Global-Insights: U.S.-Pakistan Trust-Deficit Deepens

The recent U.S. claims that Pakistan's intelligence service have aided attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan; the discovery that Osama bin Laden had been living for years in a safe house in central Pakistan; the U.S. special forces operation to attack his Pakistani compound without notifying Pakistani authorities; the disputes over U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani territory: These and other controversies are surface manifestations of a deeper "trust deficit" between the United States and Pakistan.

On Sept. 22, then-Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen made explosive comments about the nature of the relationship between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and the Haqqani terrorist network, whose members -- thought to number some 10,000 to 15,000 fighters -- operate in Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan. Although Mullen and other U.S. officials had previously denounced the ISI's continuing links to the group, in his testimony before Congress, Mullen explicitly claimed that the ISI had directed and supported Haqqani attacks on U.S. targets in Afghanistan in recent weeks. ...