How Raymond Davis gummed up the works

The New York Times is serialising chunks of Mark Mazetti's new book, The Way of the Knife: the CIA, a Secret Army and a War at the Ends of the Earth (please excuse the gratuitous caps), about CIA operations in Pakistan. The latest installment, on the Raymond Davis case, makes excellent reading and purports to explain the major fall-out between the US and Pakistan following the arrest of the CIA contractor on a double murder charge in Lahore in January 2011.

CIA contractor gets into another fight

A smartened-up Davis arriving at court

Oh dear. I see that Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who got himself into a spot of bother in Pakistan after he shot dead two men in the street, has got himself into further trouble in the notorious bandit country of Highlands Ranch, south of Denver, Colorado.

Davis, who was freed in Pakistan in March after someone paid $2.34 million in blood money to the families of the men he killed, was arrested Saturday in the car park of an Einstein Bros Bagel outlet after getting into a fight over a shopping centre parking spot. He was charged with third-degree assault on Jeff Maes and disorderly conduct and was freed from the Douglas County Jail after posting bail of $1,750.
Update: On Tuesday Davis was charged with second degree assault, a felony which carries a minimum sentence on conviction of five years. The judge at the hearing said Davis needed to work on 'anger management' issues and banned him from carrying a gun in Colorado. He told Davis, who described himself as a weapons instructor working in Washington DC, that he could travel to DC and use a weapon there. Hopefully he will not take the judge up on the offer. The bail bond was raised to $10,000. Davis will be back in court on 15 December for a preliminary hearing.

Rocky relations between Pakistan and the USA

A useful summary of Pakistan-American relations just published by the Congressional Research Service  notes that bilateral distrust has 'peaked' since the death of Osama bin Laden, with some members of Congress openly calling for significant reductions in US aid to Pakistan.
Relations between the two countries have certainly come under pressure in 2011, with the Raymond Davis affair, the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the revelation that Osama bin Laden had been living in the heart of a Pakistani military cantonment for several years, controversy over US drone strikes and a general cooling of relations between the CIA and the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. 
In addition, as Pakistan's relations with the US have deteriorated, it has moved closer than ever before to China, with private companies recently signing contracts worth $15 billion, along with $20 billion-worth of government-to-government deals.
In March, the US summed up its relations with Pakistan by stating "Progress in our relationship with Pakistan over the last year has been substantial, but uneven", although there had been significant progress in combating al-Qaeda in the region. Despite these deep reservations, on 18 March, Hillary Clinton certified that Pakistan had made progress on ceasing support to extremist and terrorist groups. However, the outlook for the rest of 2011 is deemed to be poor.

Davis blood money official documents released

Fifteen of the official documents related to the payment of $2.34 million of blood money (diyat) for the freedom of Raymond Davis in Pakistan can be viewed here. Anyone who can help with translation would be much appreciated. The Pakistani press has reported that the families of the men shot by Davis were taken away a couple of days before the deal was settled and have not been seen since, except in the court hearing. Even their lawyers were forcibly detained for several hours.

Pak Army says US drone strikes accurate

In an unusual move, a senior Pakistani Army official has given details of the US drone missile attacks aimed at terrorists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Major General Ghayur Mehmood, commanding officer of the 7th Division, told Dawn newspaper that the drone attacks were very accurate and were mostly killing "hardcore elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners."
In figures that appear to differ sharply from those produced by other sources, Maj-Gen Mehmood said that between 2007 and 2011 there had been about 164 Predator strikes that had killed over 964 terrorists. Of those, 793 were locals and 171 were foreigners, including Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Filipinos and Moroccans. He added that up until March this year 39 militants, including five foreigners, had been killed in drone strikes. He gave no figures at all for civilian deaths.
His comments come after a hiatus in the attacks between 22 January and the end of February, linked by some analysts to the arrest of CIA operative Raymond Davis.

Davis' movements tracked

The nexus between the police and the Pakistan press never ceases to amaze. Already the contents of Raymond Davis's car have been leaked, the pictures on his camera, even the film accidentally taken by his camera during the first few minutes of his interrogation. There have been stories about him in prison complaining about the call to prayers, that he is on hunger strike and much more.
Now, details of his every move since he arrived in Pakistan on 20 January have been published by the Express Tribune. His itinerary has been built up using the tracking device he had in the car, plus eye-witness reports. It appears that he arrived in Islamabad on 20 January on Qatar Airways flight QR-398 from Doha, transferring the same day to a PIA flight for the short hop to Lahore.
From the Lahore airport he went to 182/A Upper Mall, reportedly used as a US Consulate residence for the last three years. Five other Americans arrived at the residence later the same day.
The next day he reported to the Consulate where he was given the keys to a black Land Cruiser, but he returned on 24 January to exchange it for the white Honda Civic he was driving when the shooting incident occurred. At one point Davis also stayed at 59/A Cavalry Ground, another US Consulate property, where he met with some local people.
Just before the shooting incident, he had exchanged US$300 for Pakistani rupees at the World Exchange Co office on Main Boulevard, Gulberg.
Shortly after the shootings, two American officials arrived at the 182/A Upper Mall address and took away Davis' belongings. It was his ninth visit to the country since October 2009, although previously he had been based in Peshawar.
Anything else you want to know?

Shame on you WaPo!

The Washington Post revealed today that it decided not to inform the public that Raymond Davis was a CIA agent, despite the fact that it had established this fact some time ago: "The Washington Post learned of Davis's CIA affiliation after his arrest, but agreed not to publish the information at the request of senior U.S. intelligence officials, who cited concern for Davis's safety if his true employment status were disclosed", journalist Greg Miller wrote today. "Those officials withdrew the request not to publish on Monday after other news organizations identified Davis as a CIA employee, and after U.S. officials made a final attempt to prevail upon Pakistan's government to release Davis or move him to a safer facility."
Is this what is meant by investigative journalism? Why bother? Just change your name to the Washington pussies.

Drone campaign a casualty of Davis affair

Are poor relations between the CIA and Pakistan's ISI affecting the drone missile campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)? According to statistics compiled by The Long War Journal there have been no strikes in FATA since 23 January. This is the third longest period without any strikes since the campaign was ramped up in August 2008. Although this could be due to poor weather conditions - it is winter in FATA at present - the fact that US security contractor Raymond Davis was arrested on 27 January seems to be a far more plausible explanation.
Whether this is Pakistan's ISI flexing its muscles, much as it has done in the past by blocking the border to Afghanistan and preventing military supplies reaching their destination, or (less likely) a CIA effort to put pressure on the Pakistanis, is unclear. However, tensions between the two organisations have been evident for some time. In December the CIA station chief in Islamabad had to leave the country in a hurry after he was named in a legal case brought by relatives of civilians killed by drone strikes in FATA.
Shortly before that, the head of the ISI, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, was accused in a US lawsuit brought in Brooklyn by relatives of an American rabbi and his wife killed at their hostel of being involved in the 2008 attacks on Mumbai. Tit for tat? It certainly looked like it.
The Davis case is likely to make relations between the two countries get worse rather than better in the immediate future. American policy has been to exert maximum diplomatic  pressure to get their man out of jail. So far we have seen statements by the head of the CIA, President Obama, late-night phone calls from Hillary Clinton to President Zardari and a failed mission to Pakistan by Senator John Kerry to get Davis released. In addition, the Pakistan Ambassador to Washington has been threatened with being kicked out of the country and there have also been threats to cut aid to Pakistan.
The only impact all this haranguing appears to be having is to inflame public opinion in Pakistan and to destabilise the PPP government. Already the Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, has been sacked for refusing to kowtow to US pressure; he refused to concede that Davis had full diplomatic status. And extremist political parties such as the Jamat-e-Islami are saying that any attempt to give immunity to Davis will be a disgrace for the country.
Meanwhile Davis has been remanded in custody for another three weeks and the Lahore High Court has now ordered the Punjab police to arrest the driver of the second vehicle involved in the incident, which ran over and killed an innocent bystander. The court has ordered the vehicle to be impounded and put three further American consular staff on the official exit control list .
The stakes in the Davis case are already extremely high and appear to have been exacerbated by the high-handed US approach to the affair, which reeks of nineteenth century gunboat diplomacy. Extra-territoriality, as it was then called, inflamed passions against foreign powers throughout India and China at that time and nothing much has changed.
Update: Jim White at the website firedoglake has more information on Davis' background and his connections to Nevada and Colorado.

Raymond Davis case gets messier.

The Raymond Davis case in Lahore is getting messier and messier. Today he was remanded in custody for a further two weeks as police rejected his explanation that he had killed two men in self-defence. Former special forces soldier Davis, who shot the two men a total of eight times through the windscreen of his hired car on 26 January, claims he was working as a consultant to the US consulate in Lahore. In his pocket he carried business cards for a company called Hyperion Protective Consultants of Orlando, Florida.
However, an investigation by Counterpunch magazine in the United States has revealed that the address for the company is an empty shop front and that the phone numbers and website are fake. They also point out that Davis was able to shoot both men twice in the front and twice in the back before stepping out of his rented car to photograph the results on his mobile phone. Police who searched the car found a loaded Glock pistol gun and three full magazines, plus the Beretta used to kill the men, along with other paraphernalia associated with special forces operations.
There is also a strong suggestion coming from witnesses in Lahore that the second vehicle involved in the incident in which a third man was run down and killed was not responding to an emergency call from him but was actually with Davis at the time of the shooting. According to this scenario, the bystander was killed as the second vehicle fled the scene at speed, hitting other cars in the street and knocking down the unfortunate person.The driver of the second vehicle is being sought by the Pakistani police, but it is likely he or she has long since left the country.
Proof that Davis photographed the two men he had just shot dead comes from Dunya TV, which has published what it claims are still photos from Davis' camera, plus some video of part of his interrogation bythe Lahore police. The film appears to have been shot from a mobile phone lying on a table in front of Davis.You can see the footage here or on YouTube.

As more and more evidence comes to light it is becoming clear that this incident was no simple attempted robbery. Davis was fully tooled up, in an unmarked, rented car with a back-up vehicle. He opened fire and expertly shot dead the two men on a motorbike. Eveyone knows this now and the room for political manoeuvre is shrinking by the minute.
One theory, examined by ABC reporter Nick Schifrin, is that the two dead men were actually ISI (Pakistan intelligence service) agents, tasked to trail Davis. If that is true, there will be no quick end to this affair.

US aid strategy in Pakistan beset with problems.

US-Pakistan relations are in a mess. When Raymond Davis, a US Embassy employee, allegedly shot dead two men on a motorbike in Lahore on 26 January, he precipitated a major crisis. Despite threats from US Congressmen to cut aid to Pakistan unless Davis is released, the Pakistani government will find it difficult to bow to pressure, knowing full well that there will be a swift and bloody reaction if Davis is allowed to leave the country.
Davis should never have been armed - it is illegal in Pakistan and has already been the source of previous tensions between the two countries - and his apparent crime was compounded when another US Embassy vehicle ran over and killed a bystander while responding to a call for help from Davis. Since then, the widow of one of the dead men has also committed suicide. Further problems have been caused by the failure of US officials to offer a clear explanation of what Davis was doing in Pakistan.
Will the US go ahead with its threat to cut its aid budget? That is not certain, but a recent report on USAID's programme in Pakistan makes it clear that there are serious problems in that quarter too. The Quarterly Progress and Oversight Report on the Civilian Assistance Program in Pakistan, as of December 31, 2010, which is a joint publication of the State Department, Department of Defense and USAID, makes for sobering reading. Despite a $1.5bn annual budget, USAID "has not committed to a set of performance indicators to measure the success of its programs as traditionally required for proper project management". Not has the US Embassy in Islamabad identified any indicators by which to measure the success of the development strategy.
Various inspection offices have been set up in Pakistan to guard against inefficiency and corruption, but research from specific projects suggest waste and inefficiency is widespread.
For example, during the last quarter of last year, the USAID inspectors completed four audits, including performance audits of two livelihood development projects in FATA designed to counter the growing threat from militants. The audits found that little progress had been achieved, partly due to lack of security, but mainly because of a lack of baseline data and inadequate oversight. Costs of three-quarters of a million dollars have been identified as ineligible.
In another project, USAID broke off relations with the partner - the US-based Academy for Educational Development - after investigations revealed "fraud stemming from false statements and claims, failure to perform in accordance with the terms of the agreement, and violation of statutory or regulatory provisions contained in the agreement." AED's president, chief executive and four other senior executives have been forced to leave the organisation. (Note: they have not been prosecuted).
The report says USAID's work has been disrupted by Wikileaks - which revealed private diplomatic thinking (mostly negative) about Pakistan - and by the death of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
There is some very useful material in this report, which breaks down the aid budget for the last three years into categories. This we find that $40 million has been spent on road construction in FATA and $82.9 million on "Border Security (Aviation), while only $8.5 million has been spent on counter-narcotics. There is also a good breakdown of how $570 million was spent providing humanitarian assistance after the devastating floods of last summer that displaced over 20 million people.
There are also many details of various high-profile aid projects, including roads, schools, water and electricity infrastructure. However, as the report notes: "One year after the launch of the civilian assistance strategy in Pakistan, USAID has not been able to demonstrate measurable progress."