Asif Ali Zardari apparently believes in an Internet hoax that Oliver North, currently conservative political commentator, was aware of the danger posed by Osama bin Laden some 20 years ago.
NEW YORK: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari apparently believes in an Internet hoax that Oliver North, currently conservative political commentator, was aware of the danger posed by Osama bin Laden some 20 years ago.
In an interview telecast by Fox News, Zardari said that North had installled a security system for his home in the late 1980 " because he was scared of Osama bin Laden".
North, a decorated platoon leader of Vietnam war, has been the subject of an e-mail rumour that during the Iran-Contra hearings, he told a Senate committee that he had installed a USD 60,000 security system at his home to protect his family from bin Laden.
The rumour, which emerged in the wake of Sept 11, 2001 terrorists attacks on New York and Washington had been found to be untrue and North himself too has denied it as "simply inaccurate."
But Zardari in the interview telecast Tuesday said," 20 years ago bin-Laden paid USD 10 million for a no confidence move against our government. She (Benazir Bhutto)went to the American embassy, called up the American President (Bush senior), and complained that why is an operator who's supposed to be an American destabilising my government."
"And Bush hadn't even heard of the name Osama bin Laden. But Oliver North, he said, had".
North, Zardari said repeating the hoax, "in his defense that the reason he had spent so much on his home security is because he was scared of bin-Laden."
The Pakistan People's Party spokesperson Farahnaz Ispahani who responded to The New York Times enquiry about Zardari's statement said that the point Zardari sought to make was more about how US ignored the threat posed by al Qaeda and bin Laden and less about the Oliver North's comment or hoax.
"As President Zardari has said bin Laden funded opponents of then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1989. Her complaints about bin Laden to American officials drew the response that they did not know much about him or his movement, which at that time operated under the name of Services Bureau," she said in the e-mail response to the Times.
On Tuesday's broadcast, the newspaper noted that Greta Van Susteren, who interviewed Zardari, did not explain to viewers that Zardari's statement was untrue.
A spokesman for Van Susteren's programme was quoted as saying that it was aware of the issue and planned to post a statement from North on her blog.
In his actual testimony, the Times said, North never mentioned bin Laden and referred only to the terrorist Abu Nidal. In November 2001, after receiving copies of the e-mail hoax, he wrote, "Though I would like to claim the gift of prophesy, I don't have it."
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