people of the united states, pakistan ask the world -- and the world what had transpired during the investigation which was as important as what we actually wrote in the report. that's what led me to do that. and then there was also a personal commitment to the story of benazir bhutto, because she had, in a sense, put her life at risk. and she knew that there were threats against her life. and nevertheless, there were high values for her, the recovery of democracy in pakistan, the idea of making the radicalization in pakistan a thing of the past controlling the armed forces and the part of the civilian government. all of that was very close to my own experience because i was a dissident against a dictatorship this my own country for almost

20 years, and i was even underground, and i felt very close to that story of benazir bhutto, and that's why that was another motive to write that's why that was another motive to write it.t:me talk about the commission report how that has caused a huge controversy when it came to pakistan? >> at differs quite a bit in the sense that there would go into the history of pakistan in cases of coca-cola impunity i go to the story of benazir bhutto and her family which is the story unto itself and in pakistan with a lot of tragedy into it by the way because today out of the whole family, killed by a dictator in the late 70's and

the two brothers also died violent deaths who was involved in politics and when you look at the kennedy's it's something like that so there were these elements. but also it is a reflection about the relationship with the united states and pakistan because it is a critical actor. all of those elements make up a good 3/4 of the book and there's one part of the assassination themselves where we go our by our about what is going on with benazir bhutto in the political

rally after she was assassinated and all of that is based in every part in a very small part to what the book is all about. >> i found that part particularly interesting, given what was happening. i did find it interesting also how you started the book and i have to say that i laughed out loud haven't been there during pakistan during this entire time you start the booklet is january, 2009 and you described getting an urgent call from the u.n. secretary-general's office of heading up this commission and what made me laugh is the whole idea that it is an urgent call and it is coming more than a year after the actual assassination of benazir bhutto. can you talk about the challenges of going in and you didn't even end up going until july. can you talk about the challenge

of investigating the fact? >> it was not only a challenging investigation but. also this was a commission that wasn't going to establish the responsibilities about who committed the crime to establish the facts and circumstances. it meant that it didn't have the force that the tribunal would have and wouldn't be able to simply command of the testimonies from individuals. we would have to do it in an all voluntary basis and at the same time my father was a very challenging situation because the public opinion would expect that report would point to the

smoking gun about who did it so it was a lose lose situation. this was highly unusual that the sitting ambassador would be charged with such a high of responsibility. they've been actually contacted by the winner of benazir bhutto so that there would be international support for this request which turned into an efficient request when benazir bhutto became president in pakistan and said to me yes, do it. they speak highly of our prestige and of my own personal trajectory in going into pakistan was very difficult because it was the leaking of information was one of the main obstacles and the minute that we

arrived in fact as we were about to fly from jfk i was told that my computer had been hacked, and my chief of staff and that perhaps we should suspend the trade to pakistan. and i said no, we have to go. the department of security and safety in the united nations recognized that i wouldn't go out of the red zone for the safe zone of islamabad. there is a security zone and i said no because it was a suburb of is, what we had done as your bhutto had been assassinated and was fundamental for us to go and see the site and speak to the police and the witnesses. so, we ended up doing that and

in order to avoid the press or anybody that might want to harm, we decided to put in a program that would go at 3:00 in the afternoon the next day and 5 a.m. in a convoy and a was all fun and good until we arrived there and the police located about two blocks in perimeter so that nobody could access where we were. but we saw people like to blocks away and one was a former deputy they are journalists.

somebody tipped them off and thought that he had avoided any undue preference and they were there. the government was very helpful at the beginning because the government had requested information from the u.n. and they had received a us quite normally. when the commissioner began to investigate in an independent fashion asking hard questions, we felt increasingly less welcome that the cooperation wasn't for even part of the government. a lot of individuals didn't want

the investigation and obviously wanted harm on benazir bhutto. benazir bhutto was particularly fearful of what she called the establishment which in pakistan is constituted by the intelligence services, the secretaries of the highest levels of the military and business leaders and some party leaders and bureaucracies in the structure of pakistan she feared the intelligent services can't identified three individuals she

feared were very close to musharraf that she feared would attack her or organize attacks against her and one of them was from the head of the isi inter-services intelligence and the major intelligence agency in pakistan. the other one was a serving chief on the intelligence bureau of other intelligence service in pakistan and the third was a chief minister of punjab province. so both of these individuals did not want her there. in fact, the former head of identified and feared because the officials had tried to unseat her when she was a minister and in fact had been behind and dismissed the first time that benazir bhutto was a prime minister of 1988 and wanted to interview him and he

rejected outright any contact with the commission, so we had a lot of individuals, jerry -- obviously there was al qaeda and the taliban that he did benazir bhutto because of what she stood for. she was a woman in the country, the leader of the islamic country than she had been already and she was going to proudly be again. second, she was less than educated in the school. she spoke better english and when she got into politics only after her father was assassinated in the 1970's and she was accused of being a shia by the sunni radicals. all of this.

the security for our own for. not at a hotel we had forbidden anyplace we would say that what have public access and the social security was very much in our mind and in the mind of people around us. >> i want to go back to something that you had mentioned which is the idea that she was aware of the threat against her life and expressed fear over the threat as it had been written in a letter naming people before she was assassinated yet i observed her when he came home her first reality was also attacked by bombers and she was

out behind the screen not abiding by the security precautions but argued on the very day that this happened she was coming out of the sunroof and waiting at the crowd so how do you balance that whole idea that she was beating like that and talk to folks about that contradiction with the primary elections that she needed to go back to pakistan because it had been nine years in the voluntary exile.

at that time that musharraf was a dictator. they had declared the martial law and suicide bombings were increasing and stability was raining over pakistan to regain stability and democracy and the rules law so the was the first commitment that she had. she was very aware of the facts against her and a lot of intelligence information had been passed on to her. what happened as though she didn't do anything about it except passing on the information she was a bit pessimistic about what could transpire when she arrived in

pakistan. she flew to aspen and they were the ambassador to afghanistan and the united nations they were going on a private plane and the stewardess offers some freshly baked cookies and said no i'm on a buy at and then she calls the stewardess and says what hecht, give me the code keys -- cookies i will be dead anyhow. she was perfectly aware of the threats that she was going to face and she risked herself by

coming out for the vehicle because she was containing. she felt that the duty of the government was to protect her. it wasn't her duty to protect herself, she was a former prime minister entitled to protection on the part of the state in pakistan and was the duty of musharraf to provide that protection so that she felt she didn't go out she wouldn't get the votes for the victory by the end of the year and we in the process discovered a letter to provide the security which is a top security that you could have to to other primm ministers but

not to benazir bhutto. in other words it was a purposeful and exclusion from the type of the protection security protection that she deserved and that is an element that has to be taken into account that she risked herself without a doubt because she felt that she needed to be close to people. it was after the first attack on the convoy when she first got back. >> as it was well mentioned the fact that everybody knew that the minute that she arrived in pakistan after the exile, she landed in karachi and goes on a convoy with hundreds of thousands of people awaiting her as she goes to the mausoleum and there's a huge attack and knowing that, she wasn't

afforded the protection that she needed and there was no more dramatic proof of the danger that she was in in that attack in karachi and afforded to the protection that she was entitled to. >> host: i found it boulder to come out is that the police deliberately botched this investigation which is pretty strong language. can you talk about the role of the police and the investigation and in particular the role of the police chief? >> one can be a diplomat and in this sense we are given the task and a protocol that isn't needed in the report or the book to uncover the truth and in this case in fact they did a cover up

because they watched the scene of the crime after the suicide bombing occurred. this is unbelievable because anyone knows, even people that watch tv, csis the first thing that you secure the scene of the crime for evidence as people watched with firefighting hoses the scene of the crime so that when we went to scotland yard and we spent hours and hours with the forensic investigators to have actually done an investigation to the cause of death of benazir bhutto on the case like that in the bombing of

that nature there would be thousands of pieces of evidence however only 23 pieces or ordered. it would be very incredulous if the local chief of police did it on its own, he didn't. there was somebody higher up and we were cleared because of witnesses that he had received phone calls on the scene and later on the same police, the head of the police and the ancient deputy were present at least the head of the police and the hospital where benazir bhutto was taken to be resuscitated and she was not. once she was declared dead by the charge, she asked permission from the police and three times

she asked and the three times the chief of police denied that request and according to the pakistan law it was for the police to authorize not to allow the medical personnel and they denied that. all of that for three years an attitude that was delivered it. and in fact when they had seen that the next day arrived the composed of several agencies of the police that are arrived in the case she begins by deterring that it's too late to go to see the scene of the crime and she offers him a legend says why do you want to go out and investigate because at the same time -- they had solved the case in 24-hour saying who was the

culprit and the head of the taliban, the pakistan taliban and she had hit her head against the sun roof and they say why you want to investigate, the case is solved? gindin nevertheless at night following all of the tactics they went to the place and actually discovered two or three pieces because they had done that so that is the picture of the police on the pass of putting obstacles and engaging in the cover-up of the assassination. >> host: who do you think might have made those phone calls to the police?

>> guest: when the chief of police was in the hospital and received a phone call of the isi intelligence we interrogated this person -- >> host: this deputy -- >> host: of the intelligence services and she denied that phone call and where we demonstrate because we have evidence -- >> host: he has the phone records? >> guest: know but we had a lot of testimony about the time that had occurred and then she recalled after she lied to us it says yes okay i called but i only called to find out whether benazir bhutto had been declared dead so that i could tell my superiors and be sure that was information that i was translating and had strong information. but a further reason, the fact is that there were phone calls

and again, i would doubt very much that the head of the local police department would have acted on his own on this and he didn't receive instructions or he felt he might have been responsible in a defensive way than this is to protect himself and higher up just in case. even to the hypothesis it shows that this was a deliberate obstruction of the investigation process. >> host: so you have the police hiding things and 23 pieces of evidence come immediately they are blamed and there is a press conference saying we have this wiretap and we know he's done it. why would they do that if they were not involved in the assassination? what is the explanation of why this happened?

>> guest: it is a good question and perhaps simply musharraf wanted to get the issue done with admittedly and not have it dragged out and become a challenge to his own authority. but in the end that would occur because the political elite and then the associates. so it backfired in the end he and she was in fact force and pressured to have that team come and to investigate. it's very interesting because we

had interviews ahead of the isi on the head of the army and the head of the army said to me that there was no firm evidence of committing the crime and that you couldn't simply a sign responsibility on the basis of the taped. so this was a deliberate move to simply and with a controversy and blame benazir bhutto because that was always the perspective. she was the one that stood out to say hello to the crowd. she shouldn't have. she was responsible so that was very much the idea.

but she was a victim. she should have been protected and there was no protection. the of the elite force that would accompany her into the reality where she was killed thereafter and that wasn't there. we saw videos and pictures and we talked to numerous witnesses and all the people that we interviewed saw no information, no police protection, and so was the duty of the government and of musharraf, so instead of having done that press conference, assigning already built and the cause of death and perhaps they should have done a thorough investigation that would have led to a different direction, but the was complicated because some of the

associates would have then called to testify. >> host: right. well this is a fascinating conversation. we are going to take a break and come right back. thanks a very much. >> host: welcome back i want to start by asking you point blank do you think that musharraf had any role in the actual assassination of benazir bhutto? >> guest: benazir bhutto had a conversation with musharraf that there are witnesses to that conversation where benazir

bhutto asked protection before going back and asked whether the u.s. government had called them to request that protection because they've lobbied the white house and they responded the americans can call all they want, but the security said to benazir bhutto on the state of count the mutual relationship her security depended on how she felt the relationship was going. she sent a letter, actually an e-mail to work with her and e-mail to be known only if she were killed and in that e-mail

she blames musharraf and because she says that he made her feel insecure with the ssc is around them. that responsibility has to be established by the court if the courts established who is guilty or accelerated but there is a political and a moral responsibility on the part of musharraf because they do not provide the production that they requested so many times. not only musharraf. i would like to say that the united states and the u.k. promoted her return to have enough stability for pakistan and a think tank or from terrorism particularly the taliban that were helping the fight against american troops in afghanistan and that they didn't

do anything to provide what she needed to go back. they didn't provide security petraeus come in the end coming here it is difficult to put a finger against one single actor to get i would strongly respond who is against it here behind the assassination and i came up with a metaphor using spanish clay, the name of a village in spain and the story is that there was an element in the village was very heated by the population and was assassinated and a judge a arrived from another town to investigate and began interrogating the villagers and they all responded the village of did it and the judge said one after the other and the village continue to say

and they stick to the story. they don't point to anybody in particular. al qaeda for sure had ordered the assassination and the pakistani taliban, everything they did that nobody believes a kid fired, 15 and a half-years-old. nobody believed that he was the one that did it alone. i think that they had a political and a moral responsibility because they facilitated the crime by protecting her and i think the people around her, her own security team failed her because of an excusable omissions, and i could get into that, and in addition to that, the u.s. and

the u.k. didn't provide any security or pressure musharraf sufficiently and were not able to get the results from musharraf. in the end, the police did not cover and a lot of the political actors might think it was turn the page and find out who did and that's why i feel that it would be surrounded for a long time. >> host: what you think about what is happening with musharraf now and the fact that he has been charged? >> guest: interesting because the report open to the case and first of all they have to determine the local police, they invited the local police and arrested them and then they indicted musharraf. they seized the assets when he

was abroad and returned to pakistan and he was put on to house arrest and the case is ongoing right now. so at least there's been a complete action on the fact adding to the mystery of the state prosecutor in the case was assassinated six months ago and as she drove through the court to a hearing one night on the bhutto case of he was assassinated with bullets. what have directly linked the benazir bhutto case many people believed and many people think it would have been taliban terrorists because of that and other cases, but at least the court cases are still ongoing. >> host: one of the major figures in the book is a man by the name of run known who was a

security chief for benazir bhutto. he was also sort of your entree into pakistan when you first went there. can you talk a bit about him and your interactions with him and how they changed? >> guest: he was the ministry of interior and served with the government and had been a security adviser to benazir bhutto. many said that he was a person in charge of her security and he said to us know, wasn't. i was a national security adviser but most people that we interviewed said no, he was in charge of the security. >> host: and the was my understanding when i was there. >> guest: exactly. we all understood that and that was the case in our judgment. he was our contact person and he was a surprising figure and very warm to us when we arrived but

very surprising because the first meeting that we have in pakistan when we went presented us with a document, 70 page document that was supposed to be our report. he said this is what we gather on the investigations we've done this is your report. >> host: that was nice of him. >> guest: he said you can change it if you want. so basically he was saying don't worry, here's your report. we've done it for you. >> host: here's some lunch. >> guest: i looked at my commissioners because i didn't understand it was and be an independent investigation no matter what, and i think that he began asking questions because he had been in a backup vehicle in a black mercedes, bulletproof black mercedes at the time of

the assassination and as any backup the hinkle in case the vehicle suffered damage or was attacked and when the assassination occurred, the political rally ended and they were ready to leave. first of all the security is not around and the police avoid the crowd from going around the vehicles. it is nowhere to be found and we reviewed dozens of the videos and never found that vehicle and we asked them because we knew he was right at that vehicle and he was always telling us we will talk about this some other time. he never responded right out to the questions the we were making about where was his vehicle. the vehicle was at least 250 yards away, close enough so

that they heard the explosion despite the fact that they heard the explosion they simply left and went to the house the was benazir bhutto's house in islamabad who instead of staying there because it was a backup vehicle and they didn't even stop on a way to find out whether she had been heard or not. this was an excusable and we find that out through the investigation through testimonies. in fact, the vehicle of benazir bhutto is severely damaged but still is able to move, tries the hospital with the tigers had been blown off so riding on the rim and can't make it halfway to the hospital and collapses. she has to be transported to a vehicle over to a leader that happens to go by and that's how

she arrived to the hospital. maybe she could have been saved, who knows, if that and back up the hagel had been there so that was the uncomfortable relationship and they disappear at is an inexcusable for security and in addition to that on helpful when we wanted to interview the head of the army and sent a private note to him about requesting access and he responded saying the army and the intelligence services are off limits because they have nothing to do. but it so happens that benazir bhutto thought that the intelligence services had a lot to do with her assassination and we have to interview them. they are a factor and everyone

knows that like he was telling us publicly. we were given to the head of the isi. the head was given some particular conditions to have an interview for the other two commissioners without any member of the staff to take notes with only one policeman. i accepted.

they strongly disagreed with me but i thought. i tell my colleagues all of the information of the secret meeting at 8:00 in the morning we open up the paper and it's everywhere the secret meeting with the head of the army it is somebody in the government. the cooperation that we got similarly began to be more and more doubtful the week as the process of the investigation cannot long and may even began spending.

>> host: do you have any suspicion about the role of the assassination or do you think it is more just like she left because he left and didn't want to be called on that? >> guest: i don't think that he had any role whatsoever. he was very close to benazir bhutto but i think that it was simply because we know that in cases the first was followed by the second bomb it was just a matter of the base of humanity not in the crossfire of war and terror as the case it was a lack of responsibility during the duty even endanger despite the

fact of the he was also a target like benazir bhutto. he told us and received information that he and benazir bhutto had no doubt that that would be the case because obviously the taliban targeted the musharraf twice and pursuing the militants i wouldn't doubt that story either triet >> host: can we talk about spycraft because as journalists you're always taking strange precautions you would be followed when you were going down the street, you would have people coming and asking your driver who is this person if you went to the afghan or the indian embassies and you would write

about the coke and suspicions eavesdropping and about walking in the garden to try to avoid bugs inside the house. can you talk about love the game that you yourself were playing to make it to those that wouldn't appear in the press about what you're doing or even thinking. >> guest: one of the surprises was that when we first arrived in pakistan at the safe house and they spoke no english and had a detailed agenda of everything that we were doing and i was astonished and had a tremendous security breach to have the agenda and i was getting a response and they said he has to know because he has to know when i'm going to be taking meals in the house.

meals are very important. so that was one story. and obviously when we wanted to make sure that our conversations would be only our own conversations and not somebody else if's conversations we would walk in and sometimes outside. the first when we were going back and new york. there was a man that identified himself as a diplomatic liaison.

tommy who committed the assassination. they are not supposed to identify. our duty is to identify the facts and the circumstances and she says well but just in case, what would you think committed the crime? and they said well i just told you the mission is not to identify the conference. and then he says no i'm asking a hypothesis. let's say hypophysis. by the first time she says he was fishing for information i already told you and i stood up on the other side and obviously was very poor intelligence operation to try to get information and as we were on

the plane about ready to leave i tell one of my colleagues what happened to me and he tells me that is exactly what happened to me with the same guy. that diplomatic liaison would not again when we come back to pakistan so these were the little issues that we had that made it even more challenging to do an investigation that was already complex. >> host: did you use different phones? >> guest: we had a special after my e-mail. i never used that account again and we used some and corrected accounts. >> host: and if they were probably watching that. >> guest: i told my chief of

staff i said to him look you probably are thinking the bad guys in pakistan did this. it could have been many other people doing this that want to listen to about what was going on. they said don't worry there will be a lot of interested parties even in the member states that might want to know what's going on. so let us not worry excessively because otherwise we wouldn't and mobilize ourselves in the process of the investigation and i don't want that. we have to minimize the risk and have good protection but aside from that lets just do things as normal of an investigation as possible. >> host: how many days total did you spend in pakistan on those three tracks? >> guest: i don't know. 15 days or so. in addition to that we went to other countries. we went to england, the united

arab emirates. i interviewed musharraf near philadelphia of all places. >> host: what did he tell you? >> guest: sort of a different story. one of the things i asked him was was there ever a deal why were you so mad about benazir bhutto when she came back and he said there was no deal. 200% sure there was no deal and there were different versions. one was evidence that benazir bhutto could go back and they would lift the accusations of corruption against her and they would allow it to run without the impediments of her becoming again the prime minister because it had been an impediment past in congress and at the same time she would support musharraf to

be a reluctant president in other words she went into retirement and wouldn't be the head of the army and the idea is that she would be president and the prime minister. all of it was never closed and she could defend that. he was very adamant about not coming back before the election and in fact he had told benazir bhutto one within the celebrate new year's and pakistan that she should come back new year's thus she wouldn't contain and she fell on the contrary that she had to be there. you have to be in contact with the people. you cannot win an election if you are in dubai or lebanon, said she felt that despite the fact it wasn't a full guarantee,

she had to go back and that enraged musharraf. he was very upset about the fact she felt the sort of terms of the deal had been violated by her going back and that is what became very clearly true that interview. not much more because it was -- there was one thing i thought was interesting because i follow dictatorship in my own country when i was in the dictatorship and i heard many times particularly after we've recuperated the democracy and was put on the file and he began to confront his own security had and began to say look i was the president. i didn't see the day-to-day running of the government so i

don't know. it was the other ones. how am i going to know if somebody was being tortured? but there was so much in my mind. i was the president. i didn't do the day-to-day i didn't know what the security forces were doing. i didn't know what even the prime minister was doing. i said they need control of what is going on in the country. that was something there was very stock in my mind as many dictators try to give you that line to declare themselves innocent on what transpires under their watch. >> host: so basically you're on the ground for maybe 15 days and one of the most difficult things i found reporting in pakistan was trying to sort of the truths from fiction.

i remember going to the home town of the surviving bomber in mumbai and i had been told that this was the hometown of the surviving bomber in mumbai. i had been told that by the now prime minister of pakistan and i go to this town and everybody in the town said know this is not the place that you are looking for in fact that is incorrect. everybody said this and another reporter that went there and actually found that they had set up a fake family in the house where he was from. how do you establish that in an environment like that and no what conclusions you are coming up with our actually true? >> guest: we have to talk to a lot of people, and we did, so we confront the stories with various people to know if what we were being told was true or not. there were some that we couldn't

prove and you have to use your best judgment to try to ascertain what information is true information or false. but in most cases we went through a very thorough investigation of checking with those people about a single incident we would go and check with the various people, for example there was a store that when she was in the vehicle and emerges to say hello to the crowd it was one story and somebody told her why don't you just stand up and say hello to the crowd and we investigated that version and couldn't confirm that and they began it

was benazir bhutto and her own militiamen to stand up and say hello to the crowd in fact. they had been informed. some of the people in his willie had been killed in a shootout. they would offer condolences. the with the marriage so now --

how they would emerge so now if we hadn't confronted that. the in credibility about what goes on and i remember having read immediately after the bombing attack against the national cricket team in the law or and he goes to the team and gas.

if the top taliban terrorists and the other is in the government and forces the intelligence agency and somebody somewhere says india. a lot of incredulity and it is very prone to the conspiracy theory so that is why i think when they ask do you think's the case will ever be solved i say that it's very difficult in a look with the united states and very recently 50 years since the assassination of john kennedy in dallas still the american public don't believe that it was a single shooter lee harvey all salt. >> host: but we at least know he was shot and there was an autopsy investigation.

>> host: this is it is surrounded in the mystery and speculation and in the case of pakistan there is a lot of history of that because one of the most amazing coincidences in the story is that in 1951 the first primm minister that succeeded the founder of pakistan was a man who went through the same exact place where benazir bhutto was assassinated and was dealing with a rally of 100,000 people like he was shot and killed in the same place buy supposedly a lone gunman and that individual shot him several times and he was captured by the crowd and even though she had been subdued by the crowd and had the gun taken away, a police inspector

came in and shot him six times, so you would never know who was behind the lone wolf men but was doing this. today there is speculation about who is behind this murder 56 years before in the same place because in honor of that premise your. the other unbelievable thing i put in this book because i found it interesting was that in 1951 it was assassinated in the hospital and its motto doctor that tries to revive him is a doctor by the name of kahn and so happens that 20 years later,

the son of this doctor is a doctor that receives benazir bhutto and also successfully tries to revive her. a lot of coincidences in the story. >> host: right. with that coincidence, i think we are going to wrap up so thanks very much for joining me today. >> guest: thanks very much. ..