CIA Secretly Paid Pakistan Millions In Banned Bounties

President Musharaff of Pakistan just loves unleashing those surprises on his "ally", George W. Bush. The newest is that the CIA illegaly paid bounties for captured prisoners, alleged to be members of Al Qaida, handed over by Pakistan.

PRESIDENT Musharraf of Pakistan says that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to America.

The US government has strict rules banning such reward payments to foreign powers involved in the war on terror. General Musharraf does not say how much the CIA gave in return for the 369 al-Qaeda figures that he ordered should be passed to the US.

The US Department of Justice said: “We didn’t know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI’s most wanted list, not foreign governments.”

The CIA's reaction? "We don' need no steenkin' Justice Deprtment!"

The CIA refused to divulge the size of its bounty payments, saying: “Our relationships with international leaders is not something we are prepared to talk about.” One senior CIA figure added: “Nor do we expect these leaders to do so.”

In highly related news, the Times of India has more on deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage's denial that he ever threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" - something Musharaff himself says did happen. According to the newspaper, the actual phrase used was translated into Urdu as "wo hamari eent se eent baja dey gain". Roughly translated back to English, it means, "they will take us apart brick by brick". That may not be the actual phrase Musharaff alleged but it is, as they say, "close enough for government work".

So what Bush got, because of his Plame-leaking and leak-concealing appointee, was a reluctant ally who then took the West for a ride at every opportunity - acting like a rogue state while pretending to be a committed friend. To the point where now Pakistan has created a safe haven for the Taliban and Al Qaida.

One has to wonder at this point how many of the almost four hundred "terrorists" handed over to the CIA by Pakistan were the real deal and how many were just poor tribesmen or political problems sold as terrorists simply for the bounty. One also has to wonder what happened to the CIA millions. Since I assume the Pakistani intelligence service was doing the handing over I think it may also be fair to assume that the ISI got the money. Did it perhaps help fund Kashmiri militants, Mumbai bombs or American counterfeit dollars? We will never know unless Musharaff has more surprise information about the money trail up his sleeve.