Dirty Wars (80 page)

The Pakistani government had to be seen as cracking down, and the United States was resigned to let it do so as long as it resulted in Davis's freedom. The CIA's George Little said that the Agency's ties to the ISI “
have been strong
over the years, and when there are issues to sort out, we work through them. That's the sign of a healthy partnership.” Despite the CIA's public declarations, that partnership was, in reality, at an all-time low. But for the US military, the stakes were too high to let the Davis affair get any more out of hand. America's war in Afghanistan was entirely dependent on Pakistan's cooperation. Without Islamabad's support, crucial US supply routes would be shut down. The generals had had enough.

ON FEBRUARY
23, the closing act to the Davis saga was initiated far away from the jail where the American sat awaiting his fate. In fact, the deal was sealed in neither Pakistan nor the United States, but at a secluded luxury beach resort in Muscat, the capital of Oman, a nation in the Arabian Peninsula. “
Where do you go to think seriously
and bring sanity to a maddening situation? Far from the madding crowd to a peaceful Omani luxury resort of course. So that's what the military leadership of the US and Pakistan did,” declared a Pakistani military readout of the meeting. In a private conference room, the most powerful figures in the US military met with their Pakistani counterparts. Led by Admiral Mullen, the
US delegation included
Admiral Eric Olson, the commander of the US Special Operations Command; General David Petraeus; and General James Mattis, the commander of CENTCOM. They met with Pakistan's top military official, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Major General Javed Iqbal, its director general of military operations. “The US-Pakistan relationship is heading downhill as speculation mounts about US intentions in Pakistan,” the Pakistani readout stated. “The Davis affair brought all these suspicions to the surface.”

Referring to the reported rift between the CIA and ISI, the readout indicated that the US military officials “had to point out that once beyond a tipping point the situation would be taken over by political forces that could not be controlled.” According to the readout, the US delegation asked the Pakistani generals “to step in and do what the governments were failing to do—especially because the US military was at a critical stage in Afghanistan and Pakistan was the key to control and resolution.” It concluded, “The militaries will now brief and guide their civilian masters and hopefully bring about a qualitative change in the US-Pakistan Relationship by arresting the downhill descent and moving it in the right direction.”

After the Oman meeting, sources within the ISI said that the CIA had agreed not to conduct unilateral operations in Pakistan in return for its support in freeing Davis. “
They will do nothing behind our backs
that will result in people getting killed or arrested,” a Pakistani official told the
Guardian
. That of course was not true. It is even unclear whether the CIA said it. The
New York Times
reported that US officials “insisted...the
CIA made no pledges
to scale back covert operations in Pakistan or to give the Pakistani government or its intelligence agency a roster of American spies operating in the country—assertions that Pakistani officials disputed.”

In any case, the United States and Pakistan began putting together a plot to use Islamic Sharia law to free Davis. From the moment Davis shot the two men in Lahore, the families of his victims and the third man killed by his backup team publicly insisted that they wanted no payments or bribes,
but rather
wanted Davis tried and hanged
. On her deathbed, Shumaila Kanwal, Faheem's widow, said she feared that justice would not be served because of a political deal. For weeks, mobs of angry protesters demonstrated at every court hearing, demanding that Davis be charged and tried. For both the United States and Pakistan, that was not an option.

The show had gone on long enough. And its ending was carefully choreographed by both governments. Under the
diyyat
provision of Sharia law, the families of a victim could “pardon” the accused and in return accept a payment commonly referred to as “blood money.” That would result in the criminal case against Davis being dismissed. But it required the consent of the victims' families.

On March 16, unidentified Pakistani agents
forcibly took
nineteen of the victims' family members to Kot Lakhpat Jail. It was to be the day of Raymond Davis's trial. The public was not allowed in, nor were reporters. Davis was, according to Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah,
charged with murder
. But instead of witnessing the presentation of evidence, the testimony of eyewitnesses or the questioning of Davis, the family members were ordered to sign papers pardoning the American. “
I and my associate
were kept in forced detention for hours,” claimed an attorney for the family of Faizan Haider. Each of the family members was brought before the judge and asked if he or she pardoned Davis. Under intense pressure, all of them answered yes. The judge then dismissed the case against Davis and ordered his release. “This all happened in court and everything was according to law,” Sanaullah declared. “The court has acquitted Raymond Davis.
Now he can go anywhere
.” As retired Pakistani Brigadier F. B. Ali observed, “
The
diyyat
provision
is much loved by the rich and powerful in Muslim societies where it is in force; it literally allows them to get away with murder.”

In all, the families were paid a total of $2.3 million. On a visit to Cairo, Secretary of State Clinton praised the arrangement. “The families of the victims of the January 27th incident pardoned Mr. Davis, and we are very grateful for their decision,” she said. “We appreciate the actions that they took that enabled Mr. Davis to leave Pakistan and head back home.” When asked about the payments to the families, she replied, “The United States
did not pay any compensation
.” Pakistan had in fact
made the payment
, which the United States would later repay out of the CIA's budget.

As Raymond Davis walked from the court after his release was ordered, tears streamed down his face as his victims' families sat in stunned silence, some of them whimpering. Davis was swiftly escorted to a convoy of diplomatic vehicles and taken immediately to an airfield where he boarded a “
special” plane
—the type used in the CIA's extraordinary rendition
program. The plane crossed into Afghanistan's airspace,
headed for Bagram
, and Davis disappeared. “He's gone,” Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer said, smiling.

Twenty-four hours after Davis was freed, a
US drone strike
killed some forty people in North Waziristan. Things, it seemed, could now go back to the way they were before l'affaire Davis. But just six weeks after Davis was whisked from Pakistan, the secret war he had been helping to fight would be thrust to front-page news the world over when JSOC helicopters penetrated Pakistani territory in the dead of night and headed for the garrison town of Abbottabad. Their mission: to kill the most wanted man in the world.

AUSTRIA AND YEMEN,
2011—In mid-2011, Yemen was caught up in the revolution that was sweeping the Arab world. The popular revolt against oppressive regimes in the region had begun on December 17, 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old street vendor in Tunisia, took the ultimate stand. The young fruit-and-vegetable seller struggled every day in the poor rural city of Sidi Bouzid to make ends meet, facing constant harassment from local police and municipal employees who demanded bribes from him. On this particular day, Tunisian officials stripped him of his only source of income—when they
confiscated his cart
and goods because he did not have the proper permit. Bouazizi, enraged, ran to the governor's offices, but the governor
refused to meet him
. Then, desperate and furious, he went to a
nearby gas station
, filled a jug with gasoline and stood in the middle of traffic. It was 11:30 in the morning. “How do you expect me to make a living?” he shouted before dousing himself in gasoline. He lit a match and his body erupted in flames.

Within months, massive protests against the US-backed regimes of the Arab world had broken out in Middle Eastern and North African capitals, an uprising that became known as the Arab Spring. Several dictators fell, one after another: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia was the first to go. On January 25, a rebellion began against Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak that would ultimately bring an end to his regime. Yemenis watched as their Arab brothers and sisters in other countries faced down the dictators that had ruled their lives for as long as they could remember.

Less than two weeks later, tens of thousands poured into a square in central Sana'a and renamed it Change Square. They announced that they would not leave until President Saleh and his family were removed from power. A new issue of
Inspire
was released just as the protests were spreading in Yemen. Its cover story on the Arab uprisings, “The Tsunami of Change,” was penned by Anwar Awlaki. “
The first and probably most important change
that this monumental event brought is a mental one. It brought a change to the collective mind of the ummah. The revolution broke the barriers of fear in the hearts and minds that the tyrants couldn't be removed,”
Awlaki wrote. “We do not know yet what the outcome would be, and we do not have to. The outcome doesn't have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction.” Awlaki embraced the protests against the US-backed regime in Yemen, writing, “Any weakness in the central government would undoubtedly bring with it more strength for the mujahidin in this blessed land.”

On March 18, 2011, more than 100,000 Yemeni protesters gathered for Friday prayers in the streets near Sana'a University. As the prayers ended and people began dispersing, government security forces and pro-Saleh militiamen
opened fire on the crowd
, killing more than fifty people. Some of them were shot in the head by snipers. Three days later, a severe blow was dealt to the Saleh regime when the most powerful figure in Yemen's military, General Ali Mohsin al Ahmar, commander of the 1st Armored Division, threw his support behind the protests and vowed to defend Yemen's “
peaceful youth revolution
.” Other senior military figures soon followed suit. Senior civilian officials, including scores of ambassadors and diplomats, announced their resignations. Important tribal leaders, long the most crucial element of Saleh's grip on power, swung to the opposition.

As Yemen's revolution was heating up, the United States was beginning a bombing campaign to support armed rebels in Libya that would ultimately bring down the regime of Colonel Muammar el Qaddafi. But in Yemen, the US government was playing a very different game. The prospect of losing Ali Abdullah Saleh made Washington very nervous. After all, AQAP in Yemen had been declared the most significant external threat facing the US homeland. Those running the US military and intelligence operations agreed with Awlaki's assessment that instability in Yemen would benefit AQAP. In Egypt, longtime US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak had been overthrown, as had leaders of other Washington client regimes.
Inspire
published an ad in its Arab Spring issue that featured a picture of Ali Abdullah Saleh holding his finger up to his mouth in a “shhhh” motion. “Hey Ali, Mubarak just fell,” the ad read. “Guess who's joining the party next?”

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other US officials condemned the violence in Yemen, they stopped far short of calling for an end to the regime or for international military action to confront the brutality of the Yemeni security forces. Instead, the US position was to call for a “
political solution
.” A few days after the massacre in Sana'a, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a visit to Moscow, was asked if the United States still backed Saleh. “
I don't think it's my place
to talk about internal affairs in Yemen,” Gates replied. What he said next spoke volumes about US priorities: “We are obviously concerned about the instability in Yemen. We consider Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is largely located in
Yemen, to be perhaps the most dangerous of all the franchises of Al Qaeda right now. And so instability and diversion of attention from dealing with AQAP is certainly my primary concern about the situation.” At the time, the Obama administration was in the midst of ramping up its training and equipping of Yemen's military and security forces, including some of the very forces that were now repressing peaceful antigovernment protests.

“
The feckless US response
is highlighting how shortsighted our policy is there,” Joshua Foust, the former DIA Yemen analyst, told me at the time. “We meekly consent to Saleh's brutality out of a misguided fear that our counterterror programs will be cut off, apparently not realizing that, in doing so, we are practically guaranteeing the next government will threaten those very programs.” Gregory Johnsen told me that he shared some of Washington's concerns but said the myopic obsession with terrorism was counterproductive. Saleh's fall “
could certainly have a negative impact
on US CT operations in Yemen,” he said, adding, “I'm particularly worried that AQAP is gaining weapons and money in some parts of the country as the military begins to break down in outlying areas.” Yemen “has a number of more pressing problems that will, if left unchecked, all help AQAP gain strength in the coming years,” Johnsen cautioned. “In Yemen, there is no magic missile solution to the problem of AQAP. The US simply can't bomb them out of existence.”

Judging from its policies, the Obama administration apparently thought otherwise.