Time for an OBL commission

The Osama bin Laden killing last week has exposed Pakistan’s severe vulnerabilities to the three most clear and present dangers that face the country. The first vulnerability is to Pakistan’s own inadequacies and incompetence as a state. The second vulnerability is to the cunning and evil of terrorists (and the concurrent stupidity and myopia of those obscure elements of the state that may cling to terror as an instrument of national self-defence). The third vulnerability is to other countries’ relentless pursuit of their own national interests in Pakistan – this is a long list that includes the United States, India, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan among others.
The Bin Laden killing should not become yet another opportunity for Pakistanis to wallow in self-pity, to search furiously for excuses and justifications, or to blame a clumsy and legally conflicted global superpower for all of Pakistan’s problems.
Instead, the Bin Laden killing offers an unprecedented opportunity for Pakistan to press the rest button, and define, openly and coherently, what Pakistan’s concept of national security is, and how it will be pursued. Pakistan’s military and political leadership must now realise that the need to dramatically alter the course of this country is urgent and inevitable.
Calls for change are a dime a dozen in Pakistan, and the chorus for “reform, reform, reform” has echoed and continues to echo from Beijing to Riyadh, from New Delhi to London and door-to-door across Washington DC.
The Bin Laden killing is a catastrophe for Pakistan on so many levels that perhaps this is the moment when the abstract notion of reform could be channelled into a meaningful exercise of reflection and a subsequent series of events that give life to the mantra of change and reform.
This catastrophe is made up of three specific failures that should stir the most important people in Pakistan – General Kayani, General Pasha, President Zardari,

Prime Minister Gilani, Mian Nawaz Sharif, and Chief Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar – into doing something new, different and radical as a response.
The first failure is that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. This is an epic failure on the part of the state machinery. Bin Laden was public enemy number one, globally, for his self-embraced role as the man behind the 9/11 attacks. He represented nothing less than what Hitler represented in World War II. How did he manage to get into and stay in Pakistan? Who stamped his passport? Did he get in without a passport? How is this possible? How did he end up in Abbottabad? What were ISI agents doing in Abbottabad while Bin Laden slept peacefully less than a few hundred yards from PMA Kakul?
The second failure is that a foreign country invaded Pakistan. This too is an epic failure of the state. Gen Kayani was apparently informed by Admiral Mullen of the invasion at 5 am Pakistan time. That was four hours after the event took place. First, the government said the jammers were blocked. Then Gen Kayani said they were not. Then the PAF said that they were switched off. Then it said, they were not. But the questions go far beyond the radars. How is it that modified US Blackhawks got from Bagram (ostensibly) to Abbottabad in 40 minutes, but PAF fighters from Kamra and/or air defence assets in Tarbela took more than two hours to get from their locations to the skies above Abbottabad? Were there or were there not Pakistani troops cordoning off the area during the US raid? Was this a joint or a solo operation? If so, what is the quid pro quo with the US government? Why does US spin seem so real and truthful, and Pakistani spin seem so incredibly disingenuous? Most of all, if the US can swoop in and conduct this operation, why should Pakistanis not worry about Indian hawks when they mimic the language of Leon Panetta and John Brennan? Could a brute and irrational Indian rush of blood not produce a similar “invasion” on Muridke?
The third failure is that Pakistan’s official response to the event was mangled, incoherent, inconsistent and incompetent. With regard to the response in the first few days after Bin Laden was killed, it is difficult to imagine how much worse it could have been. The foreign office issued two separate statements, PR NO150/2011 on May 2, 2011 and then PR NO152/2011 on May 3, 2011.
On May 4, Firdous Ashiq Awan gave a statement in parliament that began with a point about Pakistan’s commitment to counter-terrorism – this from a cabinet member of a country that has no counter-terrorism strategy or policy in place, despite having lost more than 30,000 people to terrorism since 9/11. This was followed up by an ISPR press release on the Corps Commanders Conference meeting on May 5, 2011. That same day, the senior military leadership had invited around two dozen influential reporters, editors and media persons to share their side of the story. One of the revelations in this meeting was that the CIA has more intelligence assets in Pakistan than the ISI. (The PM had not addressed parliament by the time of writing – but expecting coherence from a man who has failed that test repeatedly is unfair, to say the least).
A resignation or firing would be a symbolic response to these massive failures, but it would not be an adequate institutional response. After the catastrophic failure of the US security establishment on 9/11, a commission of widely respected Americans was put together, called the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The commission’s report has been the most important reform document in recent US history, altering the very structures of US government that were deemed to have failed.
It is now time for a Pakistani commission on national security. Such a commission would be tasked primarily with exploring these three failures and providing short, medium and long-term solutions to the problems that it identifies. If such a commission requires statutory powers, they must be given to it.
There is no shortage of qualified and credible names that could serve on such a commission. Experience in politics, foreign policy and the military would comprise the core set of qualifications. Some of the most obvious names for such a commission are Aitzaz Ahsan, Maleeha Lodhi, Jahangir Karamat, Aftab Sherpao, Wajahat Latif, Riaz Mohammed Khan, Ilahi Bux Soomro, Najmuddin Shaikh, Ejaz Haider and Rana Bhagwandas. This is not an exhaustive list of candidates, but represents the kind of wide-ranging, multifarious commission that would not only be competent to undertake a commission’s work, but also enjoy domestic and international credibility.
The commission would be answerable to parliament, but would operate without political bias. The Pakistani people must get answers from their military and political leaders for the disastrous state of affairs that the Bin Laden killing has exposed. Knee jerk resignations or firings will only serve to sweep realities further under the carpet, if not accompanied by a commission. The time for plain-speaking and truthful accountability has arrived. The government must seize the moment.

The writer advises governments, donors and NGOs on public policy.