Bhutto planned to meet with Specter and Kennedy day of assassination
Benazir Bhutto had plans to hand over an intelligence document last Thursday after the political rally where she was assassinated. The document allegedly showed Pakistan's intelligence agencies were planning to rig the upcoming elections in favor of Musharraf.
Bhutto chose to meet with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-PA., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. She reportedly felt safer handing over the intelligence to senators she felt were supportive of her cause as opposed to the Bush administration she felt was pro-Musharraf.
Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report "was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who were working directly with Benazir Bhutto."
So far, the ISI has made no official comment. One agent speaking anonymously said the allegations were "a lot of talk but not much substance."
The intelligence is reported to have included these key points:
According to Lashari, the document includes information on a "safe house" allegedly being run by the ISI in a central neighborhood of Islamabad, the alleged headquarters of the rigging operation.Musharraf has dismissed the intelligence as resistance propoganda:
It names as the head of the unit a brigadier general recently retired from the ISI, who was secretly assigned to run the rigging operation, Lashari said. It charges that he was working in tandem with the head of a civilian intelligence agency. Before her return to Pakistan, Bhutto, in a letter to Musharraf, had named the intelligence official as one of the men she accused of plotting to kill her.
Lashari said the report claimed that U.S. aid money was being used to fix the elections. Ballots stamped in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which supports Musharraf, were to be produced by the intelligence agencies in about 100 parliamentary constituencies.
Musharraf has been highly critical of those who allege that his regime is involved in electoral manipulation. "Now when they lose, they'll have a good rationale: that it is all rigged, it is all fraud," he said in November. "In Pakistan, the loser always cries."I personally do not think it is much of a stretch that Pakistan intelligence were working on influencing constituencies where the results were expected to be decided by a small margin. It is unfortunate that Bhutto's meeting with Specter and Kennedy never took place due to her assassination, but one can hope that this intelligence - if it truly has substance - will be handed over by PPP members to trusted Americans. With Musharraf guilty of announcing Bhutto's cause of death as a concussion before tapes surfaced of the shooting, I have reason to think there might be substance to this report - if it can be produced.Pakistan, bhutto, Musharraf, elections
