US CIA Operation Regime Change in Pakistan VIA Memogate.

Former Chief of the Army Staff & Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) General (Retd) Khawaja Ziauddin while giving interview to Dawn News (11th Dec 2011) opined that this whole Memogate could be an Sting Operation launched by US Central Intelligence Agency to check the reaction of Pakistan and he also remind that in a similar circumstances in 1999, Kamran Khan (Allegedly a Senior Correspondent of The News Internationl/Daily Jang/GEO TV and contributor for The Washington Post) had also became active (General Ziauddin didn't explain what does he mean by Kamran Khan became active because Journalists are active and the way Mr. Zia used active for Kamran Khan, is always used for Fifth Columnists and Foreign Agents) - Sting operation - a complicated confidence game planned and executed with great care (especially an operation implemented by undercover agents to apprehend criminals) - Agent provocateur - Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent(s)") is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action. [Courtesy: Wikipedia]. REFERENCE: Mansoor Ijaz, Gen (R) Khawaja Ziauddin, & Fifth Columnist Kamran Khan. http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2011/12/mansoor-ijaz-gen-r-khawaja-ziauddin.html

Policy Matters on Duniya News -- 16th dec 2011 p1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYGe6zujyYc

The controversial whistle-blowing site Wikileaks has released numerous documents which relate to Pakistan among the cache of thousands of secret messages sent by US diplomatic staff. While the main concern among US and UK diplomats is that Pakistan's nuclear material could fall into the hands of terrorists, a wide range of other sensitive issues also come under analysis. Below are some of the key issues relating to Pakistan. 'Informal coup' In early 2009 General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army, discussed with the Americans the possibility of "persuading" President Asif Ali Zardari to resign - replacing him with Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan. Gen Kayani said that he would keep Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in place. REFERENCE: Wikileaks US diplomatic cables: Key Pakistan issues 01 December 10 13:26 GMT http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-south-asia-11886512

Policy Matters on Duniya News -- 16th dec 2011 p2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWmHysi1-bw

Wikileaks released diplomatic cables, some classified as secret, from US embassies around the world causing an uproar in the international community. The diplomatic relationship between United States and Pakistan is closer than most government and international figures would like to admit - the cable leaks show that the major players in Pakistan went from the Army Chief of Staff all the way to the national leaders. Here are some major points that were discussed in the US cables related to Pakistan: • Chief of Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani wanted to remove Zardari into exile and replace him with Asfandyar Wali as president. Kayani felt that Faryal Talpur, Zardari’s sister, would make a better president than Zardari, who he preferred over PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif. • Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) leader Altaf Hussain, under pressure from the US and UK, has been asked to abjure support for National Reconciliation Ordinance which could put Zardari at risk. Despite the pressure, Malik felt that the Supreme Court would not strip Zardari of his immunity as president. • Although Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani and President Asif Zardari understand that the conflict near the Pak-Afghan border has spread into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA areas and would like to control it. However, the Army and ISI have refused to realize the problem and are concentrating on keeping troops near the India-Pak borders. The amount for will be doubled for four billions dollars. REFERENCE: Key Leaks By Sadef A. Kully December 2, 2010 http://www.dawn.com/2010/12/02/key-leaks.html

Policy Matters on Duniya News -- 16th dec 2011 p3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_vsXlDLljI

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's army chief COAS Kayani mused about forcing out civilian President Asif Ali Zardari who has made preparations for a coup or assassination, leaked US diplomatic cables said Tuesday. The latest tranche of memos, obtained by whistleblower site WikiLeaks and reported by American and British newspapers, also showed that the United States was more concerned than it let on publicly about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. General Ashfaq Kayani, chief of Pakistan's powerful military, told the US ambassador during a March 2009 meeting that he "might, however reluctantly," pressure Zardari to resign, according to cable cited by the papers. Kayani was quoted as saying that he might support Asfandyar Wali Khan, leader of the Awami National League Party, as the new president -- not Zardari's arch-nemesis Nawaz Sharif. According to Anne W. Patterson, the then US Ambassador to Pakistan, Kayani made it clear that regardless of how much he disliked Zardari, he distrusted Nawaz even more. In another cable quoted by both newspapers, US Vice President Joe Biden recounted to Britain's then prime minister Gordon Brown a conversation with Zardari last year. Zardari told him that Kayani and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency "will take me out," according to the cable. The paper said the cables also showed that Zardari has made extensive preparations in case he is killed. Tensions between Zardari and the army are no secret, and Pakistan often witnesses coup rumors.  After Kayani met in September with Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the now-exiled Musharraf quipped: "I can assure you they were not discussing the weather." REFERENCE: Kayani said he disliked Zardari: WikiLeaks Updated at 1405 PST Wednesday, December 01, 2010 http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=6329

Lekin - 16th december 2011 part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmkBdhQi3UE

Since the beginning of the so-called ‘memogate’ controversy, one question that has never been adequately answered is why, if Mansoor Ijaz is telling the truth, did he turn on his alleged co-conspirators and reveal the existence of the memo. The answer Ijaz came up with was that he revealed all to add ‘authenticity’ to his op-ed, an excuse that even critics of the government consider silly. A few days ago I suggested that we might want to think about what Ijaz’s real target might be, and whether his allegations against the civilians are actually just bait in the trap for his real target – Pakistan’s security agencies. Today, more evidence comes to light that suggests this might be a possibility worth serious consideration. Writing in The News, Tahir Khalil reveals that soon after Ijaz’s op-ed was published, the government sought to sue Ijaz and the Financial Times and even approached a US law firm about filing lawsuits in the both US and UK. According to the report, the lawyers discouraged the government from pursuing legal cases in the US and UK because “suing him might open a debate about Pakistan’s security agencies in the US or UK courts”.

An important question for everyone to weigh is whether targeting the ambassador and even the president was part of some design by Mansoor Ijaz to create circumstances whereby Pakistan’s security services come under debate in the US and UK courts. In his last article Mansoor Ijaz says he mentioned the memo only “inadvertently” but his other actions indicate his desire to use his memo as an excuse to create other circumstances that might be detrimental to Pakistan’s national security.

On Twitter recently, someone wrote that they don’t care what else Ijaz said because they are only concerned with what he says against the government. This attitude might work for uninformed Twitter arguments, but in a court of law you can’t protest that Mansoor Ijaz is credibly telling the truth in his sentence about the memo…and ignore the dozens of sentences against the military and security agencies. Please allow me to reiterate what I wrote recently:

This is important because remember what is said and exhibited in the court is public record. For most issues of such national sensitivity, an in-camera inquiry would be ordered to protect the national interest. But in this case, Ijaz has carefully created a political, not a national security crisis.

Recent media statements by Mansoor Ijaz have explained that he has no faith in the civilian government to move against the military and security agencies that he continues to term as terror masters. Could it be that Mansoor Ijaz tried to peddle his memo to Haqqani only to be rebuffed? That Haqqani, despite being critical of past military leaders, saw the working relationship between Gen Kayani, PM Gilani and President Zardari as a positive for the nation and did not want to upset the careful balance and growing trust between the military and civil branches of government? In addition to terming the military as terror masters, Ijaz has termed the civilians as “rot”. Only Ijaz himself, it seems, is worthy to determine Pakistan’s interests. Rejected by Haqqani, Ijaz then took his memo to his friends in Washington who also “did not find it at all credible and took no note of it then or later”. Finding himself without any buyers in either Islamabad or Washington, he published his infamous op-ed and set the plan in motion himself. It should be noted that Gen Pasha did meet with both Ijaz and Haqqani and collected evidence from both, but the Supreme Court was petitioned by Nawaz Sharif who has himself been critical of Gen Kayani and Gen Pasha famously saying to Gen Pasha at the APC that “where there is smoke there is fire” regarding American allegations against ISI. Choosing to believe only what is convenient and ignoring what is inconvenient might work in drawing room debates, but not in independent courts of law. There are serious questions that must be asked not only about issues of Mansoor Ijaz’s credibility, but his intended target also. It is known that Nawaz Sharif is feeling the heat of PTI’s advances in his backyard, the impressive turnout at Imran Khan’s 30th October rally surely got the PML-N chief’s attention, and he may see Mansoor Ijaz’s claims as an opportunity to prove his own patriotic credentials. But we all should be very careful not to get lured into a trap designed to sacrifice our national security in exchange for political points. REFERENCE: Did Nawaz fall for the trap? December 12th, 2011 by Mahmood Adeel http://new-pakistan.com/2011/12/12/did-nawaz-fall-for-the-trap/

Lekin - 16th december 2011 part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVzqNdJUWc4

Mansoor Ijaz is an interesting character. Born and raised in America, he has burst into the limelight of Pakistani politics after the infamous op-ed published in which he claimed that he was part of a secret mission seeking American support to replace the military leadership. For certain journalists and media tycoons who have been gunning for Asif Zardari since day one, this was the closest thing to the smoking gun they had been praying for. As the case carries on, however, we might want to pay closer attention to which way the smoking gun is pointing.

Act I

Media was quick to ignore the fact that the guy who delivered the supposed smoking gun all wrapped up with a bow has a long history of writing strongly against Pakistan and other Muslim countries in the Western media, including being a ‘Terrorism Analyst’ for the neocon FOX News. But why question the messenger who’s delivering you the gift you’ve been dreaming of? The American response to the controversy was also muted. Ambassador Munter appeared on Capital Talk saying the Americans considered it an internal issue for Pakistan and that they would not get involved. Following disaster after disaster in the Pak-US relationship, it was no wonder that the Americans wanted to sit this one out. Now matter how much Husain Haqqani was respected in Washington, the Americans weren’t going to sacrifice their relationship with Pakistan for one man. This created something of a perfect storm against the government. No one liked Mansoor Ijaz, but everyone was willing to set aside their doubts since he was handing them the government on a silver platter. Over the past few days, though, the story has taken an even more bizarre turn. Speaking to Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Mansoor Ijaz said that “it is still my view today that section S of the ISI has been involved in some very, very nefarious activities, and so since nobody was able to get their arms around that, the United States had to take the lead on that”. But then he goes on to admit that “we haven’t strengthened the civilian side of Pakistan’s government”. If Mansoor Ijaz believes the military and the ISI are involved in “very nefarious activities”, many ask, why would he take an action that clearly divides the military from the civilian leadership? The answer may be in another of Ijaz’s statements…”There will never be a time in my view where the military is subservient to the civilians in our lifetime”. If you want to neuter the military, but you don’t believe the civilians are capable, what do you do? Why not dust off the old British strategy of divide and conquer? Actually, some are beginning to suspect that this was Ijaz’s goal all along. Diplomatic sources in the West now saying that they suspect Ijaz’s scheme is a plot to destabilize Pakistan: “Some elements are now keeping this story alive. Ijaz and his backers want to create a political crisis.” Such a plot would finally explain why Mansoor Ijaz’s first target was Husain Haqqani. A controversial figure at home, the Ambassador who was termed “hardest working man in DC” had the respect of top figures in the US establishment and was able to effectively defend Pakistan’s interests during some of the hardest times between the two nations, including following the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and the arrest of CIA informants in Pakistan. With Haqqani out of the way, Ijaz has left Pakistan without its defender in the US.  REFERENCE: Mansoorgate: Which way is the smoking gun pointing? December 5th, 2011 by Mahmood Adeel http://new-pakistan.com/2011/12/05/mansoorgate-which-way-is-the-smoking-gun-pointing/

Act II

Now that there is no Husain Haqqani to defend Pakistan in Washington and the Western media, Ijaz has set the stage for a judicial inquiry. This is important because remember what is said and exhibited in the court is public record. For most issues of such national sensitivity, an in-camera inquiry would be ordered to protect the national interest. But in this case, Ijaz has carefully created a political, not a national security crisis. Over the weekend, Mansoor Ijaz continued to fan the flames of the case in the media, and told reporters that he was prepared to come to Pakistan to present evidence before the court. This is a curious statement considering Mansoor Ijaz already had a private meeting with Gen Pasha during which he supposedly handed over all of his evidence to the ISI chief. If he was telling the truth, what would he present before the court that is not already in the hands of the ISI? To get a hint, perhaps we should revisit Mansoor Ijaz’s statements both before and after his controversial op-ed. On 3rd May, Mansoor Ijaz told FOX News that president Zardari is “a naive buffoon” who doesn’t control the military, and that all signs point to the military protecting Osama bin Laden. Two days later, on 5th May, Mansoor Ijaz told an American news radio programme that Pakistan’s military “absolutely knew” Osama bin Laden was in Abbottabad. In his 10th October op-ed for Financial Times, Mansoor Ijaz termed the ISI as “terror masters” and wrote that “The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting down the political and financial support that sustains an organ of the Pakistani state that undermines global antiterrorism efforts at every turn.” Actually, the one thing that has never changed about Mansoor Ijaz’s story are his claims that he has evidence that the ISI is supporting militants. The only problem was that Husain Haqqani was always defending Pakistan and getting the Americans to stop paying attention. But now there’s no Haqqani to defend Pakistan in the halls of Washington, and in their determination to get at the government, the opposition parties have opened a public forum for Mansoor Ijaz to present his evidence before the court and finally achieve his stated goal of “stopping the terror masters at their very roots”. In 1860, Lieutenant Colonel Coke said of the strategy of the British Raj, “Divide et impera should be the principle.” It seems Mansoor Ijaz has studied his history well. REFERENCE: Mansoorgate: Which way is the smoking gun pointing? December 5th, 2011 by Mahmood Adeel http://new-pakistan.com/2011/12/05/mansoorgate-which-way-is-the-smoking-gun-pointing/

Lekin - 16th december 2011 part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aolBP1nyVSA

For all the fevered discussion about Memogate, one of the most arresting claims to emerge seems to have evaded even the faintest scrutiny. In the very evidence Mansoor Ijaz marshaled before the Pakistani public, he says there was a second, rival plot, set in train during the very same days in early May. It, too, involves a senior Pakistani official reaching out to foreign allies in a similarly abortive bid to take on a powerful institution back home. About a quarter of the way down the purported BBM exchange between Ijaz and Husain Haqqani, the American businessman proffers an eyebrow-elevating tip. Some hours after the memo was delivered, Ijaz tells his alleged co-conspirator that he has learned of a clandestine effort to evict Asif Ali Zardari from Islamabad’s presidential palace. “I was just informed by senior US intel,” Ijaz writes in a message on May 10, “that GD-SII Mr P asked for, and received permission, from senior Arab leaders a few days ago to sack Z. For what its worth.” It’s worth a great deal, if only because it carries the same weight as what else appears in the apparently incriminating exchange. In his hasty typing, where he manages to turn “DG-ISI” into an anagram, Ijaz was saying that top American spooks have told him that Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha secured a green light from Gulf potentates to overthrow the government. Intrigued, I asked Ijaz to furnish some context. When the memo was being crafted, he told me in a telephone interview some days ago, he wanted to independently verify whether the Zardari government was truly imperiled. “One of the things I had done,” he explained over his London cell phone, “was to make sure that a senior person that I know in US intelligence would have had the opportunity to review what was about to sent over.” This, he added, was why Leon Panetta came to know of the memo, hinting at a CIA link. Ijaz said he felt the measure was necessary “to make sure that there was nothing we were doing that was against US interests.” The well-placed source got back to him about a day later. “And the person told me,” Ijaz said, “that their information was that Pasha had traveled to a few of the Arab countries to talk about what would be necessary to do in the event they had to remove Zardari from power and so forth.” Did he find the information credible? “Of course I thought it was credible,” Ijaz replied, slightly exasperated by the question. “I wouldn’t have repeated it if I didn’t. When I say, ‘a senior intel source,’ I mean senior,” he said, laying stress on the last word. Based on what his source told him, Ijaz said he had “confirmation that there was a real threat there at some point.” The question of whether the shadow of a coup ever fell on the early days of May lies at the very root of Memogate and remains unresolved. Ijaz has claimed that coup jitters spurred Haqqani into action. Indeed, all claims in this regard emanate from Ijaz. They appeared in his column on the pink pages of the FT and in the memo that he dispatched. Haqqani, by contrast, denies there was ever talk of a fourth phase of Pakistani military rule. The army and the ISI, at least on this occasion, won’t disagree with the former ambassador. And judging by the government’s reaction at the time, the need never arose. Before the memo even reached Admiral Mullen’s inbox, Yousaf Raza Gilani had already bellowed his support of Pakistan’s military-led spies. “Indeed, the ISI is a national asset and has the full support of the government,” the prime minister told parliament on May 10. “We are proud of its considerable achievements…” Gilani also failed to call for the “independent inquiry” floated in the memo, handing the responsibility instead to the army’s adjutant general. And a day later, the prime minister told me that the government, the army and the ISI were “all on the same page.” So, the only one claiming that Gen Pasha was busily touring Arab capitals enlisting support for a coup is his London host. Like other allegations made in the Memogate affair, it rests on Ijaz’s credibility. If he is telling the truth, and his entire account is to be accepted, then both Haqqani and Gen Pasha were involved in shadowy schemes that merit further inquiry. And in each case, questions will inevitably arise about how much their respective bosses knew. We already know that Ijaz has at least been right about Haqqani’s travel itinerary. The former envoy concedes that he was in London on the dates his accuser mentions. Gen Pasha’s movements are more opaque. According to news reports of May 7 – two days before Ijaz alleges Haqqani contacted him – the spy chief slipped out of Pakistan that day for “a sudden foreign visit”. The Nation newspaper, among others, reported that its sources said the “ISI chief’s visit could be to China, Saudi Arabia and UAE where he is expected to meet senior defence and military officials of these countries to brief Pakistan’s stance.” Even if Gen Pasha did travel to these countries, two of which clearly qualify as homes to “Arab rulers,” perhaps nothing unseemly took place. Perhaps all that was discussed, quite appropriately, was Pakistan’s reaction to the bin Laden raid. But if Ijaz is wrong about the nature of Gen Pasha’s trip, then his other claims begin to crumble. It becomes very difficult to sustain the argument that he was telling the truth about Haqqani but lying about Gen Pasha. REFERENCE: Pakistan’s “Memogate”: Was there ever going to be a coup? By Omar Waraich The Foreign Desk - International dispatches from Independent correspondents - Tuesday, 13 December 2011 at 7:35 pm http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/12/13/pakistans-memogate-scandal-was-the-isi-planning-a-coup/

Lekin - 16th december 2011 part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hv4Unj_SAM

KARACHI: Mansoor Ijaz the US businessman at the centre of the memogate scandal has backtracked on his text message regarding DG ISI General Shuja Pasha. A blog published in The Independent gave reference to a text message in which Ijaz said that a senior US official had informed him that DG ISI Shuja Pasha had approached senior Arab leaders about removing President Zardari and that permission had been granted. The message published on the blog states: I was just informed by senior US intel that GD-SII Mr P asked for, and received permission from senior Arab leaders a few days ago to sack Z. For what its worth. It is clearly written in the message that permission was asked for and given. However Ijaz speaking on Geo News program Lekin said the following: “no one ever said to me (Ijaz) that General Pasha received permission from somebody to conduct a coup, that’s not what they said.” Ijaz goes on to say “what they said was that he had toured Arab countries right after the bin Laden raid taken place and that he had in fact made clear to those Arab leaders that he met with that there were a significant degree of stress if you will between the civilian sector and the establishment about laying blame on what….again these are intelligence sources which are talking to me, I don’t have a transcript that says that, I don’t have the notes of a meeting in which any of those things were said.” REFERENCE: Mansoor Ijaz backtracks on text message about DG ISI Gen Shuja Pasha Updated 21 hours ago http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=28782&title=Ijaz-backtracks-on-Pasha-text-message-

Geo Report- James Jones Statement- 17th Dec 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImVYLaLkmXc

WASHINGTON: Former US National Security Advisor, General James Jones said that he had known Mansoor Ijaz since 2006 and was contacted by him a few days prior to May 9, Geo News reported. It is pertinent to mention here that Ijaz claims he was first contacted by Husain Haqqani on May 9. Jones said he was informed by Ijaz that he had a message from the top leadership of Pakistan and that he wanted to send it to Admiral Mike Mullen. Jones adds Ijaz never used the name of Husain Haqqani during their conversation and that he informed Ijaz that he could not pass on a verbal message. Jones claims that in his opinion Haqqani had no knowledge about the memo. On May 9, Jones said that he received an email from Ijaz and added that he thought the memo was written by Ijaz himself. According to Jones, the type of language used in the memo was similar to how Ijaz would speak. REFERENCE: Ijaz never said Haqqani was involved in writting the memo: James Jones Updated 21 hours ago http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=28781&title=%E2%80%98Ijaz-never-said-Haqqani-was-involved%E2%80%99

Lekin - 16th december 2011 part 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAg4cMGEQpM

Moral of the Story

Did our founding fathers have any idea of the kind of country they were creating? A country where conspiracies would never cease and stability would never come. Sixty-four years, going on sixty-five, and not one peaceful transition from one democratic government to another. Quite a record and we seem determined it should remain like this forever. Mansoor Ijaz must be laughing up his sleeve, the most flattered man in the world. After all, it is no small thing to throw the one-and-only Fortress of Islam, the world’s sole Islamic nuclear power (as we keep reminding ourselves), into a mad spin by something bizarre you have set in motion. The composure of the Islamic Republic torpedoed by a memo: quite an achievement. But a con job is only as good as its gullible target. And what easier target, what more willing assembly of fools, than Pakistan’s movers-and-shakers: a claque of media-men eager for adventure, politicos despairing of removing Zardari and finally sensing their opportunity, and generals with a gift for conspiracy, long wanting an excuse to target Asif Zardari, their bête noire, and hard put to find a handy instrument to achieve their goal until they stumble upon the godsend of Ijaz’s memo. The Sheikh of our distress and his Abbottabad hideout are forgotten, other disasters from the past erased from the tablet of memory: all that rivets the minds of our leading ideological warriors is the memo delivered to Admiral Mike Mullen and, if imperfect evidence is to be believed, forgotten promptly by him. But we should be under no illusion. The drama being played out has nothing to do with imperilled national security. For once Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is right. This is a conspiracy against democracy with some pretty unsavoury characters involved, including the smiling, oily senator alluded to obliquely by Gilani. These characters, conspirators for the sake of conspiracy, know what they are up to. So they are not gullible, far from it. But they are taking the nation for a ride. And they have also managed to make an issue of Zardari’s illness. Had this problem been confined to newspaper columns or TV chat-shows it would have been no great matter. But when an extended bench, also becomes involved by taking up the matter for hearing, then the whole thing takes on a more serious aspect, especially when the word bandied about the most loosely is treason. That, surely, is no laughing matter, even if we have devalued the meaning of most things. Strange indeed are the ways of the Islamic Republic. In few other countries would such a farce be taken seriously. Here we are milking it for all it is worth because the holy troika behind it – media-men, a section of politicos and one or two key generals – has other fish to fry, ‘Get Zardari’ the name of their grand strategic manoeuvre. In Thursday’s papers there was a thoughtful piece on the economy by former State Bank governor, Muhammad Yaqub. In it he said that before all else we should be looking to the state of the economy or Pakistan would be undone. He might as well have preached to deaf ears. The guardians of national security are seized with other matters. The PML-N’s position is the strangest of all. On the one hand Nawaz Sharif talks of foiling conspiracies against democracy, on the other hand forgetting that if there is one Trojan horse that can breach the walls of democracy and bring the whole edifice down it is his petition about the memo in the Supreme Court. What exactly is the PML-N hoping to achieve? It would be fascinating to know the intellectual journey leading to the filing of this petition. Every last cynic can at least be sure of one thing. Pulling the real strings are neither media-men nor politicos – whether of the N-League or any other denomination – but our holy guardians. Without their eager interest the fires of conspiracy we presently see illuminating the sky would scarcely be lit. The guardians have been saving the nation for the last 60 years, with what results we know. Let’s pray for that miracle, yet to be revealed, which puts an end to nation-saving. If we could see the last of this enterprise Pakistan would be a happier place. One man’s future is no big thing. But at stake in what is presently going on is not just Zardari’s head or position but the course of future politics. Are we at all capable of managing the thing called democracy? Four years have gone by and only one remains before the election tocsin sounds. What’s got into the present band of nation-saviours who have created an encyclopaedia out of a piece of paper that they can’t wait for another year? Gilani is right. You can’t isolate events in a quarantine ward and expect that they would not lead to other consequences. The PNA parties agitated against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in that fateful summer of 1977 but what they got, and what through them the nation got, was not freedom of any kind or the promised kingdom but 11 years of the worst tyranny Pakistan was to experience. Any change now would confirm military supremacy. The military has never acted as anyone’s instrument. When it has its way it sets its own agenda. It doesn’t queer the pitch for others. We can’t afford any more adventures. The memo petition is not good politics. In fact it is a dangerous move which takes a political issue into an arena where it does not belong: the hallowed halls of the apex court. What drives Pakistani politicians to undermine their own position? It is nonsense of the worst kind to maintain that this parliament has become a rubberstamp. Whose rubberstamp? To call Zardari or Gilani dictators is to insult the very word dictator. They are bumbling democrats, with more than their share of mistakes or omissions. But they are not autocrats. They couldn’t be autocrats even if that is what they wanted to be. And if parliament despite this is a rubberstamp, then the only thing to be said is that this is an act of voluntary abdication. No one has forced this role on parliament. Why do we insist on feeding ourselves on shibboleths? Elementary things often escape our understanding. The transition from Musharraf to democracy was not easy. It was brought about not by the lawyers’ movement, much as we may like to glorify that event, but by a set of understandings between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto which the Americans (read Condi Rice and Richard Boucher) helped broker. The NRO was very much part of those understandings. Only with the NRO in place did Benazir Bhutto return to Pakistan. And only when she returned was Nawaz Sharif able to make his way home. The hardest thing was to get Musharraf to shed his uniform. This only happened – mark the logic carefully – after their rightful lordships were deposed through the Nov 3 emergency. The exit of their lordships gave Musharraf the confidence to take off his uniform. Only then were free elections possible. And it was only the democracy born of those elections which created the conditions for the restoration of their lordships. This narrative, convoluted as it is, is forgotten when we substitute shibboleths and self-serving clichés for the truth. There are no knights in shining armour. Most of the paladins around – generals, judges or politicians – have made compromises of one sort or another. To say that the NRO is worse than taking an oath under a dictator-inspired Provisional Constitutional Order is a matter of opinion. Haven’t all their lordships borne the burden of this oath? Shouldn’t this inculcate a measure of tolerance and patience? If what is happening had the flavour of dark conspiracy something still might be said for it. But much of it is plain stupid and, like so much in our history, short-sighted. There is still time to arrest this march of folly. But only if, and this is a big if, we can rise above our limitations. REFERENCE: Death wish of the Pakistani political class Ayaz Amir Friday, December 16, 2011 Email: winlust@yahoo.com http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=82488&Cat=9

Hillary Clinton, Conspiracy Theories & Pakistan Papers.

ISLAMABAD: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday told Pakistan that the country needed to understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not end its problems. “Pakistan should understand that anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not make the problem disappear,” Clinton told a news conference following talks with Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders. Pakistan was left humiliated and angry after an American raid killed Osama bin Laden two hours’ from the capital on May 2. Clinton said there was no evidence that Pakistani government leaders knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding, following talks in Islamabad a month after he was killed. She said that Pakistani officials had said that “somebody, somewhere” was providing support for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan before he was killed by US forces this month. “This was an especially important visit because we have reached a turning point. Osama bin Laden is dead but al Qaeda and his syndicate of terror remain a serious threat to us both,” Clinton said. “There is a momentum toward political reconciliation in Afghanistan but the insurgency continues to operate from safe havens here in Pakistan,” she added, saying she believed that Pakistan and the United States had the same goals. “America cannot and should not solve Pakistan’s problems. That’s up to Pakistan,” she said. REFERENCE: Anti-Americanism will not end Pakistan’s problems: ClintonAgencies Yesterday http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/27/hillary-in-pakistan-to-ask-tough-questions.html

BUT THE MEMO SAYS

KARACHI: When former Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan resigned from Gen Musharraf’s cabinet in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reinstatement in July 2007 of ‘suspended’ Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the Americans were not exactly regretful at Mr Khan’s departure, according to a ‘confidential’ US diplomatic cable accessed by Dawn through WikiLeaks. However, their reasons for being happy to see the back of him had nothing to do with the disastrous handling of the CJ issue by the Musharraf government’s legal team. In a cable dated August 6, 2007, then US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson wrote that despite her reservations over Mr Khan’s “controversial” replacement, “We will not be sorry to see Khan go, as he blocked further negotiations on the bilateral investment treaty over concerns about investor-state arbitration and other issues.” Ms Patterson had been expressing her views on the resignation of Mr Khan and the appointment of Malik Qayyum as the new attorney general by Gen Musharraf. “Both the incoming and outgoing attorneys general can be accused of bungling the case of what admittedly was an ill-conceived idea to suspend the Chief Justice,” wrote the former envoy. But she was very specific about the reasons for American displeasure with Makhdoom Ali Khan. Dawn contacted Makhdoom Ali Khan to get the context to Ms Patterson’s remarks. Mr Khan told this scribe that prior to the visit of US President George Bush in 2006, the US officials had been pressing Pakistan to sign the bilateral investment treaty (BIT). “They were insisting that the signing of this treaty was a must,” says Mr Khan. The initial pressure, according to Mr. Khan, came from the presidency itself. “Pakistani officials, including myself, had been in negotiations with the US officials to discuss the treaty,” he said, adding that it was a “sensitive matter” and the relevant documents had to be “vetted in the light of international laws and conventions.” He explained that Pakistan is a signatory to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a subsidiary of the World Bank, and has ratified its conventions. According to ICSID, if Pakistan signs an investment treaty and any of the treaty’s clauses is violated, the matter has to be referred for arbitration under the terms of the treaty. “We wanted to protect our side and I had told the Americans that we are ready to negotiate, but I refused to sign on the dotted line,” he said. According to him, there had been many clauses in the treaty which were against the interests of Pakistan. REFERENCE: When US tried to force its terms for investment treaty By Idrees Bakhtiar | From the Newspaper Yesterday http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/27/when-us-tried-to-force-its-terms-for-investment-treaty-2.html 2007: US “will not be sorry to see Makhdoom Ali Khan go”  http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/27/2007-us-%E2%80%9Cwill-not-be-sorry-to-see-makhdoom-ali-khan-go%E2%80%9D.html

Anti Americanism:)

Rumsfeld's War

URL: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5615769915990565718

This report traces Donald Rumsfeld's career from his time as an adviser to President Nixon to his rise as the oft-seen and well-known face of the George W. Bush administration during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In interviews with key administration officials, military leaders, and reporters from The Washington Post, the documentary examines how a secretary of defense bent on reform became a secretary of war accused of ignoring the advice of his generals. "He came in determined to reassert civilian control over the Joint Staff and the rest of the military and it was a pretty tough process, a lot of friction in those first months, with Rumsfeld saying, `No, I don't think you heard me clearly. I'm the boss. I want it this way,'" reporter Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post tells FRONTLINE. REFERENCE: Rumsfeld's War | FRONTLINE | PBS October 2004 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/etc/synopsis.html

In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits. In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however—by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers—were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of “crimes against the coalition”; and a small number of suspected “high-value” leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces.

Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners. General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”

A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing: Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.” The photographs—several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes 2” last week—show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant. The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded. Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said. REFERENCE: ANNALS OF NATIONAL SECURITY Torture at Abu Ghraib American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go? by Seymour M. Hersh MAY 10, 2004 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact 

Secrets of the CIA, part 1

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QYZBMIBOck

From Left: United States Air Force; Robert Young Pelton; Mike Wintroath/Associated Press; Adam Berry/Bloomberg News - From left: Michael D. Furlong, the official who was said to have hired private contractors to track militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Robert Young Pelton, a contractor; Duane Clarridge, a former C.I.A. official; and Eason Jordan, a former television news executive. Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants - KABUL, Afghanistan — Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States. The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed formerC.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said. While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work. REFERENCE: Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants By DEXTER FILKINS and MARK MAZZETTI Published: March 14, 2010 A version of this article appeared in print on March 15, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15contractors.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15contractors.html?pagewanted=2

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15contractors.html?pagewanted=3 ALSO READ : The headline read like something you might see in the conspiracy-minded Pakistani press: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants." But the story appeared in Monday's New York Times, and it highlighted some big problems that have developed in the murky area between military and intelligence activities. The starting point for understanding this covert intrigue is that the U.S. military has long been unhappy about the quality of CIA intelligence in Afghanistan. The frustration surfaced publicly in January in a report by the top military intelligence officer in Kabul, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, that began: "Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy." REFERENCE: Outsourcing intelligence By David Ignatius Wednesday, March 17, 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031602625.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Secrets of the CIA, part 2

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKq6L9U3hTw

Blond Ghost is a biography of Ted Shackley, who in his twenty eight year career with the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be the Associate Deputy Director for Operations, one of the top positions at the CIA. Shackley was involved in many of the central events of the cold war and its aftermath. His intelligence career started in Berlin, at the beginning of the cold war, before the Berlin wall went up. Shackley later served as CIA station chief in Miami, Laos and Saigon. In the 1970s he was the head of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division during the CIA's campaign to over throw Allende in Argentina. After Shackley left the CIA in 1979, he became associated with the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Shackley's connection to so many important events in the history of the CIA and the United States makes him an interesting figure. His career also reflects, to a remarkable degree, the fortunes and nature of the CIA itself. I read Blond Ghost because Ted Shackley was the CIA station chief in Laos during a critical period, when the secret war (secret from the American people, that is) was escalated. After reading David Warner's book Back Fire, I became curious about the accuracy of his reporting. Warner believes that the CIA men were "honorable men", fighting the good fight, but somehow it went horribly wrong. Given Warner's amazingly brief biography on the book jacket, and his views on the virtues of the CIA's employees, I came to wonder if Warner himself actually had CIA connections. David Corn, the author of Blond Ghost, is the Washington editor of The Nation, which is famous for its leftist views. I thought that Blond Ghost might provide another perspective on the events in Laos. In Blond Ghost, David Corn has written an extremely well researched and balanced account of Ted Shackley's career and the history of the CIA (much more balanced than many articles I have read in The Nation). In the epilogue of Blonde Ghost, David Corn quotes a CIA officer who was responsible for one of the provincial regions in Vietnam and who was later operations chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division. It's hard for people to understand who have not been there. Its easy for people -- especially people of another generation -- to view what we did with their own perspective. I fought the communists for twenty-eight years. I did a lot of bad things for my country. But I loved my country and did what I thought best. REFERENCE: Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades by David Corn 412 pages, 1994, Simon and Schuster http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/blond_ghost.htm http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blond-Ghost-Shackley-Cias-Crusades/dp/0671695258

Secrets of the CIA, part 3

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Ka7Eknv1c

President Bush last month signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake its most sweeping and lethal covert action since the founding of the agency in 1947, explicitly calling for the destruction of Osama bin Laden and his worldwide al Qaeda network, according to senior government officials. The president also added more than $1 billion to the agency's war on terrorism, most of it for the new covert action. The operation will include what officials said is "unprecedented" coordination between the CIA and commando and other military units. Officials said that the president, operating through his "war cabinet," has pledged to dispatch military units to take advantage of the CIA's latest and best intelligence.

Bush's order, called an intelligence "finding," instructs the agency to attack bin Laden's communications, security apparatus and infrastructure, senior government officials said. U.S. intelligence has identified new and important specific weaknesses in the bin Laden organization that are not publicly known, and these vulnerabilities will be the focus of the lethal covert action, sources said. "The gloves are off," one senior official said. "The president has given the agency the green light to do whatever is necessary. Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now underway." The CIA's covert action is a key part of the president's offensive against terrorism, but the agency is also playing a critical role in the defense against future terrorist attacks. For example, each day a CIA document called the "Threat Matrix," which has the highest security classification ("Top Secret/Codeword"), lands on the desks of the top national security and intelligence officials in the Bush administration. It presents the freshest and most sensitive raw intelligence on dozens of threatened bombings, hijackings or poisonings. Only threats deemed to have some credibility are included in the document.

One day last week, the Threat Matrix contained 100 threats to U.S. facilities in the United States and around the world -- shopping complexes, specific cities, places where thousands gather, embassies. Though nearly all the listed threats have passed without incident and 99 percent turned out to be groundless, dozens more take their place in the matrix each day. It was the matrix that generated the national alert of impending terrorist action issued by the FBI on Oct. 11. The goal of the matrix is simple: Look for patterns and specific details that might prevent another Sept. 11. "I don't think there has been such risk to the country since the Cuban missile crisis," a senior official said. During an interview in his West Wing office Friday morning, Vice President Cheney spoke of the new war on terrorism as much more problematic and protracted than the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when Cheney served as secretary of defense to Bush's father. The vice president bluntly said: "It is different than the Gulf War was, in the sense that it may never end. At least, not in our lifetime."

Pushing the Envelope

In issuing the finding that targets bin Laden, the president has said he wants the CIA to undertake high-risk operations. He has stated to his advisers that he is willing to risk failure in the pursuit of ultimate victory, even if the results are some embarrassing public setbacks in individual operations. The overall military and covert plan is intended to be massive and decisive, officials said. "If you are going to push the envelope some things will go wrong, and [President Bush] sees that and understands risk-taking," one senior official said. In the interview, Cheney said, "I think it's fair to say you can't predict a straight line to victory. You know, there'll be good days and bad days along the way." The new determination among Bush officials to go after bin Laden and his network is informed by their pained knowledge that U.S. intelligence last spring obtained high quality video of bin Laden himself but were unable to act on it. The video showed bin Laden with his distinctive beard and white robes surrounded by a large entourage at one of his known locations in Afghanistan. But neither the CIA nor the U.S. military had the means to shoot a missile or another weapon at him while he was being photographed.

Since then, the CIA-operated Predator unmanned drone with high-resolution cameras has been equipped with Hellfire antitank missiles that can be fired at targets of opportunity. The technology was not operational at the time bin Laden was caught on video. The weapons capability, which was revealed last week in the New Yorker magazine, was developed specifically to attack bin Laden, the officials said. In addition, with the U.S. military heavily deployed in some nations around Afghanistan, commando and other units are now available to move quickly on bin Laden or his key associates as intelligence becomes available. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies recently received an important break in the effort to track down terrorist leaders overseas, according to officials. The FBI and CIA have been given limited access in the last several weeks to a top bin Laden lieutenant who was arrested after Sept. 11 and is being held in a foreign country. The person, whose various aliases include "Abu Ahmed," is "a significant player," in the words of one senior Bush official. Ahmed was arrested with five other members of al Qaeda. He is believed by several senior officials to be the highest-ranking member of al Qaeda ever held for systematic interrogation. Though Ahmed has not given information about future terrorist operations, he has provided some details about the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in a Yemeni port, when 17 sailors were killed. One source said he also has information about the planned terrorist attacks in the United States that were disrupted before the millennium celebrations in December 1999. REFERENCE: CIA Told to Do 'Whatever Necessary' to Kill Bin Laden Agency and Military Collaborating at 'Unprecedented' Level; Cheney Says War Against Terror 'May Never End' By Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 21, 2001; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27452-2001Oct20?language=printer

Secrets of the CIA, part 4

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKkYVVInRnc

Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Countries, Including in Latin America Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh created a stir earlier this month when he said the Bush administration ran an “executive assassination ring” that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney. “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh said. Seymour Hersh joins us to explain. [includes rush transcript] http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/31/seymour_hersh_secret_us_forces_carried Seymour Hersh, Dick Cheney & Secret Assassination Wing http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/05/seymor-hersh-dick-cheney-secret.html

Secrets of the CIA, part 5

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUqMAk2tdTQ

Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, Former Prime Minister of Iran [28 April 1951 – 19 August 1953]Mosaddeq was removed from power in a 19 August 1953 coup supported and funded by the British and U.S. governments and led by General Fazlollah Zahedi.[Secrets of History: The C.I.A in Iran By JAMES RISEN http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html





Secrets of History: The C.I.A in Iran By JAMES RISEN http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, [26 October 1919, Tehran – 27 July 1980, Cairo] with his wife.

The Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of its covert operation to overthrow Iran's government in 1953 offers an inside look at how the agency stumbled into success, despite a series of mishaps that derailed its original plans. Written in 1954 by one of the coup's chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran's elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist. 

The document shows that:

Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister.The C.I.A. and S.I.S., the British intelligence service, handpicked Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and covertly funneled $5 million to General Zahedi's regime two days after the coup prevailed. Iranians working for the C.I.A. and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government. The shah's cowardice nearly killed the C.I.A. operation. Fearful of risking his throne, the Shah repeatedly refused to sign C.I.A.-written royal decrees to change the government. The agency arranged for the shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlevi, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Desert Storm commander, to act as intermediaries to try to keep him from wilting under pressure. He still fled the country just before the coup succeeded.

“What’s New on the Iran 1953 Coup in the New York Times Article (April 16, 2000, front page) and the Documents Posted on the Web” By Professor Mark Gasiorowski19 April 2000 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/

There is not much in the NYT article itself that is not covered in my article on the coup (“The 1953 Coup d’Etat in Iran” published in 1987 in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and available in the Gulf2000 archives) or other sources on the coup. The most interesting new tidbit here is that the CIA’s agents harassed religious leaders and bombed one’s home in order to turn them against Mossadeq. The article does not say, but this was probably done by Iranians working in the BEDAMN network, which is described in my article. There are also some new details on how that US persuaded the shah to agree to the coup, including a statement that Assadollah Rashidian was involved in this effort and that General Schwartzkopf, Sr. played a larger role in this than was previously known. There are also a few details reported in the article that I knew about but chose not to reveal, including that Donald Wilber and Norman Derbyshire developed the original coup plan and that the plan was known as TPAJAX, rather than simply AJAX. (The TP prefix indicated that the operation was to be carried out in Iran.) The NYT article does not say anything about a couple of matters that remain controversial about the coup, including whether Ayatollah Kashani played a role in organizing the crowds and whether the CIA team organized “fake” Tudeh Party crowds as part of the effort. There may be something on these issues in the 200-page history itself.

Much more important than the NYT article are the two documents appended to the summary document giving operational plans for the coup. These contain a wealth of interesting information. They indicate that the British played a larger—though still subordinate—role in the coup than was previously known, providing part of the financing for it and using their intelligence network (led by the Rashidian brothers) to influence members of the parliament and do other things. The CIA described the coup plan as “quasi-legal,” referring to the fact that the shah legally dismissed Mossadeq but presumably acknowledging that he did not do so on his own initiative. These documents make clear that the CIA was prepared to go forward with the coup even if the shah opposed it. There is a suggestion that the CIA use counterfeit Iranian currency to somehow show that Mossadeq was ruining the economy, though I’m not sure this was ever done. The documents indicate that Fazlollah Zahedi and his military colleagues were given large sums of money (at least $50,000) before the coup, perhaps to buy their support. Most interestingly, they indicate that various clerical leaders and organizations—whose names are blanked out—were to play a major role in the coup. Finally, the author(s) of the London plan—presumably Wilber and Derbyshire—say some rather nasty things about the Iranians, including that there is a “recognized incapacity of Iranians to plan or act in a thoroughly logical manner.”

Perhaps the most general conclusion that can be drawn from these documents is that the CIA extensively stage-managed the entire coup, not only carrying it out but also preparing the groundwork for it by subordinating various important Iranian political actors and using propaganda and other instruments to influence public opinion against Mossadeq. This is a point that was made in my article and other published accounts, but it is strongly confirmed in these documents. In my view, this thoroughly refutes the argument that is commonly made in Iranian monarchist exile circles that the coup was a legitimate “popular uprising” on behalf of the shah.

In reply to Nikki Keddie’s (UCLA) questions about whether the NYT article got the story right, I would say it is impossible to tell until the 200-page document comes out. Nikki’s additional comment that these documents may not be entirely factual but may instead reveal certain biases held by their authors is an important one. Wilber was not in Iran while the coup was occurring, and his account of it can only have been based on his debriefing of Kermit Roosevelt and other participants. Some facts were inevitably lost or misinterpreted in this process, especially since this was a rapidly changing series of events. This being said, I doubt that there will be any major errors in the 200-page history. While Wilber had his biases, he certainly was a competent historian. I can think of no reason he might have wanted to distort this account.

Here are a few other notes. It is my understanding that these documents were given to the NYT well before Secretary Albright’s recent speech, implying that they were not an attempt to upstage or add to the speech by the unnamed “former official” who provided them to the NYT. I think there is still some reason to hope that the 200-page document will be released with excisions by the NYT. I certainly hope they do so.

Secrets of the CIA, part 6

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IJ9CwSVG-I

A senior delegation of Afghanistan's Taleban movement has gone to the United States for talks. The delegation is to meet officials of the company which wants to build a pipeline to export gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company -- Unocal in Texas -- said it had agreed with Turkmenistan to sell its gas. Last month an Argentinian company (Bridas) said it would soon sign a deal to build the pipeline.Unocal is said to have already begun teaching Afghan men technical skills. The BBC regional correspondent says a pipeline deal would boost the Afghan economy, but peace must be established first, and that still seems a distant prospect. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service. REFERENCE: Taleban to Texas for pipeline talks Wednesday, 3 December, 1997, 15:56 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/36735.stm

President George Bush recently boasted: "When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive." President Bush should know that there are no targets in Afghanistan that will give his missiles their money's worth. Perhaps, if only to balance his books, he should develop some cheaper missiles to use on cheaper targets and cheaper lives in the poor countries of the world. But then, that may not make good business sense to the Coalition's weapons manufacturers. It wouldn't make any sense at all, for example, to the Carlyle Group- described by the Industry Standard as 'the world's largest private equity firm', with $12 billion under management. Carlyle invests in the defense sector and makes its money from military conflicts and weapons spending.

Carlyle is run by men with impeccable credentials. Former US defense secretary Frank Carlucci is Carlyle's chairman and managing director (he was a college roommate of Donald Rumsfeld's). Carlyle's other partners include former US secretary of state James A. Baker III, George Soros, Fred Malek (George Bush Sr's campaign manager). An American paper - the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel - says that former President George Bush Sr is reported to be seeking investments for the Carlyle Group from Asian markets. He is reportedly paid not inconsiderable sums of money to make 'presentations' to potential government-clients.

Ho Hum. As the tired saying goes, it's all in the family.

Then there's that other branch of traditional family business - oil. Remember, President George Bush (Jr) and Vice-President Dick Cheney both made their fortunes working in the US oil industry. 

Turkmenistan, which borders the northwest of Afghanistan, holds the world's third largest gas reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries.) America has always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its military presence in the Gulf has little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with its strategic interest in oil.

Oil and gas from the Caspian region currently moves northward to European markets. Geographically and politically, Iran and Russia are major impediments to American interests. In 1998, Dick Cheney - then CEO of Halliburton, a major player in the oil industry - said: "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight." True enough. For some years now, an American oil giant called Unocal has been negotiating with the Taliban for permission to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to the Arabian Sea. From here, Unocal hopes to access the lucrative 'emerging markets' in South and Southeast Asia. In December 1997, a delegation of Taliban mullahs traveled to America and even met US State Department officials and Unocal executives in Houston. At that time the Taliban's taste for public executions and its treatment of Afghan women were not made out to be the crimes against humanity that they are now. Over the next six months, pressure from hundreds of outraged American feminist groups was brought to bear on the Clinton administration. Fortunately, they managed to scuttle the deal. And now comes the US oil industry's big chance. REFERENCE: War Is Peace by Arundhati Roy (October 2001) http://www.wussu.com/current/roy.htm 

World: West Asia

Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline

The 1,300km pipeline will carry gas across Afghanistan's harsh terrain

A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas. Unocal says it has agreements both with Turkmenistan to sell its gas and with Pakistan to buy it.

The Afghan economy has been devasted by 20 years of civil war

But, despite the civil war in Afghanistan, Unocal has been in competition with an Argentinian firm, Bridas, to actually construct the pipeline. Last month, the Argentinian firm, Bridas, announced that it was close to signing a two-billion dollar deal to build the pipeline, which would carry gas 1,300 kilometres from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, across Afghanistan. In May, Taleban-controlled radio in Kabul said a visiting delegation from an Argentinian company had announced that pipeline construction would start "soon".

Kabul

The radio has reported several visits to Kabul by Unocal and Bridas company officials over the past few months. A BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea. With the various Afghan factions still at war, the project has looked from the outside distinctly unpromising. Last month the Taleban Minister of Information and Culture, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said the Taleban had held talks with both American and Argentine-led consortia over transit rights but that no final agreement had yet been reached. He said an official team from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan should meet to ensure each country benefited from any deal. However, Unocal clearly believes it is still in with a chance - to the extent that it has already begun training potential staff. It has commissioned the University of Nebraska to teach Afghan men the technical skills needed for pipeline construction. Nearly 140 people were enrolled last month in Kandahar and Unocal also plans to hold training courses for women in administrative skills.

Women face working restrictions under Taleban rule

Although the Taleban authorities only allow women to work in the health sector, organisers of the training say they haven't so far raised any objections. The BBC regional correspondent says the Afghan economy has been devastated by 20 years of civil war. A deal to go ahead with the pipeline project could give it a desperately-needed boost. But peace must be established first -- and that for the moment still seems a distant prospect.  REFERENCE: World: West Asia Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline Thursday, December 4, 1997 Published at 19:27 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

Top secret NSA - by Discovery Channel - 1-5

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u0_n8wilp8

In 2002, President Bush toured the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Md., with Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was then the agency's director and is now a full general and the principal deputy director of national intelligence. [Doug Mills/Associated Press] WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials. Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications. The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches. "This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches." Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight. According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said. REFERENCE: Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: December 16, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html

Top secret NSA - by Discovery Channel - 2-5

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPK41-Cc4fU

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts. The Justice Department, in response to inquiries from The New York Times, acknowledged Wednesday night that there had been problems with the N.S.A. surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved. As part of a periodic review of the agency’s activities, the department “detected issues that raised concerns,” it said. Justice Department officials then “took comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance” with the law and court orders, the statement said. It added that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. went to the national security court to seek a renewal of the surveillance program only after new safeguards were put in place. REFERENCE: Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN Published: April 15, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html

Top secret NSA - by Discovery Channel - 3-5

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCc53JumxuA

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush. In a 45-page opinion, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance when it intercepted phone calls of Al Haramain, a now-defunct Islamic charity in Oregon, and of two lawyers representing it in 2004. Declaring that the plaintiffs had been “subjected to unlawful surveillance,” the judge said the government was liable to pay them damages. The ruling delivered a blow to the Bush administration’s claims that its surveillance program, which Mr. Bush secretly authorized shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was lawful. Under the program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans’ international e-mail messages and phone calls without court approval, even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, required warrants. The Justice Department said it was reviewing the decision and had made no decision about whether to appeal. The ruling by Judge Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, rejected the Justice Department’s claim — first asserted by the Bush administration and continued under President Obama — that the charity’s lawsuit should be dismissed without a ruling on the merits because allowing it to go forward could reveal state secrets. The judge characterized that expansive use of the so-called state-secrets privilege as amounting to “unfettered executive-branch discretion” that had “obvious potential for governmental abuse and overreaching.” That position, he said, would enable government officials to flout the warrant law, even though Congress had enacted it “specifically to rein in and create a judicial check for executive-branch abuses of surveillance authority.” Because the government merely sought to block the suit under the state-secrets privilege, it never mounted a direct legal defense of the N.S.A. program in the Haramain case. REFERENCE: Federal Judge Finds N.S.A. Wiretaps Were Illegal By CHARLIE SAVAGE and JAMES RISEN Published: March 31, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/us/01nsa.html

Top secret NSA - by Discovery Channel - 4-5

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQPdOl3ybXk

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama will face a series of early decisions on domestic spying that will test his administration’s views on presidential power and civil liberties. The Justice Department will be asked to respond to motions in legal challenges to the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, and must decide whether to continue the tactics used by the Bush administration — which has used broad claims of national security and “state secrets” to try to derail the challenges — or instead agree to disclose publicly more information about how the program was run. When he takes office, Mr. Obama will inherit greater power in domestic spying power than any other new president in more than 30 years, but he may find himself in an awkward position as he weighs how to wield it. As a presidential candidate, he condemned the N.S.A. operation as illegal, and threatened to filibuster a bill that would grant the government expanded surveillance powers and provide immunity to phone companies that helped in the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants. But Mr. Obama switched positions and ultimately supported the measure in the Senate, angering liberal supporters who accused him of bowing to pressure from the right. Advisers to Mr. Obama appear divided over whether he should push forcefully to investigate the operations of the wiretapping program, which was run in secret from September 2001 until December 2005. Mr. Obama recently started receiving classified briefings on intelligence operations from Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. The Obama transition team declined to say whether Mr. Obama had been briefed on the agency’s eavesdropping operations. His transition team also declined requests to discuss his current views on domestic surveillance or how his administration would respond to legal challenges growing out of it. But there has been no shortage of debate among lawyers involved in the challenges to the program. REFERENCE: Early Test for Obama on Domestic Spying Views By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: November 17, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/washington/18nsa.html

 Top secret NSA - by Discovery Channel - 5-5

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU3mHNBjqKQ

President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night. The super-secretive NSA, which has generally been barred from domestic spying except in narrow circumstances involving foreign nationals, has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people under the program, the New York Times disclosed last night. The aim of the program was to rapidly monitor the phone calls and other communications of people in the United States believed to have contact with suspected associates of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups overseas, according to two former senior administration officials. Authorities, including a former NSA director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, were worried that vital information could be lost in the time it took to secure a warrant from a special surveillance court, sources said. But the program's ramifications also prompted concerns from some quarters, including Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, and the presiding judge of the surveillance court, which oversees lawful domestic spying, according to the Times. The Times said it held off on publishing its story about the NSA program for a year after administration officials said its disclosure would harm national security. The White House made no comment last night. A senior official reached by telephone said the issue was too sensitive to talk about. None of several press officers responded to telephone or e-mail messages. REFERENCE: Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Post-9/11 Order Bypassed Special Court By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 16, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121600021.html Justice Dept. Investigating Leak of NSA Wiretapping Probe Seeks Source Of Classified Data By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 31, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123000538.html

 A Vicious Racist Homosexual. J Edgar Hoover - 1

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uij10Txog80

A biography of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI for 50 years, reveals the shocking extent of his sinister influence over American politics and society and exposes his controversial personal life. The book is based on 700 interviews and tens of thousands of documents. About the Author Anthony Summers formerly covered wars and other world new events for the BBC. He has written five previous books, including Goddess, a best-selling biography of Marilyn Monroe, and Conspiracy, an acclaimed study of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Summers lives in Ireland with his wife and principal colleague, Robbyn Swan. He has four sons and a daughter. Of course today, the Hoover legend is not just about crime fighting. It has as much to do with playing fast and loose with civil liberties, with collecting vast secret files on innocent people — a powerful man with secrets of his own, including rumors of bizarre sexual behavior. REFERENCES: Official And Confidential: The Secret Life of J.Edgar Hoover BY Anthony Summers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Confidential-Secret-J-Edgar-Hoover/dp/0575042362 & The secrets of J. Edgar Hoover A new book reveals the keys to his power, the secrets he hid and the real story of the feared and mysterious man who built the FBI. By John Hockenberry Dateline NBC updated 4/12/2004 12:10:40 AM ET http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4638275/ns/dateline_nbc/t/secrets-j-edgar-hoover/

 A Vicious Racist Homosexual. J Edgar Hoover - 2

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87iKmjKyMzs

COINTELPRO is an acronym for a series of FBI counterintelligence programs designed to neutralize political dissidents. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against radical political organizations. In the early 1950s, the Communist Party was illegal in the United States. The Senate and House of Representatives each set up investigating committees to prosecute communists and publicly expose them. (The House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy). When a series of Supreme Court rulings in 1956 and 1957 challenged these committees and questioned the constitutionality of Smith Act prosecutions and Subversive Activities Control Board hearings, the FBI's response was COINTELPRO, a program designed to "neutralize" those who could no longer be prosecuted. Over the years, similar programs were created to neutralize civil rights, anti-war, and many other groups, many of which were said to be "communist front organizations." As J. Edgar Hoover, longtime Director of the FBI, put it

The forces which are most anxious to weaken our internal security are not always easy to identify. Communists have been trained in deceit and secretly work toward the day when they hope to replace our American way of life with a Communist dictatorship. They utilize cleverly camouflaged movements, such as peace groups and civil rights groups to achieve their sinister purposes. While they as individuals are difficult to identify, the Communist party line is clear. Its first concern is the advancement of Soviet Russia and the godless Communist cause. It is important to learn to know the enemies of the American way of life.

The FBI conducted more than 2000 COINTELPRO operations before the the programs were officially discontinued in April of 1971, after public exposure, in order to " REFERENCE: http://www.cointel.org/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm - Pakistan: Partition and Military Succession – Documents from the U.S. National Archives http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/pakistan/pakistan.htm

A Vicious Racist Homosexual. J Edgar Hoover - 3

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoQzT3YfBpk

"QUOTE"

The FBI's COINTELPRO (COunterINTELligencePROgram), which targeted civil-rights and anti-war activists in the 1960s and early 1970s and ...... of the FBI's COINTELPRO are disturbing. For three years, the FBI kept a file on Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes and tried to stop him from - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB93/Website FOIA Stories 2003.doc http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl

"UNQUOTE"

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/06/2017

TAGS: PGOV, PK

SUBJECT: PAKISTAN’S CONTROVERSIAL NEW ATTORNEY GENERAL

Classified By: Anne W. Patterson, Reasons 1.4 (b), (d)

1. (C) Summary: By offering to resign, Pakistan’s Attoreny General became the only cabinet member to take the blame for the Chief Justice debacle.   But his replacement, Malik Qayyum, has a checkered history and is already proving controversial.  Qayyum was the presiding judge in the 1999 conviction of Benazir Bhutto, represented Shahbaz Sharif in his 2003 petition to return without facing deportation and most recently was the most vocal member of Musharraf’s defense team on the Chief Justice case.  As the official who represents the government before the Supreme Court, Qayyum will face growing pressure to deal with judicial appeals on everything from the composition of voter lists to cases challenging Musharraf’s right to govern.  But allegations of corruption and a poor record of supporting judicial independence are likely to weaken his effectiveness.  End

Summary.

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Khan Resigns, Citing Need for Accountability

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2. (U) On July 28, Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan submitted his resignation, citing the need for government accountability in the wake of the Chief Justice controversy. President Musharraf accepted the resignation and on August 1 appointed Malik Qayyum, a member of his defense team from the Chief Justice case, as the new Attorney General.

3. (U) After the Supreme Court reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in July, there have been repeated calls for resignations, including those of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Law Minister Wasi Zafar and Attorney General Khan.  Khan is the only one to have done so.

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Qayyum: A Controversial Replacement

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4. (C) Qayyum, the new Attorney General, is a controversial figure.  He was the presiding judge in the Accountability Court that in April 1999 convicted Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari for accepting kickbacks in return for awarding government contracts.  The Supreme Court ordered a retrial of the case in 2001, however, when a leaked government document indicated that Qayyum had been pressured by the Nawaz Sharif government to speed the conclusion of the case and to press for maximum punishment.  (Note: There were also accusations that in return for his cooperation, Qayyum’s brother, Pervaiz Malik, was granted a ticket for a National Assembly seat and that Qayyum and his wife received diplomatic passports.  End Note.) After the accusations were made public, Qayyum was pressured to tender his resignation to the Lahore High Court and went into private practice.  In 2003, Qayyum represented Shahbaz Sharif in his petition to return to Pakistan without facing deportation.  Qayyum most recently served on President Musharraf’s defense team for the Chief Justice case, where he emerged as Musharraf’s most vocal advocate. 

5. (U) Soon after his appointment was announced, the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association (which Qayyum used to head) rejected it, saying that Qayyum had betrayed the lawyers’ fraternity by siding with the government in the struggle for judicial independence. For its part, the Pakistan Bar Council anounced that Qayyum will not be accepted as its chair (a traditional role for Pakistan’s Attorney General). 

6. (C) Comment:  Both the incoming and outgoing Attorneys General can be accused of bungling the case of what admittedly was an ill-conceived idea to suspend the Chief Justice.  We will not be sorry to see Khan go, as he blocked further negotiations on the bilateral investment treaty over concerns about investor-state arbitration and other issues. However, Qayyum seems a weak choice to become Attorney General at a particularly critical time for executive-judicial relations in Pakistan.

PATTERSON