The Pakistanis deny it all:
"The report is totally baseless and we strongly reject it," Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said in response to the "Financial Times" report.
Asad Munir, a retired brigadier-general and former ISI station chief in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, discounts the possibility that the Chinese were given access to the U.S. helicopter.
He notes that the remains of the stealth helicopter were handed over to the United States within a few days of the May 1-2 operation to kill the Al-Qaeda leader.
"There are no Chinese defense experts who are experts in helicopter technology that are present in Pakistan," Munir says.
Perhaps. While I could have missed (or forgotten) that the helicopter was returned eventually since the May raid, I don't recall seeing any press reports that the helicopter was returned as fast as they now claim.
Second, the denial that there are any Chinese defense experts in helicopter technology present in Pakistan right now is painfully specific, isn't it? Technically it could not be a lie in any number of details. Not in Pakistan now but perhaps back in May. The sample of stealth coating could have been given to a non-helicopter expert or any officer of the PLA.
And even if the Pakistanis returned the helicopter, I seriously doubt every piece made it back here. And no doubt the Pakistanis photographed it extensively.
The truth is, even if the Pakistani denial is completely accurate, they probably kept photos and samples to hold over our heads so they can keep playing both sides of the war on terror game. That's the reason the story angered me so much.
If Pakistan had been a good ally though the last decade, I'd be more inclined to grumble and quietly want our side to correct the problem rather than look forward to the day when we can cast Pakistan loose and good luck with your new Chinese friends.
And in the end, because we've known just what the Pakistanis are capable of, I return to my initial shock that we left the helicopter there largely intact. We should have bombed it after we left with something big enough to melt it into the ground. Leaving it there and trusting the Pakistanis to turn it over to us without playing any games was too much to expect.
The Soviet Union was an ally of convenience in World War II and didn't last as an ally past the defeat of Nazi Germany. If Pakistan thinks that holding on to details of our stealth helicopter can spare them the same fate when we are out of Afghanistan one day, they are in deep denial. They haven't earned that kind of loyalty from us.
