His hands on his ample hips, Newt Gingrich looked like Mussolini up there on the stage at the GOP presidential debate as he bellowed “everybody knows” the Pakistanis were hiding Osama bin Laden in plain sight, “a mile from a Pakistani military academy.” Ron Paul, who knows more about monetary policy than the intricacies of the US-Pakistani relationship, stood there looking appalled as Gingrich let loose with his war cry: “Kill them!” The yahoos went wild with joy. The Newtster was reacting to Paul’s point about respecting Pakistani sovereignty – and the dangers of allowing such cross-border raids to become routine. After all, that could work both ways, as Paul tried – in vain – to point out.
The reality, though, is that the Pakistanis in all likelihood did know about the raid well in advance, and it is just as likely they had a hand in the entire operation from the start. As the Guardian reported at the time:
“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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda 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.’”
