Did The US Betray Bhutto?

Robert Novak thinks we did. After sending Benazir Bhutto back to Pakistan to shore up Musharraf’s transition to democracy, the State Department did little to address the security deficiencies of which Bhutto complained on several occasions. They insisted that Musharraf would ensure her protection and then failed to press Musharraf to do so:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto followed two months of urgent pleas to the State Department by her representatives for better protection. The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would not let anything happen to her.
That attitude led a Bhutto agent to inform a high-ranking State Department official that her camp no longer viewed the backstage U.S. effort to broker a power-sharing agreement between Musharraf and the former prime minister as a good-faith effort toward democracy. It was, according to the written complaint, an attempt to preserve the politically endangered Musharraf as George W. Bush’s man in Islamabad. …
The unsuccessful Oct. 18 attempt on Bhutto’s life followed the regime’s rejection of her requested security protection when she returned from eight years in exile. The Pakistani government vetoed FBI assistance in investigating the attack. On Oct. 26, Bhutto sent an e-mail to Mark Siegel, her friend and Washington spokesman, to be made public only in the event of her death.
“I would hold Musharraf responsible,” Bhutto said in the message. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions.” She listed obstruction to her “taking private cars or using tinted windows,” using jammers against roadside bombs and being surrounded with police cars. “Without him [Musharraf],” she said, those requests could not have been blocked.

And yet, with all of this, Bhutto took the rather extraordinary risk of popping up through the sunroof without any protection from bullets and bombs. She had survived two attempts on her life with the protection she had. Why take that kind of risk, one which even the best security cannot completely minimize? Had she remained in the car, she would still be alive inside the armored vehicle along with her companions on that last ride.
In fact, she had spoken at a very public venue, a park, with no problems at all. Security must have done a decent job at that point in screening off assassins. She didn’t get hit until she left in the car, and wouldn’t have been hit if she had remained in it. With the slow progress of the vehicle, she made herself into an easy target.
That doesn’t mean her security concerns weren’t valid, nor does it excuse the kind of inaction described by Novak,if true. We helped broker that deal to send Bhutto back to Pakistan, and we had at least a moral obligation to help address the obvious and serious security issues. Relying on Musharraf exclusively under those circumstances would have been foolish and naive. While Musharraf himself had little to gain from her death and a lot more to lose, that may not be true for all those in his administration, and especially for elements of the ISI.
The US had even more to lose. She was our best option, and one might think that State would have kept that in mind. Her death has made the situation much worse than before her arrival, and if a little pressure from us could have prevented it, then the failure to provide it doesn’t border on incompetence, it invades it with gusto.

Pakistan Postpones Elections Amid Unrest

Pakistan has decided to push back its January 8 elections by at least four weeks, due to the unrest sweeping the nation after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The rioting comes at least in part over the controversy surrounding the cause of death. As it turns out, no autopsy has been performed, and for a surprising reason:

Pakistan’s elections will be delayed by at least four weeks due to mass unrest after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a cabinet official told AFP.
Other government and election officials confirmed that the January 8 polls would be postponed.
Bhutto’s party rejected any delay and insisted the government should stick to the schedule, but a spokesman for Nawaz Sharif, another major opposition leader, said a short postponement “would be acceptable.”
The vote is under scrutiny around the world as President Pervez Musharraf pledges to complete the Islamic nation’s transition to civilian-led democracy after eight years of his military rule.

Pakistan could not stage an election with any hope of success at the moment. Dozens have died over the last few days from rioting, and the government could not provide the security necessary to make the elections reliable. Nawaz Sharif understood this and had demanded a postponement, saying that he would otherwise boycott the elections. The temptation for Pervez Musharraf to manipulate his security apparatus to influence the election would be far too great.
Musharraf must hope that the outrage will settle down in a few weeks. The latest information concerning Bhutto’s assassination will not help. No one performed an autopsy, but not because the Musharraf government tried to get by without one. Bhutto’s husband refused to allow it:

The medical report, prepared with six other doctors, does not specifically mention a bullet because the actual cause of the head wound was to be left to an autopsy, Mr. Minallah said. The doctors had stressed to him that “without an autopsy it is not at all possible to determine as to what had caused the injury,” he wrote.
But the chief of police in Rawalpindi, Saud Aziz, “did not agree” to the autopsy request by the doctors, Mr. Minallah said in his letter.
A former senior Pakistani police official, Wajahat Latif, who headed the Federal Investigative Agency in the early 1990s, said that in “any case of a suspected murder an autopsy is mandatory.” To waive an autopsy, Mr. Latif said, relatives were required to apply for permission.
At a news conference Sunday, Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, said he had declined a request for a post-mortem examination. “It was an insult to my wife, an insult to the sister of the nation, an insult to the mother of the nation,” he said. “I know their forensic reports are useless. I refuse to give them her last remains.”

The post-mortem consisted only of a passive examination — looking at the body. They could not open the skull to see whether a bullet remained lodged in the brain after her death. According to the notes of the examination, however, it seems rather clear that the injury didn’t come from a sunroof handle. The report talks about “whitish material which looked like brain matter” outside of the wound. A sunroof handle wouldn’t have produced that kind of ejecta.
The decision not to allow an autopsy played into the hands of those who wanted to play a little CYA, but that makes little sense other than strictly as a panicked notion. As many have speculated, the notion of a gunman getting that close to Bhutto makes security look pretty damned poor. The alternate version doesn’t really improve matters; even if she died as a result of a sunroof handle hitting her head, the suicide bomber got close enough to the car, too. In any event, independent video clearly shows someone shooting at Bhutto, so the jig is up on protecting the security detail.
Perhaps the family might consider an exhumation for an autopsy performed by a competent Western coroner. That might go a long way towards settling these questions, and at the same time bringing an end to the rioting throughout Pakistan. With a few weeks postponement of the election, the time would be ripe now for that kind of action.

Who Knew Rudy Would Be Mr. Sunshine?

With the races in Iowa and New Hampshire ending up in dead heats with less than a week to go before the start of the 2008 primaries, the tone has descended to at least cranky. Mitt Romney has gone on the attack against John McCain and Mike Huckabee, while both candidates have returned the favor. Rudy Giuliani, with his big-state strategy, has managed to stay above the fray:

Largely out of the political debate in Iowa and New Hampshire, Republican Rudy Giuliani tried to turn the bickering among his presidential rivals to his advantage, arguing that voters appreciate candidates who stay positive.
“We’re not involved in the back and forth about criticism of each other,” the former New York mayor said Sunday in Plymouth after speaking at a town hall meeting in this college town. “I kind of like that; I’d rather not do that. I don’t think that’s the best way to win a Republican primary. I think you’re better off emphasizing what you do, what you can do, what you believe.”
He cast himself as the most experienced candidate in the field, noting that beside being mayor during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he also was an assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration and the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.
When a woman at the Mount Washington Hotel told Giuliani the last time she saw him was when he was campaigning for rival Mitt Romney during the 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, the former mayor laughed and said, “Mitt Romney is a friend. I consider him a friend. I think he’s a very good man and I think he’s a very worthy candidate. I just happen to think I’m a better candidate, and I would be better at being president.”

When the race started, everyone expected Rudy to become the attack dog in the race. He has a no-prisoners attitude at most times, and of course the hard-knock politics of New York City has given him a very thick skin. In fact, one of the negatives about Rudy has been the impression that he can get flinty, as he did with Romney in the YouTube debate over immigration.
The odd dynamic of Iowa and New Hampshire has given Rudy an opportunity to take a different angle on the race. No one’s wasting any motion attacking Rudy at the moment as all of them need wins in races Rudy has skipped. That leaves Rudy as a national frontrunner who has received almost no criticism from his opponents in the last four weeks.
Now Rudy can act presidential, rising above the petty bickering that has erupted among the three other Republican candidates. He began today, probably surprised at the opening the tight primary fights in the first two states have provided. He can act like everyone’s friend, building goodwill among voters while the others sharpen their tongues and their teeth.
Rudy, The Nice Guy. Who’d have guessed?

The Ultimate Poll: The Five-Place Tie

Well, we knew this was coming, didn’t we? Rasmussen has a new poll out this morning that shows a dead heat among the five Republican frontrunners, with a new face at the very top of the heap:

For the first time all year, Arizona Senator John McCain finds himself on top with support from 17% of Likely Republican Primary Voters. In the muddled GOP race, McCain becomes the third person to top the poll this month and the fourth since October. But his lead is statistically insignificant–Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are just a point behind at 16% and Rudy Giuliani is two points back at 15%. Slightly off the pace, but still within five points of McCain, is Fred Thompson at 12%. Ron Paul retains his base support at 7%.
One of the more amazing things about the Republican race this year is that it has grown closer and closer over time (see recent daily numbers). In a poll with a four-percentage point margin of error, the fact that five candidates are within five points means there is absolutely no national frontrunner. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that 13% of Likely Primary Voters remain undecided.
Data from RasmussenMarkets.com suggest that Giuliani has a 30.0 % chance of winning the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney 25.2 %, John McCain 19.9 %, Mike Huckabee 11.6 %, and Fred Thompson 3.5 %. However, those numbers are likely to shift dramatically as results come in from the upcoming Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primaries.

In other words, the national race has become a toss-up. So what else is new? We’re now at the spot where the national polls mean little, though, and the state polls have much more significance. Still, this does show that McCain has managed to revive what everyone considered a dead campaign in mid-summer — and that resurgence could present Mitt Romney with considerable difficulties in New Hampshire.

Are They That Afraid Of Bill Kristol?

The New York Times decided to bring another conservative commentator aboard their flailing op-ed pages, still recovering from their years-long cloister of TimesSelect. They chose Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, whose run at Time Magazine recently came to an end. Did liberals celebrate the balancing of opinion at the Gray Lady? Not exactly, as The Politico points out:

The New York Times’ hiring of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to write for its op-ed page caused a frenzy in the liberal blogosphere Friday night, with threats of canceling subscriptions and claims that the Gray Lady had been hijacked by neo-cons
But Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal sees things differently.
Rosenthal told Politico shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views.”
“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Well, pretty intolerant. Kristol told Michael Calderone that he enjoyed following the outrage at the Huffington Post and “watching blogosphere heads explode”. The same people who celebrated Kristol’s departure from Time suddenly got a case of shrieking hysteria when they found out that the Times would publish a Kristol column once per week, half of the time as their normal two-column-per-week stable of pundits.
Josh Marshall’s reaction was among the more sane, but still laughably hyperbolic, in a post titled “Kristol To Ravish Gray Lady”:

But the weirdest thing about the choice is that Sulzberger and Co. have failed to grasp the taxonomy of the neoconservative literary cartel. David Brooks is the house-broken William Kristol, the cadre tasked with operating just behind enemy lines, or at least in the no-man’s-land where only a kinder gentler version of the faith can be propounded. And they already have him.
So why you’d want both Kristol and Brooks on staff is a question that simply has no logical answer unless they got some sort of two for one deal or other kind of group discount.

Oh, my stars and garters! The Times will have two conservative columnists — or in terms of quantity, one and a half! How can the Left hope to compete — with Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Frank Rich, and Nicholas Kristof?
I have to admit that I find the controversy refreshing. It’s good to see the progressives admit that a half of Bill Kristol outweighs the five liberal commentators at the Gray Lady. It also shows, as Rosenthal notes, the rhetorical intolerance that many progressives display on a fairly regular basis. When they cancel subscriptions to the one national newspaper most amenable to their politics simply because it allows one competing opinion to appear, that says something about their insecurity.

Did Reporters Get Born Yesterday?

The dumbest political controversy this week, a prize that one wins with some difficulty, comes unsurprisingly from the Boston Globe. Michael Kranish found it necessary to breathlessly report that John McCain used a proverb that is so well-known that it has probably appeared on tens of thousands of blogs before yesterday. Somehow, however, Kranish and an unnamed reporter on McCain’s beat managed to turn it into a nasty personal attack on Mitt Romney:

Asked how he intended to respond [to a Mitt Romney attack], the Arizona Republican said: “Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty — and the pig likes it.”
The back-of-the-bus compartment in which McCain was holding forth went silent for several seconds. Finally, a reporter asked: was McCain comparing Romney to a pig? McCain laughed and paused as he formulated his response: “That was a general philosophical approach to American politics.”

No wonder no one takes the media seriously. A quick Google search on a few key words in this phrase comes up with 145,000 hits. According to one site, it has been in use in American politics for at least 60 years, and some even ascribe its use to Abraham Lincoln. It’s well-known enough to keep it from rendering a group of supposed experts on politics speechless at its use.
So no, John McCain did not call Mitt Romney a pig. He gave a cliche answer as a demurral from further engagement with Romney in sniping about immigration, and the proverb explained why; it’s a battle neither one of them will win, especially in sound bites. Anyone who has graduated from high school before 2007 would have realized the context and the meaning of the remarks.
Anyone reaching for this as a personal attack on Romney is showing signs of either desperation or incredible inexperience. Coming from the Boston Globe, one could apply either.
UPDATE: Rick Moran and James Joyner note more traditional journalistic hijinks, this time in mishandling a Fred Thompson statement on his effort to win the Presidency.

Still Dead Heats In Iowa

A new poll by Reuters, C-SPAN, and Zogby show what most polls have told us about Iowa: it’s still a dead heat. For Republicans, only one point separates Mike Huckabee from Mitt Romney, while Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards come within seven points of each other. It makes for a dramatic conclusion to the 2007 phase of the primaries:

Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a narrow lead in Iowa four days before the state opens the presidential nominating race, while Republicans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are virtually tied, according to a Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll released on Sunday.
Clinton, a New York senator, led Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois 31 percent to 27 percent, with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards a close third at 24 percent and no other Democratic contender registering in double-digits.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, held a statistically insignificant one-point edge over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 29 percent to 28 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain was a distant third with 11 percent.
Three Republicans, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, registered 8 percent in the poll.

Reuters notes the importance of the caucus rules in Iowa. In order to remain a viable option for caucus-goers, a candidate has to get at least 15% in the first caucusing. Any candidate failing to get that level of support gets dropped from the list, and their supporters have to recaucus for one of the remaining contenders or leave altogether. [see update; this only applies to Democrats.]
For the Democrats, it looks more unsettled than ever. Hillary has a four-point lead over Barack Obama, statistically a dead heat. Edwards remains close, and he has a slight edge in the second-choice category. With these numbers, however, only around 18% will remain after the first round, and Edwards would have to take more than half to move up significantly. The contest will go to the wire between Hillary and Obama.
Bring the popcorn, and put on a pot of coffee. This one will go late.
UPDATE: The 15% rule only applies to Democrats. In fact, the Republican contest isn’t even really binding. The state’s delegates will get chosen in the Republican state convention, although one can expect a similar sort of outcome. Republicans will only take a single vote on caucus night, using secret hand-written ballots. Thanks to CapQ reader David G for the tip on this one.
This makes the contest a two-man race in Iowa.
UPDATE II: A new McClatchy-MSNBC poll shows a different race altogether, albeit with half of the sample:

Among Democrats:

  • Former Sen. Edwards of North Carolina has the support of 24 percent;
  • Sen. Clinton of New York has 23 percent;
  • Sen. Obama of Illinois has 22 percent;
  • Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has 12 percent;
  • Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware has 8 percent;
  • Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut has 2 percent;
  • Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio has 1 percent.
  • Undecided: 8 percent.
  • Among Republicans:

  • Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney has 27 percent;
  • Former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee has 23 percent;
  • Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has 14 percent;
  • Sen. John McCain of Arizona has 13 percent;
  • Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has 5 percent;
  • Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has 5 percent;
  • Rep. Duncan Hunter of California has 1 percent.
  • Undecided: 12 percent.
  • This shows Thompson moving up fast, surpassing McCain. This seems like an outlier, but Thompson has become especially active in the last two weeks, and he could be catching fire. If McClatchy had a better sample size, one could have more confidence in these results. (via Memeorandum)

    Osama Bin Desperate?

    Osama bin Laden released an audio tape statement that focused on the Sunnis of Iraq, warning them not to fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq, the bin Laden affiliate currently reeling from the combined forces of the American surge and the Anbar Awakening. The tape got made before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, as Osama didn’t mention al-Qaeda’s success in Pakistan. He did make clear that he sees Iraq as a central battlefront in his jihad against the West:

    Osama bin Laden warned Iraq’s Sunni Arabs against fighting al-Qaida and vowed to expand the terror group’s holy war to Israel in a new audiotape Saturday, threatening “blood for blood, destruction for destruction.”
    Most of the 56-minute tape dealt with Iraq, apparently al-Qaida’s latest attempt to keep supporters in Iraq unified at a time when the U.S. military claims to have al-Qaida’s Iraq branch on the run. …
    Bin Laden said Sunni Arabs who have joined the Awakening Councils “have betrayed the nation and brought disgrace and shame to their people. They will suffer in life and in the afterlife.”

    Osama’s biggest problem in Iraq is AQI. In those territories they have held, the terrorists have conducted themselves in the most brutal of fashions, forcing “marriages” on unwilling women and tribes, and cutting off the heads of children when their co-religionists resisted. AQI imposed Taliban-like shari’a law on a populace more cosmopolitan than the Afghans, who mostly resisted it as well, and freely tortured and killed anyone who didn’t like it.
    The Sunnis know — now — that Osama’s threats are much less worse than the reality of AQI control. The entire organizations consists of lunatics and sadists using Islam as an excuse for their depravity. After allying with these foreigners in the first months and years after the American invasion, they quickly determined that they have a better chance of survival by killing as many of the AQI terrorists as they can, and that forced them into the arms of the Americans.
    The more Osama threatens them, the closer the Sunnis will cleave to the US. American forces do not rape, pillage, and commit mass murder, which makes the choice pretty clear. And the more Osama threatens, the more he concedes that a defeat in Iraq will cripple his triumphalism and expose his organization as a tawdry army of serial killers and perverts, and not Allah’s Chosen. When that happens, Osama will find himself in more desperate straits than ever.

    Perfect Suspense

    In the end, it turned out much more suspenseful than anyone predicted. At one point, the New England Patriots found themselves down 28-16, then scored 22 unanswered points to seemingly put it away. They then had to weather a late effort by Eli Manning to hold on, 38-35, to have the first perfect regular season of the 16-game schedule, and the first in 35 years overall.
    Tom Brady came out roaring in the second half, but the big surprise came from Manning, who had played poorly in the previous four games. Tonight, he looked a lot like his older brother had switched jerseys with him. Until the fourth quarter, Eli played flawlessly. He looked commanding, poised, and prepared. Only an unfortunate interception in the last stanza marred his record, and it provided the Patriots with the drive that won the ballgame.
    Once again, the Patriots looked beatable … for a while. That 22-point run looked mighty impressive, especially given the forgettable first half the Patriots defense played. They got tough when it counted. That makes them look fairly unstoppable, and with a first-round bye to rest everyone, they will be fresh for their next opponent.
    The Giants played with a lot of heart tonight, but got coached with little brains. Tom Coughlin watched two key players go out of the game with injuries, especially Sam Madison in a defensive backfield already weakened with injury. If Eli Manning or Plaxico Burress had gone down with a season-ending injury, Giants fans would rightly have asked what the hell Coughlin was thinking in keeping him in this meaningless game. As it is, they will go into the first round coming off a hard-fought loss and shorthanded. Coughlin validated the Patriot win, but that’s hardly his first responsibility in coaching the Giants.
    Will this go down as the greatest team in modern NFL history? Not unless they win the Super Bowl. It’s the greatest regular season ever, but if they can’t add a Lombardi Trophy to accompany it, history will rightly question why they failed. Nick Buoniconti and Bob Griese still have bragging rights, at least for five more weeks.

    In Which Chris Dodd Channels CapQ

    On Thursday, progressive commenters here at CapQ erupted in outrage when I quoted Bill Richardson demanding that the US “force” Musharraf out of power in favor of a national government. Originally, the Richardson apologists insisted that the word “force” came from the journalist reporting the story; when I produced the quote from Richardson’s website, they claimed he didn’t mean “force” when he said … “force”.
    Count Chris Dodd among those who scoff at that explanation (via CapQ commenter NoDonkey):

    Though Richardson often touts his foreign policy experience — he was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Bill Clinton — Dodd dismissed Richardson’s proposals in strong terms.
    “I think that is a dangerous idea, and I am sort of surprised Bill Richardson would make that recommendation,” Dodd said. “Can you tell me who is going to then be controlling the keys to the nuclear weapons in Pakistan when Musharraf is not there? And if you can’t answer that question, then be careful what you wish for.”
    Dodd went on: “The idea of dumping Musharraf and cutting off aid, which I think Bill Richardson also suggested, is the worst possible thing we could be doing right now. That is the height of danger.”

    Not to mention who gets represented in a national unity government in Pakistan. The radical Islamists have a significant amount of political support in Pakistan, some of it through “democratic” political parties. Does this American-imposed government reserve a place at the table for the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies? If they’re excluded, then how is this an improvement, in democratic terms, than a government headed by Musharraf with elections including the parties of Bhutto and Sharif? Why would we want to eject the one man who has conducted a war against the radical Islamists for an opportunity to let our enemies into the government?
    Chris Dodd has enough sense to recognize this for the insanity it is. It’s Iran in 1979 all over again, even ignoring the imperialistic overtones of America “forcing” Pakistan to change leadership.