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Leahy blasts Pakistan for bin Laden operation arrests

16 June 2011 03:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A top Senate Democrat branded Pakistan as a "putative ally" after officials there arrested Pakistanis who helped the U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden, APA reports quoting â€œUSA Todayâ€.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., made the comment during a sharp exhange with Defense Secretary Robert Gates who was appearing before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.
"How do we support governments that lie to us?" Leahy asked Gates.
Most governments do lie to us, even friendly ones, Gates replied.
Do they arrest those who helped us? Leahy countered.
"Sometimes," Gates answered.
"Not often," Leahy snapped.
Gates was making his final appearance on Capitol Hill as the nation’s top military office before retiring at the end of the month.
The Pakistani army denied Wednesday that one of its majors was among a group of Pakistanis who Western officials say were arrested for feeding the CIA information before the raid that killed bin Laden.
The New York Times, which first reported the arrests of five Pakistani informants Tuesday, said an army major was detained who copied license plates of cars visiting the al-Qaeda chief’s compound in Pakistan in the weeks before the raid.
A Western official in Pakistan confirmed that five Pakistanis who fed information to the CIA before the May 2 operation were arrested by Pakistan’s top intelligence service.
But Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas denied an army major was arrested, saying the report was "false and totally baseless." Neither the army nor Pakistan’s spy agency would confirm or deny the overall report about the detentions.
On Wednesday Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both said the cost of abandoning or ostracizing Pakistan would be high.
Pakistan’s nuclear capability and instability in the region raise the risks further, Mullen said.
If we walk away from Pakistan, as happened in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Mullen said, the U.S. will be forced to return in a decade "in a much more difficult situation."
Also on Wednesday three American missile attacks killed 15 suspected militants on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border.
The U.S. does not publicly discuss drone strikes in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that they have killed several senior al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders. More than 200 attacks have taken place since 2009.
The raid that killed bin Laden on May 2 angered the Pakistani army and parliament, which demanded an end to the strikes.