Pakistan Seeks to Dispel Criticism After Raid

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/asia/06react.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In an effort to dispel criticism of Pakistan’s handling of the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a senior Pakistani official told reporters on Thursday that two Pakistani F-16 fighter jets were airborne as soon as the Pakistan military knew about the operation. But, by that time, he said, the American helicopters were on their way back to Afghanistan.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, the first senior Pakistani official to speak publicly in detail about the Bin Laden episode said that the Americans had used technology to evade Pakistani radar.

Alternatively combative and defensive, Mr. Bashir said Washington should abandon the idea that Pakistan was complicit in helping Bin Laden hide in Abbottabad, two hours north of the capital. But Mr. Bashir did not elaborate, saying only that the nation’s spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence, had a “brilliant” record in counterterrorism.

Defending the Pakistani army, the fifth largest in the world, Mr. Bashir said: “Pakistani security forces are neither incompetent or negligent about the sacred duty to the nation to protect Pakistan.”