Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, who is in the limelight over the memo controversy, said on Friday that Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani had asked him in May to appeal to the Pentagon to help the civilian government ward off a coup by Pakistan’s powerful military, and the ambassador told him former army chief General (r) Jehangir Karamat was on board with the plan.
Ijaz told Reuters on Friday he wrote a memo outlining the civilian government’s fears of military intervention and sent it to the Pentagon on Haqqani’s instructions. “Yes, Ambassador Hussain Haqqani, whom I have known for over 10 years, was indeed the senior Pakistani diplomat who asked me to assist him in privately delivering his message to Admiral Mullen,” Ijaz said. “And I have clear evidence in my Blackberry messages that he not only did everything in his persuasive, sometimes friendly, intimidation style to keep the entire saga under wraps, he actively – in my view – attempted to and did indeed orchestrate denials from each official body that mattered.
When the Foreign Office denial didn’t work, he tried the presidency with a stronger rebuttal,” he said.
Ijaz said Haqqani called him on May 9, one week after the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, to help get a message to the Americans. “The memo’s content in its entirety originated from him,” Ijaz told Reuters, referring to Haqqani. “At a certain point he started talking so fast, I opened up my computer and I started typing the basic outline of the verbal message he wanted me to transmit. He was originally asking me to deliver a verbal message. And when I went back to my US interlocutors – all three of them – said they wouldn’t touch this unless it was in writing,” said Ijaz. Ijaz said he doesn’t know whether the memo was authorised by President Asif Ali Zardari or if Haqqani was acting on his own. “I don’t know if Haqqani had a blanket power of attorney with Zardari, whether he ever discussed this with Zardari or whether he was acting on his own,” said Ijaz.
Ijaz said he decided to disclose the contents of the document because he was offended by attacks in the Pakistani media on Mullen, who he claimed was Pakistan’s “truest friend”. He claimed Haqqani even got an “unsuspecting and unwitting” Mullen to deny the existence of the document.
“Admiral Mullen, honest man that he is, went back and checked and found out the truth, and duly issued a clarification stating the truth,” he said. “Obviously, there were a lot of people in Pakistan – including the army chief, the ISI chief and the prime minister – whom he (Haqqani) did not take into confidence on this matter,” Ijaz said.
Ijaz released details of his purported Blackberry conversations with Haqqani to the Pakistani media today to buttress his claims.
Haqqani dictated the text
