President Obama appeared on CBS News' 60 Minutes yesterday to discuss the raid on a compound in Abottabad, Pakistan that gave US special forces the ability to take out the world's most wanted terrorist.
We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was. We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.
The Obama Administration needs to be holding high-level talks with the Pakistani government with regard to what they've known, how long they've known it and how the United States can trust Pakistan going forward. President Bush famously portrayed former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf as a key ally in the War on Terror; in light of his comments about the illegality of the US raid in Abottabad, the reliability of the Pakistan government may need to be rethought.
This comes on the heels of a report that parts of the Pakistan intelligence agency (ISI) must have known where Osama was hiding.
A senior official in Pakistan's civilian government told ABC News, "Elements of Pakistan intelligence -- probably rogue or retired -- were involved in aiding, abetting and sheltering the leader of al Qaeda," the strongest public statement yet from the Pakistani government after the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound.This is based on the government's judgment that the number of years bin Laden spent in Abbottabad -- and it now appears in a village outside the city of Haripur -- would have been impossible without help, possibly from someone in the middle tier of ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, who grew up fighting alongside the mujahidin against the Soviets, said the official.
You can find Obama's full 60 Minutes interview below.