From The Asia Times
By Gareth Porter

The George W Bush administration’s decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears to have been the most contentious policy process over the use of force in Bush’s eight-year presidency.

That decision has stirred such strong opposition from the Pakistani military and government that it is now being revisited. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday for the second time in three weeks, and US officials and sources told Reuters that any future raids would be approved on a mission-by-mission basis by a top US administration official.

The policy was the result of strong pressure from the US command in Afghanistan and lobbying by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Central Intelligence Agency’s operations directorate (DO), both of which had direct institutional interests in operations that coincided with their mandate.

State Department and some Pentagon officials had managed to delay the proposed military escalation in Pakistan for a year by arguing that it would be based on nearly non-existent intelligence and would only increase support for Islamic extremists in that country.

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