Surprising candor

A surprisingly frank article on Pakistan's ISI appeared in the New York Times today.

"Militants escape control of Pakistan," says the headline, above a nice shot of Musharraf and Kayani.
Obvious and hardly news, certainly, but these things are usually not talked about so directly in the U.S. press. Here are some more bald statements, attributed to "former ISI officials" and "officials close to the agency":

• In the 1990s, the ISI supported the militants as a proxy force to contest Indian-controlled Kashmir.
• In the 1980s, the United States supported militants, too, funneling billions of dollars to Islamic fighters battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan through the ISI, vastly increasing the agency’s size and power.

As to whether Musharraf was playing a "double game", as is commonly believed:

• [F]ormer Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that Mr. Musharraf had ordered [after 9/11] a crackdown on all militants. It was never fully carried out, however, because of opposition within his government and within ISI, they said.
• Some senior ministers and officials in Mr. Musharraf’s government sympathized with the militants and protected them, former intelligence officials said. Still others advised a go-slow approach, fearing a backlash against the government from the militants.
• Inside the ISI, there was division as well. One part of the ISI hunted down militants, the officials said, while another continued to work with them.

See entire NYT article here.

These facts have been available for many months; some of them for years. Why come out with them now?