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Zardari Aide’s Memoir Details Pakistan’s Paralysis After Bin Laden Raid

The account portrays shock and indecision that, the author argues, squandered a chance to overhaul intelligence institutions.

Overview

  • Farhatullah Babar’s new book recounts a 6:30 a.m. meeting called by President Asif Ali Zardari with Hina Rabbani Khar, Salman Bashir and the author after the Abbottabad operation.
  • Babar says he urged an immediate inquiry, framing Pakistan’s dilemma as “complicit or sheer incompetence,” yet he writes that Zardari rejected punitive accountability.
  • The book describes a 14-hour wait for an official response and labels a press release suggesting intelligence-sharing with the US as hollow.
  • Babar writes that no investigations or intelligence restructuring followed, citing civilian reluctance, military resistance and reported foreign advice against punitive action.
  • He also reports post-raid visits by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry without US assurances against future unilateral strikes, plus CIA access to bin Laden’s wives and prior knowledge of the compound’s builder.