Pakistan

Bin Laden aftermath: Obama’s Pakistan trip under cloud

Obama’s promised trip to Pakistan this year is now a looming headache for the White House.

May 08, 2011

WASHINGTON:

US President Barack Obama’s promised trip to Pakistan this year, once seen as a reward for a key ally in the fight against terrorism, is now a looming headache for the White House as it tries to determine whether the government in Islamabad was complicit in allowing Osama bin Laden to live for years within the country’s borders.

Obama told Pakistani officials in the fall that he planned to travel there in 2011, in part to soothe concerns that the president was favouring Pakistan’s archrival India by visiting there first.

White House spokesmen refused to say whether Obama still planned to go.

In the hours after Bin Laden’s killing by a US special forces team in Pakistan, John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, left the topic open.

”I’m not going to address the president’s schedule,” he said. ”I think there’s a commitment that the president has made that he is intending to visit Pakistan. A lot depends on availability, scheduling.”

The decision is of enormous strategic and symbolic importance to both countries. A presidential trip would signal a continued US commitment to its complicated, yet necessary, relationship with Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2011.

COMMENTS (5)

Munir Saami | 12 years ago | Reply This may shock many: "The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned. The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials. Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion. "There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," said a former senior US official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations. "The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn't stop us."" http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/09/osama-bin-laden-us-pakistan-deal/print

Nadeem Akhter | 12 years ago | Reply The trip instead of being clouded by the event should be more clear and imminent. the President should visit Pakistan not only to take its people in confidence but also to show to the world that we are strategic-allies or "Partners" as often said by US Officials.The Trip would clarify the point of view of the United States, would provide a forum for future strategy, which is the need of the day and would provide some air to the halt in the relationship.