http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071230/parliament_lowlows_071230/20071230?hub=Politics

New lows for blows served in House of Commons
Updated Sun. Dec. 30 2007 9:37 PM ET

Michael Stittle , CTV.ca News

Parliamentary debate in 2007 had all the sophistication of a prehistoric club. But that may not have been the fault of MPs — it’s hard to channel the spirit of Winston Churchill when you’re arguing over last year’s crime bill.

“It’s really been housekeeping legislation in the main because they’re a (minority government), so maybe you wouldn’t blame them for that,” CTV’s Question Period co-host Craig Oliver told CTV.ca.

“They don’t want to put their head on the line for something really tough. So they haven’t really offered anything that’s really inspirational or enduring in their program, it’s just nuts and bolts. And what kind of speech can you give about nuts and bolts?”

Indeed, this year MPs were like gunfighters who stood ready at high noon, only to find a cheap plastic water pistol in their hands. They stooped to vulgar attacks and meaningless accusations, anything for partisan advantage, but no party managed to pull ahead in the polls.

In one of the more bizarre incidents in the House of Commons, New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen mistakenly accused Conservative MP James Moore of looking at a “scantily clad woman” on his computer.

It turned out Moore was looking at a picture of his girlfriend posing with a dog. She was wearing a bikini, which has yet to be outlawed in any tough-on-crime legislation.

“I think this was particularly bad and I’m glad it was shut down very quickly, when it was realized that a mistake had been made,” said Oliver’s co-host, Jane Taber of The Globe and Mail. “It doesn’t show parliamentarians in their best light, that’s for sure.”

A few days later Mathyssen admitted her mistake and apologized in the House.

“If you’re going to make those accusations, I think the lesson in this is that you have to be really careful that you know what you’re talking about because there are repercussions,” said Taber. “I think what’s happened with her is that she looks more foolish out of this than anybody. It’s incredible that she did something like that. (Journalists) wouldn’t be able to report something like this without checking.”

In 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper turned his blunt verbal assaults into an art form, accusing Liberal Leader Stephane Dion of not being a leader, of flip-flopping, or anything else that could be neatly summed up in a few words.

“He’s extremely partisan and he tries to turn questions into partisan advantage, and he’s very chippy,” Oliver said of Harper’s tactics in the Commons. “For instance, accusing (the Liberals) of not respecting the courage of Canadian troops whenever they attack the policy in Afghanistan.”

Taber said Harper’s strategy is effective — as long as he knows when to draw the line.

“I think that Canadians were looking for a decisive leader, but sometimes he can go overboard, sometimes he can be too black and white with stuff,” she told CTV.ca. “I think he’s got to be careful about that. He can also be petulant about things.”

For your holiday pleasure, here are some highlights from a year of low-blow attacks — a list of parliamentary sucker punches and head-butts.

Wednesday, January 31

Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes a page from the Wizard of Oz and goes after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion’s dog, Kyoto, in a debate about climate change. At least he didn’t name his furry friend Greenhouse Gas Emitter.

Dion: The prime minister wants to have a debate about who is a real leader. A real leader would say that he was wrong and say, “I agree that I was wrong and I have changed my mind.” The problem is that he did not change his mind. He is still a climate change denier.

Harper: Once again, the only denier here, in his own words, is the leader of the opposition. I suggest that he should rename that dog for all his various denials. Perhaps he could call the dog Clean Air, or perhaps he could call him Fiscal Imbalance, or maybe he could even call his dog the Sponsorship Scandal.

Wednesday, February 21

During debate over a motion to compel people to testify at the Air India inquiry, Harper singles out Liberal MP Navdeep Bains because his father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, is on a list of potential RCMP witnesses in connection with the 1985 bombing. The prime minister is drowned out by opposition MPs before he can finish. An outraged Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale later finds the chance to take him to task.

Harper: Obviously the Liberal party opposes the change we have made, which is to give the police a voice in this process. I am not surprised, given what I am reading in The Vancouver Sun today, when I read this how the Liberal party makes decisions: “The Vancouver Sun has learned that the father-in-law of the member of Parliament for Mississauga–Brampton South–”.

(MPs start shouting: “Shame! Shame!”)

Goodale: The prime minister has just confirmed that, to him, partisan advantage is everything. The truth does not matter; it is the allegation that counts. Never mind what the facts are in the final analysis. He just proved his devious and deceitful behaviour and he does not pay any attention to the consequences to any Canadian.

Monday, February 26

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day defends himself after writing on his federal ministry website that opposition parties are “soft on terrorism.” Day is unapologetic because, after all, he was only quoting himself.

Liberal MP Sue Barnes: The minister of public safety broke Treasury Board guidelines and jeopardized the non-partisan neutrality of Canada’s respected public service. He posted Conservative propaganda on his department’s website that attacked opposition MPs and co-opted the machinery of government, which is supposed to be neutral.

Will the minister explain to Canadians why he crossed the line and used a government website to launch partisan slurs? Where was his judgment when he did this?

Day: It is very clear that a direct quote from me was put on that particular site. It was not a public service comment. It was a direct quote. The quote said, “Opposition parties are being soft on security and soft on terrorism.”

If the member would like, I could add to that to make it more accurate, or not more accurate, but to intensify the point. I could simply add that the Liberals have voted against their own terrorism legislation. I could add that if that would make her feel better.

Wednesday, March 21

Harper suggests the Liberals support the Taliban more than Canadian soldiers, for questioning the government on detainee abuse in Afghanistan. (Maybe after the Senate is abolished, he can get rid of the opposition parties, too. That should speed up democracy.)

Dion: The prime minister has to see that his minister (then-defence minister Gordon O’Connor) was negligent and incompetent with respect to a very serious issue for a country like Canada: the protection of the human lives we are responsible for.

The prime minister cannot keep his minister of national defence, not unless the prime minister is telling us that it is not important for Canada to protect the human lives we are responsible for.

Harper: The minister of national defence has provided a clear explanation to the House of Commons. As the member knows, this government was at the time operating under an agreement signed by the previous government. We have since entered into a new arrangement with the Independent Afghan Human Rights Commission.

I can understand the passion that the leader of the opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Liberal MP Todd Russell shows he has a gift for puns but a complete lack of bearing on real issues, when he goes after Harper’s stylist Michelle Muntean. The former makeup artist has been known to give her clients spiritual advice, which Russell takes to mean “clairvoyant.” Government House Leader Peter Van Loan relishes his role as the minister of style, even name-dropping fashion critic Steven Cojocaru.

Russell: Canadians speculated for months whether the PM was sporting enough eyeliner to make an eighties’ rock band proud.

Today we learned that he has been consulting the stars and looking into a crystal ball, all with help from his personal clairvoyant, his psychic makeup artist, our own northern Zsa Zsa Gabor. It is enough to make one blush.

The prime minister of Canada goes from the Canadian Alliance to the psychic alliance.

Why are the Conservatives not telling taxpayers that their T4s go a long way for the prime minister’s powder, mascara and daily palm readings?

Van Loan: I knew he was going to ask that question. Nobody in this government is consulting JoJo but I have had suggestions that perhaps I should consult Cojo.

Russell: He thought this blemish would stay concealed. One would think the prime minister would blush with embarrassment at being caught out on such inconsistency. It strikes at the foundation of everything he supposedly ever stood for. It contradicts the makeup of his supposed fiscal responsibility. It just does not gel with the Canadian public.

Thursday, May 31

During a debate on the Afghanistan mission, Harper takes a jab at Michael Ignatieff, who spent about 30 years living outside the country before making a run at the Liberal leadership. Harper, meanwhile, has spent the same amount of time living away from his hometown of Toronto, earning respect from many westerners.

Harper: I will just say that it is true I have never served in the Armed Forces. I consider that an experience that I have missed in my life, but I can say that I have always lived and worked and paid my taxes in this country.

Ignatieff: We can all play these silly games about who is the better Canadian. If they seriously believe that someone who has contributed to this country outside and come back to Canada is less of a Canadian, they should get up and say that to two million Canadians who live and work overseas.

Wednesday, June 6

With the vast majority of Conservative MPs supporting the government’s new equalization formula for the provinces, despite concerns about the Atlantic Accord, Russell notes that the House is starting to resemble Marineland.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty: In terms of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, which have accord agreements, the plain fact is that those accord agreements are the status quo agreements which they can choose to continue with or they can go with the modified O’Brien formula. However, no province will be worse off in Canada as a result of the new equalization scheme.

Russell: Mr. Speaker, last night, the newly independent member from Nova Scotia did the right thing and stood up for his province and his region. He voted with the Liberal party and against the Atlantic accord betrayal. His five former colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia fell in line with their bully boss, the prime minister, and voted, not just with their own party but with the separatists.

We had problems with harp seals and now we have problems with trained seals.

Thursday, October 18

After reports that the Conservative party was using its voter database to send Rosh Hashanah greetings, opposition parties demand an answer. Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity, says there is no secret list of Jewish voters. But there may be an out-of-date community directory.

Liberal MP Susan Kadis: My constituents, Mrs. Faulkner and Mrs. Donin, want an explanation. Both of their names mysteriously appeared on the PMO list to receive a Rosh Hashanah greeting, but neither is Jewish. They want to know how they were identified with a religious affiliation they do not hold and why there is such a list.

Calls to the PMO went unanswered, so today I ask the prime minister again if he will explain how his office compiled the lists?

Kenney: I am sorry to hear that she did not enter into the happiness of the Rosh Hashanah new year, but I can quote from the executive vice-president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who said, “I don’t think there is anything nefarious here whatsoever” and that most people in the community would appreciate this.

Wednesday, December 5

This actually happened as a point of order, not during any formal debate, but it’s hard to ignore. New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen, who sits behind Conservative MP James Moore, believes he’s looking at naughty images on his computer. Rather than question him in private, she decides to accuse him in front of the entire House of Commons. She later says she’s “truly sorry” for the embarrassment.

Mathyssen: Last evening I was in the House to raise a question on behalf of my constituents. At that time, I saw the member for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam with an open laptop on his desk and on the screen was an image of a scantily clad woman. This was in my clear view and in the clear view of the public gallery.

I feel very strongly that this is not only disrespectful of women, but it is disrespectful of the House. It reflects an attitude of objectifying women. We know that when women and other human beings are objectified and dehumanized, they become the objects of violence and abuse.

On the eve of December 6, we have to be mindful that we represent all the people of our communities, men and women, and that we are national leaders here. This is a place of power. That power must be used respectfully and it must be used with humility.

I ask that the member apologize to members of the House.

Moore: With respect, I do not have the faintest idea what my colleague is talking about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/world/asia/31pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: December 31, 2007

NAUDERO, Pakistan — Three days after the violent killing of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s largest political party on Sunday picked her 19-year-old son to succeed her as chairman and vowed to forge ahead with elections next week, immediately creating a new quandary for the government about whether to delay the vote.

The moves by Ms. Bhutto’s opposition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, were clearly aimed at marshaling an outpouring of grief and anger to electoral advantage in the Jan. 8 parliamentary election. The other main opposition party, led by Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister, also decided Sunday to call off his previously announced boycott of the vote.

Aides to President Pervez Musharraf have suggested that the election could be postponed, perhaps for months, because of the chaos that has engulfed the country since Ms. Bhutto, the former prime minister returned from exile, was killed while campaigning Thursday. But now the prospect of a delay could further infuriate Ms. Bhutto’s supporters and allies, pressuring Mr. Musharraf to hold the vote and risk a huge defeat at the polls.

The announcement that Ms. Bhutto’s first-born son, Bilawal, an Oxford undergraduate with no political experience, would lead her party was made at a chaotic news conference at the family’s ancestral home here in a southern Pakistan village.

The decision to place burden of blood and history on him reflects not only an abiding dynastic streak in South Asian politics — three generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family have dominated politics in India, and hereditary politics pervade Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well — but also how much the Pakistan Peoples Party relies on the Bhutto family name and legacy to bind its supporters.

In keeping with his new mantle, the new chairman took a new name, embracing his mother’s maiden name as the newly anointed Bhutto scion.

“My mother always said democracy is the best revenge,” he told reporters in a brief address.

His father, Asif Ali Zardari, said that his son would henceforth be known as Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The elder Mr. Zardari said he would manage the chairmanship on his son’s behalf until he finished his university degree, for a minimum of three years. Mr. Zardari instructed reporters not to ask his son any further questions, saying he was “of a tender age.”

Later, in the backyard of the family’s house, the younger Mr. Zardari said in an interview that he had been tutored by his mother to play a role in Pakistani politics, but only after he completes his university education. “There was always a sense of fear I wouldn’t be able to live up to her expectations,” he said. “I hope I will.”

Asked about his most immediate challenge, he said, “First to finish my degree.”

That would appear to rule out any possibility that Ms. Bhutto’s son could become the new leader of Pakistan until he was significantly older. Nonetheless, the elder Mr. Zardari said in an interview, “As her son, he will become a uniting force.”

The younger Mr. Zardari is a student of history at Christ Church College at Oxford University, his mother’s alma mater.

Mr. Zardari said that his wife had expressed the wish in her will that he be left in charge of the party, but that he had decided, with the consent of the executive committee, which met Sunday afternoon at the close of a three-day mourning period, to pass the baton to his son.

He said the will was written on Oct. 16, two days before her return to Pakistan, and given to him after her death, which is when he learned that she had chosen him to succeed her.

“It’s not an easy chair to sit on,” the elder Mr. Zardari said in the interview. “A, she leaves me. B, she ties me in this. To say the least, it’s overbearing.”

Senior party officials said, too, that the younger Mr. Zardari would be a far less controversial titular head than his father, who had been accused of a raft of corruption charges, jailed for a total of 11 years, and blamed in some quarters for some of Ms. Bhutto’s political woes.

It could not be a more difficult time for the party. Ms. Bhutto had held together a large and diverse organization, and even if, on the back of public grief, it were to win the elections, it would be likely to be under great pressure to bring a semblance of stability to a nation racked by a wave of extremist violence.

At the news conference, the elder Mr. Zardari said he would not run in the election and therefore would not be the party’s prime ministerial candidate.

That job, he said, would probably go to the party vice president, the veteran party leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim, but that was a decision, he added, that would have to be made by party leaders.

Mr. Zardari went on to say later in the interview that it would be “very difficult” for the party to survive without Ms. Bhutto. “My biggest job is to keep it from falling apart,” he said.

Ms. Bhutto, 54, was killed Thursday evening as she left a party rally in the city of Rawalpindi, when her car was struck by gunfire and a suicide bombing. Ms. Bhutto’s party and family insist that she was shot in the head. The government disputes it, saying that she struck her head fatally on the sunroof of her car.

Her party appealed Sunday for an international inquiry into her death, along the lines of the investigation into the killing of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon.

The younger Mr. Zardari’s rise echoes the chilling, emotionally resonant path of his mother, who was thrust into public life after her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 by order of the military ruler, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq.

Shortly before the official announcement of his ascension at a crowded news conference came a ceremonious rearrangement of the dais. His newly constructed name was pinned to the back of a high-backed red chair, which was then adorned with a cushion and placed at the center of a long table. He entered, dressed in a black salwar kameez, the traditional long tunic and pants, and Armani glasses, biting his lips and carrying a portrait of his mother. He promised to carry on his mother’s legacy as “a symbol of the federation.”

Rehman Malik, a senior party official, said Ms. Bhutto had asked him to coach her son in the basic workings of politics and government, from teaching him how to assess others to taking him to the halls of Parliament.

“She has groomed up her husband,” he said. “She was grooming her son also. She was telling me many times he will grow up and take over the party.”

For his part, the younger Mr. Zardari said he had discussed with his mother the prospects of entering politics, but avoided getting into details about who would take over after her. “We always tried not to have this specific conversation because we hoped this day would come, if not never, then far, far in the future,” he said.

In the interview, he spoke quietly, but politely, in the backyard of a crowded house in a remote village in a country where he had spent little time. He and his two younger siblings were raised mostly in Dubai.

A cluster of relatives approached to embrace. “You raised our hopes just now,” one man told him.

The young man took that in, also quietly, and waited for them to pass before speaking again. He said he feared for the survival of the country. When reminded that he had not grown up here, his answer came swiftly. He said he was lucky to have been reared by his mother, who knew the country well. Asked if she had ever encouraged him to succeed her as the leader of the party, he was vague.

“She always said I had to finish my education before I got into politics,” he answered. “She always said I would do something for Pakistan.”

Politics here is as much about matters of the heart as anything else. Which is why Abida Hussain, another senior party official, when asked about the options facing the party at this crucial juncture, said simply, “It’s Bilawal.”

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/289118

It takes vast warehouse to sort food donated to Daily Bread’s cause

Dec 28, 2007 04:30 AM
Isabel Teotonio
Staff Reporter

Follow the food. That’s what Elaine O’Keefe and her co-worker Jan Le Grand did six years ago after they helped organize a food drive at the elementary school where they work.

The educational assistants at Morrish Public School in Scarborough dropped off the boxes of donated items at the local fire hall. But, wanting to learn more about where it all went, they decided to also donate their time at the Daily Bread Food Bank, sorting items collected during the holiday food drive.

It was a lesson they didn’t forget. That’s why they’ve continued each year to organize the school’s winter food drive and volunteer at the food bank’s warehouse.

“When we first walked in here, we must’ve looked like deer caught in headlights,” recalled O’Keefe yesterday, during a break from sorting items into boxes that will be distributed to about 160 member agencies in the GTA that run food banks and meal programs.

“We were stunned by the vastness,” she said, looking out upon rows of tables piled high with items such as canned fruit, jars of peanut butter, boxes of baby formula, bags of pasta and packets of cheese spread. “I didn’t realize there was the need for this much food in Toronto.”

And the need is growing, said Daily Bread executive director Gail Nyberg, standing in the middle of a warehouse where about 250 volunteers were filling boxes and loading them onto trolleys.

“There’s something bizarre that in one of the wealthiest countries, during a time of economic prosperity, 905,000 people (in the GTA) used food banks in the last year,” said Nyberg.

“The face of poverty is changing – many more individuals are working and using food banks.”

It’s a face many are taking note of, she said, adding the non-profit organization is well on its way to surpassing its goal of collecting 1 million pounds of food during the annual Holiday Food Drive, which ends next Friday. Donated items will help keep the shelves of food banks stocked until the spring.

“People are in the spirit and this is a time of thinking about and helping others,” said Nyberg, adding they had raised about 956,000 pounds by yesterday afternoon. “But we would love to surpass what we raised last year, which was 1.1 million pounds and was the highest we’ve ever achieved.”

Thirty-one boxes of food, filled with more than 1,000 items that were donated this year by the students at Morrish Public School, will help to reach that goal.

“It instills within (the students) how important it is to give back,” said Le Grand. “They’re now asking us when we’re doing another food drive so they’re certainly more conscious of the need.”

Non-perishable food donations can be dropped off at any fire hall, Loblaws or Real Canadian Superstore. Much-needed items include canned vegetables, canned fish or meat, pasta and sauce, rice, lentils and cans of stew or hearty soup. Monetary donations can be made online at dailybread.ca or by phone with a credit card by calling 416-203-0050.

http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/289112

Arctic meltdown, extreme prairie heat, record-setting tornado all make Canada’s Top 10 list for 2007

Dec 28, 2007 04:30 AM
Curtis Rush
Staff Reporter

The dramatic disappearance of Arctic sea ice is so shocking it takes the Number 1 spot among Canada’s Top 10 weather stories of 2007.

David Phillips, the senior climatologist at Environment Canada who has been putting together the list for 12 years now, labelled this story “Vanishing ice at the top of the world.”

Phillips said he based his selections on the impact the weather stories had on Canada and Canadians, the extent of the area affected, economic effects and the longevity of the top news story.

“Canadians might remember 2007 as the year that climate change began biting deep and hard on the home front,” Phillips said.

“The thinning and shrinking of the ice, largely a result of too many consecutive warm years, has had a profound impact on northern residents – people, plants and wildlife alike.”

The big dump of snow Ontario got on Dec. 16 took the Number 3 spot. In fact, winter weather struck with a vengeance all across the country in early December.

On that Dec. 15-16 weekend, the Toronto area received 26 centimetres of snow, but other parts of Ontario received much more.

This year’s top weather stories were dominated by the West.

The western provinces owned four of the stories – the threat of fierce flooding in British Columbia last spring, tropical conditions this past summer with extreme heat and humidity on the Prairies, an unusual number of hail storms, and the first F5 tornado to touch down in Canada.

The F5 tornado, the most powerful tornado in the Fujita intensity scale, packed winds exceeding 420 km/h. It struck Elie, Man., which is about 40 kilometres west of Winnipeg, on June 22, causing property damage, but no serious injuries.

The East Coast made it onto the list at Number 6 for Hurricane Noel, which struck in November. While there were no casualties, Noel’s winds and waves destroyed several beaches, wharves and docks.

Other than Number 3 on the list, which was shared with other parts of the country, the best Ontario could do by itself was fifth place with the drought-like conditions this past summer that made the Toronto area the driest in 50 years.

There were three times as many hot days (30C and over) than is typical for the Toronto area and most weekends were dry.

Ontario can also claim seventh spot as lake levels for the Great Lakes dropped seriously.

In September, Lake Superior set a record for its lowest water level for that time of year since measurements began in 1900.

Ontario can also take partial credit for eighth spot on the list for “a winter that almost wasn’t.”

Until the third week in January, winter’s temperatures were closer to those expected in fall and spring.

By the first official day of winter, less than a centimetre of snow had fallen in Toronto.

The warm spell stretched into January and caused one Ontario ski resort to lay off 1,300 workers.

What didn’t make it onto Phillips’s Top 10 list was a big event for Toronto last winter, especially if you were in the area of the CN Tower.

Many will remember how large chunks of ice, some the size of table tops, blew off the tower, broke car windshields and forced police to block off traffic below.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

The list is very subjective, Phillips likes to say, and anyone can come up with their own.

“In Canada, where weather is king and queen, we need a list to remind us of the misery, hardship and misfortune and some of the good and bad weather we’ve had this year,” Phillips said.

He has fun compiling the list, and gets even more fun out of the reactions of those who challenge his choice of listings.

“It’s very subjective.”

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/story.html?id=4aac937e-29ce-4c95-b23b-fa5b6c9fb29f

Stephen Harper’s War
A hollywood movie about U.S. congressman tells us a lot about why we are in Afghanistan
L. IAN MACDONALD, Freelance
Published: 19 hours ago
If you want to know how we got to Afghanistan, part of the answer is in Charlie Wilson’s War, which might be the best film ever from director Mike Nichols, with a crackling screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and a dazzling performance by Tom Hanks in the title role.

It’s the true story, adapted from the book of the same title by George Crile, of a high-living Texas congressman with one serious purpose - to win the Cold War on the eastern front, Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.

On the western front, Ronald Reagan confronted the Soviets with missiles and confounded them with his determination to build a space-based defensive missile system known as Star Wars. Reagan’s view of the Cold War was simple. As he famously put it: “We win, they lose.”

In essence, Reagan bankrupted the Soviets, and their system eventually collapsed under the weight of its own corruptions and contradictions.

But the retreat of the Soviets from Afghanistan was by no means evident in the 1980s, so long as their helicopter gunships and tanks bombed the country back into the Stone Age, where it had actually been all along.

It was the U.S.-financed covert operations, in effect Charlie Wilson’s War, that levelled the playing field in Afghanistan, putting missiles and AK-47s in the hands of the local insurgents known as the Mujahedin. As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson leveraged financing of covert ops from $5 million a year at the beginning of the decade to nearly $1 billion by the time the Soviets retreated in 1989, a humiliating defeat for the evil empire.

Along the way, there was matching funding from the Saudis, an unlikely alliance of the Israelis and Egyptians as arms suppliers, with the Pakistanis providing a road to the rebels over the mountains (does this part sound familiar?).

The result was one of the great and decisive victories of the Cold War. Evidently no one paid much attention until now because Charlie Wilson was dismissed as a party hound and booze head, which apparently served as an effective cover for running covert ops. (He’s not a composite but a real person who retired from Congress in 1996, to start a Washington PR firm, and he took a star turn at the Hollywood movie’s premiere in the company of Hanks.)

But the point is that once the Soviets left town, the Americans and their friends failed to step up with aid and institution building. Which eventually allowed the Taliban to take over and rule the ruins of the country for five years until 2001.

The Taliban gratefully hosted Al-Qa’ida, whose leader Osama bin Laden had been an ally of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar during the insurgency against the Soviets. Thus, the destructive seeds of 9/11 were sown in the terrorist camps of the Afghan mountains.

Which is why the Americans went into Afghanistan after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and why dozens of NATO countries, including Canada, are still there today.

One of the footnotes to the film is a voice-over and video clip by Canadian journalist Arthur Kent describing the invasion of the Soviets. Kent covered the entire period of the Soviet occupation and knows more about Afghanistan than almost any other foreign journalist. This was during his days as a freelance television reporter, long before he became celebrated as the Scud Stud, doing stand-ups for NBC during the First Gulf War in 1991. Kent has met both George Crile and Charlie Wilson along the way, and those would be two more fascinating stories he could tell.

Aside from being splendid entertainment, Charlie Wilson’s War is an indictment of a major policy failure - the failure to followup, with consequences being felt to this day. At least today’s NATO-led, UN-approved mission has moved beyond unintended consequences and is attempting to build the foundations of a civil society in a fledgling democracy, all the while fending off the resurgent Taliban.

That’s the why of it. As for how Canada got to Kandahar province, there are a lot of answers in The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang.

The authors have unquestioned credentials - she is director of the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto, he is a former chief of staff to a Liberal defence minister, and they had unrivaled access to government sources, including former prime minister Paul Martin and former defence minister Bill Graham, as well as Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff.

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Font:****It’s quite an instructive journey, from Jean Chrétien’s initial major deployment to Kabul in 2003, to Martin’s redeployment to Kandahar in 2005, to Stephen Harper’s extension of the mission to 2009.

Though he didn’t start this, Harper now owns it. Harper’s War, as the authors call it.

Actually, Kandahar is just one front in a wider Afghan war, that began in the 1980s with Charlie Wilson’s War. Hollywood isn’t going to be making a movie about our parts of it, but it’s an important story for Canada, which raises serious questions about the way ahead, and the road home.

www.lianmacdonald.ca

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2228796.stm

Obituary: Benazir Bhutto

BBC interviews Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto followed her father into politics, and both of them died because of it - he was executed in 1979, she fell victim to an apparent suicide bomb attack.

Her two brothers also suffered violent deaths.

Like the Nehru-Gandhi family in India, the Bhuttos of Pakistan are one of the world’s most famous political dynasties. Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was prime minister of Pakistan in the early 1970s.

His government was one of the few in the 30 years following independence that was not run by the army.

Born in 1953 in the province of Sindh and educated at Harvard and Oxford, Ms Bhutto gained credibility from her father’s high profile, even though she was a reluctant convert to politics.

She was twice prime minister of Pakistan, from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996.

Stubbornness

On both occasions she was dismissed from office by the president for alleged corruption.

The dismissals typified her volatile political career, which was characterised by numerous peaks and troughs. At the height of her popularity - shortly after her first election - she was one of the most high-profile women leaders in the world.

Young and glamorous, she successfully portrayed herself as a refreshing contrast to the overwhelmingly male-dominated political establishment.

But after her second fall from power, her name came to be seen by some as synonymous with corruption and bad governance.

Asif Zardari going to court

The determination and stubbornness for which Ms Bhutto was renowned was first seen after her father was imprisoned and charged with murder by Gen Zia ul-Haq in 1977, following a military coup. Two years later he was executed.

Ms Bhutto was imprisoned just before her father’s death and spent most of her five-year jail term in solitary confinement. She described the conditions as extremely hard.

During stints out of prison for medical treatment, Ms Bhutto set up a Pakistan People’s Party office in London, and began a campaign against General Zia.

She returned to Pakistan in 1986, attracting huge crowds to political rallies.

After Gen Zia died in an explosion on board his aircraft in 1988, she became one of the first democratically elected female prime ministers in an Islamic country.

Corruption charges

During both her stints in power, the role of Ms Bhutto’s husband, Asif Zardari, proved highly controversial.

He played a prominent role in both her administrations, and has been accused by various Pakistani governments of stealing millions of dollars from state coffers - charges he denies, as did Ms Bhutto herself.

Many commentators argued that the downfall of Ms Bhutto’s government was accelerated by the alleged greed of her husband.

None of about 18 corruption and criminal cases against Mr Zardari has been proved in court after 10 years. But he served at least eight years in jail.

He was freed on bail in 2004, amid accusations that the charges against him were weak and going nowhere.

Ms Bhutto also steadfastly denied all the corruption charges against her, which she said were politically motivated.

She faced corruption charges in at least five cases, all without a conviction, until amnestied in October 2007.

General Musharraf

She was convicted in 1999 for failing to appear in court, but the Supreme Court later overturned that judgement.

Soon after the conviction, audiotapes of conversations between the judge and some top aides of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were discovered that showed that the judge had been under pressure to convict.

Ms Bhutto left Pakistan in 1999 to live abroad, but questions about her and her husband’s wealth continued to dog her.

She appealed against a conviction in the Swiss courts for money-laundering.

During her years outside Pakistan, Ms Bhutto lived with her three children in Dubai, where she was joined by her husband after he was freed in 2004.

She was a regular visitor to Western capitals, delivering lectures at universities and think-tanks and meeting government officials.

Army mistrust

Ms Bhutto returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007 after President Musharraf signed into law an ordinance granting her and others an amnesty from corruption charges.

Observers said the military regime saw her as a natural ally in its efforts to isolate religious forces and their surrogate militants.

She declined a government offer to let her party head the national government after the 2002 elections, in which the party received the largest number of votes.

In the months before her death, she had emerged again as a strong contender for power.

Some in Pakistan believe her secret talks with the military regime amounted to betrayal of democratic forces as these talks shored up President Musharraf’s grip on the country.

Others said such talks indicated that the military might at long last be getting over its decades-old mistrust of Ms Bhutto and her party, and interpreted it as a good omen for democracy.

Western powers saw in her a popular leader with liberal leanings who could bring much needed legitimacy to Mr Musharraf’s role in the “war against terror”.

Unhappy family

Benazir Bhutto was the last remaining bearer of her late father’s political legacy.

Her brother, Murtaza - who was once expected to play the role of party leader - fled to the then-communist Afghanistan after his father’s fall.

From there, and various Middle Eastern capitals, he mounted a campaign against Pakistan’s military government with a militant group called al-Zulfikar.

He won elections from exile in 1993 and became a provincial legislator, returning home soon afterwards, only to be shot dead under mysterious circumstances in 1996.

Benazir’s other brother, Shahnawaz - also politically active but in less violent ways than Murtaza - was found dead in his French Riviera apartment in 1985.

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071227.wtaxes1227/BNStory/robNews/home

SHAWN MCCARTHY

Globe and Mail Update

December 27, 2007 at 1:57 PM EST

The average Canadian taxpayers will see their federal income tax bill drop by $272 in 2008, compared to what they would have paid in 2007 prior to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s fall budget, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said in a release Thursday.

“Due to retroactive tax changes announced in the fall, coupled with changes that take effect in the New Year, almost all Canadians will pay the taxman less in 2007 and 2008,” CTF director John Williamson said.

The group said the biggest break on personal income tax comes as a result of the reduction of the lowest tax rate to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent, and an increase in the basic personal exemption - the amount a person can earn before paying tax - by $671 to $9,600.

Families will save even more as a result of the new $300 per child tax credit, and higher spousal exemptions that benefit stay-at-home spouses.

However, Mr. Williamson noted that the new 15 per cent rate merely matches the planned reduction that the former Liberal government had announced prior to losing the January 2006 election. The new Conservative government cancelled that cut, and instead cut the Goods and Service Tax by one percentage point.

The government has provided a second one-point reduction in the GST, effective January 1. The federation estimates that GST cut will save the average consumer between $150 and $200 next year, for a total savings of up to $400 for the two reductions.

Payroll taxes will climb slightly - $50.43 - for workers earning more than the average wage. While the rate on the Employment Insurance falls by 3.9 per cent, the income threshold for premium will rise by $1,100 to $41,100.

Similarly, workers who earn more than the average industrial wage will pay Canada Pension Plan premiums on a larger portion of their earnings, with the maximum climbing by $1,200 to $44,900.

Mr. Williamson said the tax relief announced in the fall update was a “good start,” but called for greater reductions in the 2008 budget, saying Canadians remain “over-taxed.”

“Broad-based tax relief is necessary to ensure all income earners benefit from lower taxes,” he said.

But in separate year-end interviews, Mr. Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper sought to tamp down expectations of major tax cuts in the upcoming budget.

Mr. Flaherty said he would “like to do more” to reduce personal income taxes further, but said there is little room for substantial action, due to a slowing economy and the previous tax cuts.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/288896

Finance minister warns weakening U.S. economy will affect Canada and squeeze Ottawa’s finances
Dec 27, 2007 04:30 AM
Les Whittington
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–Forget about more personal income tax cuts, says Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as he prepares for what could prove a tougher economic year for Canada.

Just a few weeks ago, the finance minister was talking up the need to give individual Canadian taxpayers a break.

But, with Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper now forecasting economic storm clouds, tax relief appears to be out of the question in the federal budget expected in February or March.

“What we anticipate is some softening of the economy because of the weakness in the U.S. economy, which means that there’ll be less manoeuvrability in the budget,” the finance minister said.

In a wide-ranging interview, Flaherty talked about the year ahead and what he sees as the need to let manufacturing industries largely sink or swim on their own.

Throughout, the former member of Mike Harris’s Ontario government expressed a strong preference for keeping the “heavy hand” of government out of the economy and letting the higher dollar force a restructuring of the manufacturing sector, even if it means job losses.

To reduce expectations for his next budget, he joined with Harper in an end-of-year message that the economy may soften in 2008.

“There’s the weakness that we’re seeing in the U.S. economy that will have an effect on us. There’s also the issue of the international credit squeeze. That continues and will take time to work its way through the system, with some potential adverse effects,” Flaherty said.

“So we anticipate that it will be a more difficult budgeting year in the next year than in the past two years,” he said, adding that this means more personal income tax cuts will have to be put off into the future.

In his October economic statement, the finance minister introduced personal tax cuts that will save average taxpayers several hundred dollars a year.

Flaherty reduced the lowest personal income tax rate to 15 per cent from 15.5 per cent and increased the basic personal earnings exemption to $9,600 from $8,929, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007.

In years past, Canadians used to look to Ottawa for help in challenging economic times, Flaherty said. But that era is over.

“I think the expectation of Canadians of the government of Canada is that we will be prudent long-term economic managers and that we will not succumb to the temptation to be short-term, ad hoc in our thinking and our actions,” he said.

“My read is, what I hear from people, is that they want us to stay the course and be careful in what we do” and run government finances frugally, he told the Toronto Star.

With unemployment at 5.9 per cent nationally, Flaherty seemed unperturbed about the serious problems being felt in manufacturing industries in some regions as a result of the rising value of the loonie.

Ontario, for instance, has lost more than 150,000 manufacturing jobs since 2003.

Echoing a recent statement by Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, Flaherty said it’s important to adjust to shifts in global business conditions and not resist change in the economy.

“We have to let the economy breathe and change in the best interest of the economy, which means in the best interests of Canadians (and) good jobs.”

Flaherty said industries that have outlived their competitiveness have no choice but to restructure, even if it means plant closings or layoffs.

“I’m not interested – and I don’t think the government is interested – in Band-Aid solutions or stop-gap funding or delaying the closing of a particular mill because we know from experience that those effects are very short-term and it’s not a good investment of taxpayers’ money.”

Flaherty repeatedly stressed the importance of establishing the right conditions for business, particularly reduced corporate taxes.

He expressed frustration with the demands from Quebec and Ontario that Ottawa do more to help hard-hit manufacturing companies.

“Sometimes I feel that the question is, `What have you done for me lately?’ We just did $60 billion in tax reductions, including very substantial business tax reductions on Oct. 30, and the Bloc (Québécois MPs get) up in the House of Commons as if we didn’t do anything.”

As the Harper government’s point man in the GTA region, Flaherty has often found himself in the middle of bitter feuding over why Ottawa, with a budget surplus that hit $13.8 billion last year, isn’t doing more for Ontario and its cities.

But he said the Harper government has done enough to help Ontario by agreeing to begin providing federal cash for post-secondary education and social programs on a per capita basis – a change worth hundreds of millions of extra dollars to Ontario annually.

He also said the Harper government has provided Toronto and other municipalities with enough federal funding – at least for now.

“The municipalities demanded a share of the gas tax. They’ve got it,” he said, referring to his pledge in the March 19, 2007, budget to extend by four years the Liberal program to share gas tax revenues with cities, which gives Toronto more than $50 million annually.

As well, the federal Conservatives have fulfilled their promises to help municipalities repair bridges, sewers and other infrastructure through the Building Canada Fund, Flaherty added.

“I encourage municipal leaders and provincial leaders to get on with the job of implementation because the money is there,” he said. “When the money is spent, then we can talk about what’s next.”

As for combating poverty, he said the solution is to improve long-term education and training.

“Philosophically, I’m all in favour of helping people achieve their potential because we’re in competition now with the rest of the world for smart, well-educated people and we want to keep Canadians in Canada.”

But, he said, “It’s an enabling function of government. It’s not a hand-out function of government.”

http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/288876

Dec 27, 2007 04:30 AM
James Travers

OTTAWA

Rick Hillier is more than the most visible military leader in decades and the Canadian face on the Afghanistan war. He’s also a prototype new mandarin; one politicians are now using to their advantage and will soon deeply regret inviting on to the public stage.

Chosen by Liberals to personify more muscular defence policies and deployed by Conservatives to market the Kandahar mission, the street-smart, media-savvy Newfoundlander hasn’t always been helpful to his political masters.

Apparently forgetting Paul Martin’s defence budget generosity and that, for better and worse, his army in southern Afghanistan is the one Jean Chrétien funded, Hillier blamed Liberal cuts for a “decade of darkness.”

He skirmished so often with Gordon O’Connor over everything from procurement to funeral expenses that Stephen Harper finally shuffled the former arms industry lobbyist he had unwisely made defence minister. More recently, Hillier darkened the rosy hue of Tory Afghanistan forecasts and redefined the job for his successors.

Hillier’s folksy frankness makes him a mess hall and Don Cherry Hockey Night in Canada favourite. Reviews here are more mixed. Debate swirls over whether or not he criss-crosses the line that traditionally separates senior public servants from elected public figures. Compelling cases are made both ways, but the consensus is that Hillier is now way above the parapet most bureaucrats are comfortable staying below.

The irony is that Conservatives, now keen to change the Afghanistan channel to something more benign, wouldn’t mind seeing the back of the general they found so helpful when the mission was all about 9/11 retribution and killing murderous scumbags. But Hillier is too popular with the troops and the public to be forced out and that makes the next move his.

Being trapped in a box of their own making should make politicians wary of building more. Not a chance. It’s just too appealing to be able to shift responsibility from accountable ministers to theoretically anonymous deputies when things go wrong.

Once a parliamentary principle, the bargain that allows mandarins to speak truth to power from the shadows while ministers stand in the spotlight is so badly broken that few noticed when Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day left it to the border agency’s Alain Jolicoeur to answer awkward questions about the how and why of the Vancouver airport Taser horror.

Sadly, Day’s sudden modesty isn’t an anomaly. Despite at least partly winning the last election on the strength of their accountability promise, Conservatives are accelerating the Ottawa tactic of passing the buck so often to so many people that where it stops is a mystery. More bureaucrats are appearing in public and the Prime Minister is making a habit of appointing panels answerable only to him to consider public policy issues that were once the purview of those we elect.

Short term, those methods work too well. Politicians can take credit and then bob and weave around public opprobrium while others carry the can.

Long term is entirely different. As Hillier is demonstrating to the Prime Minister’s discomfort, the clout that comes with public profile is easy to loan, difficult to recover. Once established as marquee players, bureaucrats will bridle at recasting as docile supporting actors. With their own agendas to protect and careers to advance, they are sure to ad lib and their lines won’t always please politicians.

Rick Hillier, take a slow, deep bow. Your fans and critics are watching.

James Travers’ national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

By SALMAN MASOOD and CARLOTTA GALL
Published: December 28, 2007

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and twice-serving prime minister, was assassinated Thursday evening as she left a political rally here, a scene of fiery carnage that plunged Pakistan deeper into political turmoil and ignited widespread violence by her enraged supporters.

Ms. Bhutto, 54, was shot in the neck or head, according to differing accounts, as she stood in the open sunroof of a car and waved to crowds. Seconds later a suicide attacker detonated his bomb, damaging one of the cars in her motorcade, killing more than 20 people and wounding 50, the Interior Ministry said.

News of her death sent angry protesters swarming the emergency ward of the nearby hospital, where doctors declared Ms. Bhutto dead at 6:16 p.m. Supporters later jostled to carry her bare wooden coffin as it began its journey to her hometown, Larkana, in southern Pakistan, for burial. In Karachi and other cities, frenzied crowds vented their rage, blocking the streets, burning tires and throwing stones.

The death of Ms. Bhutto, leader of Pakistan’s largest political party, throws Pakistan’s politics into disarray less than two weeks before parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 8 and just weeks after a state of emergency was lifted. There was immediate speculation that elections would be postponed and another state of emergency declared.

A deeply polarizing figure, Ms. Bhutto spent 30 years navigating the turbulent and often violent world of Pakistani politics, becoming in 1988 the first woman to lead a modern Muslim country.

She had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt upon her return to Pakistan two months ago. Her death now presents President Pervez Musharraf with one of the most potent crises of his turbulent eight years in power, and Bush administration officials with a new challenge in their efforts to stabilize a front-line state — home to both Al Qaeda and nuclear arms — in their fight against terrorism.

The attack bore hallmarks of the Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan. But witnesses described a sniper firing from a nearby building, raising questions about how well the government had protected her in a usually well-guarded garrison town and fueling speculation that government sympathizers had played a part.

On Thursday evening, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin to local law enforcement agencies informing them about posts on some Islamic Web sites saying that Al Qaeda was claiming responsibility for the attack, and that the plot was orchestrated by Ayman al-Zawahri, the group’s second-ranking official.

One counterterrorism official in Washington said that the bulletin neither confirmed nor discredited these claims. The official said that American intelligence agencies had yet to come to any firm judgments about who was responsible for Ms. Bhutto’s death.

As world leaders lined up to express outrage at the killing of arguably Pakistan’s most pro-Western political figure, a grim-faced President Bush said that the best way to honor her would be “by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.”

Speaking to reporters while vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., Mr. Bush attributed Ms. Bhutto’s death to “murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy.” He telephoned Mr. Musharraf several hours after the attack.

Mr. Musharraf went on national television on Thursday evening, describing the killing as “a great national tragedy” and announcing a three-day period of national mourning. He called it a terrorist attack and vowed to continue to fight to root out the terrorists. “I appeal to the nation to remain peaceful and show restraint,” he said.

Despite the president’s appeal, politicians and government officials said they feared more violence in the coming days from those protesting her death, but also from militants who would try to take advantage of the uncertain situation.

One former government minister said the backlash could make Mr. Musharraf’s position untenable. “Musharraf will not be able to control the situation now,” he said.

Before her return in October, Ms. Bhutto had spent nearly eight years in self-imposed exile to avoid corruption charges stemming from her time as prime minister in the 1990s. Her return had been promoted by Washington as part of an agreement to share power with Mr. Musharraf and rescue his increasingly unpopular government by giving it a more democratic face.

She was a leading contender to become prime minister after the Jan. 8 elections, campaigning as an advocate for Pakistan’s return to party politics after eight years of military rule under Mr. Musharraf, who relinquished his military post only this month. She also presented herself as the individual who could best combat growing militancy in Pakistan.

Her comments condemning militancy and suicide bombing had made her a target of Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan. Her homecoming procession in Karachi was attacked by two bomb blasts that killed 150 supporters and narrowly missed killing her.

Much of the rage over her death is nonetheless likely to be directed at Mr. Musharraf, who kept her out of power for over eight years and had shown her only a grudging welcome at first, and later outright hostility.

The country’s other main opposition leader, another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, announced Thursday evening that he was pulling his party out of the elections. A longtime political rival of Ms. Bhutto’s, he had lately become an ally in pressing for a return to democracy in Pakistan.

“This is a tragedy for her party, and a tragedy for our party and the entire nation,” Mr. Sharif said as he visited the hospital on hearing the news of her death.

Tauqir Zia, a retired general who recently joined Ms. Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, said it seemed that elections were unlikely to go ahead now in any case. “P.P.P. is now in turmoil for the time being,” he said. “It has to find a new leadership.”

Other officials and politicians said they, too, thought elections would have to be postponed. “This is going to lead to chaos and turmoil,” said the former interior minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who was nearly killed last week in a suicide bombing at a mosque in his home village. “I was anticipating this, that suicide bombings would increase and there will be an exacerbation and intensification in the attacks. This was bound to happen.”

There were differing accounts of the attack. Zamrud Khan, a member of her party, said Ms. Bhutto was shot in the head from gunfire that originated from behind her car in a building nearby. Seconds later a suicide bomber detonated his bomb, damaging one of the cars in her motorcade and killing some 15 people on the ground, Mr. Khan said.

The Interior Ministry spokesman quoted by the state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, said that the suicide bomber first fired on Ms. Bhutto and then blew himself up.

Amid the confusion after the explosion, the site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt. More than a dozen ambulances pushed through crowds of dazed and wounded people at the scene of the assassination.

Witnesses described hearing gunfire barely a minute before the loud explosion. Sajid Hussain, who had a shrapnel wound on his left hand, said he had heard at least three shots fired. “Then there was a big explosion, the earth seemed to tremble, I fell down. And everything was covered in black smoke.”

Mr. Zia, the retired general, said he was sitting in a car ahead of Ms. Bhutto before the blast. “A leader has to come out and lead and she did exactly that,” he said. “But I would ask where was the security? How did they allow people to come so close to her? It is inconceivable. There is a definite lapse of security.”

Dr. Abbas Hayat of Rawalpindi General Hospital said that doctors had tried for 35 minutes to resuscitate Ms. Bhutto, who he said had wounds to her head as well as shrapnel injuries.

Dr. Mohamed Mussadik, head of the medical college in Rawalpindi and a top surgeon who attended to Ms. Bhutto at the hospital, said she was clinically dead on arrival, according to Athar Minallah, a lawyer who had served in the Musharraf government but who has since helped lead the movement against him. In a telephone interview, Mr. Minallah said Dr. Mussadik had told him that the bullet wound was in the head.

Mr. Minallah said an independent, credible investigation into the assassination was critical, perhaps in partnership with an outside country. A precedent for this, he said, was the investigation into the murder of Ms. Bhutto’s brother 11 years ago. “The government has to allow it,” he said, “because the entire blame is on the government. Everyone I have spoken to believes it is the government that has done this. That makes the investigation of utmost importance.”

Apparently no autopsy was done, because the police did not request one, Dawn TV reported. Lawyers calling for an international neutral investigation are raising questions about the speed with which Ms. Bhutto’s body was moved. The body arrived in her southern home province, Sindh, before dawn, party officials told Agence-France Presse.

The assassination is likely to deepen suspicion among Ms. Bhutto’s supporters of Pakistan’s security agencies. Ms. Bhutto has long accused parts of the government, namely the country’s premier military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of working against her and her party because they oppose her liberal, secular agenda.

In a letter she sent to Mr. Musharraf just before her return to Pakistan in October, she listed “three individuals and more” who should be investigated for their sympathies with the militants in case she was assassinated.

An aide close to Ms. Bhutto said that one of those named in the letter was Ijaz Shah, the director general of the Intelligence Bureau, another of the country’s intelligence agencies, and a close associate of Mr. Musharraf’s.

The second official was the head of the country’s National Accountability Bureau, which had investigated Ms. Bhutto on corruption charges. The third was a former official in Punjab Province who had mistreated her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, when he was in jail awaiting trial on corruption charges.

In an interview after Ms. Bhutto released the letter, a close aide to Mr. Musharraf said the people named in the letter were all political enemies of Ms. Bhutto. He said they did not have sympathy with militants and the government was doing all it could to protect Ms. Bhutto.

A former senior Pakistani intelligence official said he did not believe that the country’s intelligence agency was involved. He blamed militants for the assassination, but said government-provided protection was far too lax and the area surrounding the rally should have been better secured.

“For sure, the government was complicit in the security aspects,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think the security arrangements of the police, they were not professionally handled.”