OBL raid — awaiting answers

Press conference by Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, seemed to confirm that he is interested violation of sovereignty .

The commission set up to investigate the US Navy SEALS mission on May 2 that killed Osama bin Laden should have twin objectives — to find out why the military was asleep at the wheel while the territory it is zealously supposed to protect was so easily violated by the Americans and, even more importantly, how the most-wanted terrorist in the world was able to find refuge in a tranquil cantonment town within our borders. Unfortunately, a press conference by the chairman of the commission, Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, seemed to confirm that he is interested only in looking into the former aspect of the raid. He stated unequivocally that the May 2 raid was indeed a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty but had nothing to say about whether Bin Laden’s presence in the country was the result of an intelligence failure or whether he had help from elements in the government or the military.

Regrettably, any pronouncement about our sovereignty being violated by the US needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. We do not yet definitively know whether the US acted alone or with the permission of either the civilian or military leadership of the country. In the past, the establishment has not been very forthcoming about the level of its involvement with the US.

Justice Iqbal also criticised Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, for issuing visas to hundreds of Americans, which he said were given without much scrutiny. After memogate, Haqqani seems to have become a convenient scapegoat for all those who do not approve of either the current government. We sincerely hope that the OBL commission does not fall prey to the same temptation or else the credibility of its final report may be called into question.

The fact is that Haqqani alone would not have had the authority to issue these visas; it would have required approval from the interior ministry and background checks by the security agencies. This may only be a small detail but it needs to be addressed since we would not want to see the commission whitewashing the role of the military at the expense of the elected government.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2011.