Who killed Bhutto?

Did the U.S. have a hand in engineering the outcome? Were there two, unrelated attacks, one an ISI hit, the other a suicide bomber? Did the well dressed-man in the Ray Ban Sunglasses know that the guy behind him was about to detonate? Inside the PPP, the emerging consensus is yes and no, there were two, and no, the mystery man was not working in concert with the bomber. The latest twist has Musharraf inviting Scotland Yard, who accepted and will "send a team within 48 hours."

BREAKING NEWS "Pakistan Poll Rigging 2008 Report" click here

Musharraf Denies Involvement in Bhutto killing to CBS TV's

BBC issues a retraction for editing of Al-Jazeera video (see below)

"The Bhutto Dossier", a condensed version of "Who Killed Bhutto?"

Breaking News: Opposition urges Musharraf to step down via Yahoo

Analysis by the U.S. based Council on Foreign Relations (The Think Tank, "Conference Call", 27th December 2007 Click here) Leaves you wondering if the West is most disappointed, not that Bhutto is dead, but that it is inconvenient for the delicately orchestrated alliance with Musharraf which was inherent in her return to Pakistan.

After the first bombing attack, last October, she followed up with a David Frost interview (see below) in which she said "I am not willing to be the frosting on a cake which is poisoned" And from the 30th, here is Trudy Rubin in The Miami Herald with her knife-sharpened analysis of all players. The question must be asked, fairly, does Pervez Musharraf truly control the ISI?

As the new post by Eric Schmidt of the NY Times details, the State Dept. is refuting any claim that they were lax in passing on warnings, but that nothing specific (time, date, place) emerged. Another statement, attributed to "Intelligence officials" confirmed that they are not prepared to endorse the Pakistani government conclusion that Al-Qaeda linked Mehsud was the culprit.

State goes so far as to say they were in "daily contact" with Bhutto and her husband and the PPP. Regarding private security, they are now saying they advised NOT to use British or American private security firms, but gave a list of "half a dozen" local firms American companies used and trusted. Lastly, the article discloses Musharraf is expected to call in Scotland Yard, attracting less resistance or controversy than the FBI, and rejected a U.N. Commission modeled on the one used for the investigation of Rafik Harari (P.M. Lebanon).

CNN, beaten by Internet TV News, AP and the NY Times by more than 24 hours, now reports on the 160 page document, which, nobody has actually received. Read more here

Was there a Bush scheme afoot to undermine the election and maintain power in the hands of Musharraf? Bhutto trusted Bush so little, she was waiting for a visit from Arlen Specter & Patrick Kennedy to hand the report to them. In an interview with Specter's Press Office, his spokesperson denied that he knew the express purpose of the meeting was to receive the report, or the exact nature of the report, which does not jive with his on-air interview with MSNBC (See below) Read the report

When asked in a telephone interview with Pakistani Senator Latif Khosa, (who holds the report), he asserted that any claim of a U.S. funds diversion was incorrect and mis-quoted, if attributed to him. (While this may well be true, Senator Specter, in a phone interview that night (Dec. 27th) with MSNBC claimed to be "passing through the region" and later said he wanted to confirm all "funding went where it was intended" and also "to see if some money might have been diverted." Pakistan is reported to have received upwards of $10BB USD since Musharraf seized power Read it here)

Sen. Khosa (PPP) then went on to say, unsolicited, "Please tell Mr. Bush to stop supporting Mr. Musharraf, the United States should not be in the business of picking winners. The people hate Musharraf more than ever now, and the only path to Democracy is with his removal"

Asked if he thought Benazir Bhutto would have signed off on the deployment of U.S. troops on Pakistani soil, (exposed on a Washington Post National Security Blog), he said "No, absolutely not. We are a democracy and our sovereignty, like any other nation is not to be violated. She would have taken this to the Parliament and they would never have agreed. I can state this without any doubt"

"You know you will never defeat extremism and terrorism at the point of a gun, only through a healthy democracy can the people decide to eliminate the extremists in their midst".

Benazir Bhutto murdered in Ralwapindi, Pakistan at PPP Rally. Blame in the back channel falls to Condi Rice, Nick Burns and John Negroponte & Richard Boucher, who orchestrated her return, made little effort to guarantee Musharaf would/could keep her safe and left her dangling without private security (U.S. & British) guards after Musharaf declined to allow them in. Pushing back, the Department of State issued a stern rebuke.

January 8th Election are now in doubt (as latest reports have the Election Commission delaying until mid-February), with Polling Centers burned (100?) and Sinhd Province in turmoil. Bhutto Party (PPP) are prepared to offer their slate within the deadline, worried about losing momentum and cementing Musharraf's power.

Robert Fisk writes for the Independent UK that Pakistanis blame Gen. Musharraf, not Al-Qaeda, as George Bush, Gordon Brown and Musharraf himself were quick to do. and also Agence -France Presse (via Dawn News) has a photo of the suspected shooter, holding a gun, next to the car window. The Pakistani Interior Ministry first claimed (for 4 days) that Bhutto hit her head and was not shot, which was just retracted.

Here is the report (posted to YouTube) from Channel 4 (UK) exposing the truth 31/12/07

France 24 reports Pakistani government offers to exhume Bhutto body, if requested. Photos taken from amateur video have emerged showing possibly 2 people, one with a gun, wearing sunglasses, and a man behind him in a traditional outfit, assumed to be the bomber. Here is the posting to YouTube of her last 30 seconds.

Why did Bhutto refer to "Omar Saeed Sheikh" (killer of Danny Pearl, BBC profile 2002), as the "man who murdered Osama Bin Laden" in an interview with David Frost, November 2nd, 2007, on Al-Jazeera English, answering Frost's question regarding whom she thought wanted her killed? Musharraf claims in his book (2005) that MI6 recruited Sheikh to cause trouble in the Balkans, but turned. 14min.

(6.10 min for Bin-Laden reference)

Compared to BBC Censored version (edited out any mention of Osama or Hamza bin-Laden or Omar Sheikh). Question? If she meant to say "the man who killed Danny Pearl", why didn't she say it? Why didn't David Frost follow up? Questions for Al-Jazeera.

BBC Retraction: (04/01/08)

"The BBC has an agreement with Al-Jazeera which enables both broadcasters to share certain news material including pictures and interviews. It was decided that the BBC would offer an extract of Sir David Frost's interview with Benazir Bhutto, originally shown on Al-Jazeera, to users of the BBC News website.

During the interview Ms Bhutto made an allegation that Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. This claim was so unexpected and impossible to verify that it seemed most likely that she had mis-spoken and had intended to say that Omar Sheikh was the man who murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl - not Osama Bin Laden.

A decision was therefore taken to edit out the misleading reference to prevent what seemed to be a genuine error from being more widely disseminated. With the benefit of hindsight this was a mistake and the interview should have been reproduced in full or not used at all. For this reason we will endeavor to replace the edited version currently available via the BBC News website with the original interview as broadcast by Al-Jazeera". BBC Spokesperson

covers the controversies in the region regarding Wazeristan (safe haven/hide-out for Taliban and Al-Qaeda), and Afghan and Paki disputes over responsibility for their presence in the border region. (streaming video 220kbps). Yesterday's NY Times editorial basically blamed Bhutto for neglecting Kashmir and the rise of the Taliban in the 80's and 90's, during her first and second stints as Prime Minister.

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