I snorted at that. Colin finished with the Cliff Notes version of her background right up until 10:45, when the Ambassador’s arrival was announced. Both Secretary Powell and I were standing when she was ushered into the Oval Office. I moved forward and said, “Thank you, Madame Ambassador, for coming at such a late hour. I know this is unusual, but a situation is developing that requires this of all of us.”
She had a pronounced British accent. “Of course, Mister President. Allow me to say how sorry the Pakistani nation is at the events of September 11, and that the entire nation despises what occurred that day.”
“Your words are most kind, Madame Ambassador.” And not quite true, I thought to myself. More than a few of the dancing and chanting crowds had been in Islamabad and Karachi.
She turned to Colin and said, “It is a pleasure to see you again, Secretary Powell. Might I ask if you are here in your role as Secretary of Defense, or your future role as Secretary of State?” Technically, in the event the Secretary of State was unavailable, his Deputy would be present. Unfortunately, that was Scooter Libby, now on a paid leave of absence while dealing with the Department of Justice.
“For tonight, I must report that would be both roles,” replied Colin.
She smiled. “That sounds ominous.”
I waved a hand towards an armchair. “Why don’t you have a seat, Doctor, so we can discuss that,” I said. We waited for her to seat herself, and then we both took our own seats.
“You have my attention, Mister President. How can I and Pakistan assist you?”
“By allowing our planes to fly over your country.”
“Your planes? What planes are you talking about? From where and to where? When do you wish to do this?”
“The when is right now,” I answered. “Even as we speak, American warplanes are overflying the southwest corner of Pakistan in order to take up positions to begin bombing targets in Afghanistan. By the time you leave here and make it back to your embassy, they will already be in-country and on their final approaches to their targets. Our intelligence agencies have determined that the attacks you mentioned earlier were carried out by a terrorist group in Afghanistan known as Al Qaeda, with the active assistance of the Afghan government, the Taliban. We intend to destroy both.”
“And you are doing this now!? Without giving my government the opportunity to discuss this?! This is a gross violation of the sovereign airspace of the Pakistani people! This is intolerable!” she replied. She was no longer the smooth diplomat, but now rather an affronted representative of her people. Too bad.
“Madame Ambassador, the location of the overflight is far from any population centers, or even government control. It is in Baluchistan, which you will have to admit is only nominally part of Pakistan. Regardless, it was necessary for operational reasons to do this,” added Secretary Powell.
“Mister Secretary, as you are well aware, Baluchistan is not simply a location on a map. Your warplanes are overflying the nation of Pakistan, and you well know it. No, I am going to have to insist that those bombers or whatever they are must turn around and depart our airspace immediately,” she replied.
“Madame Ambassador, that will not be happening. Our armed forces have been given a mission to perform. I authorized that mission and I approved that mission. It will go forward. I am simply informing you so that you can contact President Musharraf and assure him that Pakistan is not the target of our attacks, and that we have no intention of initiating hostile action against Pakistani forces. We intend to overfly isolated and deserted sections of your country on the way to somewhere else. Those planes will then reverse course and fly back out the way they came,” I told her.
“No, Mister President, this is not acceptable. No nation can invade another nation’s airspace, regardless of their intention or destination, without it being a flagrant violation of international law and an act of war. You are risking a great deal with this illegal saber rattling. I must insist that you stand down your forces and send them home,” she answered.
“Madame Ambassador, I have considerable respect for you, and I appreciate the position I have put you and your nation in. It is not your fault that Pakistan is caught in the middle like this. However, it is now the time for plain speaking and blunt truths,” I replied. She opened her mouth to argue, but I held up a hand. “Please, hear me out.” She settled down a touch and I continued. “The only way to reach Afghanistan is through the airspace of neighboring countries. We will be destroying Afghanistan over the next few days or weeks. That is a given. It is non-negotiable. Overflying Baluchistan is the simplest and cleanest way of doing this. I am sorry if Pakistan doesn’t like it, but it is what we will be doing.”
“Now, it’s your country, and your airspace. By every consideration of international law, Pakistan would be well within its rights to attempt to prevent us from violating Pakistani airspace. The only way to do that, however, would be with military force, and I have ordered our military to protect our planes with every means available. Let me be even plainer in speaking. If you wish to try and stop us, it is your right to do so, but you are going to lose a lot of airplanes and ships and men, and you won’t stop us. You are not a soldier, but your President is. I would suggest you discuss it with him.”
I stood up at that moment, as did Colin Powell, signifying the meeting was over. We shook hands, coldly, but I wasn’t finished yet. I held onto her hand, and added, “Doctor Lodhi, the CIA and the NSA have reported rumors that foreign fighters, not Al Qaeda, but others, are in northern Afghanistan. Now, I could not order the Pentagon to target such rumors without confirmation, however that can always change in the future. Certainly if there were such rumored forces, it would be much healthier for them if they were to go home.” The Pakistanis had an infantry brigade of about 10,000 troops facing the Northern Alliance. Doctor Lodhi didn’t make a reply, and she was shown out. Afterwards, I sat back down with Colin. “I imagine that went about as well as could be expected. What’s the fallout going to be?”
“Lousy, but that’s the hand we have to play. At the bare minimum, they do nothing back home, but file a bunch of protests in the United Nations. Worst case scenario, they decide to try and stop us from this violation, and we sink a lot of their ships and shoot down a lot of their airplanes. Absolute worst case, they try to do that with nukes, in which case Pakistan ceases to exist,” he answered.
“I don’t see that happening, but I could be wrong. I think you are correct about the U.N. though. Just make clear to everybody that we don’t want those bombers anywhere near anything the Pakistanis might care about,” I told him. We chatted a little more, and then I glanced at my watch. “Let’s go down to the Situation Room and see what’s happening.”
It was my first real look at the famous Situation Room, where we were supposed to have the means to wage war around the world in a secure facility buried beneath the West Wing. I had been here once before, on an orientation tour, but I hadn’t had a chance to do more than look around before I was whisked off somewhere else. Now that I was actually there and supposed to accomplish something, I was less than impressed. The room isn’t all that large, considering the number of people who work there (it is staffed 24-7). The walls were lined with wood paneling, like your basement family room, and behind the paneling were television and computer screens. Since they were all ancient CRT monitors, the false walls were correspondingly thick, which made the room narrower. The computers I saw were ancient 1980s technology. There were a couple of fax machines and a teletype machine in the corner. The carpets were crappy and the tile was cracked.