... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
and ISI head Gen Shuja Pasha, but without a deal on resetting the relationship between the spy agencies.
Mr Panetta, who arrived on Friday evening, did not meet anyone other than the Kayani-Pasha duo who he met at the Army House over dinner and discussed what was described by the ISPR as "framework for future intelligence sharing".
Mr Panetta's departure without routine calls on President
Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
was seen by observers here as a sign of stalemate in his discussions with the military leadership. According to sources, Mr Panetta was surprised by the rigidity shown by the military, which went to the extent of even declining an offer by Washington of security assistance.
But government officials insisted that unlike in the past this time he was not scheduled to meet anyone else.
While Gen Kayani had even before his visit made it clear that the Army would not allow the CIA to carry out independent operations and that any future intelligence cooperation would be reciprocal and transparent, Mr Panetta did little to pacify Pak generals and instead confronted them with "evidence of collusion with Talibs".
This, a source claimed, would further sour the relationship which had already been under strain since the start of this year and got worse after the May 2 Abbottabd raid on the late Osama bin Laden's
... who is no longer with us, and won't be again...
compound.
According to US media reports, Mr Panetta shared with the military leadership video and satellite imagery of snuffies leaving two bomb-making factories in
Wazoo after allegedly having been tipped off about a raid.The US reportedly shared the information with Pakistain last week, asking it to take action against the two sites. But Mr Panetta alleged at the meeting that the information was leaked within 24 hours of sharing and by the time the raiding teams reached those places, the snuffies had melted away.
A defense source said the CIA chief, who is set to take over as the next US defense secretary, reportedly used this as an instance to tell the army and intelligence chiefs why America distrusted Pak military establishment and needed to have its own independent operations inside the country to deal with Al Qaeda and Taliban.
Efforts to get a version from official sources in Islamabad did not bear fruit.