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Laden’s elimination. Some US officials saw the ISI’s hand behind the orchestration of anti-American protests and hinted that it wanted to avoid scrutiny of its complicity or incompetence in bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan. The most benign theory about bin Laden hiding in Pakistan suggested that the ISI had failed to look for him, while ISI-protected Pakistani Jihadi groups offered him sanctuary without telling their contacts within the government.
    Soon after the Abbottabad raid, Grossman and CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell traveled to Islamabad to propose actions that Pakistan could take to build confidence in its commitment to fight terrorism. They shared intelligence about a bomb-making factory run by the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. According to the CIA, A1-Qaeda as well as the Taliban and Pakistani Jihadi groups used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) made at this factory. Kayani and Pasha promised that the Pakistan army would send in troops to shut down the illicit factory that was manufacturing the IEDs. A few days later the CIA sent time-stamped photographs showing the facility being dismantled hours before the army’s arrival. The dismantling began after a man on a motorcycle went into the factory, thus leading to speculation that he had come to tip off the terrorists about the impending army operation.
    The Americans concluded that Pakistan’s failure to combat terrorism went beyond its law enforcement agencies’ and armed forces’ incompetence. They saw the ISI as deeply penetrated by Jihadist sympathizersand the civilian government as unable to make firm decisions because of fear of public opinion, which was manipulated to prevent closer US-Pakistan cooperation against terrorism.

    IN THE AFTERMATH of the US operation against bin Laden I made several attempts to bridge the gulf between the American and Pakistani understanding of each other’s positions. But there was little willingness in Islamabad to accept that there was anything wrong on our end that needed to be fixed. The Abbottabad raid had caused Americans to see Pakistan negatively, and the average American now saw it as Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary. I reported to the Pakistan government testy conversations with congressmen in which they said that voting for aid for Pakistan was becoming difficult because their constituents were not willing to support a country they saw as an “enemy.” Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, told me frankly that he and many of his colleagues saw Pasha as a “bold-faced liar.” But Pakistani officials rejected every US criticism or suggestion as manifesting “American arrogance.”
    Then in September, Admiral Mullen decided to publicly voice his vexation with the Pakistan army’s unwillingness to be honest in its dealings with America. He had spent four years cultivating a friendship with Kayani, meeting the Pakistani general twenty-six times.
    In congressional testimony Mullen described the Afghan Haqqani terrorist network as “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.” He said support for extremist groups, including the Haqqani network and anti-Indian terror organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, was part of the Pakistani government’s policy and served Islamabad’s interests. “The support of terrorism is part of their national strategy,” Mullen observed. 20 For Kayani and other Pakistani generals, Mullen’s statement should have served as a warning that anger toward Pakistan was not limited to US politicians; the US military, which had traditionally cultivated close ties with Pakistan, was also now losing patience. But there was no change in the generals’ attitude either, probably because of their belief that the United States needed Pakistan for its disengagement from Afghanistan and would, therefore, continue to tolerate its support for some militant groups.
    By November 2011 I