Were Bhutto’s secret reports what got her killed?
From McClatchy:
NAUDERO, Pakistan — The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.
Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.
Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party election monitoring unit, said the report was “very sensitive” and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.
“It was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who were working directly with Benazir Bhutto,” Lashari said, speaking Monday at Bhutto’s house in her ancestral village of Naudero, where her husband and children continued to mourn her death.
The ISI had no official comment. However, an agency official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on the subject, dismissed the allegations as “a lot of talk but not much substance.”
Musharraf has been highly critical of those who allege that his regime is involved in electoral manipulation. “Now when they lose, they’ll have a good rationale: that it is all rigged, it is all fraud,” he said in November. “In Pakistan, the loser always cries.”
I wonder where Karl Rove is lately…
January 1st, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Interesting idea, but I tend to doubt it. Politics is a blood sport over there. That she could have taken over power there was probably reason enough to kill her.
January 1st, 2008 at 6:05 pm
The plot thickens. Interesting.
Again, until I hear more evidence, I’m going to suspend rushing to judgment on the “Who Shot/Bombed Bhutto?” debate.
Any number of different groups had plenty of motivation and desire to kill her. What I am skeptical of is the official reason–Al Qaeda.
January 1st, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I find the idea that she was killed because of this report extremely unlikely.
First, because killing her would not prevent its release unless she was the only one who knew what was in it - but the fact that the article refers to specific charges proves that to be impossible.
Second, because it would carry the grave risk of making the report carry more impact than it could have otherwise: Instead of “charges by the opposition,” it becomes “the last act of a martyred hero of democracy!”
So killing her doesn’t block the report but could give it greater power. Sounds like a bad plan.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 am
Guys like Bush and Musharraf are noteworthy for bad plans though.