US Supplied Bhutto With Security Intel

Washington gave Benazir Bhutto intelligence to protect her from militants for weeks but would not guard her with its own private contractors, the Los Angeles Times reports. An ex-adviser to Bhutto said the US refused to be "micromanaging the security arrangements of another country." The US embassy in Islamabad was slipping Bhutto the data on likely threats and advising her on how to boost her own security.

Meanwhile, through diplomatic channels, Washington backed President Pervez Musharraf and pressed him to improve Bhutto's protection. Bhutto sought international contractors to guard her, but Musharraf refused to allow such a plan, which Bhutto would have funded herself. "It sure bothers me that she did not have the kind of protection she needed," said Sen. Joe Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (More Benazir Bhutto stories.)