Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
nor did he recall receiving any correspondence from him.
On Oct 10, Pak-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claimed that President Zardari had sought Washington's help for
removing the army and ISI chiefs and assured the latter that he would cut all ties to beturbanned goon groups if it assisted him do so.
The president allegedly made this offer in a letter he gave Mr Ijaz for personally delivering it to American leaders.
"Admiral Mullen does not know Mr Ijaz and has no recollection of receiving any correspondence from him," said a message from the former US military chief. Capt John Kirby, a former front man for the admiral, said Mr Mullen had asked him to release this message on his behalf.
"I cannot say definitively that correspondence did not come from him -- the admiral received many missives as chairman from many people every day, some official, some not. But he does not recall one from this individual," Capt Kirby told The Cable, a publication associated with the prestigious Foreign Policy group.
"And in any case, he did not take any action with respect to our relationship with Pakistain based on any such correspondence ... preferring to work at the relationship directly through (Pak Army Chief of Staff) Gen (Ashfaq Parvez) Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
and inside the interagency process."
In an article he wrote for London's Financial Times newspaper, Mr Ijaz alleged that President Zardari communicated this offer by sending a top secret memo on May 10 through Mr Ijaz himself, to be hand-delivered to Admiral Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a key official managing the US-Pakistain relationship.
Mr Mullen's denial represents the first official US comment on Mr Ijaz's claimed memo. Several parts of Pakistain's government denied that Mr Ijaz's memorandum ever existed. On Oct 30, presidential front man Farhatullah Babar called Mr Ijaz's op-ed a 'fantasy article' and criticised the FT for running it in the first place.
On Oct 31, Mr Ijaz issued a long statement, threatening to reveal the "senior Pak official" that purportedly sent him on his mission.
Mr Ijaz, who runs the firm Crescent Investment Management LLC in New York, has been an interlocutor between US officials and foreign governments for years. He reportedly arranged meetings between US officials and Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
.
Susan Rice, now the US ambassador to the United Nations
...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas...
, has acknowledged that in the 1990s Mr Ijaz brought the then Clinton administration offers of counter-terrorism cooperation from Sudan but said that actual cooperation never materialised. She was assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration.