Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: June 21, 2004
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/748821.cms
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."
