— Incredulous lawmakers are pressing Pakistan for answers to two simple questions: What did its army and intelligence agents know of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts and when did they know it?
The al-Qaida terrorist leader behind the Sept. 11 attacks lived and died in a massive, fortified compound built in 2005 and located on the outskirts of Abbottabad, some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. It stood just a half-mile from the Kakul Military Academy, Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, and close to various army regiments.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., who has traveled extensively to Pakistan and even worked as an intermediary to get Davis released, said candid conversations with the Pakistanis were necessary.
However, Kerry said it would be a mistake to forget “we’ve had people on the ground tracking this. There’s some degree of assistance and cooperation of the Pakistanis.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, cautioned against pushing Pakistan away. “I’m not the easiest on Pakistan, but the fact is we had a period of time when we had nothing to do with Pakistan and it was not a productive exercise,” McCain said. Pakistan’s nuclear arms would be a direct threat to U.S. national security, he said, if those weapons fell into the wrong hands.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that while Pakistan must be asked about what it knew of bin Laden’s whereabouts, “we have to remember that are still equities that we have in Pakistan as it relates to our national security.””It is incredibly important to us to maintain a relationship so we can pursue those targets that we know are posing a threat to the United States,” Rogers said. “So that’s a balance, and we’ll have to work through it.”
Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon and Nahal Toosi in Pakistan and Alan Fram in Washington contributed to this report.
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