The United States will have less trust in Pakistan following the discovery of Osama bin Laden near its capital, a former top ranking US foreign affairs official says.
The al-Qaeda leader was killed in a luxury compound on the outskirts of Islamabad. The compound was also near a military academy.
Richard Armitage, who served as US deputy secretary of state from 2001 to 2005, said the discovery of bin Laden in Pakistan would make it hard for the US to trust its notional ally in the war on terror.
"You can follow the old Reagan dictum of `trust but verify'," he told ABC Television on Wednesday night.
"From here on out, it will clearly be a lot more of the verification and and a lot less of the trust end."
Mr Armitage said it should not have taken almost a decade, after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, to find bin Laden.
"Who knew what, when? If someone in the Pakistan government knew about this, it's horrible," he said.
"If they did not know about it, it's stupid and embarrassing.
"The first question would be: `Who knew what? Who in the intelligence services knew what and for what reason were they harbouring Osama bin Laden?'"
Mr Armitage said bin Laden was likely to have had an extensive support base outside the compound."It does strain credulity to think he was alone in that compound for as long as five or six years without having some outward sign of support beyond simply a courier or two to show up once in a while
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