July Surprise - Interesting NPR story on Pakistan

[never cry wolf]

Last night on "The World" on NPR I heard an amazing interview with Husain Huqqani, former special assistant to three former Pakistani prime ministers. He essentially confirmed the "July Surprise" story from the New Rebublic. Not only that, he essentially the situation is quid pro quo and that bunnypants administration has offered monetary, military and political incentives.

Here's the archive page, it's an interesting listen (3rd one down, Pakistan interview):

http://www.theworld.org/latesteditions/20040804.shtml

For some background, here's a snippet from Will's recent piece, "Fabricating Terror."

Do you doubt it? Recall, if you will, the report in July by John Judis, Spencer Ackerman, and Massoud Ansari of the New Republic titled 'July Surprise'. The report read, "This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism."

The kicker appears in the next paragraph: "A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed TNR that the Pakistanis 'have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs (High Value Targets) before election is absolute must.' What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: 'The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during meetings in Washington.'... But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that 'it would be best if the arrest or killing of HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."

On the Thursday of the Democratic convention in Boston, the day John Kerry was to accept the nomination and deliver the central speech of the week, Pakistan announced the capture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian Al Qaeda operative wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Pakistan, it seems, got the message from Tenet, Powell, Rocca, Black and the Bush administration itself.

They delivered the terrorist exactly on cue.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080404A.shtml