Growing Discontent,
Army Unhappy, ISI vs FBI , PAF Officers Happy
By
LampPost
ISLAMABAD:
The entire top brass of the Pakistan Air Force had gathered
at a marriage ceremony of a senior retired PAF officer's daughter
last week and the latest whistle blower on the $50 million
CASA Transport aircraft scandal, ex-PAF officer, Khalid Khawaja,
was also there, fearing that others may not talk to him or
may avoid him.
Khawaja
had come out with his fully documented story two weeks ago
in SA Tribune, alleging that PAF Chief Mushaf Ali
Mir had snatched his genuine business and given it to a friend
because kickbacks of some five million dollars were being
offered by the Indonesian suppliers. Khawaja knew about it
because he was the one to receive the Emailed bribes offer
in the first place.
LampPost
learnt that Khawaja was pleasantly surprised when he received
a very warm welcome from all ranks of PAF officers, almost
all of whom had read the SA Tribune stories and had
even gone through the scores of messages posted by well informed
PAF people on the SA Tribune Discussion Board about
it.
Most
of the PAF officers were unhappy with the Air Chief, it appeared.
This would be something not very pleasant for Air Marshal
Mushaf Ali Mir to hear, if he is at all worried. At times
when the armed forces need to be very alert and ready, with
the officers ready to perform their national duty with a sense
of honor and pride, such ill feelings in senior ranks of the
force against their own chief are bad news.
Many
officers, LampPost learnt, spoke with Khalid Khawaja and openly
criticized the CASA deal, not only because kickbacks were
involved but because the aircraft itself was sub standard
and not fit for the tough tasks required by the PAF. "They
have really harmed the air force interests by making this
deal. This plane is not even worth 10 million dollars each,"
a well respected and the most qualified officer in the PAF
in the field of transport aircraft, commented.
LampPost
also learnt that Musharraf's accountability buffs, the NAB,
may take up this case as the Air force officers in the NAB
are said to be people of integrity. If they do so, it would
be another sorry chapter in the history books of the armed
forces as the nation had recently seen the former Navy Chief
Admiral Mansoor ul Haq getting convicted in a huge kickbacks
scam and repaid some 7 million dollars in the submarines purchase
scandal. Scandals against a former army chief, and PAF chiefs,
specially for purchase of Ukrainian tanks, continue to do
the media rounds but officially nothing has yet been done.
It
is not just the Air Chief who has to worry about his junior
officers. The Army Chief, also the country’s President,
has to keep his ears and eyes open too. LampPost heard that
all is not well in his territory, specially after the humiliation
heaped by him on the entire armed forces in shape of dirty
compromises like the handing over of Sindh Governorship to
the MQM, the acceptance of PPP turncoats to cook up a forged
majority, the burning of the Referendum records to hide his
misdeeds and making the military government look like a shameless
crowd of self-seekers who could trample upon every moral,
legal, ethical and constitutional principle.
But
the most creeping threat is the confrontation building up
between the president and his own ISI high ups on the issue
of the free hand given to the FBI to operate within Pakistan
and supporting Iraq against a US attack, which is but imminent.
The ISI is learnt to have launched a whispering campaign in
the army barracks against General Musharraf who is now being
openly bracketed with the MQM. There is some muted talk of
largescale ISI backed demonstrations to be launched in various
places against the US soon.
Hardly
two weeks after LampPost revealed the state of the mind of
General Musharraf, disclosing that some corrupt politicians
had baptized him almost to the point that he no longer considered
political corruption as anything objectionable or bad, Musharraf
himself admitted to his new philosophy and his conversion
from an idealist to a pragmatist.
So
now it is official and coming from the horse's mouth. The
chapter of corruption among politicians has been officially
closed but still some of the Opposition politicians are in
jail, foremost among them PPP stalwarts Asif Zardari and Jehangir
Badr. How is General Musharraf going to explain their continued
detention as it has almost become impossible for any one to
justify that Zardari should stay in jail because he imported
a BMW and the MQM guy who was wanted for murder, kidnapping,
arson and what not can be forgiven overnight and inducted
as Governor of a province. This is stretching the argument
of pragmatism to the breaking point. Pragmatism in whose interest,
is the question being asked.
A
fly on the President's House wall told the LampPost General
Musharraf's close circles were not at all happy with his meeting
with Ishrat ul Ibad, the new Governor of Sindh, whom he met
as a protocol before officially nominating him to the post.
Many in Islamabad felt the pangs of pain similar to the one
felt by Ghulam Ishaq Khan when he had to swallow his pride
and induct prisoner Asif Ali Zardari into his cabinet as Investment
Minister. That day GIK would have died a 100 deaths and so
is Musharraf these days.
Musharraf's
direct family is also not pleased with the idea of an MQM
fugitive suddenly catapulted into the highest and, in the
present legal set up, the most powerful, office in a province
which had been won by a party which still languishes in the
dark shadows of Opposition.
LampPost
heard a family member in US telling some of his friends it
would have been a more honorable thing for Musharraf to have
reached an agreement with the religious parties rather than
white-washing the faces of all those people who the army itself
had been painting black for years. Now what is the justification
for branding the MQM of Altaf Bhai as anti-state? What face
will the Army have if tomorrow again Altaf Bhai goes into
the Opposition? Will Ishrat Ibad be arrested for the cases
which now have been buried under the carpet.
The
new MQM Governor has been saying that cases against Altaf
Bhai will also be withdrawn and the sad chapter against him
would be closed. So if all this can be done to gain a few
votes, how would the cases against Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz
Sharif be justified? It all looks like a third rate circus
for purely personal preservation.
LampPost
has heard some voices in the Army ranks which are not happy
with the dignity and pride of their force doing down in dust
in such a manner. These games may not continue for long and
the circles where all these developments are being closely
watched could call it off at any time, stopping Musharraf
in his tracks.
The
dossier against General Musharraf is ready and could be activated
at any time as he has himself announced that the days of idealism
are over and he was now a pragmatist, which in simpler words,
means since he had "failed to beat them (the corrupt)
he had joined them."
This
declaration will not take Musharraf very far, specially since
the entire armed forces were now being targeted and ridiculed
for their outlandish behavior in dealing with those criminals
who had come over to their side.
Faced
with such growing internal criticism, Musharraf has activated
the Accountability Bureau NAB and even the self-proclaimed
international Islamic preacher, ex-ISI Chief Lt. Gen (Retd)
Javed Nasir was called to the NAB last week to probe charges
of corruption against him. Gen Nasir has filed a case against
the main newspaper group of Pakistan demanding death penalty
for its editor-in-chief and three other senior journalists
in an anti-Terrorism Court.
Another
senior pro-Musharraf official to face humiliation at the hands
of NAB last week was Information Secretary Anwar Mahmood.
According to a Pakistani news agency ‘Online’,
NAB rejected a reference sent by Mahmood against three officers
of the information ministry and warned him not to send any
case without proof otherwise action could be taken against
him under NAB ordinance.
The
Secretary had sent a corruption reference to NAB against speech
writer Rana Sharif, former Director General Information Services
Academy Malik Muzaffar Abbas and Director General Films and
Publication Shafiuddin of Information Ministry after they
refused to give him commission in computers and other purchases,
‘Online’ reported. The news item was not touched
by any Pakistani newspaper for obvious reasons as Information
Secretary controls the release of government advertisements
worth hundreds of millions of rupees to these newspapers.
The
most important information ‘Online’ circulated
was the start of an investigation against the Federal Secretary
Information for his corruption in the sale of a government-owned
newspaper building in Karachi. It said a junior officer who
was used by the Secretary had admitted irregularities before
the authorities. “Mahmood, is likely to be shown the
door,” ‘Online’ said.
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