India had deployed nuclear-capable missiles on its western border and refused to budge under US pressure to hold any talks with Pakistan after the 2001 attack on Parliament by terrorists from across the border,says former top American diplomat Condoleezza Rice. What added to the tension in the White Houses Situation Room in December 2001 was the sharp differences between the Pentagon and CIA about the ground realities in South Asia,she writes in her memoir No Higher Honor that is set to hit the stands next week. While CIA was informing the White House that India was on its way to war,the Pentagon was concluding it was not the case,Rice,who then was National Security Adviser (NSA) to President George W Bush,said. In fact,Rice writes the CIA was speaking the language of Pakistan,which wanted the entire world to believe,in particular the US,that India was ready to attack them. The CIA believed that armed conflict was unavoidable because India had already decided to punish Pakistan. That is likely the view that Islamabad held and wanted us to hold too. The fact is that after years of isolation from India,a country that had viewed the United States with suspicion for decades,the CIA was heavily reliant on Pakistani sources in 2001, Rice says in her book. Rice,who served as NSA in eight years of Bush administration,said,Looking at the same events unfolding on the ground,the Pentagon and the CIA gave very different assessments of the likelihood of war.
