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| Pervez Musharraf, George W. Bush, and Hamid Karzai (Courtesy: The Guardian) |
Urgent Update: The Guardian is now reporting that then Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and President George W. Bush struck a deal ten years ago. The deal authorized the United States to unilaterally attack inside Pakistan's borders if there was sufficient evidence that UBL was hiding at a particular location inside Pakistan. This accord was struck in 2001 and was largely due to Osama Bin Laden's escape from the mountainous Tora Bora region. The thought that he had escaped to Pakistan has certainly proven correct.
A former US security official is quoted as saying that there was an understanding that Pakistani officials would feign outrage at not being notified--but would take no real additional action. A former senior Pakistani official also stated, "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement." Referencing the apparent recent Pakistani outrage, The former US official said that was just the "public face" of the agreement and that the US "knew they would deny this stuff."
From documents released in the WikiLeaks fiasco, we know that Pakistan has a similar policy allowing the CIA to conduct strikes in Pakistan's tribal region. In fact, one document shows a Pakistani official telling a US official, "I don't care if they do it, as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."
In the end, and regardless of how everything happened, the fact that UBL is dead is great for the security of the United States and the rest of the world. This new information does help us to better understand the outrage in Pakistan. Interestingly, we are again led to the conclusion that things done by the Bush Administration have a lot more to do with getting UBL than most media outlets want to admit.
You can read The Guardian's article here.
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