New Delhi : The presence of Osama bin Laden deep in Pakistan was ‘embarrassing’, said former president Pervez Musharraf, adding he might have apologized for failing to track down the Al Qaeda if he was in power.
Speaking to CNN-IBN’s Karan Thapar, Musharraf also said it was ‘incompetence’ that the Al Qaeda chief’s hideout in Abbottabad city did not come to the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities.
‘Yes, it is indeed embarrassing,’ he said in the interview.
‘Pakistan needs an explanation to itself how did this incompetence and failure occur? I think we should answer that to ourself first…
‘I strongly believe that is incompetence and not complicity. Therefore we need to find out who is incompetent.’
On May 2, helicopter-borne US Navy SEALs swept into a compound in Abbottabad, just over an hour’s drive from the capital Islamabad, and killed Osama, the world’s most wanted terrorist.
He said if any section of the Pakistani establishment was complicit in hiding Osama, then US President Barack Obama would not have thanked Pakistani intelligence agencies.
He admitted the lapse was as big as that which led to 9/11, as well as the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. ‘Well as big as maybe Mumbai, as big as 9/11, it is incompetence, yes.’
Asked if he felt that Pakistan Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha should resign over the Osama affair, Musharraf said: ‘Well, I leave it to them to decide.’
Asked what he would have done if he had been in their position, the former army chief said he would have apologized.
‘I may have apologized on behalf of the intelligence agencies because this is a great slip up, this is a great embarrassment, to that extent…
‘Then assured the nation that we will investigate and find out how this slip up occurred and (convince) the world that this does not involve complicity.’
But Musharraf, who has lived mostly in London since stepping down in 2008, underlined that the US should not repeat the kind of commando raid that killed Osama.
‘Well, this must not be done, the people on the streets do not at all like the US, this will anger them…
‘Any agitations on the streets which will increase obviously, if this happens indiscriminately, it will put that amount of pressure on the government, on the army, on the intelligence agencies which will not be good (from) the point of view of cooperating in this war against terror, against Al Qaeda or Taliban.’
He added: ‘They (US) must understand Pakistan’s sensitivities, specially the sensitivities of the people of Pakistan.’
Musharraf also said that if there are US troops in Pakistan, they must leave.
‘They shouldn’t have been there in any case, they should never have been there. There is no need of American troops in Pakistan.
‘In my time, we had only cooperated on the intelligence level because we needed to develop technical intelligence to target these Al Qaeda people in our cities.
‘To that extent, we sought cooperation. There were no troops in Pakistan and now if there are troops, they must not be there.’
The former president, who seized power in 1999, said one reason why the radars did not track down the intruding US helicopters May 2 was because most of Pakistan’s concentration was on the Indian border.
‘Let me frankly admit that our focus on all these radar information … intelligence is focused more towards your side, and on this side, because of the mountains and hilly … inaccessible terrains, the surveillance coverage is not that effective.’ IANS
