The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has been taken aback by a statement of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in which he said that Prime Minster Yousaf Raza Gilani’s criticism of the army was tantamount to violating the constitution. PPP members reacted by saying that Shahbaz should recall his meeting with Bruce Riedal, a former CIA official, at Willard Hotel, Washington DC, in 1999, in which he expressed his fears of a military takeover and sought US help to pre-empt it.