“Look everybody knew that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda and Taliban have officers with practically, publicly known addresses and that was no secret that the ISI and other factions of the Pakistani military were backing this and this was not secret. That enormous amount of Saudi money was supporting these operations including al-Qaeda.”-Jeff Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review

There’s growing calls for action against Pakistan for “hiding” Osama bin Laden. But the truth is that the U.S. government knew bin Laden was in Pakistan, or at least being protected by Pakistan, for years, if not decades.

In October 2010, The Guardian published an article in which an unnamed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) officer said bin Laden was in Pakistan and that “Nobody in al-Qaida is living in a cave.”

An NBC interview of current Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (husband of assassinated Benazir Bhutto), aired in May, 2009, in which President Zardari said the U.S. government always knew where bin Laden was in the past, saying “…he was your operator.” He believed bin Laden was now dead because: “I’ve asked my counterparts in the American intelligence agencies and they haven’t heard of him in seven years.”

David Frost interviewed Benazir Bhutto in November 2007, and she said bin Laden was dead.  She was explaining that a failed October 2007 assassination attempt on her life could have been carried out by “…Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama bin Laden.”

ABC news aired a story in February 2007, in which they say the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) said bin Laden was in Pakistan: “…to the best of our knowledge that the senior leadership, No. 1 and No. 2, are there, and they are attempting to re-establish and rebuild and to establish training camps.”-Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence

CBS news, in a January 2002 report, not only said bin Laden was in Pakistan, but was near death because of failing kidneys.  According to the reporter, even the President of Pakistan knew: “But it was Pakistan`s President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving.”-Barry Petersen, CBS correspondent

On August 22, 2001 (weeks before September 11, 2001) The Asia Times published an article that said the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were in negotiations for the capture of bin Laden, in order to avoid “…the secret deployment of US special forces in northern areas, for an operation inside Afghanistan to apprehend bin Laden ‘dead or alive any time soon’.”

You can go back all the way to the 1980s, when the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan worked together to bring Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to create what would become the Taliban, and al-Qaeda.  Ahmed Rashid, respected expert on Afghan issues, quotes bin Laden in his book “Taliban” (first published in 2000): “I settled in Pakistan in the Afghan border region. There I received volunteers who came from the Saudi Kingdom and from all over the Arab and Muslim countries.  I set up my first camp where these volunteers were trained by Pakistani and American officers.”-Osama bin Laden

So from the beginning, all the way back to 1980, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan, by his own words.  The fact that he was supported by not only the Saudis and Pakistanis, but the United States, should cause concern, and doubt about what any of the governments of those countries now say about bin Laden.  There are many more statements by public officials from the U.S. and Pakistan that show, if anything, the public has been lied to from day one.