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Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 14-11-2011

Exclusive: Mullen denies secret back channel in U.S.-Pakistan relationship


Posted By Josh Rogin [Image: 091022_meta_block.gif] Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - 12:41 PM [Image: 091022_meta_block.gif] [Image: 091022_more_icon.gif] Share


[Image: mullenresized.jpg]
On Oct. 10, Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz dropped a bombshell: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, he alleged, had offered to replace Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership and cut ties with militant groups in the wake of Osama bin Laden'skilling in Abbottabad.
Ijaz also alleged in his op-ed in the Financial Times that Zardari communicated this offer by sending a top secret memo on May 10 through Ijaz himself, to be hand-delivered to Adm. Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a key official managing the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. The details of the memo and the machinations Ijaz describes paint a picture of a Zardari government scrambling to save itself from an impending military coup following the raid on bin Laden's compound, and asking for U.S. support to prevent that coup before it started.
Mullen, now retired, denied this week having ever dealt with Ijaz in comments given to The Cable through his spokesman at the time, Capt. John Kirby.
"Adm. Mullen does not know Mr. Ijaz and has no recollection of receiving any correspondence from him," Kirby told The Cable. "I cannot say definitively that correspondence did not come from him -- the admiral received many missives as chairman from many people every day, some official, some not. But he does not recall one from this individual. And in any case, he did not take any action with respect to our relationship with Pakistan based on any such correspondence ... preferring to work at the relationship directly through [Pakistani Army Chief of Staff] Gen. [Ashfaq Parvez]Kayani and inside the interagency process."
Mullen's denial represents the first official U.S. comment on the Ijaz memo, which since Oct. 10 has mushroomed into a huge controversy in Pakistan. Several parts of Pakistan's civilian government denied that Ijaz's memorandum ever existed. On Oct. 30, Zardari spokesman Farhatullah Babar called Ijaz's op-ed a "fantasy article" and criticized the FT for running it in the first place.
"Mansoor Ijaz's allegation is nothing more than a desperate bid by an individual, whom recognition and credibility has eluded, to seek media attention through concocted stories," Babar said. "Why would the president of Pakistan choose a private person of questionable credentials to carry a letter to U.S. officials? Since when Mansoor has become a courier of messages of the president of Pakistan?"
On Oct. 31, Ijaz issued a long statement doubling down on his claims and threatened to reveal the "senior Pakistani official" that purportedly sent him on his mission. Ijaz quoted Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, telling Zardari and his staff, "If you stop telling lies about me, I might just stop telling the truth about you."
The Pakistani press has given credence to Ijaz's story because it was published in the Financial Times. "The FT is not likely to publish something which it cannot substantiate if it was so required, so any number of denials and clarifications by our diplomats or the presidency will only be for domestic consumption and would mean nothing," wrote one prominent Pakistani commentator.
This is only the latest time that Ijaz has raised controversy concerning his alleged role as a secret international diplomat. In 1996, he was accused of trying to extort money from the Pakistani government in exchange for delivering votes in the U.S. House of Representatives on a Pakistan-related trade provision.
Ijaz, who runs the firm Crescent Investment Management LLC in New York, has been an interlocutor between U.S. officials and foreign government for years, amid constant accusations of financial conflicts of interest. He reportedly arranged meetings between U.S. officials and former Pakistani Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
He also reportedly gave over $1 million to Democratic politicians in the 1990s and attended Christmas events at former President Bill Clinton's White House. Ijaz has ties to former CIA Director James Woolsey and his investment firm partner is Reagan administration official James Alan Abrahamson.
In the mid-1990s, Ijaz traveled to Sudan several times and claimed to be relaying messages from the Sudanese regime to the Clinton administration regarding intelligence on bin Laden, who was living there at the time. Ijaz has claimed that his work gave the United States a chance to kill the al Qaeda leader but that the Clinton administration dropped the ball. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who served under Clinton, has called Ijaz's allegations "ludicrous and irresponsible."
Then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has previously acknowledged that Ijaz brought the Clinton administration offers of counterterrorism cooperation from Sudan but said that actual cooperation never materialized.
So why is Ijaz's story so popular in Pakistan, despite his long history of antagonizing the Pakistani government with such claims? According to Mehreen Zahra-Malik, who wrote about the Ijaz scandal on Oct. 29 in Pakistan's The News, it's all part of the culture of secrecy and conspiracy in Pakistani politics that the current civilian and military leadership in Islamabad has only continued to foster.
"When secrecy and conspiracy are part of the very system of government, a vicious cycle develops. Because truth is abhorrent, it must be concealed, and because it is concealed, it becomes ever more abhorrent. Having power then becomes about the very concealment of truth, and covering up the truth becomes the very imperative of power -- and the powerful," she wrote. "The end result: a population raised on a diet of conspiracy."
Attempts to reach Ijaz for comment were unsuccessful.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/08/exclusive_mullen_denies_secret_back_channel_in_us_pakistan_relationship

Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 14-11-2011

FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS, says Mansoor IJAZ

NEW YORK - "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." -- John Adams, 'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials', December 1770.

On November 10, 2011, Foreign Policy, a US news journal focused on foreign affairs reporting in Washington DC, published an article in which the author elicited certain statements from Admiral Mike Mullen's spokesman, Captain John Kirby, denying that the Admiral had received a memorandum specifically from me containing certain information and making certain offers from the civilian government of Pakistan to the United States on May 10th, nine days after Osama bin Laden had been killed in a raid on the Abbottabad compound he was hiding in for nearly six years.

The background behind why this denial was solicited from Admiral Mullen, and issued, is important to understand. One month after I published an opinion piece in the Financial Times in which I wrote that I had been asked by a senior Pakistani diplomat to act as a private channel in getting the memorandum into the admiral's hands -- not that I delivered the memorandum myself, but that I made sure it got to him through the right channel in Washington -- there is growing desperation within the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to cover its tracks in what a certain Pakistani official did, apparently with the president's consent or perhaps just in his name, outside the knowledge of the country's military leaders, intelligence department and even its Foreign Office. This cabal within Pakistan's civilian government will stop at nothing to prevent me from telling the truth by attempting to discredit me -- a miscalculation of epic proportions.

As I stated in my previous Press Release, I have the facts -- ALL THE FACTS. And so today, without compromising names or the highly sensitive content of the memorandum, I am providing a sampling of the truth in my possession to set the record straight. My purpose is to give sufficient evidence to insure:
that there can be no doubt a request was made of me by a senior Pakistan government official, not that I asked to be involved in this matter. Neither did I offer to do anything until I asked senior current and former US officials whether there was receptivity to what the Pakistani official had authorized me to discuss with them.
that there can be no doubt a memorandum was drafted and transmitted to Admiral Mullen with the approval of the highest political level in Pakistan, and that the admiral received it with certainty from a source whom he trusted and who also trusted me. It was a source the admiral would not, and according to e-mail traffic in my possession, did not ignore.
that there can be no doubt proof exists of the admiral acknowledging receipt of the memorandum. Whether he chose to do anything with the memorandum or not, I cannot know and do not care -- my responsibility was to see that the memo got into his hands safely. The visible actions of both governments in the aftermath of that memorandum being delivered demonstrate that if it was not a source of content for those actions, the actions taken by both the US and Pakistan even as recently as the past few weeks track closely with the offers made by Pakistan on May 10th.
that the public should know a persistent effort has been made by an array of Pakistanis, particularly by the diplomat who fears his name will be divulged, in the weeks following publication of my opinion piece to persuade, pressure, intimidate and even threaten me to not make further disclosures about the events of May 9th and 10th. The solicitation of a denial from Admiral Mullen was their last gasp hope in trying to shut me up. Obviously it did not work.
The data set forth below is divided into three categories. The first deals with dates on which the intervention was requested from me and some of the key communications at points during those three days to give an overview of how the intervention took shape. The second deals with communications I had with the Pakistani official in an effort to stop further disclosures that would compromise the Zardari government. And the third deals with Admiral Mullen's press statement of November 10 disavowing any knowledge of the memorandum or the circumstances in which he got it.

I have withheld, pending an official investigation by certain organs of Pakistan's government, names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of those involved -- this data will only be provided to the official bodies who request them from me and who demonstrate their independence and concern for learning the truth from these facts. The memorandum will remain out of public view unless the official bodies of Pakistan's government deem it appropriate to release it.

THE MEMORANDUM

From about midday on May 9th until the afternoon of May 12th, I set forth below a sampling of BBM messages and times and dates as well as durations of calls with content to give an overview of the timeline in skeleton form. Much more data exists than has been shown here. The data set is complete. It can withstand any forensic examination required and can be verified if and when the need arises to give official bodies an accounting of what happened on those days. At the outset, the first BBM message sent as set forth below was unsolicited and sent by the Pakistani official to me on Monday, May 9, 2011 at 12:31pm. The timeline develops from this first instance of contact with the Pakistani official -- prior to this unsolicited message, we had not had any material communications for several months. All times noted are Central European Time (with US time calculated to be six hours behind). BBM refers to BlackBerry messages. E-M refers to E-mails.
BBM 05/09/2011 12:31 [PAK OFFICIAL-NAME REDACTED]: Are you in London? I am here just for 36 hours. Can we meet for after dinner coffee or s'thing? BBM 05/09/2011 12:32 Mansoor IJAZ: I'm in Monaco but it's no problem for me to fly up. Takes 90 minutes. What time did you have in mind? Where do you want to meet? BBM 05/09/2011 12:35 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Pls call me. I'm at [NAME OF HOTEL, TEL NO. AND ROOM NUMBER REDACTED] BBM 05/09/2011 12:35 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Waiting for ur call now TEL 05/09/2011 12:35:49 [TEL# REDACTED] call to Pakistan official at his request during which notes were taken to frame outline of memo. duration of call 16:03 TEL 05/09/2011 12:58:06 [TEL# REDACTED] call to US contact, duration of call 02:25 TEL 05/09/2011 13:54:31 [TEL# REDACTED] call to US contact, duration of call 19:26 Memorandum was formulated, edited and sent for Pakistani approval during the balance of the day of May 9th. E-M 05/09/2011 18:32 E-MAIL FROM IJAZ to PAK OFFICIAL: first draft of the Memorandum to review, edit and get approved BBM 05/09/2011 18:38 Mansoor IJAZ: The message I sent is what MM will see. It will be given directly to him and no one else BBM 05/09/2011 18:59 Mansoor IJAZ: My friend in DC simply said too many people have been burned in the past two years on the US side and he wanted to insure that on such a sensitive subject, the data and proposal are clear. This is you to me, me to him. He trusts me enough to know I won't bring it forward unless it has top level approval. [SENTENCE RELATING TO NAMES REDACTED]. So get whatever message you want delivered back to me and I'll insure it gets in MM's hands. Best. M BBM 05/10/2011 00:29 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Msg recvd. Tweaking. Middile of road option sounds good. Will call morning. E-M 05/10/2011 02:04 E-MAIL FROM IJAZ TO US CONTACT with final agreed draft of Memorandum, pending one final approval from Pakistani official to confirm agreement on content and agreement to go ahead with delivery to Admiral Mullen BBM 05/10/2011 08:47 Mansoor IJAZ: You have mail from two of my mailboxes. Please read, respond and then we have one last short discussion before I put everything in motion. Thanks. M TEL 05/10/2011 09:06:16 [TEL# REDACTED] call to Pakistan official, duration of call 11:16 -- during this call, the official gave me his consent and told me he had "approval from the boss" to proceed E-M 05/10/2011 14:04 RETURN RECEIPT of E-mail from US contact sent at 02:04am (at his local time 08:04am) which contained the Memorandum TEL 05/10/2011 14:51:33 [TEL# REDACTED] call to US contact (at his local time 08:51), duration of call 02:55 -- informed the contact that we had a GO from Zardari and that the memo I had sent him at 02:04am was final and could be delivered to Admiral Mullen BBM 05/10/2011 14:57 Mansoor IJAZ: Message delivered with caveat that he has to decide how hard to push -- we only set the table. He must decide if he wants one course meal or seven course meal. Ball is in play now -- make sure you have protected your flanks E-M 05/11/2011 20:06 E-MAIL FROM US CONTACT TO IJAZ stating "Mansoor, message delivered, Best [NAME REDACTED]" A meeting took place during the afternoon of May 11 in which senior Pakistani officials and senior US officials were present. The purpose of the back-channel memorandum as conceived by the Pakistani official was to give the US side sufficient incentive in the form of the memo's high-quality deliverables that it wouldappear innocuous to Pakistani intelligence and military officials accompanying certain political officers of the government to the meeting if and when AdmiralMullen delivered a strong rebuke against any military intervention that might displace the civilian government in the days following the raid. The Pakistani official called me after the meeting had taken place and was almost gleeful that Admiral Mullen had agreed to take certain actions in line withwhat was asked of him and that it would all remain within the normal course of inter-agency dealings in his role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. We can no longer exclude the possibility that the civilian apparatus needed to create the specter of a coup -- when none actually existed -- to divert attentionaway from..... well, let's leave that for another day. We continue with the data and stick to the facts. BBM 05/12/2011 00:36 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Call me on my cell BBM 05/12/2011 00:37 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Also, M in ur msgs above referred to the Admiral, right? BBM 05/12/2011 00:37 Mansoor IJAZ: Yes BBM 05/12/2011 00:54 Mansoor IJAZ: Clarification. M at the end of a message is Mansoor. M or MM in the text of a message is the admiral. Apologies for any confusion. E-M 05/12/2011 01:44 E-MAIL FROM US CONTACT TO IJAZ confirming time of delivery when Admiral Mullen received the Memorandum and that Admiral Mullen had called the US contact (the remaining content of this e-mail is not for public disclosure) BBM 05/12/2011 02:47 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Thanx. On way to [LOCATION REDACTED]. Will touch base on return BBM 05/12/2011 02:54 Mansoor IJAZ: Good luck. Let me know at any time if you need any help
ORCHESTRATING THE ADMIRAL'S DENIAL

I wrote the FT opinion piece, ultimately published on October 10th, back in September, a few days after Admiral Mullen testified in Congress at his final hearing about the complicity of Pakistan's military and intelligence services in certain attacks on United States and NATO interests. I wrote the piece because I felt Admiral Mullen, whom I do not know personally but have admired greatly for his steady hand in dealing with a tough bunch, had been harshly mistreated by Pakistan's press corps for stating an essential and existential truth.

I felt it was important for the public at large to understand that he had genuinely tried to do something about the problem as he navigated the complex relationship between Washington and Islamabad, and that the failures cropping up in the bilateral relationship were not for a lack of trying to fix things. I opened the piece with the brief anecdote of what had been done in May to highlight the tangible actions that had been taken to deal with the growing interference and threat posed by extremist segments of the military and intelligence communities in Pakistan.

I did not imagine at the time I wrote the piece that Pakistan's press corps would only latch on to the issue of a secret memorandum being issued without public (or at least wider government agency) knowledge or that the Pakistani official who asked me to make sure it got into Admiral Mullen's hands could view anything we had done as wrong for the survival of the civilian government. Unfortunately, as I have learned over and over in dealing with Pakistan's leaders through four government changes since 1994, they just cannot avoid dissimulation -- being something other than what they pretend to be.

On October 28th, after a week of press releases, op-ed pieces and editorials in the Pakistani press regarding the Memorandum, my role in delivering it, the expected denials of the Foreign Office and the tongue-lashing of my good name, I and the Pakistani official who started this all shared an interesting exchange of messages via BlackBerry -- perhaps the last communications we will ever have. The full details of that exchange will remain private, except for a few interesting remarks that foretold what was being planned in eliciting the Mullen denial -- which I'll deal with in the next segment.

These exchanges demonstrated the increasing tension, hostility, anxiety and frustration of the Pakistani official in not being able to control a monster of his own making. It also showed the desperation of himself and his bosses to head off a coming storm in accounting for their actions. A review of the partial BBM messenger transcript between myself and the Pakistani official which began on the day after Pakistan's Foreign Office issued its version of the Mullen denial sets the record straight with crystal clarity:

10/28/2011 21:37 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Basically you don't get it

10/28/2011 21:37 [PAK OFFICIAL]: You have given hardliners in Pak Mil reason to argue there was an effort to get US to conspire against Pak Mil

10/28/2011 21:38 [PAK OFFICIAL]: I will make sure FO shuts up

10/28/2011 21:38 Mansoor IJAZ: Okay, well I know my IQ is pretty low so you are probably correct in saying I just don't get it.

10/28/2011 21:39 [PAK OFFICIAL]: The Pak press be damned

10/28/2011 21:39 [PAK OFFICIAL]: I stand by you as a man of integrity werving his country

10/28/2011 21:40 Mansoor IJAZ: But from my point of view, if there was a real threat, as you stated at the time, it is clear you were trying to save a democratic structure from those hawks

10/28/2011 21:41 [PAK OFFICIAL]: You get to write the book on how you changed US-Pak dynamic and won the war in A'tan (w/ some help from a Paki nerd) Big Grin

10/28/2011 21:42 Mansoor IJAZ: I was happy to get the message in the back door because it served American interests to preserve the democratic civilian setup and the offers made, if achieved, were very much congruent with American objectives in the region

10/28/2011 21:42 [PAK OFFICIAL]: True that, friend. But you know premature revelation ain't good

10/28/2011 21:43 Mansoor IJAZ: As far as I can see, we did right. Unless there is something I don't see here. But then I'm sorta dumb from down on the farm where them hillbillies live

10/28/2011 21:43 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Hey! Don't run down hillbillies

10/28/2011 21:44 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Even the smartest can miss a piece of the puzzle

10/28/2011 21:46 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Let this one go. There is much to do. MUCH. [REDACTED]

10/28/2011 21:47 [PAK OFFICIAL]: We'll make things happen and if we can't, we'll write a book about it

10/28/2011 21:48 [PAK OFFICIAL]: The debate abt your oped has caused my detractors to put pressure on my boss

********************************

10/28/2011 21:54 [PAK OFFICIAL]: It is folks at State who got pissed off by your mission

10/28/2011 21:54 Mansoor IJAZ: Which mission? Sudan, Kashmir, there were so many they got pissed off about. [REDACTED]

10/28/2011 21:54 [PAK OFFICIAL]: The latest one

10/28/2011 21:55 Mansoor IJAZ: Yeah, I got it. You're right!

10/28/2011 21:58 Mansoor IJAZ: Anyway, State will always hate me because I don't accept their muddling way of doing things

10/28/2011 22:03 [PAK OFFICIAL]: I don't know for a fact but I won't be surprised if the FO statement was prompted by someone here

10/28/2011 22:11 [PAK OFFICIAL]: And now they hate me more when folks [REDACTED] who hate me tell them you and I might have been together on s'thing (whether we were or not is irrelevant to them)

10/28/2011 22:12 [PAK OFFICIAL]: That's why I have been requesting you to let this one go

10/28/2011 22:12 [PAK OFFICIAL]: That takes attention off me

10/28/2011 22:13 Mansoor IJAZ: Hmmmmmmmmm....... Not sure anything could take attention off you

10/28/2011 22:16 Mansoor IJAZ: Did we really solve a true problem or was this all smoke and mirrors?

10/28/2011 22:16 Mansoor IJAZ: I mean on those days of stress...

10/28/2011 22:23 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Too early to say re solution

10/28/2011 22:28 [PAK OFFICIAL]: I think we save the situation from an extremely violent outcome

*******************************

11/01/2011 22:06 Mansoor IJAZ: Hi buddy, I understand you/ your foreign office hacks are commissioning hatchet pieces against me. Unfortunate.... very unfortunate

11/01/2011 22:31 [PAK OFFICIAL]: I will enquire and stop them. There's no need for any of this.

11/01/2011 22:31 [PAK OFFICIAL]: You haven't helped by engaging so much w/ Pak media.

11/01/2011 22:32 [PAK OFFICIAL]: What happened to the 'silent soldier'?

11/01/2011 22:34 Mansoor IJAZ: Roger that

11/01/2011 22:38 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Are you sure your side won't deny?

11/01/2011 22:38 Mansoor IJAZ: No, maybe they will. But that would also be a mistake. Too much proof on that side as well.

11/01/2011 22:39 [PAK OFFICIAL]: But does "proving" help anything?

11/01/2011 22:39 [PAK OFFICIAL]: Is it not the nature of a private mission that officials deny it?

11/01/2011 22:41 Mansoor IJAZ: Don't know. Don't care. My point is simple -- I've said what I was going to. Attacks on my person will not be tolerated. And my statement stands. Stop telling lies about me and I might just stip telling the truth about you

11/01/2011 22:42 [PAK OFFICIAL]: If you were to listen to my advice, you would let this blow over and prove yourself afterwards. You are the one who will outlast the flying s***

11/01/2011 22:43 [PAK OFFICIAL]: That is usually my strategy: be there when the others have self-destructed or blown over

The most alarming exchange was on November 1st when the diplomat asked me, presciently as it turned out when Foreign Policy published its article 9 days later, whether my side (meaning the US officials with whom we had communicated) would not deny the existence of the memorandum, etc. It was a threat in plain sight -- a polite reminder that this Pakistani expert in media management would insure a denial by Pakistan would be matched by a denial in the US with the messenger damned in between. Meanwhile, his name would remain hidden. And his role in all this would be left for further expounding on in his new book.

One final note on this entire episode. Once the Pakistani official figured out I was not one he could cow down, intimidate, persuade or threaten, he deleted me from his BlackBerry contact list in the hopes that any conversation between us would automatically get deleted as well. He did this on or about November 6, three days before the Foreign Policy piece was published. An interesting coincidence.... trying to erase history as if it never happened....

I leave it to the readers to decide who did what to whom, when and for what purpose -- the facts are now sufficiently enunciated to give anyone who views this story with an unjaundiced eye a clear view of the events that took place in May, and the Herculean effort to cover it all up during the past one month since I wrote my views in the FT.

ADMIRAL MULLEN'S STATEMENT & FOREIGN POLICY'S ARTICLE

Josh Rogin wrote: "Ijaz also alleged in his op-ed in the Financial Times that Zardari communicated this offer by sending a top secret memo on May 10 through Ijaz himself, to be hand-delivered to Adm. Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a key official managing the U.S.-Pakistan relationship." -- I never said I delivered anything to Adm Mullen. What I wrote was -- the memo was delivered to Adm Mullen at 1400 hrs on May 10.

Captain John Kirby told FP, "Adm. Mullen does not know Mr. Ijaz and has no recollection of receiving any correspondence from him," -- it is true that I do not know Admiral Mullen and have never met him. But the person I asked to take the memorandum to him -- that person knew him about as well as anyone can. And that person knows me pretty well too.

Captain Kirby: "I cannot say definitively that correspondence did not come from him -- the admiral received many missives as chairman from many people every day, some official, some not. But he does not recall one from this individual..." It surely did not come directly from me, and we have proof that Admiral Mullen received the memorandum and acknowledged it to the person who delivered it to him.

The entire Rogin article was written with a slant to discredit me personally because whoever put him up to writing the article could not avoid the facts -- facts that the hidden hand behind Rogin's article knew full well because he, along with myself, are the only two people who know precisely what we did.

Rogue operations in governments have no place in our world today. The people of Pakistan deserve better. They deserve to know the truth. And it is alone for the Pakistani people to decide whether their political leaders deserve their faith and trust after learning the truth of what has been done in their names. Equally, the American people deserve to know the truth. Our patience for the misdeeds and machinations of Pakistan's political leaders is now all but lost, and we do not need the aggravation of further manipulation at the hands of Islamabad's disingenuous rulers, or disingenuous US bureaucrats who hide the sins of foreign diplomats so they can get any sliver of America's agenda executed. Bad policy is bad policy. It cannot be sugar-coated with diplomatic niceties.

I end where I started. Facts are stubborn things. If the Pakistani government's vicious cabal stops telling lies about me, I might just stop telling the truth -- the whole truth -- about it. The whole truth, once it comes out, will not be easy for anyone to swallow. I remain as adamant as ever that the truth be told fairly, justly and without revisionists and hypocrites doing all they can to avoid the judgment of history.

ENDS--
http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=26358&title=Text-of-Mansoor-Ijaz-rejoinder

Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 21-11-2011

Pakistan: Original content of secret memo to Mike Mullen [ 83274 ] -

By Mudasser Aziz

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="width: 100%"][size=12] November 19, 2011

Islamabad: The secret memorandum to Mike Mullen by Pakistan's envoy to the United States Hussain Haqqani on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari which has sparked controversy in the South Asian country, plunging the relations between the Islamabad's democratic government and powerful military to the lowest is published for The News Tribe's readers.



CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM


Briefing for Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff


During the past 72 hours since a meeting was held between the president, the prime minister and the chief of army staff, there has seen a significant deterioration in Pakistan's political atmosphere. Increasingly desperate efforts by the various agencies and factions within the government to find a home ISI and/or Army, or the civilian government for assigning blame over the UBL raid now dominate the tug of war between military and civilian sectors. Subsequent tit-for-tat reactions, including outing of the CIA station chief's name in Islamabad by ISI officials, demonstrates a dangerous devolution of the ground situation in Islamabad where no central control appears to be in place.

Civilians cannot withstand much more of the hard pressure being delivered from the Army to succumb to wholesale changes. If civilians are forced from power, Pakistan becomes a sanctuary for UBL's legacy and potentially the platform for far more rapid spread of al Qaeda's brand of fanaticism and terror. A unique window of opportunity exists for the civilians to gain the upper hand over army and intelligence directorates due to their complicity in the UBL matter.

Request your direct intervention in conveying a strong, urgent and direct message to Gen Kayani that delivers Washington's demand for him and Gen Pasha to end their brinkmanship aimed at bringing down the civilian apparatus that this is a 1971 moment in Pakistan's history. Should you be willing to do so, Washington's political/military backing would result in a revamp of the civilian government that, while weak at the top echelon in terms of strategic direction and implementation (even though mandated by domestic political forces), in a wholesale manner replaces the national security adviser and other national security officials with trusted advisers that include ex-military and civilian leaders favorably viewed by Washington, each of whom have long and historical ties to the US military, political and intelligence communities. Names will be provided to you in a face-to-face meeting with the person delivering this message.

In the event Washington's direct intervention behind the scenes can be secured through your personal communication with Kayani (he will likely listen only to you at this moment) to stand down the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment, the new national security team is prepared, with full backing of the civilian apparatus, to do the following:

1. President of Pakistan will order an independent inquiry into the allegations that Pakistan harbored and offered assistance to UBL and other senior Qaeda operatives. The White House can suggest names of independent investigators to populate the panel, along the lines of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, for example.
2. The inquiry will be accountable and independent, and result in findings of tangible value to the US government and the American people that identify with exacting detail those elements responsible for harboring and aiding UBL inside and close to the inner ring of influence in Pakistan's Government (civilian, intelligence directorates and military). It is certain that the UBL Commission will result in immediate termination of active service officers in the appropriate government offices and agencies found responsible for complicity in assisting UBL.
3. The new national security team will implement a policy of either handing over those left in the leadership of Al Qaeda or other affiliated terrorist groups who are still on Pakistani soil, including Ayman Al Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani, or giving US military forces a "green light" to conduct the necessary operations to capture or kill them on Pakistani soil. This "carte blanche" guarantee is not without political risks, but should demonstrate the new group's commitment to rooting out bad elements on our soil. This commitment has the backing of the top echelon on the civilian side of our house, and we will insure necessary collateral support.
4. One of the great fears of the military-intelligence establishment is that with your stealth capabilities to enter and exit Pakistani airspace at will, Pakistan's nuclear assets are now legitimate targets. The new national security team is prepared, with full backing of the Pakistani government initially civilian but eventually all three power centers to develop an acceptable framework of discipline for the nuclear program. This effort was begun under the previous military regime, with acceptable results. We are prepared to reactivate those ideas and build on them in a way that brings Pakistan's nuclear assets under a more verifiable, transparent regime.
5. The new national security team will eliminate Section S of the ISI charged with maintaining relations to the Taliban, Haqqani network, etc. This will dramatically improve relations with Afghanistan.
6. We are prepared to cooperate fully under the new national security team's guidance with the Indian government on bringing all perpetrators of Pakistani origin to account for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, whether outside government or inside any part of the government, including its intelligence agencies. This includes handing over those against whom sufficient evidence exists of guilt to the Indian security services.


Pakistan faces a decision point of unprecedented importance. We, who believe in democratic governance and building a much better structural relationship in the region with India AND Afghanistan, seek US assistance to help us pigeon-hole the forces lined up against your interests and ours, including containment of certain elements inside our country that require appropriate re-sets and re-tasking in terms of direction and extent of responsibility after the UBL affair.

We submit this memorandum for your consideration collectively as the members of the new national security team who will be inducted by the President of Pakistan with your support in this undertaking.

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Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 26-11-2011

Mullen mauling shows patience wearing thin with Pakistan

By Adam Brookes BBC News, Washington [Image: _55537574_012879408-1.jpg]



Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is close to retirement. Perhaps that's why he's not mincing his words.
Or perhaps a new determination is growing in the US government to force Pakistan into changing its ways.
Before a Senate hearing on Thursday, Admiral Mullen stated definitively that Pakistani intelligence was supporting militant extremists in Afghanistan as they launch attacks on US forces there.
"The Haqqani network, for one, acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency," said Adm Mullen.
Rarely if ever have we heard such a senior figure make the accusation so publicly, with such specific information attached to it.
A new chapter The admiral referred to an attack using a truck bomb, which injured nearly 80 coalition troops south of Kabul earlier this month and the attack on the US embassy and other official buildings in Kabul last week.
[Image: _55536347_012982696-1.jpg] Adm Mike Mullen is about to retire, but not before letting fly a few choice words at Islamabad
"With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy."
No caveats there: his language suggests that the US has conclusive proof of Pakistani support for those Haqqani operatives, not just intelligence that might suggest involvement.
Jeffrey Dessler, at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington DC, has produced influential analyses of the Haqqani network.
He has long pointed to a relationship between the Haqqanis and the Pakistani intelligence service.
But recent events, he says, are trying the patience of the White House and Pentagon.
"My sense is there's been something of a sea change within government, and now there's less of a willingness to put up with this," he says.
"The attack on the US embassy compound marked something of a new chapter. It was an attack directly on US personnel and it was very high profile."
Analysts say that the ISI helps train and resource the Haqqanis, who are allied with the Taliban.
'Proxies' The militant group's roots lie in the war against the Soviet Union. Now it operates in Afghanistan's eastern provinces, flitting across the Pakistani border to sanctuary.
In perhaps the most telling part of his testimony, Adm Mullen attacked Pakistani grand strategy - particularly its use of militant groups like the Haqqanis as "proxies" to increase Pakistani leverage in the region.
[Image: _55537572_012680281-1.jpg] Jalaluddin Haqqani leads the network, which was nurtured by the ISI
"They may believe that by using these proxies they are hedging their bets, or redressing what they feel is an imbalance of regional power," he said.
"Only a decision to break with this policy can pave the road to a positive future for Pakistan."
Here, the Admiral is calling on the Pakistanis to reconsider their entire approach to regional security - a very tall order and not something that would happen in a year or two, even if the Pakistanis assented.
The relationship between Washington and Islamabad appears to be hitting new lows.
Pakistan complained loudly and publicly of the American raid on Abbottabad which killed Osama Bin Laden.
'Stunning duplicity' In July, the US announced it would withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan.
And now, the Americans are very publicly accusing Pakistan of stunning duplicity.
The United States has a number of ways of increasing pressure on the Haqqanis and the Pakistani state.
[Image: _55536738_012908069-1.jpg] Afghan forces in Kabul carry the body of a comrade killed during a battle with Taliban
Drone strikes and covert operations - conducted with or without the approval of the Pakistani authorities - can be directed against the militant network.
American aid - to the tune of $4bn (£2.6bn) dollars a year - can be reduced or made conditional.
But Adm Mullen was careful to say that the US was not about to cut Pakistan loose.
"What matters most now is moving forward," he said, arguing that America must work for security and prosperity in Pakistan.
It is accepted wisdom in Washington that there can be no end to conflict in Afghanistan, and no true stability in South Asia, until Pakistan enjoys a measure of stability and security.
But the Admiral's testimony indicates Washington's intense frustration at Pakistan and the lethal tactics of its shadowy intelligence services.
Where all this may lead - what options the Americans may be considering - is unclear.
But the Americans are now laying the ground for change.

Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 26-11-2011

Pakistan: 25 troops dead in NATO helicopter attack

[URL="http://twitter.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjrnl.ie%2F289831&text=Pakistan%3A+25+troops+dead+in+NATO+helicopter+attack++%28via+%40thejournal_ie%29&related=@thejournal_ie"]
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[Image: pakistan-390x285.jpg]The border crossing where the incident happened last night.

Image: Rahmat Gul/AP/Press Association Images

PAKISTAN HAS accused NATO helicopters of firing on two army checkpoints in the northwest, killing 25 soldiers.
Authorities have retaliated by closing a key border crossing used by the coalition to supply its troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Last night's incident was a major blow to already strained relations between Islamabad and US-led forces fighting in Afghanistan. It will add to perceptions in Pakistan that the American presence in the region is malevolent, and to resentment toward the weak government in Islamabad for co-operating with Washington.
It comes a little over a year after a similar but less deadly incident, in which US helicopters accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border, whom the pilots mistook for insurgents. Pakistan responded by closing the Torkham border crossing to NATO supplies as it did Saturday for 10 days until the US apologised.
In a statement sent to reporters, the Pakistan military blamed NATO for Friday's attack in the Mohmand tribal area, saying the helicopters "carried out unprovoked and indiscriminate firing."
NATO officials in Kabul said this morning that they were aware of the reports, and would release more information after they were able to gather more facts about what happened.
Much of the violence in Afghanistan against Afghan, NATO and US troops is carried out by insurgents that are based just across the border in Pakistan. Coalition forces are not allowed to cross the frontier to attack the militants, which sometimes fire artillery and rockets across the line.
American officials have repeatedly accused Pakistani forces of supporting or turning a blind eye to militants using its territory for cross-border attacks. The border issue is the major source of tension between Islamabad and Washington, which wants to stabilise Afghanistan and withdraw its combat troops there by the end of 2014.
http://www.thejournal.ie/pakistan-25-troops-dead-in-nato-helicopter-attack-289831-Nov2011/

Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 26-11-2011

Pakistan blocks NATO supplies to Kabul

Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:46AM GMT


[Image: ostovar20111126093549200.jpg]A convoy of NATO supply trucks makes their way as they prepare to cross into Afghanistan. (File photo)
Pakistan has suspended a NATO supply route into Afghanistan following an attack by helicopters belonging to the Western alliance on a military checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, Press TV reports.


Dozens of trucks carrying goods and petroleum supplies for NATO forces were stopped in the Torkham border area of the Khyber tribal region in northwestern Pakistan. The Pakistani government ordered its forces in Khyber Agency to stop the movement of the NATO supplies

The retaliatory measure was adopted hours after US-led NATO helicopters opened fire on a military checkpoint in the Baizai area of Mohmand Agency early Saturday, killing 28 Pakistani soldiers, including two officers, and injuring 15 more.

Pakistani officials have condemned the attack as "unprovoked and indiscriminate."

Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry vehemently condemned the NATO attack, saying the issue will be raised with US officials.

Local media say Pakistan's acting ambassador to the US has also lodged a protest with Washington over the attack.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212207.html

Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 27-11-2011

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[TD] Request follows alleged cross-border attack in which NATO "highly likely" to have killed dozens of Pakistani soldiers.

Last Modified: 26 Nov 2011 18:04

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[Image: 2011112613947900734_20.jpg] [B]The Pakistani government responded to the incident by asking the US to vacate Shamsi air base within 15 days [EPA][/B]

The Pakistani government has given the US fifteen days to vacate an airfield in Balochistan province after an alleged cross-border attack which killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The attack on a military checkpoint in northwest Pakistan also wounded at least a dozen soldiers. A spokesman for the NATO-led alliance in Afghanistan confirmed on Saturday that it was "highly likely" the alliance's aircraft killed Pakistani soldiers.
"Such cross-border attacks cannot be tolerated any more. The government will take up this matter at the highest level and it will be investigated"

- Masoud Kasur, governor of Khyber

"Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what highly likely caused the Pakistan casualties," General Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told the Reuters news agency.
The incident prompted Pakistan to summon the US ambassador in Islamabad, lodge a protest with NATO, and shut a vital supply route for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani government also gave the US fifteen days to vacate Shamsi air base. Pakistan made a similar demand earlier this year, following the raid which killed Osama bin Laden.
The decision came after Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, called an emergency meeting of his military chiefs. The foreign ministry also summoned Cameron Munter, the US ambassador in Islamabad, to "lodge a strong protest" against the attack.
"The foreign secretary conveyed to the US ambassador that the unprovoked attack by NATO/ISAF aircrafts on border posts in which 24 Pakistani troops lost their lives and another 13 were injured had deeply incensed the government and the people of Pakistan," the ministry said in a statement.
Munter issued a brief statement on the incident, saying that he "regret[s] the loss of life of any Pakistani servicemen" and promising to work with Pakistan to investigate.
A Pakistani government official said the dead from Friday night's attack in the Mohmand tribal area included two officers.
Taliban fighters
The checkpoint that was attacked had been recently set up in the Mohmand tribal area by the Pakistan army to stop Taliban fighters holed up in Afghanistan from crossing the border and staging attacks, said two government administrators in Mohmand, Maqsood Hasan and Hamid Khan.
NATO supply trucks and fuel tankers bound for Afghanistan were stopped at Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal region near the city of Peshawar hours after the raid, officials said.
"We have stopped NATO supplies after receiving orders from the federal government," said Mutahir Hussain, a senior administration official in Khyber. "Supply trucks are being sent back to Peshawar."
Pakistan is a vital land route for 49 per cent of NATO's supplies to its troops in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said.
The incident occurred a day after US General John Allen met Pakistani Army Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to discuss border control and enhanced co-operation.
Worsening relations
Friday's attack is expected to further worsen US-Pakistan relations, already at one of their lowest points in history, following a tumultuous year that saw the bin Laden raid, the jailing of a CIA contractor and US accusations that Pakistan backed an attack on the US Embassy in Kabul.
An increase in US drone strikes on armed groups in the last few years has also irritated Islamabad, which says the campaign kills more Pakistani civilians in the border area than fighters.
Washington disputes that, but declines to discuss the drone campaign in detail.
"This is an attack on Pakistan's territorial sovereignty," said Masoud Kasur, the governor of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
"Such cross-border attacks cannot be tolerated any more. The government will take up this matter at the highest level and it will be investigated."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/11/201111265841645810.html#.TtFHwTVlBd0.facebook
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Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 27-11-2011

A NATO air strike on an army checkpoint in northwest Pakistan has killed up to 25 soldiers, according to the country's military officials. Islamabad has now blocked the alliance's vital supply lines into Afghanistan in response. The incident threatens to put more pressure on relations between Pakistan and the military alliance, already strained by continued U.S. drone attacks. Ahmed Quraishi, President of Pakistan's biggest lobbying group - the PakNationalists forum, thinks this accident was a deliberate act of punishment.

Pakistan and the US - Peter Lemkin - 27-11-2011

I think the shit is about to hit the fan, bigtime, very soon! the honeymoon is over. I think the US is going to turn their attention to killing the bigwigs in Pakistan and Pakistan has the capabilities to reply in kind. Gonna get ugly...and the Pakistanis know some secrets of US exploits and groups [even terrorist groups] they supported. Should be interesting - but won't be pretty. My prediction - the new terror threats that emanate from this will be used as rationale to clamp down on OWS - a much bigger threat to the powers that be in the USA.

Pakistan and the US - Magda Hassan - 30-11-2011

November 28, 2011

What's Next?

NATO vs Pakistan

by TARIQ ALI
The Nato assault on a Pakistani checkpoint close to the Afghan border which killed 24 soldiers on Saturday must have been deliberate. Nato commanders have long been supplied with maps marking these checkpoints by the Pakistani military. They knew that the target was a military outpost. The explanation that they were fired on first rings false and has been ferociously denied by Islamabad. Previous such attacks were pronounced accidental' and apologies were given and accepted. This time it seems more serious. It has come too soon after other breaches of sovereignty', in the words of the local press, but Pakistani sovereignty is a fiction. The military high command and the country's political leaders willingly surrendered their sovereignty many decades ago. That it is now being violated openly and brutally is the real cause for concern.

In retaliation, Pakistan has halted Nato convoys to Afghanistan (49 per cent of which go through the country) and asked the US to vacate the Shamsi base that they built to launch drones against targets in both Afghanistan and Pakistan with the permission of the country's rulers. Islamabad was allowed a legal fig-leaf: in official documents the base was officially leased by the UAE whose sovereignty' is even more flexible than Pakistan's.

Motives for the attack remain a mystery but its impact is not. It will create further divisions within the military, further weaken the venal Zardari regime, strengthen religious militants and make the US even more hated than it already is in Pakistan.

So why do it? Was it intended as a provocation? Is Obama seriously thinking of unleashing a civil war in an already battered country? Some commentators in Islamabad are arguing this but it's unlikely that Nato troops will occupy Pakistan. Such an irrational turn would be difficult to justify in terms of any imperial interests. Perhaps it was simply a tit-for-tat to punish the Pakistani military for dispatching the Haqqani network to bomb the US embassy and Nato HQ in Kabul's Green Zone' a few months back.

The Nato attack comes on the heels of another crisis. One of Zardari and his late wife's trusted bagmen in Washington, Husain Haqqani, whose links to the US intelligence agencies since the 1970s made him a useful intermediary and whom Zardari appointed as Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, has been forced to resign. Haqqani, often referred to as the US ambassador to Pakistan, appears to have been caught red-handed: he allegedly asked Mansoor Ijaz, a multi-millionaire close to the US defense establishment, to carry a message to Admiral Mike Mullen pleading for help against the Pakistani military and offering in return to disband the Haqqani network and the ISI and carry out all US instructions.

Mullen denied that he had received any message. A military underling contradicted him. Mullen changed his story and said a message had been received and ignored. When the ISI discovered this act of treachery', Haqqani, instead of saying that he was acting under orders from Zardari, denied the entire story. Unfortunately for him, the ISI boss, General Pasha, had met up with Ijaz and been given the Blackberry with the messages and instructions. Haqqani had no option but to resign. Demands for his trial and hanging (the two often go together when the military is involved) are proliferating. Zardari is standing by his man. The military wants his head. And now Nato has entered the fray. This story is not yet over.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/28/nato-vs-pakistan/#.TtV4f7sj71M.facebook