President Asif Ali
Zardari left Pakistan suddenly on Tuesday, complaining of heart pains, and
is now in Dubai. His planned testimony before a joint session of Pakistan's
parliament on the Memogate scandal is now postponed indefinitely.
On Dec. 4, Zardari announced that he would address Pakistan's
parliament about the Memogate issue, in which his former ambassador to
Washington Husain Haqqani stands accused of orchestrating a scheme to
take power away from Pakistan's senior military and intelligence leadership and
asking for U.S. help in preventing a military coup. Haqqani has denied that he
wrote the memo at the heart of the scheme, which also asked for U.S. support
for the Zardari government and promised to realign Pakistani foreign policy to
match U.S. interests.
The memo was passed from
Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz to former National Security Advisor Jim Jones,to then Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on
May 10, only nine days after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in the
Pakistani military town of Abbottabad.
Ijaz has repeatedly accused Haqqani
of being behind the memo, and Ijaz claims that Haqqani was working with
Zardari's implicit support.
Early on Tuesday morning, Zardari's
spokesman revealed that the president
had traveled to Dubai to see his children and undergo medical tests linked to a
previously diagnosed "cardiovascular condition."
A former U.S. government official
told The Cable today that when President Barack Obama spoke with
Zardari over the weekend regarding NATO's killing of the 24 Pakistani soldiers,
Zardari was "incoherent." The Pakistani president had been feeling
increased pressure over the Memogate scandal. "The noose was getting
tighter -- it was only a matter of time," the former official said,
expressing the growing expectation inside the U.S. government that Zardari may
be on the way out.
The former U.S. official said that
parts of the U.S. government were informed that Zardari had a "minor heart
attack" on Monday night and flew to Dubai via air ambulance today. He may
have angioplasty on Wednesday and may also resign on account of "ill
health."
"If true, this is the 'in-house
change option' that has been talked about," said Shuja Nawaz,
director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, in a Tuesday
interview with The Cable. Nawaz said that under this scenario,
Zardari would step aside and be replaced by his own party, preserving the
veneer of civilian rule but ultimately acceding to the military's wishes to get
rid of Zardari.
In Islamabad, some papers have reported that before
Zardari left Pakistan, the Pakistani Army insisted that Zardari be examined by
their own physicians, and that the Army doctors determined that Zardari was
fine and did not need to leave the country for medical reasons. Zardari's
spokesman has denied that he met with
the Army doctors.
One Pakistani source told The
Cable that Zardari was informed on Monday that none of the opposition party
members nor any of the service chiefs would attend his remarks to the
parliament as a protest against his continued tenure. This source also said
that over a dozen of Zardari's ambassadors in foreign countries were in the
process of being recalled in what might be a precursor to Zardari stepping down
as president, taking many of his cronies with him.
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that before
leaving, Zardari met separately with Gilani, Chairman of the Senate Farooq H
Naik, and Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
This past weekend, the Memogate
scandal worsened for Zardari when Ijaz alleged in a Newsweek opinion piece that
Zardari and Haqqani had prior knowledge of the U.S. raid to kill bin Laden, and
may have given permission for the United States to violate Pakistan's airspace
to conduct the raid.
On May 2, the day after bin Laden
was killed, Wajid Hasan, Pakistan's high commissioner to the United
Kingdom, said in an interview with CNN that Pakistan, "did know that this was going to happen because we have
been keeping -- we were monitoring him and America was monitoring him. But
Americans got to where he was first."
In a statement given to the Associated
Press of Pakistan Monday, White House spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said that information on the actual operation to kill bin Laden was not given
to anyone in Pakistan.
"As we've said repeatedly,
given the sensitivity of the operation, to protect our operators we did not
inform the Pakistani government, or any other government, in advance," she
said.
Zardari lived in self-imposed exile
in Dubai from 2004 through 2007 after being released from prison, where he had
been held for eight years on corruption charges. His three children live there,
but his 23-year son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the chairman of the Pakistan
People's Party (PPP), is in Pakistan now.
UPDATE: A Pakistani source close to
Zardari e-mailed into The Cable to say that Zardari is simply ill and is
not stepping down. Rumors of Zardari stepping down might be part of a behind
the scenes power play but Zardari confidante Senate Chairman Farooq Naek will be acting president while Zardari is out of the country and Gilani remains
loyal to Zardari, flanked by Zardari's son Bilawal. "The rumors of a
silent coup are sometimes a way of trying to effect a silent coup. It won't
happen," the source said.
Tariq Khattak, Islamabad, Pakistan.
GSM = 0300-9599007 and 0333-9599007
Email: Tariqgulkhattak@gmail.com
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