Reaction
The American and British governments approved the verdicts. [BBC, 7/15/02] Said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, "The Bush administration welcomes Pakistan's verdict in this matter... Daniel Pearl was brutally executed, and Pakistan's ... court system has now ruled. This is a further example of Pakistan showing leadership in the war against terror." [Wall Street Journal, 7/15/02] In fact, "the government's case rest[ed] heavily on technical FBI evidence." [AP, 7/1/02] On May 16, Pearl's body was found and identified, but the FBI didn't officially release the DNA results because official confirmation of the body would have meant a new trial. [Independent, 7/16/02] Pakistani officials admit they waited to release the results until after the verdict. [Guardian, 7/18/02] So it seems the US was complicit in gaining a quick conviction in a kangaroo court.

The mainstream media slipped further into amnesia regarding Saeed's connections. The conviction story made headlines, and there was room for lengthy background information and even special background articles on Saeed. However no story in the US mentioned his al-Qaeda or ISI connections, much less his 9/11 connections. [AP, 7/15/02, AP, 7/15/02, CBS, 7/15/02, CNN, 7/15/02, Los Angeles Times, 7/15/02, MSNBC, 7/15/02, New York Times, 7/15/02, Reuters, 7/15/02, USA Today, 7/15/02, Wall Street Journal, 7/15/02, Washington Post, 7/15/02] By comparison, in Britain, articles connected Saeed to the ISI [Guardian, 7/16/02, Guardian, 7/16/02, Daily Mail, 7/16/02], al-Qaeda [Independent, 7/16/02], the 9/11 attacks [Scotsman, 7/16/02], or some combination of the three [London Times, 7/16/02, Daily Mail, 7/16/02, Telegraph, 7/16/02] (with one exception: [BBC, 7/16/02, BBC, 7/16/02]). Many British newspapers also strongly questioned the justice of the verdict, [Guardian, 7/18/02, Independent, 7/16/02, [Independent, 7/21/02, BBC, 7/16/02] while only the Washington Post did in the US. [Washington Post, 7/15/02, Washington Post, 7/16/02] As the Wall Street Journal delicately put it, "The prosecution overcame some significant weaknesses in the case to obtain the conviction." [Wall Street Journal, 7/15/02]

A month after the verdict, a remarkable story in Vanity Fair explored all of Saeed's connections, but the article seemed to make no impact at all. [Vanity Fair, 8/02] In the months since, Saeed's connections seem to have been forgotten even in the British media. Most recently, it has been suggested that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the Daniel Pearl murder as well, and may even have cut Pearl's throat himself. [Time, 1/26/03, CNN, 1/30/03] This not only shows al-Qaeda working to benefit the ISI in silencing Pearl, but also helps confirm the theory that Mohammed has been supported by the ISI. Since Mohammed has been "linked to almost every attack against the United States since the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993" [Los Angeles Times, 6/16/02], that in turn raises the possibility that the ISI has also been involved in all of those attacks, at the very least by not helping to arrest Mohammed. 

The ISI Muzzled? No
Musharraf has been hailed for his firing on ISI Director Mahmood, and generally has been presented as a pro-Western figure trying to root of pro-terrorist factions of the ISI. But The Observer has called this "The Myth of the Good General Musharraf." [Observer, 3/31/02] On January 12, 2002, in the face of US pressure, Musharraf made a forceful speech condemning Islamic extremism, and arrested about 2,000 extremists around the same time. Yet, by the end of the month, at least 800 had been quietly released. [Washington Post, 3/28/02] Since then, "almost all" of those arrested have been released. Even the most prominent terrorist leaders, such as Saeed's friend Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, have been released. Remarkably, the US has not protested despite Azhar's role in killing US soldiers in Somalia and other terrorist acts. Old terrorist organizations are running strongly again, often under new names. [Christian Science Monitor, 12/16/02, Washington Post, 2/8/03] Reforms have been abandoned. As one US regional expert put it, "It is no longer a question of whether Pakistan is going backwards or forwards. It's a question of how rapidly it's going backwards." [Financial Times, 2/8/03] 
~~

~~ Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup

So many other countries - Argentina, Britain, Cayman Islands, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Russia, even a Taliban cabinet minister - warned the US about an impending attack (see the They Tried to Warn Us essay). How it is possible that Pakistan, in the best position to know, gave no warning? If Musharraf is in control of the ISI, then how could he not have known of the 9/11 attack, and if he isn't in control and didn't know, then what good is he as a leader? The US government and media has had an astonishing ability to turn a blind eye when it comes to Pakistan. For instance, in late September 2001, Pakistani officials went to Afghanistan and secretly advised the Taliban to not turn over bin Laden, but stand up and fight the US. [Knight Ridder, 11/3/01, AP, 2/21/02, Time, 5/6/02] In November 2001, it was reported that the US was mainly relying on the ISI for its intelligence information on the war against the Taliban, even as the ISI was secretly supplying the Taliban with supplies and military advisors. [Knight Ridder, 11/3/01]

A UPI editorial stated, "Al-Qaeda terrorists have long since scattered deep inside Pakistan and in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir where they enjoy the protection of the [ISI] ... The unspeakable is that Pakistan is the new Afghanistan, a privileged sanctuary for hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters and Taliban operatives. Some estimates go as high as 5,000 ... The Pakistani - al-Qaeda connection is visible to all but the geopolitically challenged." [UPI, 8/28/02] Prominent Taliban leaders wanted by the US have been living openly in Pakistani cities and yet the US does nothing about them. [Guardian, 12/24/01, Time, 5/6/02]

It is now widely reported that Osama bin Laden, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and most other prominent al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be living in Pakistan, some of them living in the open and in luxury, with the protection of the ISI. It is frequently pointed out that Pakistan's efforts to find them are mostly a charade. [Los Angeles Times, 4/6/02, Christian Science Monitor, 7/2/02, Los Angeles Times, 6/16/02, Time 7/29/02, Washington Post, 8/4/02, New York Times, 9/15/02, AP, 11/12/02, Los Angeles Times, 11/17/02] But still, the situation doesn't change. As an example of Bush's seemingly inexplicable response to terrorism in Pakistan, Azhar's group Jaish-e-Mohammed had its assets frozen shortly after 9/11, but the group simply changed its name and over a year later the US has not frozen the assets of this "new" group. [Financial Times, 2/8/03, Washington Post, 2/8/03]

Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Since 1997, Pakistan has been secretly supplying North Korea with nuclear technology, in return for long-range missile technology. Seymour Hersh has suggested that it is likely Pakistan is giving nuclear technology to other countries as well. [NOW with Bill Moyers, 2/21/03] Even at the end of the Clinton administration this link between Pakistan and North Korea was known, but neither Clinton nor Bush stopped it. [San Jose Mercury News, 10/24/02] As the Guardian put it, "If George Bush's 'war on terror' were remotely rational, or even roughly reasoned, then its next target might be Pakistan, not Iraq. It should be said that the US is not justified in pre-emptively and unilaterally attacking either country - or any other sovereign state for that matter. But on the basis of Mr. Bush's own 'axis of evil' criteria at least, Pakistan sits squarely in the theoretical firing line." [Guardian, 10/8/02]

There is no evidence that the US has questioned Saeed about 9/11. Indian newspapers have pointed out that if the US were to pressure its close ally Pakistan so Saeed could to be interrogated in his Pakistani prison, they could not only learn more about the financing of the 9/11 attacks, but also gain valuable information about the structure of al-Qaeda cells in Pakistan. [Indian Express, 7/19/02] Needless to say, there's no evidence Lt. Gen. Mahmood has been questioned, either.