Mansoor Ijaz. —File photo

American businessman and aspiring statesman, Mansoor Ijaz, has not run out of revelations and neither has he stopped condemning and praising the same people in turn.

This much is clear from his 81-page reply that he sent to the Supreme Court. In the document he has disclosed that during his meeting with the Inter Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha in London, the general had made it clear that it was his (Pasha) and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s deep desire to see the government complete its term.

However, the general added, the rumours surrounding the memo and what it contained could not be ignored.

The voluminous reply emailed to the Supreme Court office from Zurich, Switzerland, also discussed in detail the events before and after the appearance of his article in the Financial Times (which have been extensively covered in the media in the recent past), his meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari in 2009 which was arranged by Ambassador Husain Haqqani and a complete record of the infamous black berry messages (BBM) and emails that he is said to have exchanged with Haqqani. Some of the emails date back to far before the memogate controversy.

The reply even provided explanations of the code words used in the exchanges.

According to Ijaz, Zardari was referred to as “friend” or “boss” while “Isphani’s people” was a reference to “US officials.”

Likewise “bad boys” meant the army chief and Gen Pasha; “sledge hammer” the US government and “golden handle” was the preferred code for Adm Mullen.

Ijaz also revealed that he did not just call former US national security adviser Gen (retd) James L Jones for the delivery of the controversial memorandum to Admiral (retd) Mike Mullen. He also called, as a parallel track, his outside counsel whose name he withheld.

He simply explained that the person used to be a former senior government official in President George Bush’s administration and was working at a prominent and large Washington law firm.

According to Ijaz this person had a wide array of contacts that could help in reaching out to Adm Mullen if Gen Jones refused to deliver the memo.

In addition, Ijaz and Jones also discussed possible names of people who could be used to approach Amd Mullen. According to the reply, Gen Jones mentioned two people –a senior US political figure who was now leading a private life and an acting officer of the US government who knew Adm Mullen well. The names of these other Americans, including the one working at the law firm are not revealed in the reply.

Ijaz also detailed his interaction with Gen Jones who made it clear that he would not consider taking any message to Adm Mullen if it was not in writing. Ijaz has also claimed that Jones did not express much trust in Haqqani.

It appears that because of this reluctance, the memo had to make it clear who was behind it.

“We went through the architecture of the memo, focusing this time on the opening paragraph and confirming the new signature paragraph (from whom did this document come) that had been added in,” Ijaz said in the reply, as he described the day on which the memo was finalized.

Shortly after he described this incident, the reply describes a call he made to Haqqani in which the latter informed him about the results of the meeting with Adm Mullen by stating that “a call will go out from Washington to Pindi (Rawalpindi) tonight.”

The reply also referred to former army chief Jehangir Karamat and former national security advisor Mahmud Durrani, whom Ijaz mentions as two people that according to Haqqani were “like-minded” people who could be brought on board by “the boss” as possible members for the new national security team once tensions had dissipated.

“But both would be approached once this was all over, a point I took to mean they were unaware of this operation (memorandum) in advance,” he stated.

Pasha visits Ijaz: The reply also describes in detail the American businessman’s meeting with Gen Pasha. Ijaz said that the meeting with Pasha was set up by a third person whom Ijaz did not know.

Before his scheduled meeting with the ISI chief, the reply said, Haqqani called Ijaz to inquire whether Gen Pasha was coming to London to meet him but Ijaz denied it.

According to Ijaz, Haqqani was more concerned about whether or not Gen Pasha would be meeting with the people at Financial Times London and whether Ijaz could do him a favour by ensuring that the FT editors did not provide Gen Pasha with a copy of the memo or any other evidence.

About his four hour long meeting with Gen Pasha in London, Ijaz stated that at times Gen Pasha looked a bit astonished at what he was seeing but at no time did he offer any assessment of the data other than to indicate that the records were “clear and convincing” evidence.

“In my recollection, Gen Pasha read the memo itself in about three or four minutes, demonstrated surprise and dismay – at times disgust and disappointment – over the content of the document,” the reply said.

Without naming anyone, Ijaz also stated that two important official sources whom he would identify ‘in camera’, told him that attempts may have or were being made to manipulate, erase, delete or otherwise distort the data in the electronic devices of Haqqani.