May 4, 2003

THE Inter Services Intelligence Agency or ISI is undoubtedly Pakistan’s highest profile Intelligence service. In recent years, the ISI has been accused of being a state within a state, of sabotaging democracy and of sponsoring proxy wars in the neighbourhood.

Hence this book immediately catches the eye, as perhaps an accurate account of the ISI since it has been written by an insider who claims to know the subject well. In his tour of duty with the Army, the author Brigadier (retired) Syed A.I. Tirmazi has held many important assignments both domestically and internationally, the most important of which was his tenure as Director Joint Counter Intelligence Bureau, ISI.

Books written by former members of Intelligence services often benefit from first hand knowledge and experience of the author in the field. They, however, suffer from the constraint all such authors are bound to exercise in disclosing information they possess. After all, they cannot actually share all their knowledge with the readers without compromising their professional integrity.

All countries around the world subject their Intelligence personnel to some sort of oath to protect state secrets after such professionals leave the service. Pakistan is no exception, with the Official Secrets Act applying to all members of the Intelligence community, both in active service and retired. This inherent barrier placed on the author is something that is felt throughout the course of the text.

However, the Brigadier has narrated his experiences, particularly his stint in Counter Intelligence (CI), well to give the book an interesting feel. Having said that, I must add that the title of the book is a little misleading as the book primarily serves more as a memoir of a spy-master focussing on CI rather than the profile of the Intelligence business as a whole.

The contents at first glance seem to indicate that the book has taken an extremely wide scale overview of the subject. However, as one goes through the various chapters, one realizes that the subject of each chapter is primarily revolving around the subject of CI and the Brigadier’s experiences in that area. While this may be interesting for more avid readers familiar with the subject, added sections about the theoretical aspects of counter Intelligence would have greatly contributed to the readability of the book.

Another factor that plagues the entire text of the book is the shoddy proof reading. The book is mired by the absence of articles and misspelling of names of even prominent personalities.

Beyond these nominal faults, the content undeniably is interesting more so because CI is a relatively undocumented subject in the Pakistani context. Since by its very nature, CI has both an offensive and defensive element, it invariably deals with threats to security from both internal sources as well as foreign Intelligence services and here is where the book really manages to stand out.

For instance, the United States has effectively penetrated the highest echelons of power in all fields of Pakistani society and, how despite best efforts, it cannot be dislodged. The book gives an account of how the US has used the anti-narcotics programme to finance illegal operations and cause widespread addiction in Pakistan. The role played by US nationals in consulates and development agencies are eye-openers.

The axis between diplomacy and espionage is a powerful one. Indian espionage attempts and that of the former Communist bloc have involved clandestine attempts of their diplomatic corps at subversion and sabotage. But the author’s apparent approach of restricting himself to his own experiences greatly limits the scope of the book. For example, he has only mentioned activities of the KHAD (former Afghan Intelligence) and has made little or no mention of the KGB which was the premier communist Intelligence outfit around the world possibly because due to its limited role in Pakistan, the author never came across the KGB’s operations. Similarly the chapter on the Israeli Intelligence services, Mossad and Shin Beth, are nearly mythical in nature, an affliction that all arms length belligerents of Israel in the Muslim world suffer from.

On the domestic front the CI’s role has been significant. It has foiled coup d’etats, contained political disasters for martial law regimes and has assisted in internal disorder management. The short sightedness of state authorities emerges from this account and one gets a unique insight into how vulnerable the country’s strategic assets are to internal and external threats.

While the author has been frank in talking about the various shortcomings of Pakistan’s Intelligence the particular areas that he has only mentioned in passing are the role of the political cell of the ISI and the ISI’s operations in neighbouring countries, especially Afghanistan and Kashmir. While the author does imply that under General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, the ISI ran an effective Afghan campaign, he doesn’t go into the details of the subject. His chapter on the late General, is an interesting read. On the political front he also seems to imply that the political element in the ISI was introduced by the country’s democratic dispensations and lays the blame squarely on politicans.

The author, retired from service in 1985, and it was only after 1988 that the ISI achieved its notorious reputation for political subversion and low intensity conflict. In the last chapters the author focuses on what has gone wrong with the ISI and how the rot can be stemmed. He scathingly reprimands ISI chiefs for killing the professionalism of the agency. However his own suggested reforms lack details. For example he claims that the British have the best recruitment policies and the Israelis the best training, however what these programmes actually consist of is not mentioned.

In developed countries, Intelligence documents are routinely declassified after every few years so that academicians and think-tanks use them to aid public awareness and government policy formulation. This insures that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. With no such practice in vogue in Pakistan and considering our unnecessary fixation with secrecy, such books are appreciated as good insights into the working of the powers be that, editorial faults, shortcomings and all.

 

Profiles of Intelligence

By Brigadier Syed A.I. Tirmazi

Fiction House, 18 Mozang Road, Lahore.

Tel: 042-7249218

363pp. Rs300

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