n Better explanations wantingPakistan, it is rare for anyone to even consider the possibility of their own culpability when faced with errors or slip-ups, says the Dawn newspaper in an editorial. Excerpts: This is especially true in sensitive cases. It was therefore a rather courageous step by the Pakistan Air Force to explain why it had failed to detect the US helicopters used in the operation against Osama Bin Laden. Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman was reported as having said that the high-level radars along Pakistan's western border had been inactive on the day in question, given that the country was not expecting any aerial threat from Afghanistan. A day later, PAF spokesman Air Commodore Tariq Yazdani said the air surveillance system had neither been jammed nor had it been inactive. Given that he was unable to confirm whether the PAF had been aware of the US helicopters' incursion, we are left with even more questions. Meanwhile, the list of Pakistan's intelligence failures in terms of Bin Laden's whereabouts constitutes a damning body of evidence. According to Bin Laden's widow, he and his family left the tribal areas in 2003 to live in Chak Shah Mohammad, a settled area on the highway to Abbottabad, to which place they moved in 2005. This means that Pakistan's security and intelligence forces somehow failed to take note of the presence of the world's most wanted man in their backyard for over half a decade. Indeed, Afghanistan's former intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, said Thursday that Afghanistan's intelligence service had suspected that Bin Laden had been hiding in Pakistan's settled areas but that when the then president Musharraf was informed, he refused to entertain the idea. All these revelations are not just embarrassing; they also raise serious doubts about a defense and security establishment that prides itself on its effective professionalism. On Thursday, the army chief ordered an investigation into the intelligence failures that led to Bin Laden's undetected presence, and why US personnel were able to enter Pakistani territory without the country's security forces noticing. A step in the right direction though this may be, more is needed to assuage the doubts of Pakistanis. Their faith in the effectiveness of the security establishment has been badly shaken. Terrorists strike across the country with impunity; now, it seems that external forces can also enter undetected. An inquiry is needed not only into the recent intelligence failures but also the gaps in the defense and security system. It is hard, after all, to overlook the huge percentage of GDP that is swallowed up by the defense budget, and at a tremendous cost. __
