Why Was The CIA Chief Here?

Leon Panetta, who took over as the 19th Director of the Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA) on February 13, 2009, is presently on his first overseas tour.After having visited India from March 18 to 20, 2009, he proceeded to Pakistan for discussions with Pakistani Army and intelligence officers andpolitical leaders.

Panetta, who chose India for his first overseas visit since assuming office,arrived in New Delhi, along with Peter Burleigh, a  67-year-old retiredAmerican career diplomat, who has been designated as the "InterimAmbassador" of the US to India . It has been reported that he will act asthe  Charge d' Affaires (CDA) in the US Embassy in New Delhi till anAmbassador is nominated by President Barack Obama and his nomination isconfirmed  by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Obama Administration is understood to have put all major decisionsrelating to India including political-level bilateral visits at Cabinet leveland the designation of the new Ambassador on hold till the elections to the LokSabha, the lower House of the Indian Parliament, are over and a new governmentis in position in New Delhi by May-end. However, this decision would not affectexchange of visits at the senior level of bureaucrats. Moreover, Prime MinisterDr. Manmohan Singh is due to meet President Barrack Obama for the first time inthe margins of the G-20 summit at London  next month.

Panetta, whose parents had migrated to California from Italy, had served as amember of the House of Representatives from one of the constituencies ofCalifornia, from 1977 to 1993. He served as the Chairman of the Budget Committeeof the House for the last four years of his term in the House. He then becameDirector of  the Office of Management and Budget. From July 1994 to January1997, he  served as the Chief of Staff to the then  President BillClinton.

As the White House Chief of Staff, he became close to Bill and HillaryClinton. It is believed that he still maintains this close personal friendshipwith the Clintons and that Bill Clinton played a role in the surprise decisionof Obama in January last to nominate  him as the new Director of the CIA,despite the fact that the 70-year-old Panetta, who has become the oldest chiefof the CIA in its history, has never had any exposure to professionalintelligence work except  for three years from 1964 to 66 when he hadserved as an army intelligence officer. His area expertise is limited to Iraq.He had served as a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group set up by theCongress in 2006 to make an independent assessment of the war in Iraq.

Obama's nomination of a non-professional with no past exposure to the work ofthe CIA as the new Director came in for criticism not only from some retiredofficers of the US intelligence community, but also from some members of theCongressional Intelligence Oversight Committees. Despite this, his nominationwas confirmed and he took over as the new Director. In his first address to theCIA officers after taking over, Panetta, who has a keen sense of humour,referred jocularly to references to him in some sections of the media as theoldest Director of the CIA and reportedly pointed out that the dog, which won apopular annual dog show this year, was 10 years old.

It is believed that Obama chose him as the Director because of his excellentreputation in the past as a good manager. Knowledgeable people say that Obama,who is keen to tone up  administration and man management in the CIA andrid it of  unethical practices in the war against terrorism, felt that onlyan outsider would be able to do it without covering up past unethical practices.Moreover, under George Tenet as the Director during the invasion and occupationof Iraq, the CIA had come in for criticism for avoiding projecting the trueground situation to President George Bush. It allegedly told Bush and hisVice-President Dick Cheney what they liked to be told and not what they ought tohave been told. Panetta is expected to correct the analytical methods of the CIAin order not to let its reports and analyses be influenced by the preconceptionsof the President.

In his first message  to the CIA officers, Panetta has been quoted assaying: "When President Obama asked if I would accept this assignment, hesaid he wanted someone he could trust, who was independent, and who would callthem as he sees them. Throughout my 40-year career in government, I have made ita point to speak honestly to my colleagues, my coworkers, my constituents, andmy President. I hope that we can speak honestly to each other and to those weserve."

Till 2004, the Director of the CIA was also the Director, CentralIntelligence, and in that capacity, in addition to running the CIA, co-ordinatedthe working of the entire intelligence community. In 2004, acting on arecommendation of the National Commission, which enquired into the 9/11terrorist strikes, Bush separated the two functions and created a separate and ahigher level post of Director National Intelligence to handle the work ofco-ordination. From the pre-2004 status of the  first among equals,Director CIA has now become  one among  equals in the intelligencecommunity. Despite this, he occupies a very high position in policy-makingrelating to national security and in that capacity, Panetta will be in the innercore of Obama's advisers.

If Obama chose Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State,  to pay the firstoverseas visit at the Cabinet level to Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Chinato underline the importance attached by his administration to this region, it is significant that the first overseas visit of an inner core policy adviser hasbeen to India and Pakistan. This  underlines the importance attached byObama to the US relations with India and to the importance of Pakistan from thepoint of the fight against terrorism.

It is interesting that the CIA, India's Research & Analysis Wing(R&AW) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) are having new heads  who took over during the course of the last 11 weeks. Rajiv Mathur, a career intelligenceofficer, took over as the Director of the IB, on January 1, 2009,  K.C.Verma, as Secretary (R), the head of the R&AW, on February 1, 2009, andPanetta as the Director of the CIA on February 13,2009. Whereas Panetta istotally new to the profession, Mathur and Verma have over two decades ofexposure to professional intelligence work. They would have got going from themoment they took over, but Panetta will take time to get a hang of the operationalwork before he is able to impart his stamp.

It is equally interesting to note that just as Obama nominated Panetta as thechief of the CIA to tone up its man management and administration and to rid itof unhealthy practices, the Manmohan Singh government reportedly inductedK.C.Verma from the IB to the R&AW with a similar objective. There has beenas much criticism of the internal functioning of the R&AW as there was ofthe CIA.

One could assess without fear of contradiction that the  New Delhi visitof Panetta, who is still to find his feet as an intelligence chief, would havehad a much larger political objective for Obama. First, to reassure Indianleaders that the first visit  of Hillary Clinton to China does not mean thedowngrading of the US relations with India.  Second, to reassure India ofcontinued US assistance in the investigation of the 26/11 terrorist strike inMumbai and continued US pressure on Pakistan to investigate the case seriouslyand sincerely. Third, to assess the pre-election political scene in India forhis President.

The nomination of Burleigh as an "interim Ambassador" and CDA and his travelling together with Panetta to New Delhi underline the US interestin monitoring and assessing the pre-election political scene. The ObamaAdministration's avoidance  of any major policy initiatives andpronouncements with regard to India is motivated by its desire to keep itsoptions open  and not to burn  in advance its bridges with anydispensation coming to office in New Delhi after the elections. The US has many retired  diplomats , who had spent many years of their career in thesub-continent. All of them are quite knowledgeable on India-- but each only onsome aspects of India. Some are knowledgeable on the Congress Party, some on theBJP and its Hindutva group and some others, who had served in the sub-continent in the cold war years, are knowledgeable on the communist parties and theirsuspected links with the then USSR and China.

Burleigh belongs to the third category. He had his first exposure to thesub-continent as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal in the early 1960s. From thePeace Corps, he gravitated to the State Department and spent some years of hisdiplomatic career in Nepal, India and Sri Lanka. As a junior diplomat, he hadserved in the US Embassy in Colombo  from 1968 to 1970  and in NewDelhi from 1973 to 1975. He also served as the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka from1995 to 1997. In one of  the web sites of the old Peace Corps volunteers, he had entered the following post about himself: 

"After graduating from Colgate in 1963, I spent two years as a PeaceCorps Volunteer in Nepal, then a year of graduate study in South Asian affairsat the University of Pennsylvania, and another year in Nepal on a studentFulbright grant. On returning from Nepal in 1967, I joined the State Departmentand was assigned -- you guessed it -- to Sri Lanka, where I was a junior officertrainee until 1970. I learned the language, Sinhala, at that time and, courtesyof Senator Jesse Helms (who, as chairman of the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, held up final confirmation of 35 of us), was able to spend anotherseven months in 1995 resurrecting that language ability. I use the language alot, with Buddhist monks and village people in particular. English is widelyused in government and the commercial sector of the economy. Between 1970 andDecember 1995 I served in India, Bahrain and Nepal in positions of increasingseniority, and for the past 13 years I was in Washington in a series of jobs.These included three deputy assistant secretary positions as well as coordinatorfor counter-terrorism. The last position carried with it ambassadorial rank,though I was based in Washington. "

When he was posted in the US Embassy in New Delhi  from 1973 to 75, theIndian communists and anti-US magazines like the "Blitz" used toaccuse him of being a CIA officer working under a diplomatic cover. While it isdifficult to prove this, it needs to be noted  that he had served as theCounter-Terrorism Co-ordinator in the US State Department in Washington DC in1991-92. Past holders of this post had a CIA or FBI  background,

It is intriguing that the Obama Administration should have taken  an oldcold warrior such as Burleigh out of the circuit of retired diplomats  andsent him to New Delhi to hold the  fort in the US Embassy during thepre-poll interregnum. Has he been sent to monitor and assess the chances of theThird Front and the likely impact on India's policy towards the US should theThird Front which has the communists as partners come to power? A validquestion, but difficult to answer. The Congress (I) and the BJP are knownquantities to the State Department and the US wouldn't be unduly concerned ifeither of them comes to power at the head of a coalition. But the Third Frontwith its Communists  is an unknown kettle of fish.

Panetta's  visit to New Delhi during which he had publicised meetingswith P. Chidambram, the Home Minister, in addition to meetings with M.K.Narayanan, the National Security Adviser, K.C.Verma, and  Rajeev Mathur,  has been criticised by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In a statement,the party’s Polit Bureau said this was the first time that the CIA chief wasaccorded a meeting with the Union Home Minister. Apart from meeting hisintelligence counterparts in India,  Panetta was received at the politicallevel, signalling the new status of the CIA in India. It added: "The CIA isnotorious for its interventions in the political affairs of various countriesincluding destabilising governments considered inimical to U.S. interests. Thedevelopment is  a pointer to how things have changed under the ManmohanSingh government. India is fast becoming like Pakistan where the CIA and the FBIchiefs meet with the Interior Minister and Prime Minister.  The role beingplayed by the U.S. security and military agencies in the country and the mannerin which the Congress-led government is promoting such ties should be a matterof serious concern for all those who wish to protect national sovereignty andthe integrity of the country’s democratic system."

The Indian intelligence has been having a liaison relationship with the CIAsince the days of Jawaharlal Nehru. This was handled by the IB tillSeptember,1968, and thereafter by the R&AW. Many CIA chiefs had visitedIndia in the past. Their visits used to be graded as top secret. Their programmein New Delhi used to be restricted to professional discussions with the heads ofthe IB and the R&AW and a courtesy call on the Prime Minister.

This was for security and political reasons. Before international terrorismbecame a major source of concern, the security reasons mainly related topossible threats to the physical security of the visiting CIA chief from theintelligence agencies of the communist countries. After the collapse of the USSRand other communist regimes in East Europe and after the normalisation of the USrelations with China, this concern is no longer there. But, since the late1980s, terrorism has become a major source of concern. CIA officials responsible for the security of their Director and their officials posted inIndia for liaison purposes used to prefer that the visits be kept secret. Indianagencies too preferred secrecy because they were rightly concerned that if thevisits were open, jihadi terrorist threats to India and to US nationals andinterests in India, including to the US diplomatic and consular missions inIndia, might increase.

This position started changing when  Atal Behari Vajpayee was the PrimeMinister. The visit of George Tenet, the then Director of the CIA, to India waskept a secret, but the visits of the No.2 to Tenet subsequently were publicised.L.K. Advani, the  then Home Minister, came to be associated with the visitsof CIA officials to New Delhi. Their programmes included a courtesy call on theHome Minister. Not only that, Advani too, during his visit to the US in 2002,reportedly called on Tenet in his office. This caused some eyebrow-raisingbecause while it is normal for a visiting bureaucrat -- as a CIA Director is --to call on important political leaders of the host country, it is unusual for asenior political leader ranking No. 2 in the government to call on a bureaucratof the host country. Pakistani leaders, in their eagerness to cultivate the US,do it often, but Indian leaders had not done it in the past. There was someunhappiness in  sections of  the Indian intelligence community thatthis could downgrade the importance and status of Indian intelligence chiefs inthe eyes of their US counterparts. If US intelligence officials have easy accessto our senior Ministers, why should they bother about our intelligence chiefs?

Panetta's visit to Pakistan is evidently related to the messy politicalsituation there  and to the on-going review  by the ObamaAdministration of its strategy to counter Al Qaeda and the Taliban. There is ageneral acceptance among the advisers of Obama that no strategy can succeedwithout the co-operation of Pakistan and that, at the same time, exercising toomuch pressure on Pakistan can prove counter-productive and add to the politicalinstability. The search for a credible policy of carrots (enhanced military andeconomic aid) and sticks (continuing Predator strikes and threats of more if thePakistan Army does not act) is still continuing. The CIA plays an important rolein this search. The Predator strikes--over 30 since last September and 6 of themsince Obama assumed office -- are handled by the CIA. Obama has not yet taken apolicy decision on the recommendation by his advisers to extend the Predatorstrikes to attack the hide-outs of the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan in Balochistan.There has been strong opposition to this extension not only from Pakistanipolitical and military leaders, but also from some US analysts and Congressmen,who fear this could turn messy and add to the political instability in Pakistan.If Obama ultimately decides to extend the strikes to Balochistan, the CIA willhave to co-ordinate them. One of the purposes of Panetta's visit will be to makean on-the-spot assessment of the implications before a final decision is taken.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai.