On December 6, former ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani retained Washington DC based attorneys Steven K Barentzen and R Kenly Webster to investigate and consider pursuing defamation claims against The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC (“Newsweek”). On December 3, Newsweek published on the company’s on-line Daily Beast website an article written by Mansoor Ijaz falsely accusing Haqqani of having prior knowledge of the United States’ “stealth mission to eliminate [Osama] bin Laden that would violate Pakistan’s sovereignty” and of having a role in a memo Ijaz wrote and sent to the US joint chiefs of staff.
Haqqani has vehemently denied these allegations as “reckless, baseless and false”. In a letter sent to the editor of Daily Beast/Newsweek, Haqqani stated, “In the strongest terms possible, I categorically reject as reckless, baseless and false the allegations levied against me by Mansoor Ijaz about prior knowledge of US plans for a raid in Abbottabad in violation of Pakistani sovereignty to eliminate Osama bin Laden as well as his earlier charges” of having a role in the memo Ijaz wrote. President Barack Obama, US Ambassador Cameron Munter and others in the United States government have repeatedly stated that the government of Pakistan was not informed prior to the raid. The White House reiterated this in a statement released on December 5 stating that “[t]here is no truth to the reports that Ambassador Haqqani or President [Asif] Zardari had advance knowledge of the May 2 Abbottabad operation. As we’ve said repeatedly, given the sensitivity of the operation, to protect our operators we did not inform the Pakistani government, or any other government, in advance.” At the same time, the creditability of Mansoor Ijaz is being called into question. In a recent Washington Post article, Richard Lieby describes Ijaz as “prone to exaggerating his importance in this and other murky international negotiations” and in an article posted on CNN’s website, David Frum, former special assistant to George Bush, described Ijaz as a source “of the very weakest credibility”, and described Ijaz’s allegations regarding Haqqani’s prior knowledge of the raid to be “even more desperately implausible” than earlier allegations Ijaz made which led to “Memogate”. Haqqani has retained Barentzen and Webster to investigate whether Newsweek and Ijaz made these statements with malicious intent or whether they acted with reckless disregard for the truth, and if so, whether to pursue claims against them for the serious damages these outrageous allegations have caused Haqqani.