The great NSC debate By Masood Sharif Khan Khattak - Former Director General Intelligence Bureau

Mr Masood Sharif Khan Khattak, Former Director General of The Intelligence Bureau, Government of Pakistan

The great NSC debate By Masood Sharif Khan Khattak Dated Tuesday, March 03, 2009

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=165351

It is incomprehensible that any modern state can be at peace within itself and with the world at large without an organized structure that is dedicated to ensuring the security of that state. Unfortunately, Pakistan seems to be an exception. This is not surprising for a country where even the Constitution works on a suspended and/or provisional basis with amendments made by individuals in their drawing rooms duly authorized by the Supreme Court. Piecemeal solutions as opposed to far reaching decisions in the sphere of national security can only spell disaster.

Pakistan now needs a national security council to do all this professionally. This council must be meant for the purpose of national security alone and must operate under the chief executive of the country in an advisory capacity with its eyes on the multiple aspects directly related to the dynamics of national security. The national security council being proposed must not be for the purpose of confronting/counter-balancing any other organ of the state.

Gen Musharraf formed a farcical NSC through the National Security Council Act of April 2004. With the president at its head it comprised of the prime minister, chairman Senate, speaker National Assembly, leader of the opposition, the four chief ministers, the chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the army, navy and air force chiefs. Musharraf chose Tariq Aziz, a life long income tax officer and his political broker, as a full time secretary of the NSC. This non professional appointment spoke volumes about how non-serious Gen Musharraf was about Pakistan's national security.

Ever since 9/11 Pakistan has been confronted with immense national security situations. All this time there was no organized body that could keep the Pakistani decision makers ahead of events and suggest well crafted solutions. It was Gen Musharraf alone who decided upon Pakistan's responses to those national security situations from the confines of the Army House that he still illegally occupies. At best, he had Lilliputian inputs from the sycophants surrounding him in the evenings. It is sad that Pakistan was, over the past nine years, ruled by such an average individual as Gen Musharraf who did not consider it fit to benefit from the collective wisdom of the highest political, civil and military hierarchy. It is sad that this hierarchy also chose to remain slavish and did not stand up to get counted for Pakistan.

Having said that I will hasten to try and make out a case that if any country in the world today actually needs an effective national security council it is Pakistan. A belligerent India on the east, a war torn and occupied Afghanistan on the west, militancy throughout the country's northwest as well as Balochistan, terrorist acts and suicide attacks all over the country, sectarian killings, sporadic outbursts of violence in Karachi, dacoits ruling the highways of Sindh, political turmoil in the country, a judicial crisis that refuses to fade away and an economic situation that shows no signs of improvement are reasons enough for Pakistan to have a national security council that concentrates on how Pakistan's national security can best be improved and then maintained.

Pakistan presently has a Defence Council of the Cabinet (DCC) which is chaired by the prime minister. The DCC is actually a high ranking forum where matters regarding production and procurement of defence equipment and other defence matters are discussed and decisions taken. The DCC is not designed to cater for Pakistan's national security on a day to day basis in which inputs to the chief executive on matters related to Pakistan's national security are essential so that some crucial decisions can be taken before things go astray. The DCC should act as a body that meets on a regular basis in order to get a briefing from the national security council so that a collective long term national security decision is taken and methodology for synchronised implementation decided upon. The left hand not knowing what the right hand holds attitude will now be harmful to Pakistan. Fiefdoms have to give way to national interests.

Pakistan has a very elaborate civilian and military intelligence network. The Pakistani military potential is truly awesome. An acknowledged nuclear military power, Pakistan has the sixth largest army in the world, a three dimensional navy, a modern air force and a very large standing civil armed force which together form Pakistan's military potential to ensure its national security. When this military potential is coupled with other factors like economy, agricultural potential, industrial potential, communication infrastructure, ports and shipping, political stability, energy sector etc it adds up to become Pakistan's overall power potential. By what Pakistan has it can be happily seen that Pakistan has an inviolable potential to ensure its own national security. But the sad part is that this potential has not been synchronized for the over all good of the country.

Presently, knee jerk actions are the order of the day. Developing crises must now be identified long before they occur with remedial measures being taken to nip adversities in the bud. For this there is a dire need for a coordinating body that can extract timely and good decisions from the chief executive based on professional inputs derived through an organized process. The one body that can do this is an effective national security council with a regular and well designed secretariat manned by thoroughbred and bold professionals. This is the need of the hour.

The writer is a former director-general of the Intelligence Bureau and former vice-president of the PPP Parliamentarians. Email: masoodsharifkhattak@gmail.com

After Benazir Bhutto's Death - 3

PPP - Senator Raza Rabbani


Even if the General Elections 2008 are not rigged [that is a tall order] then what? because under National Security Council it woould be sham democracy.

The Surrender

May 2004 [MontHly NEWSLINE Pakistan]

http://www.newsline.com.pk/newsMay2004/guestMay2004.htm

Never in history has any Parliament been in such haste to abdicate its powers and sovereignty to the military as the current one seems to be doing, so graphically illustrated in the matter of the passage of the NSC bill, says lawyer and PPP Senator Raza Rabbani.

The passage of the National Security Council Act, 2004 has broken many a tradition. It has altered the civil-military equation to the advantage of the latter, it has ascribed to the armed forces a role inconsistent with the constitution, it is a law against the basic structure of the constitution, it seeks subordination of civil authority by law, and during its passage all norms of democracy and parliamentary practice were flouted.

The establishment has been toying with promoting and pressing for the concept of the NSC since many a year, but it has been the resistance of civil society that held it at bay until April 14, 2004. In 1985 General Zia introduced it as Article 152A in the RCO, but the Parliament of that time had the strength and moral courage to delete it as Article 18 in the Eighth Amendment. On January 6, 1997 the NSC reemerged under Farooq Leghari, only to be lost again under Sharif. After the October 12, 1999 takeover it resurfaced once more on November 6, 1999, and was reconstituted by the National Security Council Order 2001 (Chief Executives Order No. 5 of 2001).

In distinct contrast, the mind of the founding fathers is reflected in an office memorandum (No. 272/of/48) issued by the cabinet secretariat dated September 25, 1948 from Karachi. The office memorandum constitutes a defence committee of the cabinet under the Prime Minister. This is similar to the DCC that existed before the passage of this Act. The NSC is against the grain of a parliamentary system and an intrusion of an extra-parliamentary force upon the preserve of Parliament.

When the NSC proposal was put to vote, it offered civil society a unique opportunity to place the NSC under wraps - but for its 'turncoats.' It is for the first time that the internal contradictions between the civil-military bureaucracy and their traditional political allies, the religious right, surfaced. The main contributing factors for the split lay in the uneven application of the NAB law, the devolution plan and the Police Order 2002 for the civil bureaucracy, and the international events for the religious right. But the turncoats with their NAB cases, loan defaults and rank opportunism were there to provide more than a helping hand to complete the surrender of Parliament. Never in history has any Parliament been in such haste to abdicate its powers and sovereignty.

The bill was laid before the National Assembly on April 2, 2004 and referred to the standing committee. The House was adjourned at 1: 00 p.m and the standing committee was summoned for a meeting at 1:30 PM - on that very day. The members of the opposition in the committee were not served notice, the general discussion on the bill in the assembly was circumvented with an altercation with the opposition and by 2:00 pm the committee had passed the bill. Upon transmission to the Senate the rules were suspended and general discussion of the bill was taken up. Two motions of the opposition of referring the bill to the standing committee and circulating it for public opinion, were disallowed. There was an agreement that four days of general discussion on the bill would take place. On the second day a situation was created where the opposition staged a token walkout and the bill was passed in three minutes (as reported in the press). Thus on April 14, 2004 the surrender was complete.

The new law is in violation of Article 245 of the constitution. This article states that the armed forces shall be under the directions of the federal government. It ascribes three functions for the armed forces under the constitution, namely, to defend Pakistan against external aggression, threat of war and subject to law, act in aid of civil power when called upon to do so. Thus it is clear that the authors of the constitution had placed them under the political will and assigned no role of policy formulation or governance.

The effect of this Act will be that the basic structure of the constitution i.e. federal, parliamentary and democratic will be altered. The federal character and provincial autonomy are infringed upon as "government" in the Act means federal and provincial governments. Thereby, the NSC is able to consult, formulate recommendations and do crises management of provincial governments. It replaces the parliamentary system with a quasi-presidential system, the return to One-Unit. This Act has to be read with the discretionary powers of the President conferred under the Seventh Constitutional Amendment Act. The President as chairman of the NSC and as chairman of the National Command Authority becomes an over-emphasised office
with no check or balance, in total negation of the parliamentary system. The democratic character of the constitution is affected the moment the political will is made subordinate.

The extent and ambit of the new law was described by General Musharraf when in August he said, "the National Assembly consists of 342 members, hence decision-making is not possible, but a cross-section of views can emerge. These views would then be considered by the NSC in formulating policy." He again said on June 30, 2003 in Los Angeles, "the LFO will ensure a vital role to be played by the NSC."

The present government talks of the NSC being present in the US and India. What they forget is the fact that these are societies where the armed forces are subordinate to the political will and are not contenders for power. Further, no uniformed person is a member of these councils. In Turkey, the situation is different. The chief of general staff is appointed on the advise of the council of ministers, the NSC formed under Article 118 of the constitution is only an advisory body on the policy of national security - the word used is "policy." The advise tendered is sent to the council of ministers which may accept or reject the same, the final arbiter as to whether the advise is acceptable or not to the cabinet, which is answerable to Parliament. The concept of the supremacy of Parliament has been preserved in the Turkish model.


The amendment passed in the National Assembly that refers the recommendations of the NSC to either House has made matters worse, it has reduced the houses to the status of an implementation authority. It states, "any proposal on an issue deemed to be of national importance which requires implementation shall be referred by the council to the National Assembly or the Senate for appropriate action." This means that Parliament will take appropriate action for its implementation; it cannot discuss or override the proposal that has been sent to it. Thus it is only an implementation authority and nothing more. Further, in case there is a proposal for the dissolution of the National Assembly under Article 58(2)(b), what will the position be? Will the Senate be able to override this proposal?

To say that the NSC will prevent further martial laws is belied by history. The 1956 and 1962 constitutions of Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan were products of the thinking of the establishment, but in the end the authors of these constitutions themselves asked for their abrogation. The chief of army staff was also made a cabinet minister but this did not prevent the imposition of martial law. In the scheme of the 1973 Constitution there are only two players in the power equation: the President and the Prime Minister. The role of the armed forces has been defined in Article 245.

The Act states that a National Security Council shall be established to serve as a forum for consultation on matters of national security including sovereignty, integrity, defence and security of the state. All these terms are vague and each itself carries wide implications leaving no sphere of governance beyond their ambit. The icing on the cake comes with the term 'crisis management.' This is an all-encompassing omnibus phrase and covers everything under the sun. Thus the NSC will formulate policy on any and every aspect of government policy.

In conclusion the new law


a) prescribes a role for the armed forces that the Constitution of 1973 does not envisage


b) formalises the role of the armed forces in the constitutional functioning and policy-making of the federal government


c) infringes on the sovereignty of Parliament


d) makes the Prime Minister and his cabinet subordinate to its policies


e) its ambit as defined in the Act does not confine it to matters of only national security


f) through inference introduces a unitary form of government


g) infringes on provincial autonomy


h) a large number of its members are the appointees of the President


i) by presiding over the NSC, the President makes the Prime Minister an equal among equals, which is a negation of the parliamentary system.