At the CIA end of the pipe it was not just that we often received inappropriate and outdated weapons systems that we did not want, but their scheduling of shipments frequently took no account of our capacity to handle the huge quantities involved. It was usually a feast or a famine situation. I repeatedly stressed that we needed a smooth, regular flow of arrivals at Karachi port, of about one or two ships a month. This we could manage. Such a steady build-up would prevent bottlenecks when our stores were overflowing, or periods when they were virtually empty. Perhaps I was asking the impossible, because sometimes three, or even four, ships would arrive within a month, or there would be a long period when nothing came.
A small proportion of arms arrived by air at Rawalpindi (Chaklala Air Base). Until 1986 many of these deliveries were the cause of increasing friction between ISI and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). The trouble seemed to stem from Saudi Arabia, where the CIA had arranged to dump supplies at Dhahran Air Base either for onward delivery by Saudi aircraft or collection by the PAF. For some reason unknown to me, these flights always seemed to go wrong. The CIA provided the liaison, but even when they had an agent at the Saudi airfield invariably our planes were not allowed to land on schedule, or were even turned away. When Saudi aircraft flew to Pakistan they did not arrive on time, or came completely unannounced, causing the PAF to go on unnecessary alerts. After nearly two years of this I managed to get the system stopped and USAF planes used, but our relationship with the PAF was badly soured.
Once the arms arrived on Pakistani soil we took over. I should explain that the supply system had been established before I arrived at ISI and that overall security of our methods was greatly enhanced by our operating under martial law. The military was in complete control. They were both the makers and executors of the law. For example, the normal bureaucratic stream of paperwork was suspended as far as we were concerned. Until later, when the size of the supply system expanded so enormously, nothing was committed to writing. Officials in government agencies or departments that had to be involved in keeping things moving were briefed verbally on what they had to do. If they became too curious they were told that the consignment or work was related to the widely publicized, but ‘secret’, project of making a nuclear bomb. This was normally enough to get cooperation.
At Karachi the port authorities were paid their dues in cash, the ship’s manifest merely stated ‘defense stores’ and the customs department was not involved. From the ship the crates were loaded on to between ten and twenty freight wagons for the journey by rail to my warehouse at Ojhri camp or, for a small proportion, direct to Quetta. The wagons were accompanied by armed MODC escorts. This rail movement was a daily event. Ten wagons would take about 200 tons, although I could cope with up to 400 as a maximum. If several ships arrived in quick succession the system broke down, with a build-up of stores at the docks as my men toiled to shift them, while my colonel contended with the railway functionaries for more rolling stock.
At Rawalpindi we had a fleet of 200 vehicles, mostly five– or ten-ton trucks with false and frequently changed number plates, with which to move the weapons further down the pipeline. All the boxes had to be brought to the camp from the railway station to be separated, checked and stored in the warehouse. Everything had to be taken on charge and stock lists updated daily. I insisted on having this information on my desk early every morning.
Next came the business of breaking bulk, and dividing up the weapons and ammunition into consignments for the Parties at Peshawar. This was done in accordance with the allocation priorities that I will describe later. Arms and ammunition is useless sitting at a depot, it needs to be in the hands of the user, so I made it a point of honour to keep the flow moving towards Afghanistan I preferred an almost empty warehouse to a full one—it was also a much less tempting target should a saboteur obtain knowledge of its location, or in the event of an accidental fire. We were, after all, sitting on a potentially very large bang, close to a built-up area. At least 80 per cent of all arms and ammunition used in Afghanistan passed through my warehouse at Ojhri, yet I believe our secret was kept. Despite the daily volume of traffic and activity to and from the camp, we never experienced any incident that suggested security had been breached during those four years.
Every morning, at times varying from 5.00 am to noon, a convoy of trucks with MODC drivers in civilian clothes would leave for Peshawar. It was a 150-kilometre drive, which had to be completed by evening so nothing could leave Rawalpindi later than noon. Every afternoon empty vehicles from the previous day’s delivery arrived back. Our workshop staff were kept frantically busy on maintenance.
To call these vehicles convoys is perhaps misleading, in that the 50-60 trucks did not follow one another in a long column—far from it. We sent them off in small packets of two or three lorries at intervals of five to ten minutes. They merged with the civilian traffic, with the man riding shotgun in the cab having his weapon concealed on the floor. Once, when travelling from Peshawar with the local CIA chief, I challenged him to try to spot any of our vehicles. He failed to do so.
Our main worry was the possibility of road accidents. An officer always travelled with the leading truck and another at the end of the convoy, and we included one or two empty vehicles in case of breakdowns. General Akhtar refused to countenance the possibility of accidents, although he knew our difficulties and that the law of statistics made a few inevitable. He remained adamant that they were not to happen, so I was forced to increase the number of officers on convoy duties to the detriment of training and operational requirements.
In 1986 I calculated that my trucks travelled well over a million kilometres. With such distance accidents happened. The most unfortunate was when a truck hit a car head on. By the time the officer at the rear reached the scene the casualties had been evacuated, and despite enquiries at the nearby hospital he failed to locate the car passengers. It turned out that the car occupants were Army officers and that two had died at the military hospital. There was a lot of unpleasantness as the Army blamed the ISI, despite witnesses testifying that the car was at fault.
At Peshawar the Parties took over. Their consignments were off-loaded at their warehouses while the drivers overnighted before the return journey next day. This was the system I used for the great bulk of arms and ammunition. There were a few exceptions, apart from those going direct to Quetta from Karachi. These involved rocket launchers and SAMs, weapons that were scarce and were needed in particularly critical operational areas such as around Kabul, or airbases, or along the Salang Highway. Everybody wanted to shoot down helicopters or launch rocket attacks from 10 kilometres from the target as this added to a Commander’s prestige, but I insisted they must be deployed in accordance with the overall guerrilla strategy. With these weapons I insisted I deliver them direct to the Commanders from those key areas, but in consultation with the Parties. Similarly, if there was a special operation being mounted, such as the sinking of barges on the Amu that required limpet mines, or a coordinated large-scale attack on a large enemy garrison, then I would also arrange a direct issue to the Commanders involved, again with the Parties’ concurrence.
Despite the allegations of corruption levelled at those involved with the arms pipeline, I remain totally convinced that as far as my organization was concerned nothing much went astray. The middle section of the pipe was virtually corruption-free. The beginning section under the CIA was riddled with opportunities for fraud and, as I have shown, there was ineptitude and probably dishonesty as well.