Washington: Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari was so scared of a military coup after Osama bin
Laden's death that he was ready to create a "new security
team" favorable to Americans and promised the US to hand over
Pak-based 26/11 perpetrators including those from its
intelligence agency to India.
The promises were part of a secret memo to the then
Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.
The secret memo from Zardari, was apparently handed over
to Mullen by Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American businessman,
in May this year in the aftermath of the May 2 killing of bin
Laden in a safe house in Abbottabad.
The information about this secret memo was first leaked by
Ijaz himself in an op-ed in the Financial Times last month.
According to this memo, Zardari, leading a civilian
government wanted to create a new national security structure.
Ijaz has claimed that this memo was drafted by the Pak
Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, who has denied these
allegations, but has tendered his resignation to Zardari over
the same.
Capt John Kirby, who was Mullen's spokesman, told Pentagon
reporters yesterday in a statement.
"Neither the contents of the memo nor the proof of its
existence altered or affected in any way the manner in which
Adm Mullen conducted himself in his relationship with Gen
Kayani and the Pakistani government," he said.
"He (Mullen) did not find the memo at all credible and
took no note of it then or later. Therefore, he addressed it
with no one," Kirby said.
The content and a copy of the said sacred memo was posted
by The Foreign Policy's blog Cable late last night.
PTI
First Published: Friday, November 18, 2011, 12:12