The unsuccessful Oct. 18 attempt on Bhutto's life followed the regime's rejection of her requested security protection when she returned from eight years in exile. The Pakistani government vetoed FBI assistance in investigating the attack. On Oct. 26, Bhutto sent an e-mail to Mark Siegel, her friend and Washington spokesman, to be made public only in the event of her death.
"I would hold Musharraf responsible," Bhutto said. "I have been made to feel insecure by his minions." She listed obstruction to her "taking private cars or using tinted windows," using jammers against roadside bombs and being surrounded with police cars. "Without him [Musharraf]," she said, those requests could not have been blocked.
In early December, a former Pakistani government official supporting Bhutto visited a senior U.S. government official to renew her security requests. He got a brush-off, a mindset reflected Dec. 6 in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, was asked to respond to fears by non-partisan American observers of a rigged election. His reply: "I do think they can have a good election. They can have a credible election. They can have a transparent and a fair election. It's not going to be a perfect election." Boucher's words echoed through corridors of power in Islamabad. The Americans' not demanding perfection signaled they would settle for less. Without Benazir Bhutto around, it is apt to be a lot less.
A more sinister fallout of a free hand from Washington for Pakistan might be Bhutto's murder. Neither her shooting last Thursday nor the attempt on her life Oct. 18 bore the classic al Qaeda trademark. After the carnage, government trucks used streams of water to clean up the blood and in the process destroy forensic evidence. If not too late, would an offer and acceptance of investigation by the FBI still be in order?