A new angle on the killing of Osama bin Laden

The Seymour Hersh account in the London Review of Books takes aim at US President Barack Obama’s and the White House’s version of the events that led to the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist.

But in doing so it attempts to dismantle the standard story proffered inside Pakistan – that the army leadership had no knowledge of the al-Qaeda chief’s presence in Abbottabad and nor did it in any way facilitate the American raid to kill him. In the days to come, we can expect official Pakistani denials and sundry attacks on Hersh’s version of events.

Careful scrutiny of the Hersh story is in fact required as it contains several perplexing theories and an alternative version of events. But neither should it be ignored that Hersh appears largely sympathetic to the Pakistan army, both in his piece and in comments made to this newspaper, and that the central premise of his article is to dismantle the Obama administration’s version of events.

It is clearly not a hatchet job on Pakistan. Which leaves at least three basic points to be made here. First, where is the official Pakistani version of events – the Abbottabad Commission report?

Buried after initial promises that it would be made public, one version of the report has already seen the light of day after being leaked to Al Jazeera. That version alone contains a deep, systematic, even fundamental critique of the manner in which the ISI, Pakistan’s state intelligence service, operates.

Surely, it is morally and legally indefensible of the state to hide from the public the only systematic inquiry into the events surrounding perhaps the most humiliating incident in decades here. National security will not be undermined by the publication of a report; national security was undermined by the presence of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

Second, it is long overdue for parliament to be given oversight of the intelligence apparatus. The military itself projects its intelligence wings as omnipresent and omniscient – surely, it is parliament that ought to be omnipotent, able to inquire into anything done by any branch of the state in the name of public security and the national interest.

Nor is it really a question of who will bell the cat – if parliament were to indicate any interest, the military would be unable to fend off oversight entirely. Finally, the Hersh report underlines an age-old truth: While civilian governments may not always be truthful, they are always accountable – something a military-dominated set-up can never be.