Lt Gen (retd) HR McMaster, former US National Security Advisor, stated that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has an "undeniable complicity" with terrorist groups.
He revealed that during his time serving under then-President Donald Trump, the White House encountered opposition from the state department and the Pentagon regarding the provision of security aid to Islamabad.
Despite Trump's directive to halt all aid to Pakistan until it ceased providing safe havens to terrorists, McMaster disclosed in his latest book 'At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House' that the then Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was preparing to supply a military aid package to Islamabad, which included over USD 150 million worth of armoured vehicles.
However, McMaster's intervention led to the aid being halted, as he writes in the book that was released this week.
“It was difficult to get the State and Defence to comply with Trump’s directives to stop certain activities. I discovered that contrary to the South Asia strategy, which called for the suspension of all aid to Pakistan with a few exceptions, when Mattis visited Islamabad in the coming weeks, the Pentagon was going to deliver a military aid package that included more than USD 150 million worth of armoured vehicles,” he writes.
McMaster says that soon after he learned about it, he called for a meeting with Mattis, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel, and other senior officials.
“I started by noting that the president (Trump) had been very clear on multiple occasions to suspend aid to the Pakistanis until they halted support for terrorist organisations that were killing Afghans, Americans, and coalition members in Afghanistan...We had all heard Trump say, 'I do not want any money going to Pakistan',” he says.
Ex-NSA Mattis noted the possibility that Pakistan might retaliate in certain ways, but others, including Ambassador David Hale, who had joined via video from Islamabad, did not share those concerns.
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