Pakistan

Kerry: Pakistan And U.S. Are At A Critical Crossroads

Susan Crabtree | May 17, 2011, 1:35PM

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), fresh from a trip to Pakistan aimed at repairing deeply frayed relations with the United States, said Tuesday the two nations are at a critical crossroads and cautioned against either side taking precipitous action.

Kerry spent the weekend meeting with Pakistani officials and trying to determine steps that would assuage the deep distrust between the two nations after the discovery of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan and his subsequent killing in a covert operation by a Navy SEALs team.

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Osama Bin Laden

U.S. Officials Interviewed OBL's Wives, White House Confirms

Susan Crabtree | May 13, 2011, 2:45PM

Osama Bin Laden

The White House confirmed Friday that Pakistan has allowed U.S. officials to interview three of Osama bin Laden's wives, all of whom were living with him at his Abbottabad compound before a Navy SEAL team stormed it and killed bin Laden nearly two weeks ago.

In the aftermath of the U.S. raid on the hideaway, U.S. lawmakers and officials have accused at least some elements of the Pakistani government of helping harbor bin Laden and have been watching Pakistan's reaction to his killing closely. The wives, one of whom was injured during the raid, were taken into custody by Pakistani security forces after the SEALs left the compound.

White House spokesman Jay Carney was tight-lipped about the interrogation aside from confirming that it had occurred. He would not say who questioned the women or whether they cooperated.

"I can't characterize the interaction except to say that we have had access," Carney said, "And we obviously appreciate the cooperation we've received from the Pakistani government."

The White House and the Pentagon have not said exactly when this week U.S. officials questioned the wives. The Pakistani Taliban on Friday took credit for twin suicide bombings that killed at least 80 people outside a paramilitary training center in Shabqadar, Pakistan earlier in the day. A Taliban spokesman said the explosions were in retaliation for the killing of bin Laden.

Carney said the U.S. government remains in a "state of high vigilance" since the raid.

"We take very seriously the fact that while al Qaeda is weakened, it is not dead," Carney said.

President Obama plans to deliver a major speech on the events in the Middle East and North Africa and U.S. Policy in the region Thursday at the State Department.

From Carney's descriptions, the speech will be "fairly sweeping and comprehensive" focused on the democratic uprisings in the region that have taken place since January and how the U.S. has responded to the upheaval.

"[The President] has always viewed the future of the region through the prism of democratization and the yearning of the people...in the region for greater political freedom, participation in their government, desire for responsive governments that address their grievances," Carney said. "I'm sure he will call as he has in the past on the governments in the region to respond to those demands through peaceful political dialogue."

Obama plans to focus on the irony he sees in some leaders' violent crackdowns in the name of stability when those brutal actions are only leading to great instability in the country and the region, Carney told reporters.

At one point during the press briefing, Carney was asked whether he had information about Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's whereabouts and reports that he was no longer in Tripoli and is likely injured.

"Nothing I can share," Carney replied.

Pakistan

Feinstein Wants Answers About What Pakistani Officials Knew About OBL

Susan Crabtree | May 10, 2011, 4:00PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) isn't relying on U.S. intelligence officials alone to find out whether the Pakistani government was helping harbor Osama bin Laden.

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told TPM she has "her own people looking into it" and will hold closed-door classified hearings on the increasingly frayed relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan soon.

Despite her deep concerns about what the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden's compound before a U.S. assault team raided it and killed the notorious al Qaeda leader, Feinstein tempered remarks Monday in which she questioned continuing to send billions of dollars in humanitarian and military aid to the country and said the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan "makes less and less sense."

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Pakistan

White House to Pakistan: 'No Apologies' for OBL Raid

Susan Crabtree | May 9, 2011, 3:10PM

White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Obama stands by his decision to order a covert assault-team raid to cross into a Pakistani city and kill Osama bin Laden without telling Pakistani officials.

"We obviously take statements and concerns of the Pakistani government very seriously," Carney told reporters at a briefing. "We also do not apologize for the actions that we took. [The President] said back in the [2008] campaign...if this is the only way we can do it, to do it unilaterally, he would take that chance and we did it. It is beyond a doubt in his mind, that he had the right and the imperative to do it."

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60 Minutes

Obama: Bin Laden Had A 'Support Network' Inside Pakistan (VIDEO)

Jon Terbush | May 9, 2011, 9:07AM

Osama bin Laden had assistance from a support network established within Pakistan, President Obama said in an in-depth interview with CBS 60 Minutes on Sunday raising questions about the trustworthiness of one of America's key anti-terror allies in the region.

In a more than 30 minute interview, Obama said the conspicuousness of bin Laden's Pakistan safe house raised questions about how much was known, and by whom, within Pakistan. And, Obama said, both the U.S. and Pakistan had some investigating to do to root out the source.

"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan," Obama said. "But we don't know who or what that support network was."

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Osama Bin Laden

Obama Thanks SEAL Team Who Killed OBL For 'Job Well Done'

Susan Crabtree | May 6, 2011, 4:02PM

President Barack Obama at Fort Campbell, Ky.

President Obama flew to Fort Campbell, Ky., Friday to personally congratulate the special operations team responsible for the killing of Osama bin Laden, telling them and the rest of the troops on the base "job well done."

Vice President Joe Biden joined Obama in privately thanking the Navy SEAL team just hours after bin Laden's terror network al Qaeda confirmed the death of their leader and vowed to avenge it and retaliate against Americans.

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Pakistan

Sen. Carl Levin: Pakistan Had To Know Osama Bin Laden Was There

Benjy Sarlin | May 6, 2011, 11:17AM

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

Politicians across the political spectrum have been taking digs at Pakistan in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death in that country, but Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) offered up perhaps the toughest assessment yet from a senior lawmaker on Thursday.

In an interview with ABC News, Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was opening up an investigation into whether elements of Pakistan's government had foreknowledge of bin Laden's location.

"I think at high levels, high levels being the intelligence service, at high levels they knew it," Levin said. "I can't prove it. I just think it's counterintuitive not to."

The Senator tied the issue to a review of billions of dollar in economic and military aid to Pakistan.

"Some of it is in our interest. Some of it seems to be, is not clearly in our interest, and that's why the questions that we are asking the Pakistan government to answer need to be answered," Levin said.

Osama Bin Laden

With Pakistan Under Fire Over Bin Laden Hideout, Officials Urge Patience

Benjy Sarlin | May 4, 2011, 10:03AM

As elite opinion rapidly sours on Pakistani's government following the revelation that Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate compound outside a major city there, key officials and regional experts are counseling patience with what they admit is a tense and difficult alliance.

While lawmakers on the relevant House and Senate committees acknowledged that bin Laden's discovery raised new questions about whether elements of Pakistan's government and military are tied to terrorism, many also warned that there are few alternative options when it comes to engaging the government. In doing so, they pushed back against growing calls from some lawmakers to review America's aid and ties to the country.

"Pakistan," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said at a press briefing Tuesday. "You can't trust them and you can't abandon them."

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Osama Bin Laden

FLASHBACK 2008: McCain, Clinton Slam Obama For Saying He'd Go Get Bin Laden In Pakistan (VIDEO)

Jillian Rayfield | May 3, 2011, 5:55PM

Remember back during the 2008 election when John McCain -- and Hillary Clinton -- pummeled Barack Obama for saying he would go into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden if the Pakistani government wouldn't?

We do...

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John Kerry

Kerry Cautions Colleagues About Cutting Off Pakistan After Osama Bin Laden Capture

Ryan J. Reilly | May 3, 2011, 3:20PM

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) cautioned his fellow senators to take a deep breath before they go calling on the United States to cut off aide to Pakistan in the wake of the discovery of Osama bin Laden in the country.

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Osama Bin Laden

Pakistan Under Harsh Scrutiny In Wake Of Raid On Bin Laden Compound

Benjy Sarlin | May 3, 2011, 10:12AM

A successful attack on Osama Bin Laden may mark a satisfying end to one chapter of America's War on Terror, but the circumstances of the operation raise disturbing new questions about the nation's already troubled relationship with Pakistan. On Monday, high-ranking lawmakers and officials openly aired their suspicions that forces within the crucial ally's government deliberately withheld information on the terrorist leader's location.

"They've got a lot of explaining to do," Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Monday.

TPM SLIDESHOW: Osama Bin Laden: 9/11 Mastermind, Longtime U.S. Enemy Killed In Pakistan

Intelligence officials have long suspected that Pakistan's weak and fractured government may be host to rogue elements either disinterested in catching -- or actively sympathetic to -- anti-Western terrorists. But the presence of Bin Laden's heavily fortified compound in a garrison town near Islamabad magnified concerns that Al Qaeda had help from the inside in concealing its leader's location.

"It's very difficult for me to understand how this huge compound could be built in a city just an hour north of the capital of Pakistan in a city that contained military installations, including the Pakistani military academy, and that it did not arouse tremendous suspicion," Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, said at a press conference on Monday.

"It was not like a normal house in New Jersey, I can tell you that," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who has called for a new review of military and economic aid to Pakistan in light of the Bin Laden raid, told TPM.

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Andy Card

GOP's Tortured Logic: How We Got Osama Bin Laden

Brian Beutler | May 3, 2011, 8:42AM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Former President George W. Bush.

Like so many memes that persist in politics, this one started on the Internet. The morning after President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan, conservatives started crowing that credit should be given to President George W. Bush -- specifically, for having the foresight and courage to torture the people who provided the initial scraps of intel that ultimately led the CIA to a giant compound just north of Islamabad.

The most prominent of these conservatives was Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who took to Twitter to ask sardonically, "Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?

About two hours later, the Associated Press published a brief story claiming that the CIA obtained the initial intelligence it needed to find bin Laden from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the so-called mastermind of 9/11 -- and his successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi at CIA black sites in Poland and Romania.

Those secret prisons, which the Obama administration contends to have abandoned, were the facilities where Mohammed and al-Libi were waterboarded. There, the detainees supposedly identified by nom de guerre a courier who would years later be located by American intelligence officials, and lead them to bin Laden's compound.

"The news is sure to reignite debate over whether the now-closed interrogation and detention program was successful," the AP wrote. "Former president George W. Bush authorized the CIA to use the harshest interrogation tactics in U.S. history. President Barack Obama closed the prison system."

There's just one problem. The key bit of intel wasn't acquired via torture, according to a more fleshed out version of the same report.

But the myth provided a brief opening. Thus have Republicans constructed a version of events by which they -- and Bush in particular -- deserve some of credit for bin Laden's death. Not all of it. Indeed they have by and large acknowledged Obama's role, and congratulated him on it. And most have not been as brazen as King or the Tea Party Express in attributing the success of the mission to Bush's interrogation policies. But Bush, they argue, played a big part as well, akin to the husband who loosens the lid to a Mason jar only to watch his wife open it effortlessly.

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Afghanistan

Levin: Bin Laden's Death Paves Way For Swifter Troop Drawdown In Afghanistan

Brian Beutler | May 2, 2011, 3:31PM

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

Given that President Obama's not going to bring the war in Afghanistan to an early end as the result of Osama bin Laden's death, a key question is whether his administration will green light a robust troop drawdown starting in July, or whether the withdrawal will happen more slowly, as some in his administration would like.

That's the pivot, and there will be increasing pressure on Obama from Democrats to use bin Laden's death in Pakistan to make the case for a swifter reduction.

TPM SLIDESHOW: Osama Bin Laden: 9/11 Mastermind, Longtime U.S. Enemy Killed In Pakistan

"I think there's going to be a lot of strong feeling on the part of most Democrats and many, I think many independents, and even some Republicans that the decision of the President to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan should be a robust reduction," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) told reporters on a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon. "I don't think that's going to change, and I don't expect the decision of the President -- his instinct to have a reduction, and I believe a robust reduction following conversations with him -- that that instinct would be reinforced."

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Osama Bin Laden

Levin: Pakistani Intel and Military Have 'A Lot Of Explaining To Do' For Sheltering Bin Laden

Brian Beutler | May 2, 2011, 12:35PM

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

The Democrats' top armed services expert on Capitol Hill says Pakistan's military and intelligence have grave questions to answer after Osama Bin Laden was killed in an elaborate compound, deep inside Pakistan, near a top Pakistani military facility.

"I think that the Pakistani army and intelligence have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time, and the apparent fact that this facility was built for bin Laden, and its closeness to the central location to the Pakistani army," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), who chairs the Senate Armed Services committee, in a Capitol briefing with reporters Monday morning.

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Afghanistan

Reid: Obama Has No Plans To Change Afghanistan Strategy In Wake Of Bin Laden Killing

Brian Beutler | May 2, 2011, 12:00PM

Harry Reid (D-NV)

President Obama has communicated to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he plans to stick with the current timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan -- this despite the fact that Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, and that Afghan leaders view this as proof that allied actions in their country are misguided.

"The President has a timetable to begin withdrawal of Afghanistan," Reid told reporters in a Capitol briefing Monday morning. "He's indicated he's going to stick with that. I think that's appropriate."

Though lawmakers and administration officials have consistently said that bin Laden's death doesn't indicate an end to hostilities in the Global War on Terror, some experts and advocates have argued that the Obama administration should use Sunday night's development to pivot toward a hastier resolution of hostilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Doesn't look like that's in the works, though.

Afghanistan

Karzai: Bin Laden Death In Pakistan Proves Attacks On Afghanistan Are Wrong

Brian Beutler | May 2, 2011, 9:02AM

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Osama bin Laden's death in Pakistan is already causing significant disruptions to the United States' foreign policy status quo. Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai reacted to the news by claiming bin Laden's sanctuary near Islamabad vindicates his critique of allied actions inside Afghanistan.

"Again and again, for years and every day we have said that the war on terror is not in Afghan villages, not in Afghan houses of the poor and oppressed," Mr Karzai said. "The war against terrorism is in its sources, in its financial sources, its sanctuaries, in its training bases, not in Afghanistan," Karzai said, according to The Daily Telegraph. "The war against terrorism is in its sources, in its financial sources, its sanctuaries, in its training bases, not in Afghanistan.... It was proved that we were right."

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Osama Bin Laden

U.S. Authorities Homed In On Osama For Last Nine Months

Susan Crabtree and Ryan J. Reilly | May 2, 2011, 12:02AM

Osama bin Laden

It was the best kept and most closely guarded secret for the last nine months: a select handful of U.S. national security and administration officials tracked a high-value courier for Osama bin Laden to a dusty dirt road leading to a compound 35 miles north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.

After months of intelligence gathering and meetings at the highest levels of the U.S. government, a small team of Navy Seals Sunday raided the compound, engaged in a firefight and ultimately killed bin Laden, the notorious leader of al Qaeda who had evaded capture and death since masterminding the 9/11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

TPM SLIDESHOW: Osama Bin Laden: 9/11 Mastermind, Longtime U.S. Enemy Killed In Pakistan

The CIA pinpointed the compound in August and first informed President Obama about the intelligence in September of last year. As evidence mounted in mid-February that bin Laden and his family were living in the compound, the President and the National Security Council began holding a series of "intensive" meetings about a covert military strike aimed at killing him, according to administration officials.

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