Obama aide: Bin Laden raid yielded 'a library' of terrorist info
Obama campaign promotes '60 Minutes' interview

Obama: Bin Laden had support in Pakistan, but we don't know who

By David Jackson, USA TODAY
Updated

In his first public comments on Pakistan since the death of Osama bin Laden, President Obama says the al-Qaeda leader must have had "some sort of support network" in that country, but he doesn't know whether it included government officials.

"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of (Pakistan's) government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate and, more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," Obama told CBS' 60 Minutes.

Face the Nation broadcast the clip Sunday morning from the 60 Minutes interview that airs tonight on CBS; the interview was conducted Wednesday.

Obama also said: "It's going to take some time for us to be able to exploit the intelligence that we were able to gather on site."

Some lawmakers have called for reduced aid to Pakistan in light of the fact that bin Laden lived there for years in apparent security.

Others have urged caution, warning that Pakistan's government -- and its nuclear weapons -- could fall into the hands of Islamist radicals.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., argued against an aid cut on CNN's State of the Union, saying, "Pakistan is a critical factor in the war against terror, our war, the world's war against it, simply because there are a lot of terrorists in Pakistan."

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said on ABC's This Week that his country did not protect bin Laden.

"If any member of the Pakistani government, the Pakistani military or the Pakistani intelligence service knew where Osama bin Laden was, we would have taken action," Haqqani said. "Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan was not to Pakistan's advantage."

The 60 Minutes excerpt:

STEVE KROFT: "Do you believe people in the Pakistani government, Pakistani intelligence agencies knew that bin Laden was living there?"

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was.

We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate and, more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.

And we've already communicated to them, and they have indicated they have a profound interest in finding out what kinds of support networks bin Laden might have had. But these are questions that we're not going to be able to answer three or four days after the event.

It's going to take some time for us to be able to exploit the intelligence that we were able to gather on site."

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