Bush made Osama deal with Musharraf (not to catch him)

[donsu]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?msid=144096

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has struck a deal with the US not to capture Osama Bin Laden, fearing this could lead to unrest in Pakistan, according to a special investigation by The Guardian .

-snip-

Ijaz believed an agreement was reached between Musharraf and US authorities shortly after Bin Laden's flight from his stronghold Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001.



The Pakistanis feared that to capture or kill Bin Laden so soon after a deeply unpopular war in Afghanistan would incite civil unrest in Pakistan and trigger a spate of revenge al-Qaida attacks on Western targets across the world.



"There was a judgment made that it would be more destabilising in the longer term. There would still be the ability to get him at a later date when it was more appropriate", Ijaz told The Guardian .
-snip-
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the article ends with this interesting statement:

Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and security analyst said: "I think the Americans find their reliance on the Pakistanis is now increasing."

[aquart]

1. So Bush sold us out to a foreign power?

Placed their safety above OUR safety?

What's the word for that?

Oh, yes. Treason.

[The Night Owl]

2. Gah! Faux's Mansoor Ijaz again!

Ijaz is not credible.

Ijaz also claims that he brokered a couple of offers to have Bin Laden captured in Sudan and extradited to the U.S. after the Saudis turned down a real offer to have Bin Laden extradited from Sudan to Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly, Ijaz offers no proof that he brokered any such deals.

I am starting to think that Ijaz is nuts and fancies himself as some kind of James Bond double naught spy.

[alcuno]

3. Wait! I thought he was on *'s side?

I'm confused.

[supercrash]

5. Of course he isn't credible....

Of course he isn't credible...he works for Fox News

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,46241,00.html

[blondeatlast]

4. I think the pressure comes from the Pakistanis more than Bush.

I despise Bush, but if Musharraf wants to stay in power, he has to appease the Muslim wingnuts (no, no broad brush is being used, few are wackos) in Pakistan.

No matter how wacky the source, it wasn't the US that has tried to assassinate Musharif, TWICE. It was the wingnuts in Pakistan.

My husband is an Indian national, and he puts little credibility in the Times of India. He reads for news of . . .

Cricket.

[RainDog]

6. Sy Hersh New Yorker article

from 2001, I think?

mentioned the curious incident of our troops in the mtns between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the Tora Bora region, where Osama was supposedly hiding.

Then, someone at the highest levels of govt, according to Hersh, had to give the order for our troops to stand down as Pakistan flew in planes and allowed them to fly people out of the region.

These planes included members of the Pakistani secret police, or ISI, which was fighting FOR the Taliban.

...who knows who else was on that plane. I doubt Osama was, but the guy they caught in Pakistan later...forget his name, M. K. Mohammed?.. the supposed planner of 9-11...likely was....and his "capture, or death" on two different occasions, is also odd.

The rationale for this action was that Mush. was too vulnerable to allow for the capture or death of all those ISI people...it would cause a crisis of his govt, and he is the strong arm holding back a fundamentalist govt in his country.

So what do you do in that case? Support him, would seem to be the "real politik" solution to the question of "does America want to possibly trigger a situation in which Osama supporters are in control of a govt with nuclear weapons.

Of course, this answer then begs the question of why Saddam was overthrown, considering all the intelligence analysis of possible outcomes of that scenario, which are occuring right now, no matter what the b.s. from Perle that Iraqis would love to have an American chosen "Shah-clone" rather than Saddam.

Isn't quite working out that way.

I hope Iraq is able to avoid a civil war, and the implications for that if the Kurds fight for independence and Turkey gets worried, and...