Why We Should Be “Nice-Nice” to Pakistan

OLBERMANN: So why the kid gloves here? I mean, I’m fascinated that the head of the CIA [Porter Goss] is using terms [in the Time magazine interview] like “acceptable to the international community” and “international obligation” and “fair play.” I mean, the general consensus from all ends of the political spectrum seems to have been, for four years now, that if we could go back before 9/11 and find Osama bin Laden, whoever had the chance should have dropped a bomb on him, even if he was in Toronto or your hometown or my hometown.

Why the nice-nice on this?

KOHLMANN: Hey, listen, you’re right. … But the fact is, is that in Pakistan, we have a situation that’s very complex and potentially pretty dangerous.

We have a government that’s really the best of a bad lot. Pervez Musharraf has shown himself to be a member of the war on terror and a part of the war on terror, but not necessarily an extremely committed member of that alliance. He’s, you know, been responsible for the arrests of various operatives, including most recently Abu Faraj al-Libbi in Pakistan. Certainly Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s arrest ranks up there.

But fact that these man are choosing to operate inside of Pakistan alone should be an indication of something. If you look, the most significant al Qaeda arrests that we’ve had in the last three years have all been inside Pakistan. And in many cases, we’re not even talking about the Pakistani-Afghani border. We’re talking about cities in central Pakistan, like Lahore and Karachi.

Look, the problem is, is this. If we go after this too aggressively, if we send in U.S. special forces into Pakistan, we endanger causing an Islamic revolution there, in a country that already is known to have atomic weapons. And that could be even potentially a worse situation than we have now. Imagine a nuclear-armed Pakistan run by a government extremely sympathetic to that of Osama bin Laden. It’s a problem.

OLBERMANN: So is that it, though? I mean, there’s one quote that we haven’t used from this, Goss’s first answer to the question about getting bin Laden was—let me read it exactly—“That is a question that goes far deeper than you know.” And if you mix that with all this stuff about international obligation, is it limited to the Pakistanis, or is there some additional wild card, like—I’m just making this up—but like, the Saudis know where he is?

Is there some worse dimension to it?

KOHLMANN: Well, there’s been a lot of suggestion lately about Iran. In fact, someone even wrote a book suggesting that Iran right now is currently harboring Osama bin Laden. I really think that’s mostly just speculation, and unfounded speculation.

Everything we have, including intercepts of al Qaeda operatives, including messengers, mules that we’ve picked up carrying messages from Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders, all of these individuals are being picked up along the Pakistani-Afghani border region, in Waziristan and Baluchistan.

So unless these guys are taking first-class trips from their mules from Iran into Afghanistan, and that’s where they’re being captured, or the reality simply is that that’s where these guys are.

This is where the cerebrum of al Qaeda remains. And if we want to take real action against it, if we really want to destroy the network, it’s inside of Pakistan, where some of the most valuable answers that we can find still are.

OLBERMANN: And politically, we have to let them, essentially, do it for us.

KOHLMANN: Well, if we want to be careful.

According to data compiled by Globalterroralert.com [PDF] since June 2003, over 50% of known casualties among foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudi Arabian nationals. A total of 300 foreign fighters were included in the study, including 165 men from various locations in Saudi Arabia–including Riyadh, at-Taif, Jeddah, Hail, Mecca, and Hafr al-Batin. Syrian nationals were the next most populous group of foreign fighter casualties in Iraq, numbering 38 or approximately 13%.