The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Pakistan squandered opportunities over the years to kill or capture leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.While U.S. officials have said they believe Osama bin Laden and senior lieutenants have been hiding in the rugged terrain along the border with Afghanistan, Clinton's unusually blunt comments went further as she suggested that Pakistan's government has done too little to act against al-Qaeda's top echelon. "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton told the Pakistani journalists in Lahore. "Maybe that's the case. Maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."
With the country reeling from Wednesday's devastating bombing that killed at least 105 people in Peshawar, Clinton also engaged in an intense give-and-take with students at the Government College of Lahore. She insisted that inaction by the government would have ceded ground to terrorists. "If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice," she said, adding that she believed it would be a bad choice.
On Clinton's flight to the capital, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said Clinton's remarks to the Pakistani journalists approximate what the Obama administration has told Pakistani officials in private settings. "We often say, 'Yes, there needs to be more focus on finding these leaders,'" Patterson said. "They other thing is, they lost control of much of this territory in recent years and that's why they're in South Waziristan right now."
The army began an offensive Oct. 17 against Taliban forces in a portion of the tribal areas near the Afghan border. Patterson noted that al-Qaeda is mostly in that region. In Lahore, Clinton told university students that their government had little choice in taking a tougher approach.
Dozens of students rushed to line up for the microphone when the session began. Their questions were not hostile, but showed a strong sense of doubt that the U.S. can be a reliable and trusted partner for Pakistan.
One woman asked whether the U.S. can be expected to commit long term in Afghanistan after abandoning the country after Russian occupiers retreated in 1989. "What guarantee," the woman asked, "can Americans give Pakistan that we can now trust you — not you but, like, the Americans this time — of your sincerity and that you guys are not going to betray us like the Americans did in the past when they wanted to destabilize the Russians?"
Clinton responded that the question was a "fair criticism" and that the U.S. did not follow through in the way it should have. "It's difficult to go forward if we're always looking in the rearview mirror," said Clinton, on the second of a three-day visit, her first to Pakistan as secretary of state.
The Peshawar bombing in a market crowded with women and children appeared timed to overshadow her arrival. It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since 2007.
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