WikiLeaks

Cables: Pakistan General Asked for Drones

Wanted increased coverage of tribal areas.

WikiLeaks embarrasses countries other than the U.S., too. Cables published in the Pakistani paper Dawn show one of the country's top military leaders not only agreeing to the controversial drone campaign, but asking for “continuous Predator coverage” of the tribal areas. According to the cables, General Ashfaq Kayani asked U.S. Navy Admiral William J. Fallon for round-the-clock Predator coverage of North and South Waziristan, and Fallon “regretted that he did not have the assets to support the request.” Fallon then offered to send U.S. personnel to aid Pakistan in command and control for its attack aircraft, but Kayani said such aid would “not be politically acceptable.” Kayani has been a public critic of the U.S. drone campaign, calling a strike on March 17 that killed at least 45 people “unjustified and intolerable.”