Pakistan wants to cut CIA drone strikes, personnel

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Pakistan wants to cut CIA drone strikes, personnel

By Bergen, CNN National Security AnalystApril 13, 2011 -- Updated 0233 GMT

(1033 HKT)

(CNN) -- The Pakistani government would like the CIA's aggressive drone campaign

" suspended " and only resumed under " new rules " and " formalized terms, " according

to a Pakistani military official familiar with discussions between the two

nations.

Only then, in the instances where there was " compelling evidence " that a

militant " high value target " had been located and that the operation was jointly

coordinated between Pakistan and the United States, would the Pakistani

government sanction a drone strike in the future, the official said.

The Pakistani official pointed out that there have been more than 100 reported

CIA drone strikes in Pakistan in 2010 -- a record number -- yet almost no one

killed in these strikes were " high value targets, " such as leaders in al-Qaeda

or allied militant groups. Instead, the official said, the vast majority of the

victims of the strikes have been militant foot soldiers or civilians.

According to an independent count of the drone strikes maintained by the New

America Foundation, there were 118 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan in 2010

killing somewhere between 600 and 1,000 people.

Only a dozen of the victims of the 2010 drone strikes in Pakistan were described

as militant leaders in reliable, independent press accounts.

The Pakistani official says that the fact that drone strikes are overwhelmingly

not killing militant leaders is " infuriating the masses " in Pakistan.

Indeed, public opinion polling shows that nine out of 10 Pakistanis have an

unfavorable view of the drone strikes.

Relations between the CIA and Pakistan's military intelligence agency, known by

its initials ISI, became " strained " says the Pakistani official, following the

incident when CIA contractor shot and killed two men in Lahore,

Pakistan, in late January.

On March 17 -- the day after had been released from a Pakistani jail

following the payment of more than $2 million in " blood money " to the two

victims' families -- a CIA drone strike killed as many as 45 people in

Pakistan's tribal areas.

After the attack, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful army chief of staff

and effectively the key driver of Pakistan's foreign policy, made a rare public

rebuke of the drone strike, saying that " peaceful citizens " were " carelessly and

callously targeted " and that the strike was " unjustified and intolerable. "

According to the Pakistani official, the March 17 drone strike " pissed off

everybody " and was seen as an example of the " extreme arrogance " of the U.S.

government, and helped precipitate the visit to Washington on Monday of Gen.l

Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of ISI, for talks with CIA Director Leon Panetta.

In addition to a significant reduction in the drone program, the Pakistani

government also wants CIA " covert operations " in Pakistan that are unsanctioned

by the host government to cease, citing as an example of such a rouge

operator.

The Pakistani official said " we haven't discussed specific numbers " of CIA

personnel we would like to leave Pakistan -- where the agency maintains one of

its largest overseas stations -- but the official said they do know that

did not act alone, and there are " too many others " like him in the country.