Obama administration officials here and in Islamabad demanded Tuesday that Pakistan quickly provide answers to specific questions about Osama bin Laden and his years-long residence in a bustling Pakistani city surrounded by military installations.
In addition to detailed information about the bin Laden compound — who owned and built the structure and its security system — Pakistani officials were asked in meetings with U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic interlocutors to provide names of witnesses who can testify about visitors to the compound. U.S. lawmakers have said it defied logic that bin Laden was able to hide in plain sight without some level of official Pakistani knowledge or complicity. Some have suggested that $3 billion in annual U.S. military and economic assistance be reconsidered, while others joined with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who said Tuesday that “this is no time to back away from Pakistan.”
How Pakistan responds will determine the future of the long-brittle relationship between the two countries, as well as the endgame in the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about what they called a pivotal moment.
The stakes could not be higher. A final breach could put at risk administration hopes of continuing military progress against Afghan Taliban insurgents and bringing reconcilable insurgent leaders, lodged in Pakistani sanctuaries, to the negotiating table this year. It could make the CIA’s drone missile strikes against insurgent targets in Pakistan, conducted with tacit Pakistani cooperation and some intelligence assistance, much more difficult.
But the moment of crisis was also seen by some administration officials as an unprecedented opportunity to solidify the relationship, assuming wholehearted Pakistani cooperation. “At this point, it’s very important that Pakistan demonstrate its commitment to work with America in the war on terror,” one U.S. official said. After weeks of tight focus on the operation itself, the White House will hold high-level national security meetings this week on how to leverage the post-raid situation to gain more, rather than less, cooperation.
Two days after helicopter-borne U.S. Navy SEALs took bin Laden’s life in a surprise raid, Pakistan seems unsure how to position itself. Reeling from domestic criticism over an American operation on its soil and international suspicion that it is harboring terrorists, the Islamabad government expressed “deep concern” Tuesday over what it called an “unauthorized unilateral action,” but also took credit for helping to locate the terrorist leader.
A Foreign Ministry statement said Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), had kept the compound “under sharp focus” since construction got underway in 2003. But one intelligence official said that although it was searched in pursuit of an al-Qaeda operative that year, nothing was found and it was never scrutinized again.
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