Amid a deepening crisis between the two uneasy partners, Washington pressed for access to three of the dead Al-Qaeda chief's widows, who it believes may have valuable information on bin Laden's movements and on the terror group.
In a further sign of tension over last week's daring covert raid in Abbottabad, the New York Times meanwhile reported that Pakistani authorities had retaliated by leaking the name of the CIA chief in Islamabad to the media.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, under intense domestic pressure over his country's failure to detect the stealth US special forces raid, earlier hit out at American unilateralism and warned against future US action.
He also insisted Pakistan reserves the right to "retaliate with full force," although he stopped short of spelling out what, if anything, would be done if US President Barack Obama ordered another unilateral anti-terror raid.
But at the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Obama was convinced he had done the right thing by sending in special forces at the dead of night in a raid in which bin Laden was killed in his Pakistani lair.
"We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani government seriously, but we also do not apologize for the action that we took, that this president took," Carney said.
Pakistan ratting out the CIA station chief in Islamabad should have been expected, but the rest of the chest beating is clearly a sign that Pakistan expects the status quo to continue, including the country receiving billions in foreign aid from the US as well as military aid.
On the other hand, that's going to be a tough sell unless Pakistan gives us somebody to blame for bin Laden hiding in the country for six years plus while calling us a valuable ally. The negotiations on the price of the final bill will be interesting, but in the end I don't see how much will change between the US and Pakistan...co-dependent relationships are like that.
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