Former president Pervez Musharraf has slammed the United States for violating Islamabad’s sovereignty in carrying carry out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a media report said Saturday. The former military strongman told the expatriate Pakistan community in Dubai that all “peace loving people” should be happy that bin Laden was killed, but no Pakistani accepted the violation of their sovereignty.
“…no country will accept such a violation by the US, which undermines Pakistan’s sovereignty, army and intelligence,” Musharraf was quoted as saying in The National daily. “This is not acceptable to any Pakistani individual.”
However, Musharraf insisted that Pakistan and the US must work together to eliminate terrorism and urged that there should not be a showdown between the two.
Musharraf said he did not believe that Pakistani government or military officials had knowledge of bin Laden’s presence or were harbouring him.
And interview with Headline Today, Musharraf admitted that he was embarrassed over the fact that bin Laden was staying in Abbottabad.
“Yes, I was embarrassed,” said Musharraf. To a query on his earlier statement that Osama was either dead or hiding in Afghanistan, Musharraf said: “I don’t remember having, as you said very confidently, declared that he is dead and he is not in Pakistan. I don’t think I ever did that…He could be anywhere.”
“Really, I was never confident of his whereabouts. He could be anywhere, it could be Afghanistan or Pakistan or anywhere.” On Osama being found deep inside Pakistan in the garrison city of Abbottabad, Musharraf said: “Let me give three possibilities. Firstly, there was complicity by the intelligence agencies or that they are harbouring him. I reject that for the reason that even President Obama has very clearly said that he is grateful to the Pakistani intelligence for having provided the leads.”
“The other is a possibility of a lower operative having known or (being) involved without the permission or against the policies of intelligence agencies, or the army or the government. That I rule out because if at all he was there, as people say, for a long time, then people keep changing.” “The third one is of not knowing….you call it incompetence or whatever. That is a possibility after all Bombay also took place after 9/11,” Musharraf asserted while adding, “It is very regrettable, it is terrible,” general added. He said it was wrong to call the army as incompetent following the slip-up “Let’s first differentiate intelligence agencies from army. Army is not incompetent. Intelligence agencies and within those agencies the operative who were responsible for the area… they are incompetent…,” Musharraf said.
Musharaff slams US
