Pakistan's powerful army intelligence chief personally intervened to
check details surrounding a secret memo asking Washington to rein in
Pakistan's military following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the
man who made the memo public said Sunday.
Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha,
the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, flew to London to
meet with Mansoor Ijaz on Oct. 22, less than two weeks after the U.S.
businessman of Pakistani origin disclosed the existence of the memo in a
Financial Times column.
A senior ISI official said he had no
knowledge of the meeting but did not deny it occurred. He spoke on
condition of anonymity because he did not have authorization to talk to
reporters.
Pasha's reported involvement shows how seriously the
army is taking the scandal, which could cost Pakistan's ambassador to
the U.S. his job and also threatens to engulf the country's president.
Ijaz
has claimed that the ambassador, Husain Haqqani, orchestrated the memo
and assured him that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari had approved
it. Both have denied the allegations, although Haqqani has offered his
resignation to end the scandal.
The ambassador returned home
Sunday to answer questions about the memo, which Ijaz sent in May to
Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military commander at the time. He said
he sent it through an intermediary a week after a covert U.S. raid
killed bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town.
The memo, which has
been published in the media and does not include an author's name, has
shocked many Pakistanis because it offered to replace Pakistan's
national security hierarchy with people favorable to Washington in
exchange for help.
Pakistan's main opposition leader, former Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif, lashed out Sunday at Zardari's alleged
connection to the memo.
"Mr. Zardari, you are compromising the
country's sovereignty, you are putting the nation's self-respect on
sale," said Sharif. "This is not acceptable at any cost."
The memo
also promised to curb alleged ISI support for Islamist militants like
the Taliban that the intelligence agency has denied exists.
Ijaz said he provided ISI chief Pasha with Blackberry and computer records pertaining to the memo when the two met in London.
"I
brought everything to the table, and he went through all of it," Ijaz
told The Associated Press. "He then took with him what he needed for his
internal investigation to be complete."
The controversy has
exacerbated tensions between Pakistan's shaky civilian government and
its powerful army generals. Though Pakistan has a civilian president,
the military retains vast political and economic power. It has ruled
Pakistan, directly or indirectly, for much of the country's six-decade
existence and has fiercely resisted attempts by civilian leaders to curb
its role.
The memo has fueled politically toxic charges from
critics that the government is colluding with the U.S. against the
interests of the country and its army. Though Washington pumps huge
amounts of aid into the country, the U.S. is highly unpopular here. The
affair has been whipped up by critics of the government and those close
to the military establishment, which doesn't trust Haqqani.
The
memo accuses Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani of plotting
to bring down the government in the aftermath of bin Laden's
assassination on May 2. It asks Mullen for his "direct intervention"
with Kayani to stop this.
The bin Laden raid sparked outrage at
the U.S. because the Pakistani government was not told about it
beforehand. It also generated unusual domestic criticism of the
Pakistani military because it was not able to stop U.S. commandos from
sneaking into the country.
Some analysts have questioned Ijaz's
credibility and suggested the affair is a conspiracy cooked up by the
military to embarrass the government or remove Haqqani. They have
pointed out that the fear of a coup is strange, since the military was
in an unfavorable position at the time.
Ijaz has a history of
making claims to be well connected with U.S. politicians. Under the
Clinton administration, he said American officials told him Sudan was
willing to turn over then-fugitive bin Laden, who was taking refuge
there. Ijaz said Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger rejected
the deal because he was unwilling to do business with Sudan — a claim
that Berger denied. AP
