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In an apparent retaliation for the raid that violated their country’s sovereignty and killed Osama bin Laden, the Pakistani government leaked the name of the U.S.’s local CIA chief to the media. The name was apparently misspelled and the U.S. has decided to retain their operative. It was the second time such a leak had been attempted, underscoring the recent strained relations between the two countries. The Pakistani government has made a concession however, in allowing the U.S. interview access to bin Laden’s surviving widows. This week there have been reports of a secret deal struck nearly ten years ago between former U.S. President George W Bush and Former Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf over bin Laden. According to the Guardian, “Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.” General Musharraf has strongly denied the existence of such a deal. The timing of the U.S. raid to kill bin Laden is also facing scrutiny given that the recent Wikileaks release of Guantanamo detainee files revealed that Abu Al Libi, one of the detainees, had been designated a courier for bin Laden, and moved his family to Abbottabad, Pakistan where we now know bin Laden was living for the past five years. Meanwhile, Army Private Bradley Manning, who is currently imprisoned in connection with the leaking of secret government files to Wikileaks, has finally been declared mentally fit to stand trial. He faces dozens of charges, and despite the fact that he has yet to be tried, President Barack Obama recently declared at a San Francisco fundraiser that Manning “broke the law.”

GUESTS: Greg Mitchell, award-winning author whose writes a daily blog on WikiLeaks for The Nation magazine, author of Bradley Manning: Truth and Consequences, and The Age of Wikileaks, Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, briefed top White House officials, on the steering committee of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Read Ray McGovern’s article here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/05-7