US tells Pakistan to name names of ISI agents
This is an exercise in futility because even if there were rogue agents - or Pakistani government complicity - in hiding bin Laden, we wouldn't do anything drastic about it.
The New York Times:
Obama administration officials have stopped short of accusing the Pakistani government - either privately or publicly - of complicity in the hiding of Bin Laden in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One senior administration official privately acknowledged that the administration sees its relationship with Pakistan as too crucial to risk a wholesale break, even if it turned out that past or present Pakistani intelligence officials did know about Bin Laden's whereabouts.Still, this official and others expressed deep frustration with Pakistani military and intelligence officials for their refusal over the years to identify members of the agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, who were believed to have close ties to Bin Laden. In particular, American officials have demanded information on what is known as the ISI's S directorate, which has worked closely with militants since the days of the fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan.
"It's hard to believe that Kayani and Pasha actually knew that Bin Laden was there," a senior administration official said, referring to Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the ISI director-general, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha. But, added the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, "there are degrees of knowing, and it wouldn't surprise me if we find out that someone close to Pasha knew."
This Washington Times article notes that there were several phone numbers seized in the intel haul from the mansion, including two phone numbers sewn into Osama's clothes. Wouldn't you love to know the names and nationalities of the people attached to those numbers?
As long as we have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan, we will not risk an open break with Pakistan. That's simply the grim truth. The millions of tons of supplies our troops need every month comes mostly via a supply route from Pakistan - something that they have proved in the past can be taken away whenever they choose. They have us by the short hairs because other nations that border Pakistan do not have the facilities to come close to supplying our troops and it would take a minimum of 6 months to build the infrastructure necessary to make it so.
During the Bush administration, we knew full well of Pakistani duplicity (as shown in the Wikileaks docs) and did nothing then. This is not about weakness or strength of an American president, an ideology, or a political party. It is power politics being played to the hilt by Pakistan, leveraging its advantage for all that it's worth. So unless we are willing to withdraw from Afghanistan, we will go on as if all is as it was.