{"id":419716,"date":"2011-05-08T17:52:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T17:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/05\/08\/obama-says-bin-laden-had-support-network-in-pakistan\/"},"modified":"2011-05-08T17:52:46","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T17:52:46","slug":"obama-says-bin-laden-had-support-network-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/08\/obama-says-bin-laden-had-support-network-in-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama says bin Laden had &#8216;support network&#8217; in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"203\">\n<div>\n<p><strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>President Obama says Osama bin Laden had a support network within Pakistan<\/li>\n<li>Pakistani authorities need to investigate how bin Laden hid in their country, aide says<\/li>\n<li>Top members of Foreign Relations Committee stress importance of U.S.-Pakistan ties<\/li>\n<li>Pakistan&#8217;s U.S. ambassador says an investigation is underway and &#8220;heads will roll&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Washington (CNN)<\/strong> &#8212; President Barack Obama says Osama bin Laden had a group of supporters within Pakistan helping to keep the al Qaeda leader secure for years, despite an American-led international manhunt that extended for nearly a decade with Islamabad&#8217;s ostensible support.<\/p>\n<p>Top U.S. officials insist Pakistan remains a critical U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, but are demanding answers to troubling about questions bin Laden&#8217;s presence in that country over the course of the last six years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan,&#8221; Obama said in a &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; interview airing Sunday on CBS. &#8220;But we don&#8217;t know who or what that support network was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The president said U.S. officials &#8220;don&#8217;t know whether there might have been some people inside of government (or) people outside of government, and that&#8217;s something that we have to investigate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;More importantly,&#8221; he added, &#8220;the Pakistani government has to investigate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pakistani authorities have &#8220;indicated they have a profound interest in finding out what kinds of support networks bin Laden might have had,&#8221; Obama noted. &#8220;But these are questions that we&#8217;re not going to be able to answer&#8221; immediately after the raid on bin Laden&#8217;s compound.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to take some time for us to be able to exploit the intelligence that we were able to gather on site,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistani leaders insist they didn&#8217;t take part in either the establishment or the maintenance of bin Laden&#8217;s safe haven, and have promised a full examination of the circumstances that allowed him spend years in Abbottabad, a city with a heavy military presence located a mere 30 miles north of the country&#8217;s capital.<\/p>\n<p>Asked by CNN&#8217;s Fareed Zakaria whether bin Laden&#8217;s presence in Pakistan could be chalked up to &#8220;duplicity or incompetence,&#8221; Pakistan&#8217;s U.S. ambassador, Husain Haqqani, said Sunday he couldn&#8217;t provide an explanation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think the best way to move forward is to wait for the findings of an internal (investigation) &#8212; a look at the issue,&#8221; Haqqani said. &#8220;I do not think that speculation is going to solve any problem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan&#8217;s government &#8220;did not have a policy of protecting these people,&#8221; he asserted during an interview on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Obama&#8217;s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, told CNN&#8217;s Candy Crowley he has not seen any information to indicate Pakistani officials knew bin Laden was living in Abbottabad.<\/p>\n<p>But if evidence is discovered that is &#8220;highly disturbing, we&#8217;ll certainly press that,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Donilon&#8217;s comments came amid calls in Congress and elsewhere to cut U.S. financial assistance in Pakistan, which currently receives roughly $1.5 billion in annual aid.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, CIA Director Leon Panetta &#8212; nominated by Obama to succeed Robert Gates as defense secretary &#8212; told House members during a closed-door briefing that Pakistan was &#8220;either involved or incompetent,&#8221; according to two sources in attendance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll clearly be working with (Pakistani authorities) to understand how we got to this point,&#8221; Donilon said. He stressed, however, that &#8220;more terrorists and extremists have been captured or killed (in Pakistan) than any other place in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need to look at this in a calm and cool way,&#8221; he said. There is a lot &#8220;at stake in that region.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Questions are being raised quite aggressively in Pakistan,&#8221; Donilon later added on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week.&#8221; Authorities there &#8220;need to do an investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Indiana&#8217;s Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN it seems &#8220;very logical&#8221; that &#8220;a lot of people in Pakistan knew about (bin Laden&#8217;s) whereabouts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Lugar dismissed calls to cut Pakistan&#8217;s financial aid. Like Donilon, he stressed the reality that Pakistan remains a &#8220;critical factor in the war against terror.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, Lugar highlighted the importance of keeping Islamabad&#8217;s nuclear arsenal secure, and out of the hands of Islamic or other extremists.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, the chairman of the committee, expressed optimism that the uproar over bin Laden&#8217;s presence in Abbottabad will allow American and Pakistani leaders to &#8220;punch a reset button&#8221; in their relationship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hopefully (now) there can be a readjustment,&#8221; he said on CBS&#8217;s &#8220;Face the Nation.&#8221; Kerry noted Pakistan&#8217;s past assistance in the U.S. fight against terrorism, including its willingness to allow U.S. predator drone strikes within its borders.<\/p>\n<p>Former Bush CIA Director Michael Hayden appeared to agree with Kerry&#8217;s assessment of the situation created by the raid.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This may be an opportunity to reboot this relationship with Pakistan, and get them to be more aggressive in going after these common targets,&#8221; Hayden said during an appearance on NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Meet the Press.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even if Pakistan was not complicit in providing the safe haven&#8221; to bin Laden, &#8220;they certainly fell well short of what it was we thought or perhaps they think they should be,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Haqqani said on &#8220;This Week&#8221; that Islamabad would have taken action if any member of the Pakistani civilian government, military, or intelligence service knew bin Laden&#8217;s location.<\/p>\n<p>He conceded there had been a failure on the part of his government, and said an investigation is already ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Heads will roll&#8221; once it&#8217;s completed, Haqqani promised. The investigation &#8220;will lead wherever it will lead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan &#8220;wants to put to rest any misgivings the world has about our role&#8221; in the fight against terrorism, he said.<\/p>\n<p>As part of that effort, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik met with a number of senior Saudi officials over the weekend, including King Abdullah. The officials discussed, among other things, the changing security situation after the U.S. raid on bin Laden&#8217;s compound.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan&#8217;s prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, is expected to deliver a new terrorism-related policy statement Monday as the Pakistani parliament opens a debate on the U.S. raid.<\/p>\n<p>During his appearance on ABC, Haqqani acknowledged deep social and political divisions in his country. Pakistan remains a hotbed of anti-U.S. sentiment and is home to a large number of people with sympathy for bin Laden. &#8220;Jihadi has-beens&#8221; are &#8220;still alive and kicking,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, however, he noted the substantial time and resources Washington has devoted to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan &#8212; countries many analysts see as less critical fronts in the war against al Qaeda and similar organizations. He also blasted the U.S. government&#8217;s willingness to conduct a raid in Pakistan without Islamabad&#8217;s awareness or consent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we are offended by is the violation of our sovereignty,&#8221; he said. &#8220;America has a selling job to do in Pakistan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Later, Haqqani told CNN that Washington needs to do more to acknowledge Pakistan&#8217;s contributions in the war against al Qaeda and other terrorist elements.<\/p>\n<p>The United States needs &#8220;to show respect &#8230; for what Pakistan has done,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Pakistan has sacrificed thousands of lives in fighting terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Haqqani criticized what he characterized as &#8220;a strange mood&#8221; in Washington. &#8220;Every time something goes wrong with Pakistan, there is open season on Pakistan,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The relationship between Washington and Islamabad is &#8220;based on mutual need,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Constantly bashing us&#8221; doesn&#8217;t help the situation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CNN&#8217;s Samson Desta, Mary Grace Lucas, and Alan Silverleib contributed to this report<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[Read more here|Read the original here|Read more from the original source|Continued here|Read more|More here|View original post here|More|See more here|See original here|Originally posted here|Here is the original post|See the original post|The rest is here|Read the rest here|See the rest here|Go here to read the rest|Go here to see the original|See the original post here|Read the original post|Original post|Read the original|Link|Excerpt from|View post|Visit link|Follow this link|Continue reading here|See the article here|Read this article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> STORY HIGHLIGHTS President Obama says Osama bin Laden had a support network within Pakistan Pakistani authorities need to investigate how bin Laden hid in their country, aide says Top members of Foreign Relations Committee stress importance of U.S.-Pakistan ties Pakistan&#8217;s U.S. ambassador says an investigation is underway and &#8220;heads will roll&#8221; Washington (CNN) &#8212; President Barack Obama says Osama bin Laden had a group of supporters within Pakistan helping to keep the al Qaeda leader secure for years, despite an American-led international manhunt that extended for nearly a decade with Islamabad&#8217;s ostensible support. Top U.S<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Obama says bin Laden had &#039;support network&#039; in Pakistan - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/08\/obama-says-bin-laden-had-support-network-in-pakistan\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Obama says bin Laden had &#039;support network&#039; in Pakistan - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"STORY HIGHLIGHTS President Obama says Osama bin Laden had a support network within Pakistan Pakistani authorities need to investigate how bin Laden hid in their country, aide says Top members of Foreign Relations Committee stress importance of U.S.-Pakistan ties Pakistan&#039;s U.S. ambassador says an investigation is underway and &quot;heads will roll&quot; Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama says Osama bin Laden had a group of supporters within Pakistan helping to keep the al Qaeda leader secure for years, despite an American-led international manhunt that extended for nearly a decade with Islamabad&#039;s ostensible support. 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