On September 3, 2008, “President Bush authorized a cross-border operation into Pakistan. It was supposed to be a quiet, in-out Special Forces ground raid by about two dozen Navy SEALs on a house believed to be used by al Qaeda in the town of Angor Adda in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]. The plan […]
8/18/2008
“On August 18 [2008], Pervez Musharraf resigned as president of Pakistan to avoid impeachment, throwing the American war on terror into uncertainty. For years, [President] Bush had stuck with Musharraf despite his undemocratic reign, tempering his commitment to his freedom agenda in the name of a seemingly loyal ally in the war on terror. But […]
8/18/2008
On August 18, 2008, Pakistani President Purvez “Musharraf addressed the nation on television and announced his resignation.” – Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos, Page 408 […]
8/18/2008
In Pakistan, “By early August 2008 the parliament was moving to impeach [President Purvez] Musharraf, and he resigned on August 18, 2008.” – Bruce Riedel, Deadly Embrace, Page 72 […]
7/15/2008
In July 2008, the national security team devised a plan that “called for a much more muscular decapitation campaign aimed at killing key al-Qaeda leaders using manned drones armed with missiles. Instead of waiting for Pakistani permission, the CIA would strike unilaterally, assuming it had gathered enough indications that there was a high-value target on […]
7/15/2008
“The Iraq war, he [President Barack Obama] said [on July 15, 2008], ‘distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century.’ […]
7/15/2008
“On the campaign trail, he [Democratic candidate Barack Obama] had talked about the importance of Pakistan, but he knew his options were limited. ‘Make no mistake: we can’t succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy. …The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where […]
7/15/2008
In an article for the July/August 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote: following 9/11, ” ‘the United States was swept into a fundamentally different world.’ The Bush administration decided that it was necessary to change ‘how we view the relationship between the dynamics within states and the distribution of power […]
7/15/2008
“In July 2008, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Lahore, ‘Pakistan is not fighting the war of any other country. The war on terror is in our own interests.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Page 264 […]
7/12/2008
“On July 12, 2008, [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman] Admiral [Michael] Mullen arrived in Islamabad [Pakistan] to warn [General Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani to eliminate the Haqqani [insurgent] network and Maulvi Nazir’s Pakistani Taliban militia, which was attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Mullen showed Kayani evidence that the ISI [Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence] was working with both […]