Pakistan’s Role Provokes Many Questions

Tuesday, 03 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

In response to Osama bin Laden’s death, the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, writes a guest column for the Washington Post this morning. He plays it straight saying Sunday’s raid was “not a joint operation,” but that the US action came as the result of a decade of cooperation. Zardari points out that Bin Laden’s death has personal significance for him: his wife, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by Al-Qaeda terrorists in 2007. He also alludes to reports in the US media that the Pakistani government was somehow complicit in hiding Bin Laden writing, “such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact.”

The New York Times asks several pointed questions about the country’s role this morning, including one I’ve heard frequently in the past few days: How could the military not have known? The Times explores that question, saying the Pakistani military experienced the “gamut of shock and embarrassment.”