April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, April 1: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Tuesday slammed what it called the country’s “security apparatus” as the Senate debate on the Iraq war dragged into a fifth day.

In a speech that seemed to reflect the views of self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the party Senator and her spokesman in the country Farhatullah Babar called for freeing the national foreign policy from the control of the security apparatus — a term that refers to the military and intelligence agencies.

A total of 37 Senators from both the treasury and opposition benches spoke during the two sittings of the upper house on Tuesday with many of them calling for a review of Pakistan’s foreign policy in view of the 13-day-old US-British invasion of Iraq that they all condemned as unjustified.

Mr Babar, in his maiden speech in the new Senate, said if Pakistan wished to avert an Iraq-like situation, it must review its foreign policy, “free it from the hold of the security apparatus,” and inject a measure of civilian responsibility in its nuclear command and control system.

He also called for the removal of what he called “a serious disconnect” between Pakistani government’s present pledges to fight terrorism and alleged encouragement of militant groups in the past.

“The security apparatus has run amok... (and) destroying the country,” he said, drawing an immediate interjection from retired lieutenant-general Javed Ashraf, a former railways minister and Inter-Services Intelligence chief, who said that jihad in Kashmir could not be compared with terrorism.

Mr Babar saw “ominous” warnings for Pakistan from the war launched on Iraq and he disagreed with the view that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were in safe and responsible hands.

He said only the security apparatus controlled Pakistan’s nuclear weapons contrary to the practice followed by other nuclear powers and added that the exclusion of civilians from decision-making was manifest from the nuclear National Command Authority’s last meeting to which he said even the defence minister was not invited.

Before the session was adjourned until 10am on Wednesday, a wide range of speakers called for a halt to the Iraq war that most of them said was designed to control Arab oil resources.

But the draft of a planned joint resolution of the ruling and opposition parties to condemn the invasion had still not been finalized.

Parliamentary sources said the resolution could be tabled on Wednesday evening after resolving differences between the opposition parties seeking to use a strong language and the government wanting a milder version so that the United States did not feel offended by its key ally.

Several speakers voiced fears Pakistan too could be a victim of an Indian preemptive attack similar to the one launched on Iraq, on the pretext of Islamabad’s nuclear weapons, and called for forging national unity and a reconciliation with all the political forces, including Benazir Bhutto and the exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Demands made by the Senators ranged from a boycott of American goods to denying American forces the use of Pakistani air bases for “search and rescue operations” in Afghanistan to a ban on cricket, which an MMA member said was the cause of waste of time by the country’s youth who should be more devoted to acquiring scientific knowledge.

Babar Khan Ghouri of MQM said Pakistan must learn a lesson from the Iraqi situation and proposed a round-table conference of all party leaders, including Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and MQM leader Altaf Hussain.

Prof Ghafoor Ahmed of MMA called the Iraq war a contest between an ant and an elephant and said the UN Security Council must call for a ceasefire, withdrawal of allied forces and move for the destruction of weapons of mass destruction possessed by the United States.

Former NWFP chief minister Sardar Mahtab Ahmad (PML-N) said Pakistan must take an independent position over the Iraq war instead of following the American line.

Mohammad Anwar Bhinder of the PML-Q said Americans had been isolated despite being the sole super power after the collapse of the Soviet Union and termed the invasion of Iraq a small-minded act. “Such a big country should not have such a small mind.”