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India should hang its head in shame for allowing the carnage in Mumbai. Blame goes to all the security agencies and their political masters who never took time to mend the faulty intelligence gathering process in the country.
The head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external security agency, should be fired. So should the internal Intelligence Bureau chief, local police commissioner and other officials including the chief of the National Security Agency in the Prime Minister’s Office. They should all leave in disgrace. If the prime minister is found wanting, together with his boss in the ruling coalition United Progressive Alliance, they both should go too.
After the November attacks in Mumbai , 90 percent of the people in India want the internal security system changed. The United States dealt with its internal security agencies immediately after 9/11. It created a new Department of Homeland Security. It brought formerly warring agencies under one management. India needs to do the same.
It appears now that input from U.S. agencies and internal field agents was ignored or passed around the bureaucracy without any action. This terror attack has offered some lessons to be learned permanently.
First and foremost, the terror masters in Pakistan must be identified and found. Let the Pakistani president deny that any Pakistanis were involved; that is the best he can do under pressure from the army and Inter Services Intelligence. No amount of proof will help. The deniability of government involvement was established before the acts of terror were planned. That is why, very cleverly, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said that “non-state actors” were involved in the plot. It was a crude effort to deny ISI involvement.
Reportedly, the chief of operations behind the Mumbai attacks has been arrested, but it is not clear if this is just a cosmetic arrangement or a real step to punish the culprits. Many more, mostly in the army and intelligence agencies, need to be brought to justice. The arrests have occurred under pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senator John McCain and Admiral Michael Mullen, with Pakistani connivance disclosed in CIA communications.
However, the top army brass and the head of ISI will stay unharmed, because their involvement all along was indirect. The latest arrests are mere whitewash, made under U.S. pressure. To neutralize this pressure, the Pakistanis are likely to arrest one more al-Qaida operative in Pakistan so the United States will tone down its rhetoric.
To remove all doubt and examine all leads, the security agencies of 10 different nations are either participating or waiting for results in this investigation, including Britain, the United States and Israel. All these countries lost citizens in Mumbai. Their interest will keep the investigation from being bogged down in petty inter-agency politics.
This situation is reminiscent of the aftermath of 9/11, when the three main agencies of the U.S. government – the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency – fought a turf war to avoid responsibility.
Indians of all hues, including the Muslim intelligentsia, are asking the same questions. How could this happen? How come the terror warnings were not heeded? How come Ratan Tata, the owner of the Taj Hotel, did nothing to thwart the attack on his hotel?
How can the Indian navy chief say that no actionable intelligence was provided? Where was the coordination between the intelligence-gathering operations? How come the all-powerful Prime Minister’s Office fell asleep and waited for the terrorists to reach Mumbai and wreck havoc?
All this is shameful. No explanation or blame game is acceptable.
Why was there a delay in dispatching National Security Guard commandos to the scene? They did not arrive until 10 hours after the beginning of the terror operation. What did the police forces and marine commandos do locally, in the meantime? Is the Indian army so inept that local army units could not deal with the situation before the NSG commandos arrived? Is this the well-known inertia in Indian thinking, which made a bad situation worse?
It is time to rebuild all the security services in India. But political maneuvering in the wake of the anti-terrorist operation must be curtailed. Politicians must be kept out of security operations.
People in India are eager for retribution, but it is unlikely that Pakistan will cooperate and arrest all perpetrators. Will retribution come via swift and massive raids on all terror camps, including the leaders and infrastructure? Will the world powers whose citizens are dead participate in the strikes on terror camps?
There is no doubt that Israel would be delighted to participate. The Americans and Britons have too much of a soft spot for the Pakistanis – they will try to derail the punishment, arguing that a full-scale war could ensue. But the deaths of more than 170 innocent civilians and hundreds of others in New Delhi, Jaipur and other places in India is nothing less than war.
Unless damage is inflicted on the Pakistani army, it will not listen. As usual, India will suffer damage too, but it has been suffering that kind of damage for the last 15 years. The end will come when the damage to the enemy is so great that he thinks twice before he acts again.
The United States need not worry about a confrontation between India and Pakistan, or its impact on the war on terror. Once Pakistan’s forces are cut down to size a lot will change in the Pakistani army’s attitude toward the world and how it conducts itself.
Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida and the Taliban may no longer find enough support within the ranks of the army. Failing that, NATO can move in and do the job itself, because the will of the Pakistani army to resist will be gone.
If India’s internal security organization is rattled by political interference, its efficiency decreases. The loyalty of one organization to a particular political master should be of a less concern. A major upgrade in numbers, quality and equipment is badly needed. India is a country of 1 billion people; all its police forces and security agencies should be upsized to match its huge size and geography.
Parliamentary oversight may be essential to monitor internal and external intelligence operations. Incompetence and political appointments must be discouraged; they give the enemies an opportunity to infiltrate the government and civil apparatus.
Only when the whole security set-up is completely overhauled will terror attacks from a determined enemy stop. Pakistan does not have an infinite amount of cash to outspend India. Once it finds an impenetrable firewall and sees the futility of continuing needless expenditures it will rethink further attacks.
Added to this, a hard knock in the form of swift retaliation for the Mumbai attacks, given sooner rather than later, will have the desired results.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
