Milt Bearden (Former CIA Station Chief in Pakistan) talks about Bin Laden Being Trained by CIA
Milt Bearden retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 1994, after thirty years in the CIA's clandestine services Bearden rose through the ranks to become one of CIA's most senior officers. His early career was split between German speaking Europe and Hong Kong where he conducted classic Cold War intelligence operations. During the early 1980's he moved to Africa to serve as CIA Chief in Nigeria and later in Khartoum, where he covered Sudan's civil war and the ultimate overthrow of the regime of Jaafar Nimeiri. It was in the Sudan in 1985, that Bearden organized a secret airlift from the Sudanese desert to Israel of the stranded remnants of the Ethiopian Falasha Jews. For his work in Sudan Milt Bearden was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Agency's second highest decoration. In the spring of 1986, Bearden was selected by Bill Casey to take charge of the CIA Covert Action supporting a flagging Afghan Resistance. The end of the war was symbolically marked by the final march of Soviet troops across Friendship Bridge over the Oxus River on February 15, 1989, thus ending almost ten years of struggle. For his service in Afghanistan Bearden was awarded the agency's highest decoration, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. From 1989-92, Bearden directed the CIA's clandestine operations against a decaying Soviet Empire. During this period Bearden was awarded the CIA's unique Donovan Award, named after its founder. Bearden wound up his CIA career as the CIA Chief in Bonn where he worked with a newly reunified Germany in dealing with its Cold War legacy. For his service in Germany, Milt Bearden was honored by the German President with the Federal Cross of Merit, the only such decoration ever given to a CIA Chief in the Federal Republic. REFERENCE: Milt Bearden Retired Senior CIA Officer http://security.nationaljournal.com/contributors/milt-bearden.php
Memogate storm in Pakistan & Mansoor Ijaz flip-flop on ISI - 1 (NDTV)
As the Memogate scandal continues to create ripples in the Pakistani establishment, all eyes now are centred on US-based Pakistani businessman Mansoor Ijaz – better known as the ‘Memogate man’. He has finally secured a Pakistan visa to travel to the country to depose before a judicial commission that is probing the political scandal. NDTV‘s Barkha Dutt speaks to Ijaz amidst questions by the global media of why the latter missed his date with the court on the 16th of this month and what he would eventually say in his deposition. REFERENCE: I will be in Pakistan before the 26th: Mansoor Ijaz. 20th January 2012 http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/memogate-storm-in-pak-mansoor-ijaz-flip-flop-on-isi/221650?pfrom=home-lateststories&cp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xru3kFPPttI
WASHINGTON, Nov 3: A senior US official responsible for counter-terrorism on Tuesday directly accused Pakistan of supporting training of militant groups in Afghanistan as well as providing "material support" to some of the Kashmiri militants. "There are numerous Kashmiri separatist groups and sectarian groups involved in terrorism which use Pakistan as a base...We have repeatedly asked Islamabad to end support of terrorist training in Afghanistan," Michael Sheehan, State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, told a Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee. The sub-committee hearing was called and presided over by Senator Sam Brownback and the list of experts who testified included a former CIA officer in Pakistan Milt Bearden, president of Stimson Centre Michael Krepon, John Hopkins University Central Asia Institute chairman Dr Fredrick Starr and a Pakistani- American businessman and columnist Mansoor Ijaz. Mr Sheehan recently visited India to coordinate US-Indian responses to terrorist threats but when asked whether he would also visit Pakistan soon, he said: "Hopefully." "Pakistan has frequently acknowledged what it calls moral and diplomatic support for militants in Kashmir who employ violence and terrorism against Indian interests. We have continuing reports of Pakistani material support for some of these militants," Mr Sheehan said. He named several Pakistan-based militant Islamic groups including Lashkar Taiba, Harkatul Jehad Islami and Hizbul Mujahideen, which, he said, "operate freely in Pakistan and support terrorist attacks in Kashmir." Asked by Indian and Pakistani journalists after his hearing whether he found any change in the policy after the overthrow of the Nawaz government, Mr Sheehan said: "We are still waiting for their responses and it is too early to judge whether there is any change." When a correspondent pointed out whether it was "business as usual" with the military government, he crisply said "no" but added: "We hope to work with them on all these issues." REFERENCE: US says Pakistan training militants Shaheen Sehbai DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending: 06 November 1999 Issue : 05/45 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1999/06nov99.html#ussa
Memogate storm in Pakistan & Mansoor Ijaz flip-flop on ISI - 2 (NDTV)
WASHINGTON, Oct 7: A key congressional committee voted unanimously on Wednesday evening to provide President Clinton indefinite waiver authority to lift military and economic sanctions on Pakistan and India. The amendment for the authority, moved by Senator Sam Brownback and
commonly known as Brownback-2, is now almost assured a smooth sailing through the full houses of the Senate and House of Representatives as part of the larger Defence Appropriations Bill. The language approved by the committee practically takes away all the bite and sting of the Pressler Amendment without actually repealing the infamous law and is being viewed on the Hill as the biggest ever Pakistani victory in Congress. The final waiver came only after an epic battle between Pakistani and Indian lobbies and last minute long-distance interventions by Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, Petroleum Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Pakistani lobbyist Charlie Wilson and a prominent Pakistani-American Mansoor Ijaz, who used his clout with the Clinton Administration and key senators to pull it through. Congressional experts said the waiver authority was enough for President Clinton to remove all restrictions on Pakistan, including those on military sales including aircraft, tanks and other equipment as well as spare parts. "This would be enough for Pakistan to declare that the coercive atmosphere that existed has now been removed, paving the way for Islamabad to sign the CTBT," these experts said. The committee adopted the final version of the amendment after Conference Committee Chairman, Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska, gave his go ahead, but not before Islamabad moved fast and decisively to resolve a multi-million dollar dispute with an Alaskan Pipeline Company. Pakistan's biggest victory against an Indian lobbying juggernaut headed by former Republican Party chief Bob Dole, former congressman Steven Solarz and former senator Larry Pressler was mainly due to the team efforts of the Pakistani- Americans and their lobbyist who used their influence to get the hurdles past upto the last minute. The Embassy coordinated their effort. The last formidable hurdle which threatened to derail the process was the pending problem with an Alaskan pipeline company, VECO, which had lobbied hard on Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens to get their case sorted out before Stevens voted for the waiver law. Stevens, who chairs the key conference committee, and who is also the chairman of the defence appropriations committee with the last word on what his committee passes, put his foot down and in the last 24 hours Islamabad was told to either agree to VECO's demands or risk the entire process being put off for months, or even years. Mansoor Ijaz and Pakistani lobbyist former congressman Charlie Wilson, worked on the telephone for 20 hours, talking several times to Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz and other high ups to get the VECO issue out of the way. The matter was rushed to the cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning and a decision was taken to involve the World Bank as an arbitrator in the dispute. REFERENCE: Sanctions waiver approved By Shaheen Sehbai DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 09 October 1999 Issue : 05/41 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1999/09oct99.html#sanc
Just how vicious a campaign the CIA was sponsoring is suggested by the Pakistan Brigadier Mohammed Yousuf, who directed the training with and distribution of CIA weapons at that time. In a matter-of-fact passage in his memoirs, he describes the range of assassination tactics and targets he was preparing the mujahideen to take on in Kabul. They ranged from your everyday “knife between the shoulder blades of a Soviet soldier shopping in the bazaar” to “the placing of a briefcase bomb in a senior official’s office.” Educational institutions were considered fair game, he explains, since they were staffed by “Communists indoctrinating their students with Marxist dogma.” {Page 335 Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story Of The Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile}.
On a CIA sponsored trip to Washington that year, the proud ISI Brigadier was deeply insulted when he was led, virtually blindfolded, to the Agency’s “sabotage school” in North Carolina. Vickers {CIA Official foe Afghan “Jihad} escorted the burly Pakistani Brigadier in a plane whose windows were blacked, then in a car with its shades drawn. Yousuf, who suffers the chip on the shoulder of many proud Third World types, was deeply offended at this slight. He reasoned that if he was trusted enough to be permitted to run the CIA’s operation in Pakistan, why was the Agency treating him as if he were about to reveal the location of the sabotage school? Later Vicker and Avrakotos {CIA Officials for Afghan “Jihad”} take Yousuf and one of his colleagues out for a fancy dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, USA. [Page 351 Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story Of The Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile].
On page 503 in Charlie Wilson’s War, the author quoted “but it was losing Zia that crushed Charlie. At the state funeral in Islamabad, with a million Pakistanis and Mujahideen crowding up to him, Charlie made his way to Akhtar’s successor, Hamid Gul, and broke into tears. “I have lost my father on this day,” he said. [Reference: Charlie Wilson’s War The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile]
She was Zia’s most trusted American adviser, as per Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, She absolutely had his ear, it was terrible,” “Zia would leave cabinet meetings just to take Joanne’s calls. “There was no affair with Zia,” Wilson recalls, but it’s impossible to deal with Joanne and not deal with her on sexual basis. No matter who you are, you take those phone calls.” [Page 67-68 Charlie Wilson’s War The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History by George Crile]
A new book, “Charlie Wilson’s War” by George Crile on the life and good times of a former US congressman is a frank pastiche of a lawmaker who helped Pakistan’s military ruler Gen. Ziaul Haq in procuring American money and weapons for the “holy war” against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. From humble beginnings in Lufkin, Texas, Congressman Charlie Wilson became an Israeli lobbyist and beneficiary of largesse bestowed upon him by the Jewish lobby in the United States and went on to become Ziaul Haq’s personal friend and confidant as they plotted to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan at times using Israeli supplied arms. Charlie Wilson still works as a lobbyist for Pakistan on Capitol Hill and he was spotted at every reception that former Pakistani ambassador Maleeha Lodhi hosted. Wilson, an avowed anti-Communist and anti-Indian, sat on the powerful US House Appropriations Committee. He managed to procure millions of dollars for America’s largest covert operation ever. He has been investigated several times by the FBI for using covert money to support his lifestyle. Wilson reveals in the book that he was introduced to Gen Ziaul Haq by the Houston socialite Joanne Herring who was appointed honorary Pakistani consul-general by the then ambassador of Pakistan, soon to become foreign minister, Sahibzada Yaqub Ali Khan, when Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was prime minister. Joanne Herring, described as the “Texas Bombshell” in addition to her role as “a social lioness and hostess to the powerful”, was credited with “setting in motion a process that would profoundly impact the outcome of the Afghan war”. “In the pivotal years of the Jihad, she (Herring) became both matchmaker and muse to Pakistan’s Muslim fundamentalist military dictator Ziaul Haq as well as scandal prone Charlie Wilson,” writes Crile. “Herring set the stage. She had called Zia from Houston on his private line and told him not to be put off by Wilson’s flamboyant appearance and not to pay attention to any stories of decadence that his diplomats might relate. She was adamant he win over US Congressman from Texas: he could become Pakistan’s most important ally.” Crile quotes Wilson in the book as saying that “Zia would leave cabinet meetings just to take Joanne’s calls”. When Zia made his maiden visit to the United States during the Reagan administration, he was much reviled by most Americans having hung Mr Bhutto. Ms Herring hosted a most lavish dinner for Zia at a Houston hotel where she defended Zia’s hanging of Bhutto, saying “Zia did not hang Bhutto. He was found guilty. President Zia did not commute the sentence because the Pakistani constitution based on the Quran did not allow it”. At that dinner, Crile writes, “Zia had dangerous decisions to make in the coming months about the CIA’s involvement in his inflamed North-West Frontier, and all of them centred on whether he could trust the United States. Joanne’s startling toast was strangely therapeutic for the much-maligned leader, who remembered how quickly Jimmy Carter had turned on him. In Houston that night, Joanne Herring saw to it that a host of powerful Americans actually honoured him. And that same night, Charlie Wilson provided yet another dimension to Zia’s growing partnership with the United States when he took the general into a side room for a private talk. The congressman had a novel proposition for the Muslim dictator. Would Zia be willing to deal with the Israelis? “This was not the sort of proposal just anyone could have made. But by now, the Pakistanis believed that Charlie Wilson had been decisive in getting them the disputed F-16 radar systems. As he saw it, Wilson had pulled off the impossible. Now the congressman, in his tuxedo, began to take Zia into the forbidden world where the Israelis were prepared to make deals no one need hear about. “He told Zia about his experience the previous year when the Israelis had shown him the vast stores of Soviet weapons they had captured from the PLO in Lebanon. The weapons were perfect for the mujahideen, he told Zia. If Wilson could persuade the CIA to buy them, would Zia have any problems passing them on to the Afghans? “Zia, ever the pragmatist, smiled on the proposal, adding, ‘Just don’t put any Stars of David on the boxes.” With that encouragement, Wilson pushed on. “Pakistan did not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and Wilson certainly had no authority to serve as a quasi secretary of state. In fact, with this kind of talk, the congressman was walking dangerously close to violating the Logan Act, which prohibits anyone other than the (US) president or his representatives from conducting foreign policy. But as the two rejoined Joanne’s party, Zia left the congressman with an understanding that he was authorized to begin secret negotiations to open back channels between Islamabad and Jerusalem. Wilson would leave for Israel in March and travel on to Pakistan to brief Zia immediately afterward. Crile says that the CIA man in Islamabad, Howard Hart, when asked years later, if he knew about Wilson’s efforts to bring the Israelis into the Afghan war, dismissed the story out of hand, insisting that the Pakistanis would never have permitted it. “I would have burst into hysterical laughter and locked myself in the bathroom before proposing such a thing,” he said. “It was bad enough for Zia to be dealing with the Americans, even secretly. But the Israelis were so beyond the pale that it would have been impossible. You have to understand that the Pakistanis were counting on maintaining the image of holding the high moral ground — of a religious brother helping a religious brother. It is beyond comprehension to have tried to bring the Israelis into it.” “Yet right under Hart’s nose,” Crile writes, “Wilson had proposed just such an arrangement, and Zia and his high command had signed on to implement it. Seven years later, Hart still knew nothing about it.” Charlie Wilson’s strategy called for introducing a new weapon into the battle every three months or so, in order to bluff the Red Army into thinking their enemy was better armed and supported than it was, “The Spanish mortar, for example, with its satellite-guided charge, was rarely deployed and may only have succeeded because the Pakistani ISI advisers were along to direct the fire. But the Soviets didn’t know that. When the weapon was first used it wiped out an entire Spetsnaz outpost with a volley of perfect strikes.” But ultimately it was the Reagan administration’s decision to covertly supply the mujahideen with Stinger missiles which changed the course of war. President Zia, Wilson is quoted as saying in the book, was unwilling to deploy Stingers in the war fearing that the Soviets would react harshly. As it is at Leonid Brezhnev’s funeral Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, had threatened “to destroy Zia if he didn’t cut off the Afghan bandits.” In his bid to persuade Zia to allow mujahideen to deploy Stingers, Wilson says that he told the general “that he should consider an important benefit beyond weapon’s battlefield value to mujahideen. The Stinger, he told Zia would become symbol of the special relationship that had been forged between United States and Pakistan.” Crile says Wilson’s importance to Zia and Pakistan went beyond money. “Every year the appropriations sub-committee members fought a battle royal over charges that Pakistan was actively pursuing an Islamic Bomb. And every year Wilson, sometimes single-handedly, beat back those accusations. The fact is, Pakistan was working on the bomb, as Wilson, the CIA and almost everyone knew. Furthermore it was not about to stop. The one thing all serious Pakistani politicians agreed on was the need for a nuclear deterrent. It was the only way, they believed, they could survive against militarily superior India, which had already overrun the country in three previous wars.” Thus, Crile says, “Zia knew that as long as Pakistan was backing the mujahideen, Charlie Wilson would be with them, whether they had the bomb or not.” Hence the crucial decision to deploy the Stingers was made by Zia. REFERENCE: Charlie Wilson’s war July 23, 2003 Wednesday Jumadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1424 http://archives.dawn.com/2003/07/23/fea.htm#2
Memogate storm in Pakistan & Mansoor Ijaz flip-flop on ISI - 3 (NDTV)
A comprehensive blueprint of how and in which direction future relations between Pakistan and the United States would, or should move, is circulating in Washington's three main centres of power the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives and many believe that there may not be a better practical alternative. President Clinton has acknowledged it, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has adopted some of its proposals, Senator Larry Pressler agrees with most of it and the House of Representatives may not find a better "staged roadmap" to put U.S. Pakistan relations back on track, its sponsors claim. It has been put forward by some influential Pakistani-Americans in the form of a confidential memorandum which takes into account the pressing security and defence requirements of Islamabad as well as provides Washington a framework to achieve its own goals. The fine print, however, needs a deeper study. The man behind the whole idea is a 34-year old American of Pakistani origin, MIT and Harvard educated mechanical engineer turned nuclear physicist turned investment consultant who was introduced to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto by a senior Pakistani diplomat in Washington as "the silent billionaire". Mansoor Ijaz runs a billion dollar investment management firm, claims he dines with President Clinton, is a Managing Trustee of the Democratic Party's National Committee and a Majority Trust Member of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says he makes heavy donations which do move things for him on the Hill, produces a stack of letters written by almost anyone who is someone on the Capitol Hill, and boasts of his business connections outside the U.S. He is adviser to Nelson Mandela's South Africa, manages investments for many other countries and maintains three homes in New York, Toronto and Paris. His credentials are impressive and CNN and the Dow Jones Business and Financial Weekly "Barron's" provide him international media recognition by interviewing him on investment matters repeatedly. He and his other friends, in similar well placed position, say they have laid the ground work for the changes that have started to show in the U.S. policy towards Pakistan (meaning others were just paying lip service) and they have been at this job eversince the Pressler sanctions were imposed. Their claims are hard to be accepted or rejected at their face value but what has actually taken place in favour of Pakistan including the change of heart in the White House, the sympathetic mood of the Senate and the bipartisan support for an even-handed policy in South Asia, was originally outlined in Mansoor Ijaz's confidential blueprint. That gives his claims a bit more credibility that any Pakistani Government official would make us believe. But this also rings many warning bells as the rest of his plan has some serious implications for Pakistan and its security. Mansoor minces no words in stating that Pakistan and the United States will have to enter into a wider security arrangement in which Washington would have to provide the security umbrella and Pakistan would safeguard the interests of the west in that region as strategically Islamabad is now the only country with which the Americans could have an alliance to check fundamentalism and international terrorism. "Yes what I mean is that the Americans have to be given bases to operate in that part of the world, because they cannot always remain onboard their air craft carriers," he argued with cold logic in a two hour discussion last week. His blue print suggests the same thing in camouflaged language, speaking of "strategic military cooperation" between the two countries. His words may have been taken by me as a routine boast of a well-placed Pakistani, many of whom are in the habit of exaggerating things to incredible limits, just to impress others about their reach and influence. But his words instantly reminded me of an important Congressman of the Democratic Party, David Bonior, who in a speech to the Pakistani American Congress, just a few days back talked of "common defence" between Pakistan and U.S. He had done so when the Ambassador of Pakistan, all other senior diplomats and many prominent Pakistanis were present and no one had questioned him. Ijaz's blueprint suggested modifications to the Pressler Amendment in three stages because easing the sanctions was "in the best national security interests of the United States and no one was interested in allowing Pakistan to fall under partial or complete control of the Iranians." These three stages were restoration of economic assistance, including OPIC, TDA and IMET in the first stage, allowing "non-control list" military spare parts and return of spare parts Pakistan had already paid for, increased military training and cooperation on anti-drug trafficking in stage two and going for strategic military cooperation in the third stage. No conditions were to be attached to the first two stages while the third stage had a hidden agenda, of roping in Pakistan's nuclear programme into the NPT net, if not directly by forcing Pakistan to sign the NPT, by persuading it to sign other international treaties like the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) or asking Islamabad to comply with the requirements of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives have already approved the first two stages which would open economic assistance to Pakistan, reinstate OPIC cover for U.S. businesses, restore TDA paradigms and revive the military education and training programme (IMET) between the military establishments of the two countries. The blueprint had suggested there concessions in two stages but Ijaz says the Congress was in such a hurry that both the stages were crossed in one go. The argument he had put forward was that on these two stages there was a consensus that they were in the interest of the United States. His line of thought on restoring IMET was interesting. "For Pakistan the objective was clear: They need officer training and they want it from the best in the world. For its strategic long- term interests America can use the IMET forum to encourage the moderate elements in Pakistan's military (non-nuclear hawks and doves and non-religious extremists) to rise to the top ranks and thereby know intimately the type of minds that
are controlling the panic button...." "American military training will be a step towards containment of 'mullaism' and other forms of extremism as the educational paradigms of Pakistani military," the blueprint argued. "There is also a growing feeling among moderate Pakistani military strategists that if the U.S. wants to see more effective containment of inappropriate Iranian behaviour, America needs to cast a life raft to the Pakistani military-a military that is in essence 'out of shape' to properly withstand the current Iranian offensive," it said. "Military training and spare parts will relieve sufficiently the hawkish pressure on Benazir Bhutto to ask for 'all or none' terms on Pressler modification. It will also get her to the next election date without damaging no confidence motions in Parliament by Nawaz Sharif (a decided nuclear hawk) and give us sufficient time to evaluate the stability of Pakistan's economy, military and politics before engaging in more strategic arms equipment contracts," it argued. For these two stages, Pakistan was supposed to continue cooperation in U.N. peacekeeping missions as well as in other field like checking international terrorism drug trafficking, heroin production, illegal immigration and counterfeit money production, besides reporting tangible progress on existing and outstanding human rights and democracy issues. The third stage of the blue print was the crucial part and though the first two stages have already begun to be implemented, implementation of the last stage could bring in a lot more trouble than anticipated. This stage envisages a "broad range of possibilities, from 'control list' spare parts to strategic armaments that have non- nuclear capable characteristics, to consideration under appropriate conditionality of strategic weaponry that would serve U.S. national security objectives.." It said the time frame of this stage would depend on two critical issues. "First our conditionality on strategic military cooperation that Pakistan be a signatory to the successful negotiation of the FMCT for which the time frame of end of 1995 and early 1996 is indicated. Secondly, and in conjunction with the first issue, will be Pakistan taking tangible steps towards meeting the requirements of the MTCR including progress on the M-11 issue." The conditions stated in the blueprint are clear: Pakistan's inclusion in FMCT which means accepting verifications of the nuclear programme without actually signing the NPT. "FMCT is an elegant roadmap that achieves the most critical non-proliferation objectives of the U.S. within the existing framework of the NPT, without compromising the internal political sensitivities of the non-declared nuclear states," it says. The final proposal of the blueprint is after these three stages are crossed. It proposes that the President of the United States be given the flexibility, under the Pressler Amendment, to certify that the "proposed U.S. military assistance programme will reduce significantly the likelihood of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their ballistic missile delivery systems." Ijaz explains that by including an "or" instead of an "and" in the Pressler Amendment, the President will be able to certify that in his view whatever military assistance was being provided to Pakistan would not help in its nuclear proliferation goals. "I can tell you that this blueprint is what meets the United States parameters of re writing the Pressler Amendment and it would be done on these lines, come what may. It has already begun to be implemented," he strongly argues brushing aside any other ideas that the Government of Pakistan or its Embassy in Washington may be floating. He says Pakistan should get its money back, keep the money in an escrow account, wait for the President to get the new certification powers and then negotiate the F-16 deal which would then be possible without any congressional interference. Whatever the reaction of the U.S. authorities on these plans and proposals, at least President Clinton acknowledges them. On May 26 Clinton wrote to Ijaz: "Dear Mansoor, Thank You for your letter regarding Pakistan and for your comments about my meeting with Prime Minister Bhutto. I welcome your input on this important matter." Said Clinton: "We need to continue working on ways to solve the difficulties that derive from the Pressler Amendment and the sanctions that have been in place since 1990. I informed the Prime Minister that I was prepared to seek relief from the sanctions and that we would explore our options for return of the F-16s and equipment or of the money that Pakistan paid for U.S. equipment before the sanctions went into effect. I will continue to work with Congress on this important issue. "I appreciate knowing your perspective, and I'am glad you took time to write," Sincerely, Bill Clinton. REFERENCE: Dateline Washington : A blueprint Pakistan cannot ignore Shaheen Sehbai DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 15 June, 1995 Issue : 01/23 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1995/15Je95.html#blue
Memogate storm in Pakistan & Mansoor Ijaz flip-flop on ISI - 4 (NDTV)
Soon after lush green meadows started reappearing from beneath the melting snow, the Indian Army and the paramilitary forces had begun relentless search operations and a crackdown in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district in the spring of 2000. Reason—the military intelligence (MI) sleuths from across the LoC had informed that Abdul Majeed Dar, chief operational commander of the only formidable Kashmiiri militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) was missing from its headquarters in Muzaffarabad. According to intelligence inputs gathered by the MI and some other agencies, Dar was last seen travelling towards a border village to sneak into Indian territory. The air was already thick with rumours about his movements and meetings with the top brass of HM. Little did they know that external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) had a major scoop up its sleeve. In a successful operation, they had airlifted Dar to Srinagar via Karachi, Dubai and Delhi in May 2000, to enable him to announce a unilateral ceasefire. And the man, who negotiated and mediated the short-lived truce, was believed to be Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani American businessman, now at the centre of controversy, nicknamed 'Memogate', that is taking a toll on the civilian government of Pakistan President Asif Zardari in Islamabad. Later, Ijaz was also involved in brokering a Kashmir solution between India and Pakistan in 2000 and 2001, as an unofficial interlocutor, it was claimed, for then United States President Bill Clinton. Though India opposes any third party mediation on Kashmir, the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee accorded Ijaz a status that befits only high-profile emissaries and, at least, on two occasions he visited Delhi on special "out-of-passport" visa, with full secrecy of his identity and itinerary. Ijaz made half a dozen trips to India and Pakistan at that time to arbitrate the Kashmir dispute. In an interaction with the media at a hotel in the outskirts of Delhi, he denied acting on behalf of the US government but claimed that he was drawn to the Kashmir problem because "oppressed people have no capacity to speak for themselves and stop violations that occur against them in the name of religion or politics or money." Ijaz, a nuclear physicist and a New York-based investment banker as also a member of the influential US Think Tank Council on Foreign Relations, had given contours of his efforts in an interview to Pakistani daily The News International on 25 December, 2001, seven months before the Agra summit between Vajpayee and President Musharraf Pervez failed, dashing the initiatives he had taken. He described the HM ceasefire as “a momentous event in the tumultuous history of the Kashmir valley,” which opened a door to search for an earnest resolution of the conflict.
Recalling his visit to Delhi, Ijaz heaped praise on Chandar D Sahay, then point-man on Kashmir in the RAW, (he later became its chief). Sahay, he believed, was the key man who made India's hawks understand that peace in Kashmir meant giving the Kashmiris a stake—economic, moral, emotional— in the success of their choice to remain with India or become a semi-autonomous region. “In my hotel suite in New Delhi in November 2000, I brought Sahay and a prominent Kashmiri activist, Yasin Malik, together after nearly a year of painstaking negotiations following the military coup in Pakistan,” he claimed. Maintaining that Malik had taken unprecedented risks in dealing with Sahay secretly, Ijaz claimed having persuaded even the toughest Kashmiri loyalist, Syed Geelani, to not oppose progress towards permanent peace. Ijaz revealed that Khalid Khawaja, a former ISI official, who had piloted Osama bin Laden's aircraft in Afghanistan during the Afghan resistance, had also taken unprecedented risks in bringing him in contact with Syed Salahuddin, the chief of HM and also allowed him to hand-carry his written messages back to President Clinton at the time. Khawaja was murdered by Taliban militants in April 2010. In his interview with The News International, Ijaz had claimed: "The process of empowering both civilian and militant Kashmiri voices remains the central objective of our efforts at present because a strong Kashmir provides Pakistan and India with face-saving exit strategies."
Ijaz also spoke of a mid-January 2001 meeting of political and militant leaders in Islamabad to set a common agenda for talks with New Delhi and take General Musharraf into confidence about the merits and rationale for the talks. "There will also be a clear effort made to deal with the so-called mercenary problem whether or not to allow non-indigenous Pakistani-backed insurgents a seat at the peace table. Once the internal agenda is agreed upon and the various Kashmiri parties are united on a message and a delegation, Indo-Kashmiri dialogue can begin," said he. Ijaz also referred to ground ceasefire modalities and a possible Musharraf-Vajpayee summit and said in that interview that "the Kashmiris will be free to suggest Pakistan's inclusion either partially or wholly in political dialogue aimed at a permanent solution. Delhi understands this as a condition for beginning talks with the Kashmiris." Stressing that "Pakistan is a party to the (Kashmir) dispute, Ijaz had gone on to affirm: "But General Musharraf is rapidly, flexibly and correctly adapting the Pakistani position to the reality that Islamabad's pursuit of Jihad-based resistance in Kashmir has not worked.
As head of state rather than just head of the army, his responsibility to the larger interests of the Pakistani people go far beyond the narrow pursuit of an ideological war that is decimating an innocent population while deeply scarring the image and vitality of Pakistan as a nation. "That is why General Musharraf is wisely preparing the people of Pakistan for a policy of maximum flexibility in its negotiating stance. By doing so, he accommodates growing Kashmiri willpower to test India's sincerity for peace and resolution while maintaining a firm bottom line that protects Pakistan's security interests." Ijaz’s 'Mission Kashmir' did not take toll on the Vajpayee government for allowing a mediator against India's declared policy as he always maintained a low profile unlike an article he wrote for a British paper last month to strengthen President Zardari’s stance, which boomeranged. He narrated how he felt threatened from encroachments by Pakistani Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani. If he is to be believed then Zardari had sought him out, after the US Navy Seal raid to extract Osama bin Laden from Abbottabad in May, to convey its insecurity to Admiral Mike Mullen, the then Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff and avowed "friend" of General Kayani to fend off a possible coup. Ijaz reportedly drafted and dispatched a secret "memo" portraying the Pakistani military as being part of the problem rather than the solution to America's dilemma in Afghanistan.
Once the "memogate" became public, Ijaz tried to prove his credibility by revealing all, even though he may no longer be sought by anyone any longer as a credible and confidential interlocutor. It is because of his reveal-all mess that the Pakistan military has turned its guns on Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington. Running afoul of Musharraf in 2002 for his critical newspaper columns in Urdu and English, Haqqani had fled to the US where he wrote his seminal book on the unholy historical nexus between the mosque and military in Pakistan. Since he was appointed ambassador to Washington in 2008, the Pakistan military has since embarked upon a campaign to defame him, he reasoned. Iftikhar Gilani is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka.com. iftikhar@tehelka.com REFERENCE: Memogate’s Mansoor Ijaz was once an NDA guest The Pakistani-American businessman played a key role in facilitating talks between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir dispute Iftikhar Gilani New Delhi Posted on 21 November 2011 http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ws211111Pakistan.asp
Memogate storm in Pakistan & Mansoor Ijaz flip-flop on ISI - 5 (NDTV)
ISLAMABAD: A spokesman for Husain Haqqani, former ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, has expressed surprise at the publication as an article of the diatribe by Mohammad Akram Sheikh, the lawyer for the American businessman responsible for the memo accusations. “It is sad and highly unprofessional for a lawyer representing a party in a case to simultaneously pretend to be an impartial commentator and The News should not have published the article,” the spokesman said in a rejoinder to Mohammad Akram Sheikh’s viewpoint ‘Memogate: Stop insulting our honourable judges’, published in The News on Thursday. Following is the text of the spokesman’s rejoinder: “Mr Akram Sheikh has attacked Mr Haqqani for crimes he never committed. For him to write such a personal attack on the person of Mr Haqqani, after having been his advocate as well as having known him personally for many years raises serious questions about the honourable counsel’s motives. Mr Haqqani respects Mr Akram Sheikh for ably defending him in the high court in 1999 and securing bail for him when the then government of Mr Nawaz Sharif put him through three days of torture and more than 70 days of detention on trumped up charges that were later thrown out by court. Mr Sheikh might have forgotten but many people remember Mr Sheikh offering sweets after the Musharraf coup in 1999, such was his bitterness against Mr Sharif. He had had fallen out with the Sharif government not because he had chosen to stand with Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, as he claims. The newspapers of the era testify that the real falling out was failure of Mian Nawaz Sharif to appoint Mr Sheikh as Attorney General of Pakistan. Mr Haqqani, on the other hand, stood by Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto consistently since joining the PPP in 1993. Mohtarma has given the only certificate Mr Haqqani needs of being “a loyal friend” in her final book, ‘Reconciliation.’
Mr Sheikh has cited distorted personal stories to suggest a close relationship between Mr Haqqani and the Musharraf regime in its early days. But Mr Haqqani could not have been as close to anyone in power as an eminent lawyer like Mr Sheikh at the time. If Mr Sheikh was made an offer to represent the military regime in court, that offer must have come from the well known legal and constitutional wizard and ‘Advisor’ to Musharraf with whom Mr Sheikh has maintained a very long association. Mr Sheikh did not need Mr Haqqani’s support or reference. Now that he has accepted his latest high profile client’s brief it is obvious that the only reason he refused a brief on behalf of the Musharraf regime must have been a case of the fee not being right. Only Mr Sheikh’s ethics allow him to write a lengthy article attacking a person without mentioning once that he represents his accuser in pending legal proceedings. Mr Sheikh sahib also objects to Mr Haqqani’s standing and respect in American academic circles though he never mentioned that criticism on any of the occasions he met Mr Haqqani during visits to the United States. The only valid response to an academic work based on research would be an equally well researched and coherent book that counters the arguments of Mr Haqqani’s international respected book. Someone whose entire life has depended solely on a loud voice and verbosity may never be able to find time to read Mr Haqqani’s 400-page book, let alone write one countering its arguments.
Mr Sheikh has also expressed irritation at the support Mr Haqqani has received from a large section of civil society. Mr Haqqani has no qualms in accepting the label of ‘Born again liberal.’ He has written sufficiently on his life journey explaining the transformation of his thought process and is proud of what he has achieved in terms of developing his critical thinking faculties. Mr Sheikh could next serve as a lawyer for Mumtaz Qadri if he so chooses and Mr Haqqani would have no problem with that. It is the culture of labeling people one disagrees with as ‘Kafirs’ or ‘traitors’ that all fair-minded Pakistanis object to. There is no justification of seeking to ridicule, abuse and lynch anyone who does not follow the ideological agenda of Mr Sheikh, whatever that might be. Mr Haqqani’s political stand is clear and he is thankful to all those who have supported him. In the so-called Memo case, he is confident of his innocence, leaving his lawyers make the legal arguments. Mr Haqqani fully respects the Supreme Court and Pakistan’s judiciary. His lawyers have submitted proper legal arguments before the honourable court and they still feel that they have a solid case. That is why they are moving the apex court for a review of its judgement. Before Mr Sheikh ventures into another diatribe against Mr Haqqani in print he should be mindful of the long association he has had with him. He may want to recall the day he wept in front of Mr Haqqani, seeking his assistance against the media propaganda campaign relating to his personal life that he claimed had been launched by the Nawaz Sharif government. At that time, Mr Sheikh did not accept Mr Haqqani’s advice to sue the newspapers, seeking support on the media front instead. Political lives have their ups and downs and lawyers must represent their clients but there is no reason to lower the level of discussion to make it vulgar or personal.” REFERENCE: Haqqani respects judiciary Friday, January 06, 2012 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=11531&Cat=13
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