US Intelligence Suggests Coverup in Bhutto Assassination - Suicide Bomber May Have Been Inserted to Eliminate Evidence

Rawstory is reporting (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_intelligence_suggests_coverup_in_Bhutto_0107.html) that the government of President Pervez Musharraf may have been involved in a cover of in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. My gut reaction has always been to have suspicions about the rush to blame the murder on Islamic fundamentalists in order to shore up the U.S. aid to Musharraf and also allow the Chimperator to run around using the terror bogeyman once again. It was all just a little bit too convenient. Meanwhile, al Qaeda is denying responsibility and the method of the assassination do not match Al Qaeda's usual format. Here are highlights from the coverage:

Mrs. Bhutto was shot when she stood up through the sunroof of her vehicle after a campaign rally for her Pakistan Peoples Party in Rawalpindi. Immediately after the shooting, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive, killing 25 people as well as himself.

The Musharraf government's initial reaction was to blame either al Qaeda or other terrorists closely linked to al Qaeda. However, contradictions in official statements, as well as the behavior of police – who hosed down the streets in Rawalpindi just an hour after Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated – quickly began to cast doubt on the official version of what happened, leaving serious questions surrounding Musharraf and the ISI and putting more pressure on the United States to pull back its support for Pakistani leadership.

According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the information, the US intelligence community understands the gunman to have been killed in the blast following Mrs. Bhutto's assassination. "He was killed, probably not knowing that the suicide bomber was there," said this source. "We don't know for sure if the two men arrived together. We do know that the assassin died in the explosion, and was probably meant to." Several other US intelligence officials concur that the bomber was likely "inserted" to "clean up" evidence of the shooting, including eliminating the gunman.

The reports that an al Qaeda suicide bomber had killed Mrs. Bhutto disappeared as quickly as they had surfaced, when footage showing a gunman and an audio capture which clearly indicated several shots fired prior to the explosion began to circulate online and in news accounts. Indeed, the changing official position as to the cause of death indicates that someone was very interested in making it appear that Mrs. Bhutto had died in a suicide bombing, with initial medical reports out of Rawalpindi on Thursday claiming she had died as the result of the explosion.

Others interviewed for this article share Johnson's skepticism and believe that the Bush administration will likely look the other way should any connection between Musharraf and the assassination be discovered, because, they say, at this point, the US has “no workable solution” and cannot discontinue support for Musharraf, given the options. “We are being held hostage to Musharraf's whim,” said one former intelligence official.

When asked why the West was even bothering with an investigation that would surely neither help alleviate pressure for any of the parties nor ease diplomatic tension when there is already no viable political solution, one US intelligence official responded that “This investigation is not being done for [the United States]. We are not the audience. The Pakistani people are.”

Who Was Really Responsible for Bhutto's Murder?

For the life of me, I do not even to presume to know at this point. However, the true answer will have huge ramifications as to where events in Pakistan and the Middle East may head. The Chimperator and Musharraf are quite naturally pointing to Islamic extremists, which is of course a distinct possibility, but also plays right in with the other motives of both of them. Bush needs to maintain the terror bogeyman to continue his unlawful actions and Musharraf wants to keep the US money spigot turned to a full on position. My worry is that if we get this answer wrong or go forward based on bad or false intelligence (gee, I cannot imagine what would make me worry about that), the outcome could be disastrous for the entire world.

As David Ignatius said in a column yesterday, his former classmate was indeed NOT someone the Islamic fundamentalists liked for obvious reasons (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701479.html):

Bhutto was fearless, from her college years in America to her cruel assassination yesterday. She had an unshakable belief that Pakistan should embrace the modern world with the same confidence and courage that she had. She believed in democracy, freedom and openness -- not as slogans but as a way of life. She wasn't perfect; the corruption charges that enveloped her second term as prime minister were all too real. But she remained the most potent Pakistani voice for liberalism, tolerance and change.

Yet Islamic fundamentalists were not her only opponents. In fact others are speculating that others might have had more to gain from her death than the Islamic Fundamentalists, including Musharraf (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/12/bin_laden_killed_bhutto_how_bl.html#more):

The shorthand being bandied about in the news that al-Qaeda is responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is so sloppy, so lacking in nuance or understanding of the dynamics of Pakistan, and so self-centered in its reference to America's enemy as to be almost laughable. Several U.S. defense and intelligence experts are quoted today dismissing even the possibility that President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani government forces, or other domestic elements could be involved, a conclusion that flies in the face of the country's history and ignores the obvious beneficiaries.

To say that "al-Qaeda" is responsible for Bhutto's assassination -- suggesting Osama bin Laden and an external force -- is to ignore all those political and religious factions inside the country that had the motives and resources to kill the former prime minister. Some of those factions in the government, the military or the intelligence services were likely privy to Bhutto's movements, and they could have actively schemed, if not played a direct role, in getting the suicide attacker to the right place at the right time.

Given Pakistan's history, it is unlikely that the true perpetrators will ever be brought to justice. For the United States though, the al-Qaeda bogey-man has the negative effect of affirming support for Musharraf and his martial law, while ignoring the various extremists who represent the true existential threat to the country. We should not let our al-Qaeda fixation blind us, just as the Soviet threat did in Iran in the 1970s, to the realities that Pakistan could implode of its own accord.

And as the Washington Post is reporting (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122802622.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2007122801300), the US seems all too ready to run down the path that the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda bear responsibility before anyone knows for certain who was really responsible for Bhutto's murder. Equally scary is the fact that the intelligence officer quoted in the story is still maintaining the false myth that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. If the Chimperator and company cannot even get known facts correct, I have no confidence that they will not blindly run down the path that they want rather than make sure it is indeed the correct path. If that happens, we all need to be very afraid. The Iraq debacle has shown what happens when the Chimperator and Cheney act based on delusions/desires instead of real facts. Here are some Post story highlights:

"The Taliban . . . are indeed a growing element of the domestic political stew" in Pakistan, said John Blackton, who served as a U.S. official in Afghanistan in the 1970s and again 20 years later. He noted that Pakistani military intelligence created the Taliban in Afghanistan. How the United States responds will hinge largely on the actions of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in whom U.S. officials have mixed confidence. If there is indeed a new challenge by Islamic militants emerging in Pakistan, then the United States will have to do whatever it can to support Musharraf, the U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.

"Pakistan must take drastic action against the Taliban in its midst or we will face the prospect of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of al-Qaeda -- a threat far more dangerous and real than Hussein's arsenal ever was," he said, referring to the deposed Saddam Hussein.

This rush to blame al-Qaeda is particularly suspect when Bhutto's own organization is disputing the involvement of al-Qaeda and accusing the Musharraf regime of a cover up (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT):

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- An Islamic militant group said Saturday it had no link to Benazir Bhutto's killing and the opposition leader's aides accused the government of a cover-up, disputing the official account of her death. The government stood firmly by its account of Thursday's assassination and insisted it needed no foreign help in any investigation. "This is not an ordinary criminal matter in which we require assistance of the international community. I think we are capable of handling it," said Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema.

Bhutto's aides said they doubted militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was behind the attack on the opposition leader and said the government's claim that she died when she hit her head on the sunroof of her vehicle was "dangerous nonsense."

Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

This cannot be a good development for stability in Pakistan or the Middle East in general. I cannot help but wonder if some of Musharraf's people were involved somehow. I do not put it past the Chimperator's buddy to use this type of heavy handed action to avoid the scheduled elections. Here are some highlights from the initial Reuters story (http://www.nationalpost.com/rss/story.html?id=200380):

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, her party said. "She has been martyred," said party official Rehman Malik. Ms. Bhutto, 54, died in hospital in Rawalpindi. Ary-One Television said she had been shot in the head.

Police said a suicide bomber fired shots at Ms. Bhutto as she was leaving the rally venue in a park before blowing himself up. "The man first fired at Bhutto's vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up," said police officer Mohammad Shahid. Police said 16 people had been killed in the blast.

Pakistan Attempts to Crush Protests by Lawyers - Will Bush and Cheney Get Ideas from This?

Based on the New York Times story (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/world/asia/06pakistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) the Chimperator's buddy, Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is sure showing an interesting example of building democracy - one of Chimpy's supposed goals for the Middle East. Or perhaps Musharraf's version of democracy is what Bush/Cheney would in their hearts like to implement in this country in lieu of the system envisioned by the U. S. Constitution as drafted by the founding fathers. It is obvious that Bush thinks he himself is above the rule of law. Here are some highlights:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 5 — Angry protests by thousands of lawyers in Lahore and other cities Monday demonstrated the first organized resistance to the emergency rule imposed by the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But the abrupt arrest of many of them threatened to weaken their challenge.

The real test of whether the opposition to General Musharraf will prevail appears to be several days off: The leader of the biggest opposition political party, Benazir Bhutto, has pledged to lead a major protest rally Friday in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad, the capital.

The strength of the crackdown by baton-wielding police officers who pummeled lawyers and then hauled them by the legs and arms into police wagons in Lahore showed the resolve of the Musharraf government to silence its fiercest opponents. At one point, lawyers and police clashed in a pitched battle, with lawyers standing on the roof of the High Court throwing stones at the police below, and the police hurling them back. Some of the lawyers were bleeding from the head, and some passed out in the clouds of tear gas. How long the lawyers could keep up their revolt without the support of opposition political parties, which so far have been lying low, remained in question.

General Musharraf said in his emergency edict that he was taking the action as chief of the Pakistani army, not as president, a fact that made his move akin to martial law, said Daniel Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. But General Musharraf stopped short of taking some steps that are characteristic of martial law, like shutting down Parliament and disbanding the executive government, he said. The main points of General Musharraf’s emergency order were the suspension of the Constitution, the dissolution of the Supreme Court and the provincial High Courts and the silencing of privately owned television news channels.

In fact many of the steps General Musharraf has taken since his emergency decree Saturday amounted to a kind of pre-emptive strike against the lawyers. He fired the entire Supreme Court. Many of its 17 judges, including Mr. Chaudhry, have been sidelined and are under house arrest. Judges in the four provincial High Courts were also fired.

A Supreme Court justice, Rana Bhagwandas, who is also under house arrest, said in a telephone interview that the United States should press for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. “The United States is a democratic government and democratic governments should work for democratic values across the globe,” Mr. Bhagwandas said. “Pakistan is no exception.”

To shore up the imposition of the emergency rule, the government appeared to be bypassing the regular police channels and instead sending orders for arrests through regional, politically appointed mayors, said Syed Fakhir Imam, a former speaker of the National Assembly.

Hmm, will Bush and Cheney rely on Blackwater and private "contractors" of the same ilk if and when they make a move to impose a Musharraf like democracy here? One has to wonder at times. Emperor Palpatine Cheney is crazy enough to want to try something that nuts and Chimpy would be putty in his hands.