Hopes For Improvement In U.S.-Pakistani Relations

The New York Times just ran a story that suggests Spring might come soon to the frozen relations between the U.S. government and the Pakistani military and intelligence communities. Maybe.

But first, Pakistan Demands Data on C.I.A. Contractors:

Pakistan’s chief spy agency has demanded an accounting by the Central Intelligence Agency of all its contractors working in Pakistan, a fallout from the arrest last month of an American involved in surveillance of militant groups, a senior Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.

Angered that the American, Raymond A. Davis, worked as a contractor in Pakistan on covert C.I.A. operations without the knowledge of the Pakistanis, the spy agency estimated that there were “scores” more such contractors “working behind our backs,” said the official, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about a delicate matter between the two countries.

In a slight softening of the Pakistani stance since Mr. Davis’s arrest, the official said that the American and Pakistani intelligence agencies needed to continue cooperation, and that Pakistan was prepared to put the episode in the past if the C.I.A. stopped treating its Pakistani counterparts as inferior.

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The top American and Pakistani military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and the leader of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met this week in Oman, where the Davis case was discussed.

According to a report by a former head of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, who runs a research and analysis center based in Lahore, both sides agreed to try to “arrest the downhill descent.”

-- snip --

In another sign that the two spy services were trying to patch up their differences, Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A. spoke on Wednesday with Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI director, about resolving Mr. Davis’s case, American and Pakistani officials said on Friday. Mr. Davis, who appeared in handcuffs on Friday for a hearing in a closed courtroom at the jail where he is being held in Lahore, faces possible murder charges.

-- snip --

The demand for the C.I.A. to acknowledge the number of contractors in Pakistan was driven by the suspicion that the American spy service had slipped many such secret operatives into Pakistan in the past six months, the senior ISI official said.

The increase occurred after a directive last July by the Pakistani civilian government, which is often at odds with the ISI, to its Washington embassy to expedite visas without supervision from the ISI or the Ministry of Interior, the senior ISI official said.

On the other hand, Pakistan has just arrested another U.S. citizen, this one a non-official American who lives and works in Peshawar.

The clampdown on American contractors by the Pakistani authorities appeared to be under way Friday with the arrest of an American citizen, Aaron Mark DeHaven, in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The Peshawar police said Mr. DeHaven was detained because he had overstayed his business visa after his request for an extension last October was turned down.

There was no immediate accusation that Mr. DeHaven worked for the American government, a security official in Peshawar said. But the arrest of Mr. DeHaven, who is married to a Pakistani woman, appears to be a signal that the Pakistani authorities have decided to expel Americans they have doubts about.

The security official said Mr. DeHaven owned a firm, Catalyst Services in Peshawar, that rented houses for Americans in the city.

The American Embassy in Islamabad said in a statement that it did not have details about Mr. DeHaven but that it was arranging consular access for him through the Pakistani government.

During his first months in Pakistan in early 2010, Mr. Davis, the contractor for the C.I.A., was attached to the American Consulate in Peshawar and lived in a house with other Americans in an upscale neighborhood, according to Pakistani officials.

All of the U.S. Consulate personnel in Peshawar live in the same "upscale neighborhood," an area known as University Town. Apparently Mr. DeHaven works for a company that provides logistical support of some kind to one or more of the landlords we rent from. I suppose that association, plus his U.S. citizenship, was more than enough to put him under ISI scrutiny.