Pak- Government decides not to probe Abbottabad attack

Ahmad Noorani

Monday, May 09, 2011

Islamabad

The government has decided not to conduct inquiry of any kind at any level whatsoever about the shameful Abbottabad incident to find out the real culprits responsible for intelligence failure and violation of Pakistani borders and sovereignty. Only an in-house probe will be conducted by the Pakistan Army, it is reliably learnt from federal cabinet sources.

Credible Foreign Office sources say that this attitude of the Zardari-led Gilani government is also under American pressure that there was no need now to find out how the Pakistan intelligence agencies and intelligence system failed to monitor Osama or detect the arrival, operation and departure of US helicopters and other aircraft. 

Some media reports say a few US institutions are officially asking Pakistan to apprise them of the reasons for its intelligence failure to find out Osama s hideout near its top military school a few kilometres from its capital. 

Sources said that Prime Minister Gilani after discussing with all concerned has decided that any investigations will be confined to the one already ordered by army officials on May 5. 

However, this federal cabinet source said that extreme agitation is expected from within the parliament as majority believes that some military and intelligence authorities are themselves responsible for the mega intelligence and security failure and thus they couldn t be given the mandate to conduct inquiry by themselves. 

The source said that as per the publicly announced commitment of PM, only a joint session of parliament will be given the opportunity to discuss the issue. 

However senior parliamentarian and senior vice president of Awami National Party Haji Adeel who is also memebr of Senate standing committee on defence, in an interview with The News made it clear that the prime minister will speak on this issue in the parliament.

There is a likelihood that other speeches may not be allowed but MPs may demand that top military and intelligence leadership should be summoned into the parliament so an impartial inquiry and investigations could be carried out and parliament could recommend punishment for any responsible official. 

He said that those who will be declared responsible should be arrested.

When Prime Minister Secretariat was contacted officially by The News to get the version on these questions, press secretary to the Prime Minister, Shabbir Anwar, replied through his staff that there was no proposal under consideration to conduct any investigation through any committee or parliamentary committee. 

Foreign Office sources confided to The News that US didn t want Pakistan to conduct any kind of investigations and simply wants it to boost up its cooperation with US in its war against terror. These sources said that according to present developments it seems that situation will normalize within next few days without any heads being rolled and visas will continue to be issued to Americans at the same pace. 

A top Foreign Office official even said that because of influx of huge number of American nationals into Pakistan during President Zardari s rule, US didn t need any concrete help from Pakistan s agencies in fact as CIA itself has very big network in all the important areas which have mega human force and sophisticated technological support.