The Foreign Dispatch: PAKISTAN: Incompetence or Complicity?

By FOX News Radio’s Alastair Wanklyn

I lived in Abbottabad for some time in 1999.� Let’s just say while I was there I was never alone.� Home to Pakistan’s Army officer training college, Foreigners do not remain unnoticed for long.� And just down the road is Pakistan’s main armaments factory at Havelian.� This, it is assumed, also hosts part of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

And if these are not reasons enough to scrutinize outsiders, Abbottabad is also adjacent to the tense Line of Control with India; it is a short ride from the lawless tribal territories; and it controls the main road from Islamabad to China.

I explored Abbottabad with the curiosity of a Freelance Journalist.� I attended the old British church and socialized with Officers under training.� Sometimes I watched them drilling on the parade ground.� Like me, Usama Bin Laden would have heard their daily parade-ground chants of “Pakistan Zindabad!” from his villa a stone’s throw away.�

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When the daytime heat became unbearable I would hike into the pretty hills above Abbottabad, to enjoy the breeze among the pine trees.� And even on the mountainside I was never alone.� Guards would intercept me and ask what I was up to.

This was pre-9/11 and the atmosphere was benign.� But it goes to show that no Foreigner can be in Abbottabad and remain unnoticed.

Did Pakistan’ Military know Usama was living in their midst?� If not, that tells a scary truth about this nuclear-armed nation’s incompetence.� If his presence was known, at whose office did that fact get hushed up?

The Generals receiving generous U.S. aid may be playing a double game.� Or it might be Pakistan’s state-within-a-state Intelligence Agency that’s dealing double.� In any case, the discovery of Usama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, just 35 miles from Pakistan’s capital as the crow flies, must fuel debate about whether Pakistan is still functioning as a state.