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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
The minister of defense is a civilian member of the
cabinet,
chairs the Defence Council, and is in turn a member of the
higher-level Cabinet Defence Committee. The Ministry of
Defence
has a permanent staff of civil servants headed by the
defense
secretary general. Of particular importance to the
Ministry of
Defence is the adviser for military finance, who heads the
Military Finance Division in the Ministry of Finance but
is
attached to the Ministry of Defence. The adviser functions
as the
principal financial officer of the defense ministry and
the
subordinate services.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee deals with all
problems
bearing on the military aspects of state security and is
charged
with integrating and coordinating the three services. In
peacetime, its principal function is planning; in time of
war,
its chairman is the principal staff officer to the
president in
the supervision and conduct of the war. The secretariat of
the
committee serves as the principal link between the service
headquarters and the Ministry of Defence in addition to
coordinating matters between the services. The three
branches
within the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee deal with
planning,
training, and logistics. Affiliated with the committee are
the
offices of the engineer in chief, the director general of
medical
service, the director of inter-services intelligence, and
the
director of inter-services public relations. The Joint
Chiefs of
Staff Committee supervises the National Defence College,
the
Joint Services Staff College, and the Inter-Service
Selection
Board. )
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence is of
particular importance at the joint services level. The
directorate's importance derives from two sources. First,
it is
the agency charged with managing covert operations outside
of
Pakistan--whether in Afghanistan, Kashmir, or farther
afield.
Second, in the past it was deeply involved in domestic
politics
and kept track of the incumbent regime's opponents. In
addition,
when the regime was unpopular with the military and the
president
(as was Benazir Bhutto's first government), the agency
helped
topple it by working with opposition political parties.
Data as of April 1994
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