Pakistan Is a Staunch U.S. Ally in Terror War

The hostile and mendacious positions projected in Leon Hadar’s April 1 commentary shocked us in the way he portrayed and questioned Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s bona fides in his commitment to fight and oust Al Qaeda and the Taliban from Pakistan, and in his handling of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan’s mercenary trade in nuclear technology. He failed to argue that without Musharraf’s support to oust the Taliban from Kabul and Pakistan’s great human and military sacrifices, the coalition’s war against terror would have gone nowhere, not to mention the fact that for his support of the U.S., Musharraf came within a hair of losing his life to two assassination attempts.

Hadar failed to give any credit to Musharraf’s decisive intervention to end the metastasizing nuclear-proliferation bazaar.

The vigorous probe by Pakistan into the proscribed “Khan Nuclear Inc.” has been universally praised. As to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, one thing is clear: No one knows where his lair is. The Pakistani military operations in South Waziristan last month, in which Pakistani soldiers sacrificed their blood, speak volumes to Pakistan’s commitment to find Bin Laden and his craven thugs.

Talat Waseem

Press Counselor

Embassy of Pakistan

Washington