Pakistani Is Seeking Inquiry on U.S. Raid

The demand by Nawaz Sharif, the head of the party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, for an independent judicial commission to report to the public within 21 days stood in contrast to the announcement by the civilian government that the army would conduct its own inquiry.

Since the Navy Seal operation on May 2 that killed Bin Laden, there has been unusual criticism of the army, Pakistan’s best-financed and most revered institution.

“If the government refrains from setting up this commission, they will disappoint the public,” Mr. Sharif said at a news conference in Islamabad, the capital.

Mr. Sharif, who served twice as prime minister in the 1990s, was ousted from his second term by a military coup led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 1999. He has since been distrustful of the military, and his call on Wednesday was interpreted as an attempt to strengthen the hand of civilian rule in the face of the powerful military.

The call for an independent commission came after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told Parliament this week that a high-ranking army general would lead an internal army inquiry. The prime minister did not say when the inquiry would be finished or whether it would ever be made public, and critics of the raid and the military’s performance have so far felt the government’s explanations to be inadequate.

Mr. Sharif said he rejected the idea of the military investigation, which is to be led by Lt. Gen. Javed Iqbal, a confidant of the head of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. On Friday, General Kayani is scheduled to address a closed joint session of Parliament.

Farooq Sattar, the leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a party that is part of the governing coalition, said Wednesday that he was also demanding an independent commission that would consist of members of the judiciary, retired judges and Parliament members.

The fact that the Pakistani Army was not told of the raid by the Americans shocked many citizens, who have complained that the army allowed an infringement of the country’s sovereignty.

The army was not told of the raid by the Obama administration before it had started, on the grounds that Pakistan could not be trusted, said the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta. During the operation, Pakistani radar failed to detect the helicopters that carried the Navy Seal team in and out of Pakistan, and the military failed to react during the 40-minute raid at the compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

That Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan — either with or without the knowledge of the Pakistani intelligence agencies — caused slightly less alarm. Even so, Mr. Sharif said Pakistanis wanted to know how it was that Bin Laden had lived in the small garrison city of Abbottabad, near the nation’s premier military academy, for at least five years.

It was not immediately clear whether a judicial commission would actually be established. “The judiciary would probably be reluctant,” said Babar Sattar, a lawyer who writes about legal affairs and politics in the Pakistani news media.

It could be possible to assemble a panel of retired judges, depending on the terms of reference Mr. Sharif has suggested, Mr. Sattar said.

Mr. Sharif, who has annoyed American officials with his seeming tolerance of militant groups that have gained strength in his political base, Punjab Province, said he wanted the judicial commission to also address the American drone campaign against militants in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas.

Mr. Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, called for an end to the drones even before the killing of Bin Laden. General Kayani told the Americans last month that he wanted the drones stopped. But the Obama administration has said it has no intention of halting the drone attacks.

In his statement, Nawaz Sharif said he was upset at the growing isolation of Pakistan.

“Except for China, no one is supporting us,” he said. “Look at the state of the country and what the rest of the world is saying about us.”