People walk past Osama Bin Laden's compound, where he was killed during a raid by U.S. special forces, May 3, 2011 in Abottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed during a U.S. military mission May 2, at the compound. (Getty Images)

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Pakistan tried to strike a deal with Osama?

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Pakistan likely sheltered Osama, ex-ISI chief says

WASHINGTON: Senior Pakistani army generals and top ISI honchos purportedly hosted Osama bin Laden in an Abbottabad hideout since 2006 before selling him out to the US in 2011 after a Pakistani intelligence officer betrayed him for the $25 million bounty, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.In a 10,000-word piece in the London Review of Books, Hersh, famed for his exposes on US excesses during the Vietnam War and after, also alleges that the US raid on Abbottabad was pretty much a cakewalk after Pakistan’s then top generals, Army chief Pervez Ashfaq Kayani and ISI head Ahmad Shuja Pasha, cooperated with the Americans under both threats and inducements, including personal blandishments.President Obama, Hersh suggests, milked the episode for domestic political gains, including a second term re-election, after reneging on US promises to Pakistan about when and how the raid would be revealed to the world.Hersh has based much of his account on one principal source -- an unnamed and retired senior US intelligence official -- and a couple of tenuous corroborative sources in a piece that has set political Washington alight. Government officials and critics often dismiss his style of journalism quoting anonymous sources to make outlandish claims, but editors who publish his work have said in the past they are aware the names of his sources and have no reason to doubt his work.According to Hersh, the story of the bin Laden raid began with the August 2010 walk-in of a senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who told the CIA station chief at the US Embassy in Islamabad Jonathan Banks he could reveal bin Laden’s location in return for reward money. Skeptical Americans then flew in a polygraph team to check his claims (he passed the test) before cornering Pasha (during a visit to Washington) and Kayani. Hersh and his source put a protective spin on Pakistani perfidy by rationalizing their hosting of the man who killed 3,000 Americans, maintaining that – ''if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States without a quid pro quo.''The quid pro quo in this case not only involved continued of US military aid to Pakistan, ''a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership,'' but also personal bribing, ''under-the-table personal ‘incentives’ that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds.'' The US also promised Pakistan ‘a freer hand’ in Afghanistan as it began its military draw-down there.Consequent to this secret deal, the Pakistani generals gave the US bin Laden’s precise coordinates -- right down to the location of his room in the Abbottabad bungalow – and also ensured he was left with no protection. ISI guards protecting bin Laden were asked to leave as soon as they heard U.S choppers, and electricity to the area was cut off. They also made sure Pakistan’s army and air defence command would not track or engage with the US helicopters used on the mission.According to the Hersh’s American sources, the raid was virtual walk-in and walk-out and the Navy Seals virtually shot dead an unarmed, invalid man. Hersh also claims there was no burial at sea with Islamic rites for bin Laden on the USS Carl Vinson, as the U.S later claimed; the old man had been shot to pieces during the raid and his body parts were tossed over the Hindu Kush as the raiding party returned to Afghanisan.The story claims that Obama decided to immediately go public with the raid in part because of the botch-up with the stalled helicopter which had to be destroyed, making it hard to keep the raid a secret. But he also had political motives. ''The killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama’s military credentials. It’s irresistible to a politician. Bin Laden became a working asset,'' Hersh quotes one of his sources as saying.Hersh’s piece also reveals the US actually sold Shakil Afridi, a CIA asset, down the drain, asking Pakistanis to nab him while springing free Amir Aziz, a doctor and a major in the Pakistani army who was instrumental in getting bin Laden’s DNA sample that conclusively proved his identity. Amir was also rewarded from the $ 25 million bounty.The ISI, the story claims, initially got onto bin Laden, who had lived undetected from 2001 to 2006 with some of his wives and children in the Hindu Kush mountains, by paying some of the local tribal people to betray him. Hersh's account also maintains the Saudis were fully aware of Pakistan's protective custody of bin Laden and in fact they paid Pakistanis to keep him under wraps.