[Dawn] Pakistain Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
denied a military intervention was imminent against his government over a secret memo that sought US help to prevent a supposed coup.
They usually say something like that just before the tanks roll out...
Wonder if the guy who whacked Morticia is still available...
Tensions between the army and government appear to have soared in recent days as intelligence chiefs demanded an inquiry into the scandal that threatens to implicate President Asif Ali
President Ten PercentZardari
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
, who is abroad following an illness.
"There is no room for a martial law in Pakistain," Gilani said in a brief televised interaction with the media in Lahore, two days after he met army chief General Ashfaq Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
in Islamabad.
Pakistain's military, which has staged four coups, remains the chief power-broker in the country.
But Gilani described the memo as a "non-issue" which was being blown up unnecessarily.
The scandal relates to a memo that sought US intervention to prevent a feared military coup in exchange for overhauling Pakistain's security leadership after US troops killed the late Osama bin Laden
... who has made the transition back to dust...
near the Pak capital on May 2.
The existence of the document came to light when American-Pak businessman Mansoor Ijaz wrote in the Financial Times that Zardari feared the military might overthrow his government.
Ijaz accused Pakistain's ambassador to Washington, a close aide of Zardari's, of crafting the memo with the president's support.