MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

• Event: Christina Rocca Type of Event: Interview Date: January 29, 2004.... _ Special Access Issues: I Additional notes: ..------..... Prepared by: Scott Allan Reviewed by: Len Hawley Team Number: Three (Counterterrorism Policy) Location: Main State Participants- Commission: Scott Allan and Len Hawley State: Jami Borek

Interviewee Background

Rocca spent 15 years at the CIA where she worked in the Directorate of Operations. In this capacity, she did not handle South Asia matters. In 1997, she then went to work Congressman and then Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) as a foreign policy aide focusing on the Middle East and South Asia.

On May 31, 2001 Rocca left Brownback's staff to become Assistant Secretary of State • for South Asia and continues to hold that position today.

Congressional Perspectives:

Rocca began by describing her observations while working for Senator Brownback. Before the 1998 nuke test, she mentioned how Islamabad was heavily sanctioned for its procurement of nuclear materials. They were not much interaction because of the sanctions, but the usa was trying to work on educational reform and democratization to the extent the sanctions permitted. She characterized the USGapproach to Pakistan before the 1998 tests as "passive".

Before the nuke tests, the major sanctions in effect were Pressler and Symington and after the tests, the Glenn amendment was added. Rocca added that after the nuke tests, there were so many sanctions in place "that we couldn't even sell them wheat." The "draconian" Glenn amendment, she said, had "drastic implications for not only foreign policy but for commerce" and had no waiver capability for Clinton Administration.

Because of the harsh Glenn sanctions, Congress decided to waive some sanctions to permit some flexibility. One bill, known as Brownback I, allowed for the provision of humanitarian type aid or sales to India and Pakistan. • She recalled that after the 1998 embassy bombings that Pakistan was cooperating to some extent on terrorism and Congress wanted to permit the Clinton Administration some • flexibility with Pakistan. She also believes a second bill, Brownback II, passed in October of 1999 which gave the Administration a waiver capability. But, she recalls that the some of Capital hill did not think the Clinton administration was using the new waiver capability to its full capacity.

In connection with the October 1999 Pakistani coup, Section 508 sanctions came in against Islamabad.

In the spring of 2001, before joining State, Rocca recalls, traveling to Pakistan where she met with Karzai and enquired as to what Congress could do to assist a possible government in exile. She said in 2000 and early 2001 certain members of Congress and their staffers informally debated whether providing money to the Northern Alliance, but decided fairly quickly not to assist that group's leader_._ Masoud. She said the feeling that was that Masoud was a horrible person involved in drug trafficking and human rights violation. The belief that Masoud would not be capable of governing the country.

Before 9-11, she said Senator Brownback was very concerned about the presence of terrorist in Afghanistan and called it a "playground for terrorists."

Pakistan

During Rocca's first month at State she was getting acclimatized to the Bureau, but stressed she was involved in policy making discussions and decisions. While USG focus • on Pakistan (and South Asia) was not what it was on September 1th, it was an area of attention. She noted a number of high level visits from Pakistani officials during the summer of 200 1. The same is true for our focus on India. During the summer of 200 1, the priorities for Pakistan were, in order of descending importance, AfghanistanlTaliban, non-proliferation, Indo-Pak tensions and finally democratization.

She described the Clinton Pakistani policy as one which was driven by the non- proliferation and terrorism issues, but that relations were sour. When Rocca took office, her tasking was to "create a new dynamic in OUf relations with both India and Pakistan." This general decision, she believes was made in April of2001 and before she arrived. We wanted movement on the non-proliferation issue with both of them and Powell wanted to improve relations with Pakistan. However those handling the non-proliferation and democratization portfolios were as not as supportive but noted that SCT did resist her strategy. As a result, Rocca sought to lift some of the nuclear sanctions (i.e. the Glenn amendment) in order to improve our ability to communicate and work with Islamabad. However, these sanctions were not lifted until after 9-1 I.

She noted that had the nuclear sanctions been lifted before 9-11, there would still be a number of other sanctions in place which would continue to limit our relations (i.e. Section 508 sanctions punishing Islamabad for the 1999 coup). After 9-11 Congress gave

• 2 the Bush Administration a waiver for Section 508 sanctions. She claims that while the sanctions were lifted after 9-11, the State Department had been working during that summer to lift the sanctions. As mentioned earlier, she indicated the Executive branch • had the discretion to lift the sanctions so she would preparing a large volume of paper on this to topic to present to the White House during the summer of 200 1.

She said either the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary had signed an action memo supporting the lifting of sanctions. From there she was preparing a number of justifications to support this move when taken to the President. 1

Therefore State felt it should foster the internal argument on ~------~Taliban support and stressed to visiting diplomats that Afghanistan could really hinder:/ the new Atmosphere State was trying to create. Eventually, Rocca hoped during the ...... summer of 2001, the US could work with the Pakistanis on developing an alternative to the Taliban. .

Rocca recalls traveling to Pakistan in early August and stressed that Musharrafrevisit his Afghan policy. While Musharrafresponded positively during this trip and ",:,asopen to establishing commonality on this issue. But when the Pakistani foreign Secretary traveled to Washington later that month, little progress was made before?: 11.

She commented that the "or else" language included in the July 2001 demarche issued by Amb. Milam to the Taliban had not been decided by 9-11. She saidhowever, that it was a sign that the US was considering drastic action. /

• Regime Change and Covert Action Against the Taliban:

Assistant Secretary Rocca said that in June 1999, she felt t~a:t it was given that the US was not ready to take overt military action ageist the Tali!?an. The US was not, she believed, ready to call for an Afghan regime change, though there were discussions about it. This had nothing to do with covert action

. . Rocca summarized the process implementinga Presidential waiver for lifting sanctions. first, the Secretary or Deputy Secretary of State Department ..support the lifting of sanctionsaccompanied with justifications. Then the recommendation plus State Department justification is.p-resented to the President who will then agree to consult with Congress, which is actually conducted bythe State Department.' Once the Department has consulted with the Hill, then State must confirm theirconsultations with the Hill and reaffirm why the sanctions should be lifted. If the President still agrees he will sign off on the lifting of sanctions. Borek remarked that while legally an Executive can.move forward and lift sanctions in the face of Congressional opposition. However, this, she said, does notoccur in practice as the Executive does not want to face hard opposition especiallywhen Congress ,has' the power to pass follow up legislation restricting the Executive, which includes re-imposingsanctions, Rocca agreed with Borek that giving the Executive branch the waiver control.was Congress' way of forcing the White House to take the criticizing for initialing something that con~r';ss did~prV;ant 10 take pressure on. '

• ,··/r 3 .. ' 9/11 Classified Information • 9/11 Classified Information Rocca did not recall much discussion on aid to the Northern Alliance that summer. But there was discussion about providing them with humanitarian assistance as well as lethal assistance. But aiding them with lethal aid would be a problem because of its connection with drug trafficking, human rights not to mention their image on Capital hill. In June, the premise was no lethal assistance to the Northern Alliance, but by the end of the summer there was more conversation about aiding the group.

Late in the summer of 200 1, she recalls small interagency meetings on the three prong NSC approach to dealing with the Taliban. The three tenets were: 1) Seek a deal with the Taliban and build our capacity for increasing pressure on the movement, if this does not work 2) Increase pressure on the Taliban, and if the Taliban are unresponsive 3) Oust the Taliban leadership. The meetings discussed how each of these could be practically implemented and would eventually be passed up to the Deputies for approval. Rocca said she was not involved in the discussions on overthrow. But she said that we would not have been able to overthrow the Taliban without having Pakistan onboard. This would have required serious incentives to the Taliban; what the incentives were had not been reached. Also, she could not say who would be able to fill the void should the Taliban be removed. Rocca said that she did not know what could have filled the void because the usa never got the chance to pursue and because we never had a Pakistan that was willing to cooperate on this.

• She said that in early September, there was serious "yakking about planning" for more aggressive options towards the Taliban.

Sattar's June 2001 Visit to Washington:

In June 2001, Pakistani Foreign Minister_ Sattar visited Washington. Rocca had hoped that this could be the foundation for the new progressive relationship with the Pakistanis. It was far from it. Sattar stressed to Powell that Musharrafwas on the path to establishing a democracy. But a few hours after Sattar's visit, Musharraf consolidated his rule and elevated himself from military leader to President. Sattar, who probably was not informed of Musharraf's intentions, did not forewarn Powell of this - "it was not the happy meeting is was should have been." The next day's meeting with Sattar was spent criticizing Musharraf's move and not warming relations .

• 4 Taliban Sanctions

Rocca recalls that UNSCR 1333 was an issue of concern with the Pakistanis. But she • noted that Islamabad just "paid lip service" to it while they continue to support the Taliban. While Washington would always discuss 1333 with Islamabad, there was nothing Washington could do to enforce Pakistani compliance with 1333.

She could not recall any efforts to pass follow up sanctions pressuring countries to comply with UNSCR 1333.

Afghanistan

In the spring of 200 I Afghan policy was, she said, "in a rut." Before 9-11 terrorism was the overriding priority in Afghanistan but there were "no clear answers on what to do" with Afghanistan. Rocca continued by saying that in the spring and summer of 2001, there were pro's and con's to every policy option towards the Taliban. For example, if you wanted to take overt military action the USG would have to develop tactical plans, which had not been done, and would have to build a coalition which would be extremely difficult given the level of attention for Afghanistan before 9-11. Boots on the ground was not an option.

She noted that there were discussions to work with the Northern Alliance, establish a government in exile and pull together a loya jirga. Working with and coordinating the exiled groups in Bonn, Rome and Cyprus was extremely difficult she added. Despite providing some of the exile groups (the Rome and Bonn groups) with money, none of them were ready to mover forward individually and the three groups were not cohesive • by any stretch. There was also talk to establishing an international treaty where countries ceased support for their proxies in the country) but this too got nowhere.

There was also talk of splitting the Taliban leadership and working with "moderates" in that movement. The premise was that perhaps there were Afghanswho were not as enamored with Afghan Arabs as were Omar's cadre. She noted that mobilizing these groups would have been handled through covert channels and not conducted by State.

Rocca could not recall any proposals to trade UBL for US recognition. It was, she said, it was "way too early to look forward to that. .. there had to be some sense that there would be some give [on the Taliban's part] give and there was nothing."

Rocca acknowledged the increased threat reporting in summer 2001. This led us to increase the demarches to the Taliban and the demarches to the Pakistani describing the fallout should UBL strike US interests. She does not think that the increased threats led the USG to consider aiding the Northern Alliance because we were already doing so during the summer .

• 5 There was lots of thinking on the topic but no options to go forward. Rocca felt that State had gone as far it is could have with aggressive demarches. She could recall carrots • being offered to the Taliban during the summer of 200 1. Miscellaneous

Sanctions have limited use she says. No future administrations should ever find themselves in a situation where we have no leverage over a country.

Rocca said that her interagency coordination works very well and that this coordination allows for deputies to receive very good products. She indicated the Torque) Patterson and Zalmay Khalizad shared the Afghanistan portfolio at the NSC and did a good job at it.

During the summer of 2001, she said there was increased focus on public diplomacy in Afghanistan. The goals were to tum moderate Afghans against the Taliban.

.Strengthening and supporting moderate Pistons in the south would have been part of the Agency's, not State's, portfolio.

The issue of Pakistani madrassahs is very complicated. The country has a broken educational system and the local mosque or madrassah fills the voids. Though the funding is hard to trace, they are supported by Iran and Gulf states; some are now in the position to refuse government funding which lessens Islamabad's leverage to control them. These schools are now very much entrenched in Pakistani society and that many madrassahs are being exploited by extremist recruiters. Madrassah policy is very • inconsistent and it is very difficult to document them and control them. Rocca said, "this is a systemic problem at a very basic level which is you've got to provide an alternative [educational system]." Those running the schools are very suspicious of Musharraf and see him bowing to American demands. As a result, they are reluctant to cooperate with the education ministry.

9/11 Classified Information

She also acknowledged the presence of AI-Qaeda in Pakistan. Since 9-11, an increasingly large number of Al-Qaeda members have taken refugee in Karachi and in the tribal areas. But the Pakistanis have been very cooperative on this front. The FBI is working "shoulder to shoulder" with the Pakistanis on this. Rocca says the Pakistanis continue to need prodding and this is especially true in the tribal areas .

• 6 Assistant Secretary Rocca said she wasnot comfortable seconding guessing the Clinton Administration's approach to South ASia, though, from the vantage on Capital Hill she • would have sought to use more leverage with the Pakistanis. .

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