Poeschl: If it turned out that your suspicions were true, it would not be surprising or probably anywhere near the first time. We make a big deal about the democratic process, but in truth, no government of Pakistan has ever erred on the side of protecting the public. Who did this is also a question.

Thanks for reading.

According to this BBC News website item,
the Pakistani Prime Minister, Pakistani Armed Forces Chief (I’m not sure I recall the correct title), and possibly some other ministers in the Government of Pakistan were scheduled to be hosted at dinner by the Speaker of Pakistan’s National Parliament at the Marriott Hotel on the night of the bombing. At the last minute, they relocated to the Prime Minister’s residence.

My own suspicion is that the Pakistani government had already received information that there might be a bombing of either Pakistan’s National Parliament building, the Prime Minister’s residence, or the Marriott Hotel, and therefore publicly scheduled, as deliberate misinformation, the Prime Minister’s dinner at the Marriott Hotel on the night of the bombing, and then, at the last minute, surreptitiously relocated the dinner to the Prime Minister’s residence, which was more heavily guarded than the Marriott.

Details about the Prime Minister’s escape can be found on the BBC News website at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7628964.stm

The title of the above BBC News item is “Pakistan leaders’ ‘narrow escape’,” and its date is 22 September 2008 at 10:35 GMT.

The theory that the bomber(s) chose the Marriott because it was more lightly guarded is mentioned in a BBC News website item entitled “Islamabad’s ‘message from Hell’,” dated 20 September 2008 at 20:31 GMT. I didn’t record the URL, but the item can be found at the BBC News website’s URL above.

I realize that readers of this column are probably already aware of these BBC updates on the Marriott Hotel bombing, but I wanted to call attention to these BBC updates to support my suspicion that the Pakistani government probably had prior information that there would be a bombing that night and carefully thwarted what the government might have believed was a planned assassination of Pakistan’s prime minister — or else simply deliberately leaked misinformation about the Prime Minister’s dinner in order to prevent any bomber(s) from harming Pakistani leadership.