In a stinging attack, CIA director told US lawmakers that Washington was trying to get to the bottom of Pak's 'troubling' role in Osama raid
In a stinging attack, CIA director told US lawmakers that Washington was trying to get to the bottom of Pak's 'troubling' role in Osama raid
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In a stinging attack, CIA director Leon Panetta (in pic) told US lawmakers that Washington was trying to get to the bottom of Pakistan's 'troubling' role in their professed ignorance about the whereabouts of Osama.
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In a closed door briefing for House members yesterday, Panetta said that "either they were involved or incompetent. Neither place is a good place to be", CNN reported.
Senators were unrelenting in their attack on Pakistan, a country whose leaders have repeatedly claimed that Osama, the world's most wanted terror leader, was either dead or hiding in Afghanistan.
"It had everything except a neon sign sticking out there," Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg told CNN, referring to the spacious and high-walled mansion in Abbottabad.
Republican Allen West echoed the angry mood in the Congress. "There is no way people in the ISI (Pakistan's intelligence agency) and military did not know that Osama has been living there for quite some time," said West, who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In his briefing on how Osama was trapped and killed, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney spoke approvingly of Pakistan's cooperation on the war on terror but admitted that US-Pak ties were 'complicated'.
"Pakistan is a partner - a key partner - in the fight against Al Qaeda and terrorism," he said. "It's a complicated relationship. There's no question. And we do have our differences."
Afghanistan too
The Afghan government yesterday said that Pakistan must have known Osama bin Laden was living in a military garrison town near the capital. The two countries have long had tense relations, especially over the issue of Pakistan failing to target Taliban militants using its territory as sanctuary to launch cross-border attacks against Afghan and international forces.
"Not only Pakistan, with its strong intelligence service, but even a very weak government with a weak intelligence service would have known who was living in that house in such a location," said Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
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