Anger At Pakistan Over Possible Knowledge of Harboring Osama Bin Laden

Focus has turned away from the death of Osama Bin Ladin, and lawmakers in DC are asking the obvious question. How is it the Pakistani government, who took billions of dollars in aid from the United States, didn't know Osama Bin Ladin was living in the center of Pakistan's military heart?

Fox News reports:

Pressure is building on Capitol Hill to find out whether Pakistani officials knew about Usama bin Laden's location on the outskirts of a military town and withheld that information from Americans for years.

Bin Laden could have been living in his $1 million house on a sprawling compound in northern Pakistan for as long as six years, according to the White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials have stressed that Pakistani cooperation helped lead Americans to the Al Qaeda leader and that the U.S.-Pakistan alliance must continue.

But with that alliance already fraying, U.S. lawmakers say the burden is on Pakistan to prove it was not complicit in keeping bin Laden's location under wraps. Trust between the two governments was clearly an issue in the run-up to the mission, with top officials suggesting they were concerned some in Islamabad could blow their cover. CIA chief Leon Panetta, in a blunt assessment, said in an interview with Time that it was decided "any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission" because they "might alert the targets."

Republicans are leading the charge against Pakistan. Tennessee Republican Bob Corker stated, ""The discovery that bin Laden was living in comfortable surroundings merely 35 miles from Islamabad calls into question whether or not the Pakistanis had knowledge that he was there and did not share that knowledge. The claim had been he was difficult to find because he was hiding in the mountains."

Other Republicans plan to introduce bills that would cut off aid to Pakistan. Of course, considering Republican budget promises and the fact that we are broke, why is it the budget contains any foreign aid at this moment?

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, plans to introduce legislation this week to freeze U.S. aid to Pakistan "unless the State Department can certify to Congress that Pakistan was not harboring America's number one enemy."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., similarly called for more information on what Pakistan knew before they can receive the $3 billion in foreign aid requested for Pakistan in 2012, and potentially more in additional military funding.


I say cut them off. They have opposed US predator drones over the past few months flying in their airspace gathering information and dropping bombs on Al Qaeda. They have shown their true colors and it was enforced with the raid on Sunday.