ISLAMABAD - A retired Pakistani general serving on a commission
investigating Osama bin Laden's past presence in his country said he
does not believe Pakistan's intelligence services nor its military
helped shelter the al-Qaida leader, an Australian media organization
reported Tuesday.
Nadeem Ahmed's statements immediately drew
criticism from commentators who questioned his impartiality and
suggested his comments threatened the integrity of the commission
probing how bin Laden ended up in the garrison town of Abbottabad and
what led to the May 2 U.S. raid that killed him.
"Irrespective of
what the U.S. says, I have absolutely not an iota of doubt on this,
that no government in Pakistan, no military in Pakistan, no
intelligence organization in Pakistan would do such a stupid thing,"
Nadeem Ahmed told an interviewer from the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
He declined to give too many details about what the commission had so
far uncovered.
Pakistani leaders have framed the U.S. raid as a
violation of their sovereignty and insisted that they had no idea that
America's most wanted man was living in the northwestern town.
U.S.
officials have said they've seen no evidence top Pakistani military or
civilian leaders sheltered bin Laden. However, some members of Congress
have questioned how Pakistan's security establishment could have missed
bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, home to a premier military academy.
The
U.S. raid deeply humiliated the Pakistani military, prompting the
creation of the independent commission, which is led by a judge and
includes representatives of the diplomatic corps and the police.
In
his interview, Ahmed said it appeared that the U.S. was deliberately
trying to weaken the standing of Pakistan's security establishment.
"People
see a clear design — responsible people in the military in the U.S.
coming up and saying silly things, then the deliberate leaks in the
U.S. media, again, you know, saying things which are not correct," he
said.
"So everybody has started to now understand that there is a
deliberate design to undermine the security establishment. And
therefore I can see they have closed ranks with the security
establishment now."
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Ahmed for further comment.
Ahmed
also said the CIA's use of a vaccination program as a cover to try to
extract DNA samples from those at the bin Laden compound was
"principally, morally, legally incorrect. "
Several aid groups involved in vaccination efforts say the CIA ruse has endangered their work.
Ahmed
said the commission is planning on trying to get testimony from U.S.
officials, but said if none would testify, the panel would note their
refusals in its record.
The former military general is relatively
well-known among foreign missions in Pakistan, and has been lauded for
spearheading relief efforts following disasters, most recently last
year's historic floods.
Commissions set up in the past tasked
with investigating Pakistan's top bodies have either failed to finish
their work or their findings have not been released to the public. Many
in Pakistan worry that this one will follow the same fate.
Shahid
Latif, a retired air marshal, questioned how Ahmed could exonerate the
security establishment at such an early stage in the investigation.
"There
are still a lot of things to be seen and evidence to be examined to
reach a conclusion," Latif said on Pakistan's privately owned Geo TV
broadcaster. "How can a member of the commission come up with such a
statement?" AP
