Author:
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: October 2, 2001
Pakistan will be a "special case",
said a US official, as the Bush administration began the process of providing
to its allies evidence linking Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network
to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon.
Senior US administration officials
told CNN yesterday that the information would be shared in diplomatic cables
to specific US embassies around the world. However, an official said Pakistan
would be a "special case", with the evidence most likely presented "eyeball
to eyeball" in a meeting between Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and
US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin.
The US administration has been "pretty
much convinced" for the past week that bin Laden was responsible, an official
said. Another senior administration source said Secretary of State Colin
Powell was "totally convinced " al-Qaeda carried out the attacks.
But the officials said the US State
Department is only now ready to begin sharing varying levels of classified
evidence.
On Monday, State Department officials
put finishing touches to presentations that "make the case in a logical
kind of way" without providing "every morsel of evidence", said one senior
source.
Officials said the evidence would
be contained in diplomatic cables to certain US embassies. The first round
of cables was expected to go out on Monday to English-speaking countries,
including Great Britain, Canada and Australia, the sources said.
The next round of cables was expected
to be sent out by tomorrow to other close US allies, including NATO members
Japan, South Korea "and Singapore, the sources said. The sources pointed
out that the evidence shared in these cables would not necessarily be as
revealing as what was contained in the first round.
Shortly after that, officials told
CNN, "everyone else" would receive cables laying out the US case. Again,
those cables would contain less-detailed information than given in the
first two rounds.
