Report: George W. Bush Put In Place Deal That Allowed Bin Laden Raid

From the Guardian, via Ace of Spades:

The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week's raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.

The deal was struck between the military leader General Pervez Musharraf and President George Bush after Bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.

Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

The only people who seem to be surprised by this are Barack Obama and his Administration.

I love Ace's take:

Shooting bin Laden was certainly legal but what about sending the US military into Pakistan unbidden? That's not exactly kosher according to international law. So either Obama is an international criminal, his (and other liberal) professions of fidelity to international law are situational at best or...there was a pre-existing deal.

I hold no stock in international law. It's a fiction that is occasionally useful to us but mostly allows the little countries and liberals to bitch about something. Still, I think if they want to hold the US to when Republicans are in charge, they need to live by it (though I'm glad when they ignore it in our interest). Now though it appears, as one might have expected, that this whole thing was set in place but Evil International Law Breaking Cowboy George W. Bush.

Gutsy call indeed.

In a further development, Pakistan seems to have set our CIA Station Chief up for murder.