WASHINGTON: Britain had pressed President Asif Ali Zardari to send
ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha to India following the 2008 Mumbai attacks
but the Pakistani Army had vetoed the move, WikiLeaks has indicated.
According
to a US diplomatic cable leaked by the whistleblower website, British
Foreign Secretary David Miliband had pressed for sending Pasha to India
following the attacks as Miliband described ISI MG Pasha as a welcome
’new broom’ and expressed UK support for ISI reform.
"Zardari
gave (British High Commissioner Robert) Brinkley a long answer about
various levels of directors in ISI but finally confirmed that the Army
had vetoed the decision to send Pasha," the US cable said according to
PTI.
The Pakistan President told Miliband that it might be
possible to send National Security Advisor Mahmud Ali Durrani, as he
outranked Pasha.
"It would not be possible, said Zardari, to
send Pasha immediately as Zardari needed to work public opinion first,"
said the cable written by then US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W
Patterson to Washington five days after the Mumbai carnage that left
over 160 persons including six Americans dead.
According to the
cable, Zardari saw an opportunity to strike back at his enemies in the
global outcry following the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks
"In the conversation with Miliband, Zardari said he saw the attacks as an ’opportunity to strike at my enemies’," it said.
Patterson
said the details about the conversation between Zardari and Miliband
were made available by the UK mission in Islamabad through a readout.
"We
received a readout from the UK embassy on their meetings/calls over the
weekend. High Commissioner Brinkley and UK COS met President Zardari on
Sunday, November 30; during the meeting FM Miliband called Zardari. UK
passed the same Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) info to Zardari that they
previously had passed to ISI,"Patterson wrote.
The US
ambassador had termed Zardari’s response as positive. The Pakistan
President, however, criticised the Indians for making statements that
had pushed Islamabad on the defensive.
"Zardari’s response was
positive; he said ISI had to follow up and this was an opportunity. He
criticised the Indians for statements that pushed Islamabad to make a
defensive response and made my job harder," the US cable said.
Zardari
had also expressed his doubts that terrorists could have launched
attack boats from Karachi and that the operation could not have been
implemented without insider help from Indians.
Miliband had
encouraged the Pakistan President by saying that public messaging would
be particularly important to link the Mumbai atrocity with Zardari’s
own campaign against militants.
"Miliband said that LeT needed
to feel the full force of the law," the cable said. Zardari responded
by saying he was setting up special courts, was contacting all
political parties, and would take action immediately, it said. Online
