British Detectives Meet With Musharraf

Let's see how far they get without a body or physical evidence. The Musharraf government give in because of all the suspicion directed against them:

President Pervez Musharraf told British forensic experts Tuesday they would have a free hand in investigating the circumstances surrounding the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, a government official said.

The promise appeared to be a softening of the government's position on the probe. Last week, Musharraf told reporters the investigators would not be allowed to go on a "wild goose chase" and investigate claims the government was behind Bhutto's killing in a Dec. 27 shooting and bombing attack.

"The president assured (the investigators) of his full support and said that they were totally free to conduct their probe, and no one will interfere in their affairs," Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

The government blamed the attack on Islamic militants and initially said Bhutto was killed when the force of the blast slammed her head into a lever on the sunroof of her car. The opposition blamed elements of the ruling party and said she was killed by gunshot wounds.

[...]The team's meeting with Musharraf came a day after Bhutto's supporters called for the formation of a U.N. committee with a broad mandate to investigate Bhutto's assassination.

Why isn't the U.S. government demanding an independent investigation of the assassination? The answer is simple. They put fighting al Qaeda and "stability" above democracy and justice:

The political upheaval in Pakistan and emergence there of a new military leader has revitalized the Bush administration's long struggle to develop a coherent strategy for uprooting al-Qaeda from Pakistan's western tribal areas, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The unrest has led to a greater focus in Washington on threats facing Pakistan, including not only terrorism, but increasingly a growing religious insurgency, said another senior military official. "The conditions we face are not waiting, so why should we wait?" he said.

Senior U.S. officials discussed at the White House last week a new proposal to give U.S. Special Operations forces and the CIA greater leeway to conduct operations in the tribal areas.

But that proposal, along with several different U.S. scenarios for addressing the sanctuary, remains hampered by bureaucratic infighting in Washington, according to senior military officials familiar with the plans. "There should be a plan, singular. That is what we are trying to do now," one official said.

One point of contention involves who within the U.S. government would approve operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Area, the rugged and lawless region bordering Afghanistan.