Pakistan asks its U.S. envoy to quit after memo controversy

Pakistan’s government has asked its U.S. envoy to resign and ordered a probe into claims that he sought American help against the country’s powerful military, a statement said Tuesday. Hussain Haqqani, a close aide of President Asif Ali Zardari, has played a key role in helping Pakistan’s civilian government navigate turbulent relations with Washington which nosedived over the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Local media reports implicated Haqqani in a memo allegedly sent from Zardari to Admiral Mike Mullen, then America’s top military officer, seeking to curtail Pakistan’s military shortly after it was humiliated by the bin Laden killing. Zardari reportedly feared that the military might seize power in a bid to limit the hugely damaging fallout in Pakistan after Navy SEALs killed bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2. “The Prime Minister asked Pakistan Ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Hussain Haqqani to submit his resignation,” Gilani’s spokesman said in a statement, adding that the government had ordered a “detailed investigation” into the issue. Haqqani has offered to resign over the row, but has denied any involvement with the document. The spokesman said, “all concerned would be afforded sufficient and fair opportunity to present their views and the investigation shall be carried out fairly, objectively and without bias”. “As a result of controversy generated by the alleged memo which had been drafted, formulated and further admitted to have been received by authority in the U.S., it has become necessary in national interest to formally arrive at the actual and true facts”. The alleged memo was revealed last month by American businessman Mansoor Ijaz. In an opinion piece in the UK’s Financial Times on October 10, Ijaz wrote that a “senior Pakistani diplomat” telephoned him in May soon after bin Laden’s death, urging him to deliver a message to the White House bypassing Pakistan’s military and intelligence chiefs. “The president feared a military takeover was imminent” and “needed an American fist on his army chief’s desk to end any misguided notions of a coup – and fast,” he wrote. He said a memo was delivered to Mullen on May 10, offering that a “new national security team” would end relations between Pakistani intelligence and Afghan militants, namely the Taliban and its Haqqani faction. Mark Siegel, a lobbyist who represents the Pakistani government in Washington, said Zardari called him when the Financial Times story appeared, asking his law firm to initiate libel proceedings against the paper and against Ijaz. Siegel advised Zardari against filing a case because he judged it difficult for a public figure to win a libel case in a U.S. court. “He was irate and said the memo was a total fabrication,” Siegel said. Siegel, who has known Zardari for 25 years, said he was absolutely certain that Zardari had known nothing about the memo. Meanwhile, Haqqani called for a transparent inquiry into the controversy to strengthen the hands of elected Pakistani leadership. “A transparent inquiry will strengthen the hands of elected leaders whom I strived to strengthen,” he said in a message sent to reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday. He said “to me, Pakistan and Pakistan’s democracy are far more important than any artificially created crisis over an insignificant memo written by a self-centered businessman.” “I have served Pakistan to the best of my ability and will continue to do so.” Haqqani’s resignation was seen by many analysts as further weakening the civilian government, which is already beset by allegations of corruption and incompetence. “They (the military) may expect much more from the government, much more beyond the resignation of Husain Haqqani, because they see that everybody perceived to be involved in this affair will be seen as anti-military and by implication anti-state,” said Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst in Islamabad. Haqqani’s successor might include a diplomat with a less complicated relationship with the military, perhaps Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir or Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations, Hussain Haroon. “Whether Pakistan’s people or its military will be represented in DC will become evident when Husain Haqqani’s replacement is announced,” Ali Dayan Hasan, representative for Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said on Twitter.