Pakistan not an ally of US: Robert Gates --- Robert Gates, the former U.S. Defence Secretary who was the strongest supporter of Pakistan, believes that Islamabad is not an ally of America and it will not give up its policy of supporting terrorists. -- “Although I would defend them in front of Congress and to the press to keep the relationship from getting worse -- and endangering our supply line from Karachi -- I knew they were really no ally at all,” Mr. Gates writes in his forthcoming book titled ‘Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War’. -- Referring to his visit in January 2010 -- his second and the last one to Pakistan -- wherein he met the then President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Mr. Gates writes that he returned convinced that Islamabad would not give up its policy of supporting terrorists. -- “No administration in my entire career devoted more time and energy to working the Pakistanis than did President (Barack) Obama and all his senior team,” Mr. Gates, who was the defence secretary from December 2006 to July 2011, writes. -- “My message was consistent: we were committed to a long-term strategic partnership; we needed to work together against the ‘syndicate of terror’ placing Afghanistan, Pakistan and India at risk; we needed to remove safe havens on both side of the border; Pakistan needed to better control anti-Americanism and harassment of Americans; and the Pakistani army’s ‘extra-judicial killings’ (executions) were putting our relationship at risk,” Mr. Gates writes in his memoir. -- “I returned convinced that Pakistan would work with the U.S. in some ways -- such as providing supply lines through Pakistan, which were also highly profitable -- while at the same time providing sanctuary for the Taliban and other extremists, so that no matter who came out on top in Afghanistan, Pakistan would have influence. If there was to be any reconciliation, the Pakistanis intended to control it,” Mr. Gates said. -- “Pakistan was described as the biggest, most dangerous situation,” he writes. --- “I worried that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence was aware of where Bin Laden was and that there might be rings of security around the compound that we knew nothing about or, at minimum, that 1ST might have more eyes on the compound than we could know,” he wrote. -- The worst-case scenario was that the Pakistanis could get a number of troops to the compound quickly, prevent extraction of our team and take them prisoner, he writes. -- When he asked his Vice Admiral William McRaven what he planned to do if the Pakistani military showed up during the operation, he said the team would just hunker down and wait for a “diplomatic extraction.” -- “They would wait inside the compound and not shoot any Pakistanis. I then asked what they would do if the Pakistanis breached the walls: ‘Do you shoot or surrender?’ Our team couldn’t surrender, I said. If the Pakistani military showed up, our team needed to be prepared to do whatever was necessary to escape,” Mr. Gates writes. -- After considerable discussion, there was broad agreement to this, and as a result, additional MH-47 helicopters and forces were assigned to the mission,” he says. -- Mr. Gates writes that ahead of the Abbottabad raid no one inside the administration talked about seeking Pakistani help in killing bin Laden. - More, The Hindu, at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/pakistan-not-an-ally-of-us-robert-gates/article5557668.ece