Here is the short form: Corrupt genocidal traitors to their own country who are, happily, hamstrung by their own incomptence.
According to the One True Wiki, the ISI:
[is o]ften alleged to be an invisible force in Pakistani politics and countless incidents around the world[;] it is one of the most significant and secretive intelligence agencies that exist today.
They are hardly invisible to people in Pakistan, or to the politics of that country or any of its neighbors. They have been around almost since the beginning.
And the ISI is, time and time again, proven to have been about the worst thing that could have happened to Pakistan.
What follows is a sad account of just a few times where, rather than deliver on their mission of keeping Pakistan save, the ISI has achieved just the opposite.
The wonder is: Is it on purpose?
What is Inter Services Intelligence?
from fas.org:
Critics of the ISI say that it has become a state within a state, answerable neither to the leadership of the army, nor to the President or the Prime Minister. The result is there has been no real supervision of the ISI, and corruption, narcotics, and big money have all come into play, further complicating the political scenario. Drug money was used by ISI to finance not only the Afghanistan war, but also the ongoing proxy war against India in Kashmir and Northeast India.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee deals with all problems bearing on the military aspects of state security and is charged with integrating and coordinating the three services. Affiliated with the committee are the offices of the engineer in chief, the director general of medical service, the Director of Inter-Services Public Relations, and the Director of Inter-Services Intelligence.
Staffed by hundreds of civilian and military officers, and thousands of other workers, the agency's headquarters is located in Islamabad. The ISI reportedly has a total of about 10,000 officers and staff members, a number which does not include informants and assets. It is reportedly organized into between six and eight divisions...[and] also includes a separate explosives section and a chemical warfare section. Published reports provide contradictory indications as to the relative size of these organizational elements, suggesting that either JIX is the largest, or that the Joint Intelligence Bureau is the largest with some sixty percent of the total staff.
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence is of particular importance at the joint services level. The directorate's importance derives from the fact that the agency is charged with managing covert operations outside of Pakistan. The ISI supplies weapons, training, advice and planning assistance to terrorists in Kashmir and the the Northeast frontier areas of India.
Why Do We Have an ISI?
One of the justifications for the ISI was the purportedly execrable state of Pakistani intel operations during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, though a perusal of the details of the war would suggest that the Pakistani side would have benefited from two things (1) not hiring Pathan tribes who were more interested in rape and pillage and (2) bringing along at least a couple of anti-tank weapons just in case the Indians brought armor. The first might have been unavoidable; the second was truly a surprise for the Pakistanis but, given assistance by Commonwealth officers to their cause, they should have known that British India used tanks in mountainous terrain in Burma against the Japanese during World War II. Granted, it was not the Himalayas.
One reason for the oopses may have been That the Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan, which is still in operation was more focused on internal security:
The existence of IB pre-dates the creation of Pakistan, as it was a part of the pre-war Intelligence Bureau of British India, and the present day IB was created from elements given to Pakistan upon independence. It was initially the main Pakistani Agency, with responsibility for strategic and foreign intelligence, as well as counter-espionage and domestic affairs. Its performance in the 1948 war was however considered less than exemplary. This was due to the fact that the pre-independence Bureau was concerned with Internal Security matters, and was not set up for such its new remit. As a result after the war a new agency the Inter-Services Intelligence was created, and it took over the strategic and foreign intel roles.
Who Came Up With this Idea?
The ISI was the baby, not of a Pakistani but a British Army officer.... Good show, old chap. Yeah...
The ISI was the brainchild of Australian-born British Army officer, Major General R. Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army. Initially, the ISI had no role in the collection of internal intelligence, with the exception of the North-West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir. This however changed in the late 1950s when Ayub Khan became the President of Pakistan.
Ayub Khan expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan’s interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan. The ISI was reorganised in 1966 after intelligence failures in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, and expanded in 1969. Ayub Khan suspected the loyalty of the East Pakistan based officers in the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau or the Internal Bureau (IB) branch in Dacca, the capital of then East Pakistan. He entrusted the ISI with the responsibility for the collection of internal political intelligence in East Pakistan. Later on, during the Baloch nationalist revolt in Balochistan in the mid 1970s, the ISI was tasked with performing a similar intelligence gathering operation.
The ISI lost its importance during the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was very critical of its role during the 1970 general elections, which triggered off the events leading to the partition of Pakistan and emergence of Bangladesh.
Given today's events the prior bad blood between the ISI and the Bhutto family should be noted but I will have to defer that work to others.
Born of Failure, the ISI has gained in prominence thanks to....more failure
I wish I were kidding. The expansion of the ISI is a model for rewarding wide-open, unapologetic incompetence, to be emulated by incompetents the world over. It's the leverage of the well-placed, well-funded fools over a complex society. "Feed me and my ambitions, else I will...do something destructive, and you know I can and will do it."
For an organization founded to suceed where its predecessor had failed, the ISI has a knack for expanding its own power on a sucession of failure. Its own role in Pakistani politics has been a trajectory of ever growing power: ISI was formed after the 1947-48 Kashmir War, a failure.
Matters for the ISI got even better after dropping the ball both before and during the Indo Pakistani War of 1965, in which Pakistan felt that the success enjoyed by China in 1962 would translate into Pakistani victory on the battlefield.
The ISI could not possibly have been more wrong...many important figures in the Pakistani Establishment (more on that term later) knew this to be so, and the ISI got its way regardless.
Operation Gibraltar
This begins with Operation Gibraltar. The idea was in the works for a while...
The original plan for the Operation, codenamed Gibraltar, was prepared as early as the 1950s; however it seemed appropriate to push this plan forward given the scenario. Backed by then foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and others, the aim was an "attack by infiltration" by a specially trained irregular force of some 40,000 men, highly motivated and well armed. It was reasoned that the conflict could be confined only to Kashmir. In the words of retired Pakistani General Akhtar Hussain Malik, the aims were "to defreeze the Kashmir problem, weaken Indian resolve, and bring India to the conference table without provoking general war."[10] As a result, groundwork and intelligence gathering for execution of the plan was laid by launching "Operation Nusrat", the purpose of which was to locate gaps in the Cease Fire Line (CFL) that were to serve as entry points for the mujahideen, and to gauge the response of the Indian army and the local population
It was definitely ambitous and thought through.
The plan was multi-pronged. Infiltrators would mingle with the local populace and incite them to rebellion. Meanwhile guerrilla warfare would commence, destroying bridges, tunnels and highways, harassing enemy communications, logistic installations and headquarters as well as attacking airfields,[16] with a view to create the conditions of an "armed insurrection" in Kashmir — leading to a national uprising against Indian rule. It was assumed that India would neither counter-attack,[17] nor involve itself in another full-scale war, and the liberation of Kashmir would rapidly follow.
It was just a fundamentally bad idea. The Indians rounded up most of the infiltrators with ease, who were engaging in terror tactics to stir up a populace that, at the end of the day, did not mind Indian rule so much..
According to then Chief of the Pakistan Air Force, Air Marshal Nur Khan, there was little coordination amongst the military services on the impending operation.[22] Pakistani author Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema notes that Musa Khan, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff, was reportedly so confident that the plan would succeed and conflict would be localized to Kashmir that he did not inform the Air Force, as he believed the operation would not require any major air action.[12] Many senior Pakistani military officers and political leaders were unaware of the impending crisis, thus surprising not only India, but also Pakistan itself. Furthermore, few people in Kashmir were really interested in revolting against India, a fact largely ignored while planning.[23]
Colonel SG Mehdi, the SSG commander, cited the above reasons as well as a few others (such as logistical problems and a confusion of classic guerrilla operations with commando raids) as to why the operation would fail even before its launch. He also added that many SSG officers were unsure of the means and uncertain of the end.[24] Initially, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Musa Khan opposed Gibraltar on the grounds that if the operation was a non-starter, then Pakistan would not be able to defeat India in the ensuing war. Many senior officials also were against the plan, as a failure could lead to an all-out war with India, which many wanted to avoid.[2] The resulting war of 1965 had a greater negative impact on Pakistan than on India.
And it got even better. Operation Gibraltar, understandably so, provoked the Indians greatly, who mobilized for full-scale war. Casting about for some gain, the Pakistanis took a look at the Akhnoor Bridge, and set into motion Operation Grand Slam which failed for perhaps the most banal of reasons: office politics.
Operation Grand Slam - Undercutting a Great General, to Promote A Mediocre Friend
By all accounts, the Pakistanis had this gambit in the bag.
The Akhnoor sector was lightly defended by four infantry battalions and a squadron of tanks. The infantry was stretched thin along the border and the AMX-13 tanks were no match for the Pakistani Patton tanks. Against a militarily stronger and larger Pakistani thrust, the Indian forces had to retreat from their defensive positions.
.
The problem was, it was so obviously in the bag that the call came down from Army HQ to replace the capable General Malik with a favorite of the President. This had consequences:
On the second day of the attack the GOC of the 7th Division Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik, commanding the attack, was replaced by General Yahya Khan, which delayed the attack by one day. Not only did this decision show confusion among the Pakistani officer cadre, the delay also helped the Indians to rush reinforcements to the sector. When the attack recommenced on 3 September, the Indian forces in the sector were sufficiently reinforced to hold out for a few more days while not having the strength to launch attacks of their own. As the attack carried on for two more days without any significant gains in territory, the Indian Army managed to muster enough forces to open up a new front, on 6 September, across the sensitive state of Punjab in Pakistan. The advance of the Indian Army also threatened to cut across the right flank of the Pakistani attack. Realising the gravity of the threat, the Pakistani Army had to stop her thrust into Indian-held Kashmir and divert her forces to counter the Indian incursion.
The reason for the switch in commands is called debatable, but...not really...:
Qudrat Ullah Shahab had been a Minister of Information, Secretary to the President (Ayub Khan), and an Ambassador in Holland, and he was very informed and well connected person. He said that:
"At a time when Major (General) Akhtar Hussain Malik was to take over Akhanoor to pave the way to take Srinager, the capital of Kashmir, he was wrongly removed from the command, and General Yahya Khan was put in his position. Perhaps the aim was to deprive Pakistan success in Akhnoor, Yahya Khan accomplished this task very well."
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, one of the main players of this game (Operation Grandslam), also later argued that,
"Had General Akhtar Malik not been stopped in the Chamb-Jaurian Sector, the Indian forces in Kashmir would have suffered serious reverses, but Ayub Khan wanted to make his favorite, General Yahya Khan, a hero."
The same Yahya Khan would later be be named Army Chief of Staff, then president of Pakistan on 25 March 1969. He almost immediately sent General Malik out of the country...
Yahya told [Malik] that Pakistan needed a sensible and mature officer there, and Malik had replied: "Being a sensible and mature officer, I quite realize why I am needed there." Concurrently with this, all officers considered to be Malik loyalists were sidelined. This was a major step along the road inaugurated by Ayub himself, of promoting the interests of personal loyalty over those of competence and professionalism. Professional pride progressively gave way to servile behavior.
Already the army had embarked on a crash program of making up shortages in the ranks of the officer class. To meet the target, standards were consciously and conspicuously lowered, thus making it a self-defeating exercise.
Also, in the aftermath of the war, one would have expected the army to analyze its performance. Not only was such an appraisal not carried out beyond the merest whitewash, the attempt deliberately falsified the record to save reputations, because after the war many of those were promoted whose reputations needed to be saved.
But the formality of a war analysis had to be fulfilled, and most ironically the task was entrusted to General Akhtar Malik. He did this in two parts; one dealt with the performance of junior leadership, and the other with that of the higher command.
General Malik would never return from Turkey, perishing in an automobile accident on 22 August 1969.
Like his predecessor Ayub, Yahya Khan was tight with the ISI. The problem is they were using the ISI to secure their regime, not Pakistan's....
The 1965 war in Kashmir provoked a major crisis in intelligence. When the war started there was a complete collapse of the operations of all the intelligence agencies, which had been largely devoted to domestic investigative work such as tapping telephone conversations and chasing political suspects. The ISI after the commencement of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war was apparently unable to locate an Indian armoured division due to its preoccupation with political affairs. Ayub Khan set up a committee headed by General Yahya Khan to examine the working of the agencies.
The ISI has been deeply involved in domestic politics and, has kept track of the incumbent regime's opponents. Prior to the imposition of Martial Law in 1958, ISI reported to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (C-in-C). When martial Law was promulgated in 1958 all the intelligence agencies fell under the direct control of the President and Chief Martial Law Administrator, and the three intelligence agencies began competing to demonstrate their loyalty to Ayub Khan and his government.
The ISI became even more deeply involved in domestic politics under General Yahya Khan, notably in East Pakistan, where operations were mounted to ensure that no political party should get an overall majority in the general election. An amount of Rs 29 lak was expended for this purpose, and attempts were made to infiltrate the inner circles of the Awami League. The operation was a complete disaster.
In All Fairness...Some Successes
the main Wiki article lists them, among them
- sponsorship of the Sikh separatist movement, which caused India lasting difficulties (well into the 1990s).
- safeguarding the nuclear state secrets of Pakistan;
- training and provision of Afghan fighters against the Soviets in close cooperation with the CIA;
- acquisition of nuclear weapons materials from former Soviet Bloc countries
- backing of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 1992.
One might question the value of some of these objectives, yet they were achieved.
Alas, there were the failures, starting with Bangladesh in 1971
Perhaps the worst are associated with the Bangladesh War of Independence..and the worst consequence of that failure was Operation Searchlight, an effort to curtail Bengali nationalism, morphed very swiftly into one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. The range of death tolls is vast, from a paltry 26,000 to as high as 3,000,000, but what is not contested is that it happened.
Intellectuals were special targets, to decapitate in advance the emergent Bangladeshi elite cadre:
During the war, the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators carried out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war.[26] However, the most extreme cases of targeted killing of intellectuals took place during the last few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers, writers were rounded up in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different sections of the city to be executed en masse in the killing fields, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur.[27][28] Allegedly, the Pakistani Army and its paramilitary arm, the Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces created a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars.[29] Some sources also allege the role of the CIA in devising the plan.[30
Women received attention as well:
Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war. Again, exact numbers are not known and are a subject of debate. Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war-babies. The Pakistan Army also kept numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dhaka Cantonment. Most of the girls were captured from Dhaka University and private homes.[8]
This image file shows low, mid and high-range estimates of war and other dead; the range for these calculations runs from 400,000 to 3,608,000 dead, and 9,800,000 to 12,000,000 refugees. Clearly, the latter were fleeing some displeasing alternative to continued existence elsewhere in large numbers.
Taking a Short Breather
As stated before, Pakistan is a curious country where military and strategic failure are rewarded. The ISI was born of failure. Its failings -- and those of Yahya Khan -- saw both their fortunes increase, a partnership of mediocrity that saw good leaders like General Malik cast aside, needful reforms dismissed, the loss of Bangladesh in its entirety and at very heavy moral cost to Pakistan as well, the belated attending to reforms but with a lesser generation of officers than the ones that Yahya Khan removed in favor of his toadies.
The Eighties, with heavy effort and support from elsewhere, saw an improvement in the quality of personnel and operations conducted by the ISI, also the geographic scope of same.
Where the ISI Rules..or Might As Well Be Doing So
From the outset, the ISI enjoyed special prominence in the security (and therefore governance) of the North-West Frontier Province, the so-called tribal areas, and Azad Kashmir, the Pakistani-held portion of that region and, this is very interesting, is not technically part of Pakistan and has never received representation in the Parliament in Islamabad:
Financial matters, i.e., budget and tax affairs, have been dealt with by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council, instead of by Pakistan's Central Board of Revenue. The Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council is a supreme body consisting of 11 members, six from the government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and five from the government of Pakistan. Its chairman/chief executive is the president of Pakistan. Other members of the council are Azad Kashmir's own president and prime minister and a few other AJK ministers. (Note that Azad Jammu and Kashmir has its own president, prime minister, legislative assembly, high court, and official flag.)
Who is President of Pakistan? Currently, that would be Pervez Musharraf.
There is a reason for this treatment; along with the Northern Areas, Azad Kashmir is considered part of the disputed Kashmir territory and short of a formal settlement between India and Pakistan remains in a sovereignty limbo, comparable in gross characteristics but not particulars to the the disposition of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The ISI has been important in affairs of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (or FATA) for some time. FATA is only loosely integrated with Pakistan proper and operates in relation to Islamabad via political agents, much as it did under British rule. The conditions for ISI's rise to prominence there have to do with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent response to both it, the rise of the Taliban, and the subsequent post-2001 change in strategy at the insistence of the Americans:
The decade-long war in Afghanistan had a negative impact on the tribal areas and their infrastructure. With Pakistan becoming the frontline state in the war of resistance against the Soviet forces, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan virtually ceased to exist. The tribal belt became the main supply route for the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets....
The local administration, which already exercised only nominal control over the tribal population, was rendered totally ineffective under the impact of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The result was that all kinds of illegal activity, like smuggling, drug trafficking and gun running, flourished in these areas.
..
In 1996, Kabul fell to the student militia known as the Taliban. As a result of nearby Taliban, the writ of the government of Pakistan in the FATA became less effective. Some people of the FATA joined the Taliban in fighting against the Northern Alliance. Movement of men and material across the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was unregulated.
...
On June 4, 2007, the National Security Council of Pakistan met to decide the fate of Waziristan and take up a number of political and administrative decisions to control "Talibanization" of the area. The meeting was chaired by President Pervez Musharraf and it was attended by the Chief Ministers and Governors of all 4 provinces. They discussed the deteriorating law and order situation and the threat posed to state security.
In all about 30 million people live in areas of Pakistan that are not in any meaningful sense part of Pakistan. Into this sovereignty limbo, a variety of nonstate, substate and foreign state, substate and nonstate presences have left their mark. China, for example, as ceded control of part of the disputed Kashmir region by Pakistan in 1963. The United States military and intelligence agencies have functioned in this area of (but not part of ) Pakistan for decades, first against the Soviets, then against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and now against a combination of Al-Qaida sympathizers and anyone who, at a given moment, is a perceived threat to the Musharraf regime.
Regarding The Establishment, a la Pakistan
The Establishment is a term used to describe the prevalent elite decisionmaking culture of Pakistan, comparable in some respects to the "Deep Government" description of elites in Turkey:
The best description of the Establishment has been by Stephen P. Cohen in his book the Idea of Pakistan.
Cohen calls this establishment a "moderate oligarchy" and defines it as "an informal political system that [ties] together the senior ranks of the military, the civil service, key members of the judiciary, and other elites." Membership in this oligarchy, Cohen contends, requires adherence to a common set of beliefs: that India must be countered at every turn; that nuclear weapons have endowed Pakistan with security and status; that the fight for Kashmir is unfinished business from the time of partition; that large-scale social reforms such as land redistribution are unacceptable; that the uneducated and illiterate masses deserve only contempt; that vociferous Muslim nationalism is desirable but true Islamism is not; and that Washington is to be despised but fully taken advantage of. Underlying these "core principles," one might add, is a willingness to serve power at any cost. [2]
However, Dr. Cohen has his detractors, among them at least one Indian scholar who is compelled to point out that Cohen is writing to promote American interests in South Asia, not India's, and despite the quality of his work (or because of his influence) Indians should take a care to counter it as the Americans themselves do not seem to know what their "interests" in South Asia are.
Oh, Speaking of Monumental Intelligence Failures..
I almost forgot about the nuclear weapons.:
The prospect of Al Qaeda getting ahold of Pakistan's nukes haunted U.S. officials after the September 11 attacks—in part because of intelligence that some of Pakistan's top nuclear scientists were members of Umma Tameer-e-Nau, a shadowy Islamic charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In his memoir published earlier this year, former CIA director George Tenet described how the agency received reports from a friendly intelligence service that, just before 9/11, two UTN leaders met around a campfire in Afghanistan with bin Laden and his principal deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and "discussed how Al Qaeda should go about building a nuclear device."
...
Krepon and Leonard Spector, a former senior nuclear-nonproliferation official for the U.S. Energy Department during the Clinton administration, noted that Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the facilities that manufacture and store them are under the control of a special nuclear-safety branch of the military high command called the Strategic Plans Division. According to U.S. estimates, this division has as many as 8,000 to 10,000 troops assigned to nuclear-related duties. Within that force, says Matthew Bunn, a nonproliferation expert at Harvard, is a special Nuclear Security Division with at least 1,000 officers.
Heading the Strategic Plans division is Khalid Kidwai, a lieutenant general in Pakistan's army who is highly regarded by U.S. officials. Spector, the former Clinton advisor, described Kidwai as being "at the top of his game." Last year, according to U.S. experts, Kidwai made a tour of the United States during which he spoke to officials about Pakistan's nuclear security measures.
...
Despite such expressions of confidence, U.S. officials acknowledge that in the past Pakistan's nuclear program has been notorious for leaks of equipment and technology. For years before 9/11, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, A. Q. Khan, operated a secret nuclear-proliferation ring that disseminated atomic bomb manufacturing equipment and know-how to rogue regimes like North Korea, Libya and possibly Iran. The ring was only dismantled several months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi renounced his nuclear ambitions and turned over equipment and details of how he obtained it to U.S. and British spy agencies.
Ah, yes. Abdul Qadeer Khan, or A.Q. Khan as he is more widely known. Yep, the ISI had a tight handle on that one. Oh, almost forgot. Pervez Musharraf pardoned him
In January 2004, Khan confessed to having been involved in a clandestine international network of nuclear weapons technology proliferation from Pakistan to Libya, Iran and North Korea. On February 5, 2004, the President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, announced that he had pardoned Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is widely seen as a national hero.[1]
In an August 23, 2005 interview with Kyodo News General Pervez Musharraf confirmed that Khan had supplied gas centrifuges and gas centrifuge parts to North Korea and, possibly, an amount of uranium hexafluoride gas.[2]
What's really amazing is how we found out: the Libyans and, brace yourself, the Iranians told us:
In August 2003, reports emerged of dealings with Iran; it was claimed that Khan had offered to sell nuclear weapons technology to that country as early as 1989. The Iranian government came under intense pressure from the United States and the European Union to make a full disclosure of its nuclear programme and, finally, agreed in October 2003 to accept tougher investigations from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA reported that Iran had established a large uranium enrichment facility using gas centrifuges based on the "stolen" URENCO designs, which had been obtained "from a foreign intermediary in 1987." The intermediary was not named but many diplomats and analysts pointed to Pakistan and, specifically, to Khan, who was said to have visited Iran in 1986. The Iranians turned over the names of their suppliers and the international inspectors quickly identified the Iranian gas centrifuges as Pak-1's, the model developed by Khan in the early 1980s. In December 2003, two senior staff members at KRL were arrested on suspicion of having sold nuclear weapons technology to the Iranians.
Also in December 2003, Libya made a surprise announcement that it had weapons of mass destruction programmes which it would now abandon. Libyan government officials were quoted as saying that Libya had bought nuclear components from various black market dealers, including Pakistani nuclear scientists. U.S. officials who visited the Libyan uranium enrichment plants shortly afterwards reported that the gas centrifuges used there were very similar to the Iranian ones.
You know, when your best friends in the fight to keep nukes out of terrorists' hands are the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Libyan Arab Jumhuriyya, you got yourself one fine intelligence operation.
Oh, sorry my bad.
Those countries are state sponsors of terror. Enemies.
I guess that leaves us the ISI of Pakistan to keep an eye on things.