This is why you should never talk on the phone and drink a cup of coffee while trying to maneuver your flying carpet through rush hour traffic.
Posted on 12/30/2007 8:53:39 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Bhutto 'blocked from hiring US bodyguards'
By Philip Sherwell in New York
Last Updated: 12:46am GMT 31/12/2007
Benazir Bhutto was so fearful for her life that she tried to hire British and American security experts to protect her, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
But the plans collapsed because President Pervez Musharraf refused to allow the foreign contractors to operate in Pakistan, according to senior aides.
"She asked to bring in trained security personnel from abroad," said Mark Siegel, her US representative. "In fact she and her husband repeatedly tried to get visas for such protection, but they were denied by the government of Pakistan."
advertisementMs Bhutto's entourage discussed deals with the American Blackwater operation, this newspaper has learnt. Sources within the British private security industry said that she also had negotiations with the London-based firm Armor Group, which guards UK diplomats in the Middle East - last night the company said that it had no knowledge of any talks.
A Blackwater spokesman confirmed the negotiations. "We were approached to provide prime minister Bhutto's security, but an agreement was unfortunately never reached," she said. She declined to go into the precise details.
Ms Bhutto contacted officials, diplomats and friends in America, Europe and the Gulf to urge Gen Musharraf to improve her security following the suicide bomb attacks that killed more than 140 during her homecoming parade on Oct 19.
Indeed, US diplomats took the highly unusual step of providing her directly with confidential US intelligence about militant threats to her life.
Pakistan's interior ministry also passed on details of plots against her and aides said that letters containing death threats had been smuggled into her home.
Husain Haqqani, a US-based Bhutto adviser, confirmed that she wanted to use private international security contractors but said that the Musharraf regime would not approve the plan.
He added that America, which has arranged for private contractors to guard the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and leaders in Iraq, was reluctant to press Gen Musharraf, its ally, to change his mind. This was despite Washington seeing Ms Bhutto as a lynchpin in its crucial diplomatic attempt to encourage Pakistan to return to democracy.
Mr Siegel's comments will add to the long-running controversy over Ms Bhutto's security arrangements, which were widely regarded as woefully inadequate given the seriousness of the threats against her from al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others.
She relied largely on using a "human shield" of loyal followers who would form a ring around her, but as Thursday's attack proved, it was little real protection against a determined assailant.
Some security industry specialists have suggested, however, that there may have been other reasons why the help of foreign security firms was not enlisted.
Being surrounded by foreign bodyguards would have added to criticisms that Ms Bhutto was in the pocket of the West - an accusation levelled at President Karzai - and might not have been welcomed by her own Pakistani security staff. But the companies could have taken a back role as consultants and trained locals in bodyguard techniques to maintain a Pakistani face to her entourage.
"It's odd and disturbing that the Pakistan government did not do a better job of protecting her and that the US apparently could not do more to persuade them," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and former National Security Council director for South Asia. "She made it very clear privately and publicly that she did not have enough security. That was abundantly clear after the attack on her return.
"I can't explain why the Bush administration didn't pressure Musharraf to do more. Her death leaves the US with a Pakistan policy that is completely bankrupt."
The public debate would have been fascinating to observe. She did get Musharraf to step down from the military, so her presence did have some affect in moving him more towards a US friendly policy, and away from the Taliban/Muslim extremist positions.
It would be prudent to steer at least some of the 'bash Musharraf hysteria' towards the person who was actually running the military at the time of her assassination. Was it just a coincidence that as soon as the new chief is running the military, she is assassinated ? Negligence or Islamic Extremist Sympathizer or Happenstance ?
The new army chief is considered as a pro-US official.
The Paki army is one big family-if the rest of the generals want Musharraf out-they will do it themselves,no need to kill anyone else.
This is why you should never talk on the phone and drink a cup of coffee while trying to maneuver your flying carpet through rush hour traffic.
Musharraf was bound by law to hang up his fatigues this year.He would must probably have done it even Bhutto didn’t return.
Ayub Khan,arguably Pakistan’s finest leader as well as Yahya Khan his successor did the same-retire from the army to take over the presidency & usher in democracy,while in reality maintaining army rule.
Obviously. No one is blaming him, right ?
If the Pakistani state is suspected of involvement in all this-the army will get dragged in.Because the Army is the state.Musharraf is a figurehead everyone appears to give a lot of importance to.
Why the hell would anyone scared of being killed ride down the road with half your torso hanging out?
Is Ashfaq Khan a reference to General Kayani?
But you still have to wonder why, under all the circumstances, she stood up in an open sunroof in a crowd like that. Is that consistent with “fearing for her life”? After, in a similar situation, the thugs had just killed 140 people trying to get her? Would any type of bodyguard even made a difference in this situation, except for perhaps physically forcing her to stay within the SUV?
My question exactly.
Please. There were plenty of other situations in which she could have “taken such risks.” But this was the archetypical suicide-bomber venue.
“Foolish maybe”? No. Foolish, period.
As for how anyone survives this foolishness, it’s purely luck. Plus, Mrs. Bhutto had that other pesky factor that ticks off these creeps especially-—she was female and probably going to gain political power. Of course, she was targeted and with special vehemence. That’s why it was *especially* foolish for her to stand up in her sunroof at that particular time.
And, if you are correct that “leaders have to take such risks,” what in the world do you think bodyguards and such would have been able to do in this situation?
The Secret Service who were with Ronald Reagan when there was an attempt on his life could respond only because they were NOT in a moving vehicle with the gunman in a crowd around the vehicle. They were walking and, therefore, had been able to establish a little space around Reagan and could also throw themselves at the gunman. Still, Reagan survived mostly because he was lucky.
Please tell me what you think bodyguards would have been able to do in this tragic situation with Bhutto. Should they have stood up with her in the sunroof (assuming she would agree to that)? Should they have shot out into the crowd at anyone they thought was suspicious?
Agreed.
Unfortunately, there is little bodyguards can do in a situation such as this, with a moving vehicle, with the crowd shifting and right up to the vehicle, with the target standing up unprotected in a sunroof (even if she were wearing a bulletproof vest, which I don’t think she was, and the guards had immediately pulled her into the vehicle at the first sign of trouble, she was likely to get a head injury during that manuever).
Hello. JFK no doubt had Secret Service in the car with him, but they could do nothing to stop his assasination. Same thing here.
There’s a lot to be concerned about in this situation, but attempting to blame M and the U.S. for not doing enough to keep Bhutto safe is not helpful and counterproductive. And dumb.
Steve from Seattle could have told her that (that a bombproof car will not protect the client if her head is sticking out through a sun roof)! lol
Blaming the security breach that allowed this tragic event to occur on Musharaff and the U.S. is pretty desperate.
Is that your opinion or are you saying that’s what Riedel said?
Another good point.
Absolutely correct.
There hasn’t been enough emphasis on the fact that 140 people already had been killed in an attempt to get her.
I think you’re missing the other poster’s point. She was, according to reports, trying to show that she was not afraid and had confidence in the process there. If she were surrounded by American bodyguards, please, what do you think her opponents would have said? How do you think that would have helped demonstrate the above? How do you think that would or would not play into the refrain that she would be an independent leader, not a puppet of the West?
Your insistence that it’s okay for her to do dumb stuff such as standing in a sunroof in the middle of a shifting, moving crowd is lamentable. She made, as airborne said, several preventable mistakes, and no amount of “she was fighting an election” whining justifies those mistakes or the impact those mistakes will have on the country she loved.
How much of a difference to the future of Pakistan would Bhutto have made had she lived and gained political power?
What does the foreseeable future of Pakistan look like now that her tragic risk-taking in a culture of violence and known threats to her safety has taken her life?
Which would have been better for her country and the world-—that she take reasonable measures to live or that she (your words) “fight an election” the “normal” way and die?
Please! You are continually acting as though “electioneering in the subcontinent” is some mysterious cultural process that includes the “necessity” for candidates to risk their lives all the while arguing that a subcontinental politician’s only security option is to hire American contractors and that it is the West’s responsibility to force security on said candidates.
Don’t you see the internal contradiction there?
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