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| Thu, 06-24-2004 - 3:42pm |
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/748821.cms
WASHINGTON: Pakistan, not Iraq, was a patron of terrorism and had closer ties with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leading up to the 9/11 attacks, members of the commission inquiring into the world's biggest terrorist act have said.
Amid a scorching debate about the Bush administration's decision to go to war against Iraq over what are now widely seen as spurious grounds, public attention is finally being focused on Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism, something that was only being whispered in intelligence circles and winked at by Washington.
On Sunday, Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission, blew the lid of Islamabad's policy of backing terrorism by telling ABC's This Week program that al-Qaeda had "a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq."
Other senior commission members and US counter terrorism officials have told the American media that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks by cutting deals with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden that allowed his al-Qaida terror network to flourish.
The financial aid to the Taliban and other assistance by two of the most important American allies in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism date at least to 1996 and appear to have helped immunize them from al-Qaida attacks within their own borders until long after the 2001 strikes, The Los Angeles Times quoted officials as saying.
The officials said that by not cracking down on bin Laden, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia "significantly undermined efforts to combat terrorism worldwide, giving the Saudi exile the haven he needed to train tens of thousands of fighters."
Pakistan, in particular, was accused of provided even more direct assistance, its military and intelligence agencies often coordinating efforts with the Taliban and al-Qaida.
There's no question the Taliban was getting money from the Saudis, and there's no question they got much more than that from the Pakistani government," former Senator. Bob Kerrey, one of 10 members of the congressionally appointed commission told the paper. "They (the Pakistanis) benefited enormously from their relationship with the Taliban and al-Qaida."
Pakistan's patronage of terrorism, widely publicised in India over the years but barely acknowledged publicly in the US, comes amid the Bush administration's constant coddling of the country's military, which for the longest time unabashedly used terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
Washington has now funnelled billions of dollars of foreign aid and arms to Islamabad -- ostensibly on grounds that it has had a change of heart and has now become a frontline ally in the war on terrorism --without focusing on its role in 9/11.
But several 9/11 commission members and influential commentators are now beginning to question and how and why the administration is being blindsided by Pakistan.
In a withering attack on the Bush administration's war on Iraq, columnist Maureen Dowd suggested Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may have been more deserving candidates for a US invasion, but Washington chose to target Iraq "because we could" -- "the Bush team knew that it wouldn't be hard to get rid of the second-rate dictator and romance novelist who posed no real threat."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/750400.cms
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration on Tuesday will say terrorism killed 625 people in 2003, more than double the 307 deaths it cited in a faulty report used to argue it is winning the war on terrorism, a US official said.
The revisions to the April “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report have embarrassed the Bush administration and dented its argument that Washington is prevailing in the war on terrorism, a key part of President Bush’s re-election strategy.
The official said the number of international terrorist attacks for 2003 also would rise to the “ballpark” of 200, above the 190 the department reported in its “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report on April 29.
US officials have been deeply embarrassed by the errors in their original figures. Officials have denied they manipulated the figures for political gain ahead of the US presidential election.