KARACHI, 22 March — A former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence who had managed the spy wing of the Pakistan Army for a long time, has said the charge, leveled from time to time, that the agency was corrupting the country’s political system, was not only wrong but preposterous.

“It is the other way round. An agency meant to monitor the movement of enemy troops around our frontiers, was dragged into politics by former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and has been used for selfish motives by almost every politician who has been in power since then,” claimed Javed Ashraf Qazi, a four-star general who retired from the army only recently to join the military government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf as its communication minister.

He made certain interesting remarks during a TV debate on the role of security agencies, claiming that over 90 percent officers, assigned to the ISI, were a disciplined lot, with a high integrity record. They served the organization for a specified tenure and returned to their primary duties in the army after completing their assignment.

Compared to this, their counterparts in agencies like RAW, Mossad, CIA or the British MI-5, were all career officers, had a much bigger funds to spend and a huge network to handle.

Those in ISI primarily were assigned to keep a vigil on the enemy with a view to safeguarding our national frontiers. It had stuck to that job as a professional organization, but if it at all had meddled in politics, it played that role on specific directives from the government of the day.” I know for certain almost all prime ministers of the country had tried to use the ISI for personal benefits” said its former chief, pleading that the ISI “be left alone” because that would be better for the organization.

He confirmed that the agency had formed a political alliance, IJI, of right-wing and religious organizations, like the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim League, and others to counter the rise of the People’s Party in 1990, but explained that it undertook that job at the request of the then civilian setup of the country. However, he thought that a number of senior army offices, including Gen. Hamid Gul, had overstepped their line of duty and brought a bad name to the organization.

When told that Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad had charged the ISI with trying to destroy the political structure of the country, the minister said the Jamaat chief has been saying things which were untrue.