Islamabad cites US intelligence's poor record

Dubai: A senior Pakistan official has hit back at recent US criticism, citing the poor track record of American intelligence.

Mushahid Hussain, chairman of Pakistani senate's foreign relations committee, was responding to recent allegations by US national intelligence director John Negroponte that Al Qaida leaders had a "secure hideout" in Pakistan.

"We have a very poor opinion on the track record of American intelligence in the region. There has been a string of failures in American intelligence... The Americans have not named a single Al Qaida leader who might be in Pakistan," Hussain said.

Referring to what he termed previous failures in American intelligence, he said: "They failed to predict India's nuclear weapons tests, they failed to capture Osama Bin Laden before he escaped from Tora Bora [in Afghanistan], and they failed to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"They are trying to put the blame for [the unrest in] Afghanistan on us, and Iraq on Iran and Syria," he added.

Pakistani-American relations, Hussain said, were nevertheless "good", adding that Negroponte's comments were later contradicted by US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "when she said that Pakistan played a pivotal role in [fighting terrorism]".

Hussain was speaking in Sharjah on Monday night at a social event organised by the Sharjah-based Pakistan Social Centre, which was attended by Pakistani Consul-General in Dubai Chaudry Abdul Hameed.