as well", he said. "At the same time, Pakistan look at issues related to their national interest and take steps that further complicate its relationship and create tensions between the two countries", Panetta said.
"That happens a great deal. Our effort is to try to work through those, because, in the end, what I try to convince the Pakistanis of is that we have a common enemy and we have common issues that require the cooperation and partnership of both countries in order to be able to deal with those threats. Because we are involved in obviously very important efforts to deal with an enemy that threatens this country and we're doing it in their nation, in the FATA and the tribal areas, it does require that we have to go out of our way to do everything possible to get their cooperation", he said. "And for that reason I spend an awful lot of time talking with my counterpart, both in Pakistan and here as well to try to see if we can focus on some common issues. We have some common areas that we can work on", he said. "We work with them; we work with our Afghan counterparts, as well, to try to develop a coordinated approach to dealing with this. At the same time, there are issues that we have with regards to how they operate, the ties they have to certain groups that concern us, that we try to work through in these discussions. I have to be part director of the CIA and part diplomat in order to get this job done", Panetta said.
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