US to continue with drone attacks in Pakistan despite ISI objections: Report

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Washington, April 14: The United States has reportedly decided to continue with its unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas despite objections raised by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against the Central Intelligence Agency-led campaign.
In spite of ISI chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha having expressed concern about the nature of drone operations during a meeting with CIA Director Leon Panetta on Monday, US sources said, the deadly drone attacks would continue.
"Panetta has an obligation to protect this country and he's not going to halt any operations that accomplish that objective," ABC News quoted a US official, as saying.
According to sources, Panetta and Pasha met at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for two hours and 25 minutes, and worked through a number of issues regarding joint operations and working together against terrorist targets.
Sources say Pasha did not "scold" the US, as some have depicted it, though he did elaborate on how the Raymond Davis case had become such a hot button issue in Pakistan- something the US already knew, the report said.
Sources also say that Pasha did not push back when Panetta said the US needs to have operatives in country to provide security, said the report, adding that Pasha knows and wants American intelligence officers there; the US and ISI work together.
Although Pakistan has repeatedly denounced drone attacks on its soil, using clichas like 'unacceptable' and 'violation of sovereignty', the Pakistan Government has knowledge of drone operations, with the government and military officials informed essentially as targets are fired upon or shortly thereafter, said the report, attributing to sources.
Meanwhile, some American officials believe that the ISI is hyping the US-Pak rift within Pakistan in order to score political points.
According to the report, these officials say a recent story suggesting that all cooperation between the agencies stopped was overwritten, and a leak designed to convince an increasingly anti-American Pakistani public that the ISI was showing the CIA who is the boss, so to speak.