U.S. counter-terrorism officials express relief over Musharraf exit

WASHINGTON — Whether it was the hunt for Osama bin Laden or secret airstrikes on Taliban forces in the badlands of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, much of the Bush administration's war on terrorism has hinged on its relationship with general-turned-president Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf was arguably the administration's most important ally in the fight against Islamic extremists. But when he resigned the presidency Monday, senior counter-terrorism officials in the U.S. government said there was more relief than anxiety rippling through their ranks that the drama over Musharraf's fate had ended.

Even at the height of his powers, the man who long commanded Pakistan's army had produced uneven results in countering the militant threat based in his country's northwest, said U.S. intelligence officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the relationship.

They complained that Musharraf had failed to root out elements of the Pakistani intelligence service that remain sympathetic to the Taliban, which has regained strength and appears to move easily across the border into Afghanistan to attack U.S. troops.

"From the American point of view, we wildly mis-estimated him and we wildly mis-estimated Pakistani capabilities," said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, who was visiting Pakistan this week.

American intelligence officials said they regarded Musharraf's resignation as inevitable, and hoped the civilian government that ousted him would now turn its attention to the anti-terrorism battle inside Pakistan.

"He's been done for a while," one high-ranking U.S. counter-terrorism official said of Musharraf. "Once the government gets this behind them, maybe they can focus on counter-terrorism and get back to the business of governing."

Not everyone shares that certainty.

"The civilian government is pretty divided in how it views relations with the United States," said Arif Rafiq, who edits the Pakistan Policy Blog. "Musharraf, for all his flaws, was seen as somebody able to manage Washington's demands in Pakistan. The civilian leadership is seen as all too willing to make concessions to Washington, including some that in the eyes of the security establishment are untenable."

In the last seven years, the CIA secured a series of agreements with Musharraf that allowed pilotless Predator aircraft to fly over Pakistan's tribal regions in search of Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Musharraf also permitted a major presence of CIA agents and occasional insertions of U.S. special forces in the region.