WASHINGTON – The White House said Monday it offered “no apologies” for the surprise raid on Pakistani soil that killed Osama bin Laden despite that nation’s complaints and threat to “retaliate with full force” against any future attack.
In the latest chapter in the ongoing dispute between Washington and Islamabad over the May 2 precision raid by US Navy SEALs that took out the al Qaeda leader, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the US would “not apologize for the action that we took, that this president took.”
“He said, dating back to the campaign, if there is an opportunity to bring Usama bin Laden to justice, and he is on Pakistani soil, and this is the only way to do it, he will take that chance.”
“It is simply beyond a doubt in his mind that he had the right and the imperative to do this.”
Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that ten years ago, then US President George W. Bush and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had an understanding that would allow the US to make a unilateral raid inside Pakistan to find bin Laden, with Pakistan then expected to heatedly protest after the fact.
Earlier Monday, Pakistani prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani issued a stern warning in a speech to members of Parliament, declaring, “Let no one draw any wrong conclusions. Any attack against Pakistan’s strategic assets, whether overt or covert, will find a matching response.”
“Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force. No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland.”
The US and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since the raid at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, which was carried out without giving the Islamabad government prior warning. Bin Laden’s presence for five years so close to the capital and to military areas led to numerous questions about whether he had help from sympathizers in or out of the government.
In one obvious sign of Pakistani unhappiness, media there aired the name of a man they said was the CIA station chief, although this was followed by other reports that the name was incorrect. On Monday, a senior US official told Fox News “there are no plans to bring the real station chief home.”
Carney, addressing a daily White House briefing, described the relationship between the US and Pakistan as “important, complicated. The cooperation we’ve had with Pakistan has been important for years now in our fight against terrorism and terrorists … which is not to say we don’t have our differences, because we do…”
“Obviously, Pakistan is a sovereign nation, and we understand their concerns. We have made clear that given the threat that Usama bin Laden represents – represented, rather – the United States, given that he was the most wanted man in the world, a mass murderer, a terrorist who continued to plot against the United States and our allies, that the president would use whatever means necessary to ensure that we could eliminate him and he did that.”
Carney said the US was consulting with Pakistan about its request to question three of bin Laden’s wives, who are in Pakistani custody, as well as “some of the other materials that may have been collected by the Pakistanis after the commando team left.”
A senior US official told Fox News Monday, “The US government expects to have access to the wives. I don’t have any reason to believe (based on conversations with the Pakistanis) that we won’t..”
In his speech to parliament, Gilani said widespread allegations of official complicity or incompetence in bin Laden’s accommodations were “absurd.” But he added that a military investigation would be launched into how the world’s most wanted terrorist came to live just 40 miles from the capital in a garrison town.
Gilani said it was “disingenuous” to say that Pakistan’s spy agency or military was “in cahoots” with al Qaeda. “There has been an intelligence failure. Not just ours, but all intelligence agencies in the world,” he said.
In his speech, Gilani repeatedly emphasized Pakistan’s lengthy struggle against terrorism. “Pakistan is not the birthplace of al Qaeda — we did not invite him [bin Laden] to Pakistan, or Afghanistan,” he said.