NO WAY: Benazir Bhutto wanted to bring in trained security personnel from abroad but they were denied visas

Even after her tragic assassination, Benazir Bhutto’s old emails and interviews are still in circulation. In these, she had named her would-be assassins. Addressing his first ever press conference after the murder, Asif Zardari made public her email to Mark Siegel, in which she had mentioned the names of her would-be killers. “The said email should be treated as Benazir Bhutto’s dying declaration. She talks about her murderers from her grave and it is up to the world to listen to the echoes,” he said. Bhutto had sent the email, two months before her death, to her US adviser and long-time friend, Mark Siegel, who was to make this email public only if she were killed. Mark Siegel subsequently forwarded Bhutto’s email to Wolf Blitzer of the CNN in Washington.

She wrote to Mark Siegel:

Nothing will, God willing, happen. Just wanted you to know if it does in addition to the names in my letter to General Musharraf of October 16th, I would hold Musharraf responsible. I have been made to feel insecure by his minions and there is no way what is happening, in terms of stopping me from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or four police mobile outriders to cover all sides, could happen without him.

Bhutto had sent the email eight days after the Karachi attack on her welcome procession, pointing out that she had not been accorded the requested improvements to her security and was being prevented from making arrangements that were vital to her safety. Her requests, even those routed through her contacts in the US, had not evoked a positive response from the Musharraf regime, although it was well aware of the risks she faced.

According to Mark Siegel, Bhutto had asked for permission to bring in trained security personnel from abroad, but the Pakistan government denied them visas, again and again. A US-based security agency, Blackwater, and a London-based firm, Armor Group, which guards UK diplomats in the Middle East, were not allowed to protect her. Bhutto urged Musharraf to improve her security after the Karachi suicide bomb attack, besides requesting American and British diplomats to pressurise Musharraf to provide her with adequate security. But Musharraf had taken no action.

Benazir Bhutto’s security concerns and Musharraf’s refusal to address them have also been highlighted by a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, Ron Suskind, in his book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Published in August 2008, the book makes several disclosures about the Musharraf-Bhutto conversations and includes Musharraf’s comment, “You should understand something — your security is based on the state of our relationship.” The writer disclosed that the US intelligence agencies had tapped Bhutto’s phone calls, prior to her arrival in Pakistan, in a bid to play their cut-throat games more effectively. About those who were tapping Bhutto’s calls, Suskind writes, “What they’ll overlook is the context and her tone in the many calls they eavesdrop on — overlook the fact that she’s scared and preparing for the possibility of imminent death.”

The book disclosed details of Bhutto’s meeting with Senator John Kerry, during the course of which she had requested the US to ensure that proper arrangements were made for her security, and he replied that the “United States is generally hesitant to ensure the protection of anyone who is not a designated leader”. In a subsequent interview on August 15, 2008 with Amy Goodman, an American broadcast journalist, Ron Suskind quoted Benazir Bhutto as having told him: “Look at my situation. I’m now going to wash away the entire Musharraf power structure, because the fact is, I’m rising, and he’s plummeting. That’s one opponent. Also, the jihadis are realising that I might create a counterpoint in this whole region to bin Laden. So now I’ve got two enemies, of course, who have been in an unholy alliance — dictatorial power, messianic radicalism — for many years, and I have no protection. Why? Because Dick Cheney won’t make the phone call. We go on and on about this.

IN THE DOCK:Pervez Musharraf

Why? Explain it to me, the idea that they assured me Cheney would make the call to Musharraf simply to say, ‘You’re the dictator, make sure she is protected. She has to make it to Election Day. If she doesn’t, we’re going to hold you responsible.”’

Alluding to Musharraf’s message to Bhutto that her safety was based on the state of their relationship, Suskind said: “It was all but like a Mafia threat. And this is something that the US, frankly, deep down understands, too. They let this process unfold. And ultimately, folks around Bhutto now are saying that she was abandoned by America.”

As is typical with the Bush administration, before any evidence had been offered, and with the key facts about the whole gruesome episode still in question, it unequivocally ascribed Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to al-Qaeda or a like-minded Islamic group. All President Bush seemed interested in was reminding Pakistanis how significant the upcoming national elections were in offering a way out for Musharraf’s ongoing crisis of legitimacy. That the elections were being stage-managed by Musharraf was hardly a secret, and even Bhutto herself remarked that they would be rigged. But Bush insisted that Pakistan “honour Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life”.

By linking Bhutto’s killing to al-Qaeda, President Bush conveniently achieved several goals. First he reinforced the myth about al-Qaeda, something that was very useful to Washington at a time of growing global scepticism over the real intent of its War on Terrorism, besides making Musharraf more valuable to Washington. Secondly, it gave Musharraf a plausible scapegoat to blame for the convenient elimination of a serious political rival, who stood in the way of his consolidation of one-man rule.