The senior Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday that they believe Pakistani officials knew al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in a compound 35 miles from the capital of Islamabad, even as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser insisted there is no intelligence to prove that.
“I find it very hard to believe that people didn’t know,” Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It is extraordinarily hard to believe that he could have survived here for five years or more in a major population center without some kind of support system.”
Ranking member Dick Lugar agreed.
“It appears to me very logical that if Osama bin Laden was in that home for six years of time, a group of people there connected with the military, a lot of people in Pakistan knew about his whereabouts,” the Indiana Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The problem is that the divisions in the Pakistani government — between the [Inter-Services Intelligence agency], the intelligence people, the military, the civilian — are very, very severe.”
But National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, who appeared on several of the political news shows Sunday morning, said he had seen no intelligence to back up the Senators’ conviction.
“It is important, by the way, for the Pakistanis to investigate what happened here,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We don’t have evidence at this point that the political, military and intelligence leadership of Pakistan knew about the bin Laden operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan. But that issue is front and center in Pakistan right now. It does need to be investigated.”
Donilon insisted that Pakistan is, and will always be, a crucial partner in the fight against terrorism.
“You need to look at this relationship in its totality and in terms of our strategic interest,” he said on Fox. “As the national security adviser, it’s my job to pursue our interests. And we have had our problems with Pakistan, but we have also had a tremendous amount of partnership and cooperation with them in the effort against terrorism, including against al-Qaida.”
But since U.S. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden on May 1, Democrats and moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill have questioned Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism.
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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