May 3, 2011 6:55 PM

Musharraf: Bin Laden hideout not Pakistan ISI's fault

By
Lara Logan
(CBS News) 

When Gen. Pervez Musharraf was the man in charge of Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden was already living in the compound where he was killed.

Amid a growing controversy about how much Pakistani authorities knew about bin Laden, and when they knew it, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan spoke to Musharraf in Dubai, where he now lives. For his part, Musharrak insists that nobody knew.

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Musharraf: "I do agree that (the news about bin Laden in Pakistan) is surprising and a lot of people in Pakistan are not believing that. This is unfortunate. It needs to be investigated. Who slipped up? Why this negligence?"

Logan: "You are really asking people to believe that this all happened without the knowledge of the intelligence services and the military and that it came as a complete surprise?"

Musharraf: "Yes, yes, I am saying that and I mean every word of it."

Logan: "It's just very hard to believe that Osama bin Laden could have spent all this time in Pakistan, living right under your noses and nobody would have known about it?"

Musharraf: "Why you continuously saying that? I think instead of wasting time on this issue, let us agree to disagree on this point. I don't agree."

The general also disagreed when he was interviewed on "60 Minutes" in 2008. He was pressed on what Pakistan was doing to find bin Laden. This is what he said then: "There is no proof whatsoever that he is here."

After the capture of bin Laden in Pakistan, and the revelation that the terrorist leader had been living there for several years, Musharraf said: "I don't remember at all having said that he surely will not be in Pakistan."

Logan: "You said there was no proof that he was in Pakistan."

Musharraf: "Yes, there was no proof, obviously, and those who were saying he was in Pakistan, I don't think they were talking with any evidence."

Musharraf vigorously defended Pakistan's past efforts to track down al Qaeda leaders.

Musharraf: "We have achieved successes and that should be recognized. If we continuously keep blaming the army and the ISI for what they have not been able to do, well, if they haven't been able to do it then it's CIA's failure also."

Logan: "Do you know of any other terrorist leaders wanted by the U.S. that are sheltering in your country?"

Musharraf: "Well, there may be more. Yes, there may be. Yes."

Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Taliban leader Mullah Omar are just two of the senior terrorist leaders believed to be based inside Pakistan at the moment.


© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
Add a Comment See all 32 Comments
by NavySealRocks May 5, 2011 5:19 AM EDT
Americans are not stupid Mr. Musharraf. You can ask Bin Ladin when you meet him in hell.
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by Pastor_Burt May 5, 2011 2:49 AM EDT
Crucifying Pakistan over the location of Osama Bin Laden's death is meaningless.

To be fare, we must ask the question, "Who would ever think that Osama Bin Laden would build a million dollar home less than mile from Pakistan's equivalent to West Point." The answer is "No-one!" Not you, not your friends, not the CIA, not Pakistani intelligence, not anyone. So if you now claiming to be wise, admit that no-one including you would come to that conclusion where then is the reasonable logic to hang the failure on Pakistani intelligence now.

Let us be more thorough in our analysis. The question is, who and when in Pakistani IIS knew Osama Bin Laden was living in that or any Pakistani metropolis? Consider then how intelligence is gathered. Agents begin to interview, question, or interrogate locals. A news team decided to do this immediately after the story of Osama Bin Laden's death. Kids are a wonderful source of intel. Kids are anything but discrete. Kids talk and talk and you can't stop them from talking. So this news team went to the specific neighborhood where Osama Bin Laden's compound is and interviewed every kid they could find, "Did you know, suspect, or did anyone tell you that Osama Bin Laden was living in that compound?" The kids all reported, "No, we didn't know or suspect this." Just like you, just like everyone else, none of the children reasoned that Osama Bin Laden was living in that building.

So imagine if you will that you are now a Pakistani intelligence officer and you being suspicious of this compound begin to check with the locals who lives in that building. If the local kids never figured it out, what would make you think that any of their parents or dull-witted neighbors would have figured it out as well? Remember, you wouldn't guess that Osama Bin Laden was there, so why would any of the adult locals or children. Thus, being a Pakistani Intelligence officer, whatever would be the conclusion of your investigation, that conclusion would not be that Osama Bin Laden was living less than a mile from Pakistan's equivalent to West Point. That being your reasoned conclusion, how then could anyone else come to the conclusion without other data that Osama Bin Laden was living in that compound?

Now whereas it is easy for critics to kick around the Pakistan IIS intelligence, American intelligence should shoulder an equal portion of blame if any blame is due. According to former C.I.A. officials, the distrust between the C.I.A. and the Pakistan ISI became so deep in the last several years that the C.I.A created its own network of human intelligence within Pakistan that ran parallel and separate to the ISI. It is meaningful to know that it was the C.I.A.'s own intelligence network which eventually found Bin Laden's lair. So given that the C.I.A. had its own parallel network in Pakistan, if one is to criticize Pakistan for not finding Bin Laden earlier, wouldn't it follow that the C.I.A. is deserving of equal blame for not having its own Pakistan network find Bin Laden earlier as well?

The remaining shred of evidence supporting speculation that Pakistan was double dealing is that the U.S. chose not to inform Pakistan at all of the emanate raid to kill Osama Ben Laden. Yes, the U.S. did not share or trust Pakistan with this information prior to the attack. But then the U.S. did not share or trust that same information with the British, the French, the Italians, the Canadians, the Mexicans, Moscow, NATO or 99.9% of the U.S.'s own government personnel, or for that matter any of you likely reading these comments or even myself. I am sure the Obama administration never intended that lack of information to any of these parties as an implied criticism. Where lives are at stake, where the interests of the country are vital, information is to be only dispensed on a need-to-know basis. This is how it should be. Had Pakistan intelligence found bin Laden, that government would have acted in silence as well.

The fact is that Pakistan's leaders and intelligence agency would have been shocked and appalled had the U.S. informed them in advance. They would have correctly reasoned to themselves, "Are these people just stupid. What if there is a leak within our organization. Is informing us worth the risk of compromising the mission?" No! Pakistan's leaders and its intelligence agency and those of any other country would not have wanted to be informed in advance. The burden of even receiving such information would simply have been to grave. What the U.S. did in not informing others was to employ standard risk management principles.

U.S. foreign policy must be framed on responsible substance. Foreign policy should never be framed based upon reckless speculation.

Sincerely presented by Pastor Burt Wilkins, Retired US citizen living in the Philippines
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by calypsoman9 May 4, 2011 2:09 PM EDT
If Musharaf, and the current leaders of Pakistan as well as the Security people in Pakistan did not truly know of Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan then I would say they weren't doing their jobs well enough. In addition with the compound that Bin Laden living in, being so unusual for the neighbourhood as well as having many unique characteristics and attributes, the CIA, the American military, and all allied personnel were also not doing as good a job as they should. They should have beeb suspicious of this place. We've been giving Pakistan $$$$$$B over the years and they just "played" us. And our leaders in the US simply went along and as I have learnt Pakistan will not suffer any consequences as a result. Shameful in my view!
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by AvignonMimi May 4, 2011 5:04 AM EDT
People in civilized countries do not understand that Pakistan and Kashmir are not developed countries.

The government doesn't know everything like in in the west, where we have building permits, birth certificates, drivers licenses, etc.

You can't travel 3 feet in Pakistan with meeting someone who no one knows is in the country.

If you look at the house the Saudi criminal lived in, you can see they had no construction permit, as it was ramshackle. They never went to the government for services, as there is no services of that type in Pakistan.

They are mostly peasants and conscripts. Their lives revolve around war with other tribes, and infidels.
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by cbs_bull May 4, 2011 4:44 AM EDT
Musharraf probably has better knowledge than anyone else on Earth about al Qaeda and Taliban. We just have to deal with devil sometimes...
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by tmittelstaed May 4, 2011 2:26 AM EDT
Of course he knew that Bin Laden was in Pakistan. But he definitely did not do what it would have taken to find Bin Laden.
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by ALBrainTrust13 May 4, 2011 1:46 AM EDT
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE SIZE AND CONFIGURATION OF BIN LADEN'S COMPOUND, IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT IN AN AUTHORTARIAN STATE LIKE PAKISTAN, THAT NEITHER THE LOCAL OR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS DIDN'T KNOW EXACTLY...E X A C T L Y ....WHO OWNED AND LIVED IN IT.

ARE WE TO BELIEVE THAT NO ONE CHECKED OUT WHO BUILT SUCH A COMPOUND AND WHO WAS LIVING IN IT???
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by inithin May 4, 2011 12:49 AM EDT
Dude, just shut your pie hole. Nobody cares *** you think. ****!!!
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by houstontx006 May 4, 2011 12:20 AM EDT
Go back to your flea ridden camels! Send over a B-52 and end the problem in Pakistan. Simple solution.
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by mahdeealoo May 4, 2011 12:08 AM EDT
Looked like a dump.
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