New information:


Bhutto report: Musharraf planned to fix elections

NAUDERO, Pakistan — The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.

Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.

Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report was "very sensitive" and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.

"It was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who were working directly with Benazir Bhutto," Lashari said, speaking Monday at Bhutto's house in her ancestral village of Naudero, where her husband and children continued to mourn her death.

The ISI had no official comment. However, an agency official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the subject, dismissed the allegations as "a lot of talk but not much substance."

Musharraf has been highly critical of those who allege that his regime is involved in electoral manipulation. "Now when they lose, they'll have a good rationale: that it is all rigged, it is all fraud," he said in November. "In Pakistan, the loser always cries."

According to Lashari, the document includes information on a "safe house" allegedly being run by the ISI in a central neighborhood of Islamabad, the alleged headquarters of the rigging operation.

It names as the head of the unit a brigadier general recently retired from the ISI, who was secretly assigned to run the rigging operation, Lashari said. It charges that he was working in tandem with the head of a civilian intelligence agency. Before her return to Pakistan, Bhutto, in a letter to Musharraf, had named the intelligence official as one of the men she accused of plotting to kill her.

Lashari said the report claimed that U.S. aid money was being used to fix the elections. Ballots stamped in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which supports Musharraf, were to be produced by the intelligence agencies in about 100 parliamentary constituencies.

"They diverted money from aid activities. We had evidence of where they were spending the money," Lashari said.

Lashari, who formerly taught environmental economics at Britain's Cranfield University, said the effort was directed at constituencies where the result was likely to be decided by a small margin, so it wouldn't be obvious.

Bhutto was due to meet Specter and Kennedy after dinner last Thursday. She was shot as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi early that evening. Pakistan's government claims instead that she was thrown against the lever of her car's sunroof, fracturing her skull.

I'd believe that report more if it actually got in the hands of Specter and Biden in the US Congress. That place is so full of BS it is hard to pull the fact from the fiction IMO.

Welcome to Pakistan politics. Where one would kill his/her own husband/wife/sister/brother/parents for power.

I am ashamed to be remotely affiliated with them.

So where to put the weight of foreign policy in the USA in 2008....Iran or Pakistan?

Pakistan = nuclear weapons now
Iran = nuclear weapons in 5 years

I've had enough.

Time to cut EVERYONE'S FOREIGN AID.

that should be prime directive number one. reduce the deficit and stop 'funding' the world.

let the UN member nations pay equally for its upkeep.

I am tired of paying for everyone else to prosper, at our expense.

There is one presidential candidate that has made that priority #1 in his campaign. As far as I know, no other candidates have said they are in favor of that.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

He's not my choice, but I think he's 10 times better than any other Republican candidate.

The Bin Laden comment around 2:15...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnychOXj9Tg

Notice it's omitted in this BBC clip...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/new...75843&bbcws=2#

Interesting how the interviewer follows up on her other comments but fails to follow-up on such a puzzling yet major comment...

She misspoke. Omar Sheik is the guy who was convicted of murdering Daniel Pearl. He is also the guy who had wired $100k to Mohammed Atta prior to the 9/11 attacks and provided that embarassing link to Pakistan's ISI and proof of their involvement in the attacks. Musharraf claimed those running the ISI were acting on their own, and the head of the ISI, General Ahmed, conveniently decided to "retire" the week that this information was exposed. The 9/11 commission conveniently did not investigate any of the ISI links and failed to mention it in their report, and so most Americans do not recognize the name of this rather famous individual. But in Pakistan, he is better known that Osama bin Laden.

Most in Britain would be aware of him as well as there were rumors he had worked for MI6, so that is why she probably mentioned his name in the BBC interview, and probably why they edited it out. Bringing up Omar Sheik in Britain is like bringing up Sibel Edmonds here in the US. The network TV station simply does not want to deal with controversy.

What would happen if this became a reality????? Hmmmmm

One can't help but wonder how a Harvard/Oxford educated diplomat can mispeak such a difference. You would think she could distinguish the difference between an American name (Daniel Pearl) vs an Arabic name (Osama Bin Laden)...However you raise a valid point and the networks obviously want to avoid any type of controversy.