Here are brief notes or observations after quick glance at President, Parvez Musharraf's autobiography: "IN THE LINE OF FIRE," published by Simon and Schuster, New York 2006, for which he earned $1 Million (paid by the publisher, and public knowledge).
Back side of the Dust Jacket: Two important observations from stated points to sell his book: :
1.. Pakistan captured 672 alleged or suspected terrorists, and handed over 369 to United States.
2.. "We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars."
In the first five sections consisting of 19 chapters (up to page 197), he describes his personal achievements and experiences from his birth to becoming the President of Pakistan including photographs from his childhood, growing up, acquiring a Commissioned officer's rank, leading to C-in-C, and photographs with almost all important leaders of the world.
The real meat of the book appears in Chapters 20 (page 198) till Chapter 27 which deals with Abdul Qadeer Khan and his explanation regarding Nuclear Proliferation accusations, and what led to confront him.
Chapter 20 Events immediately after September 11, 2001:
He describes what Gen. Mahmood relayed to him regarding the threat made to him by Richard Armitage, which has been reported in the media soon after the press got a wind of it or news of it was leaked to show the actions taken by the Bush administration to avenge the destruction of WTC, a symbol of US Financial Might.
Here is what has been already reported in foreign media regarding this subject.
On 913/01 Mush received a phone call from US Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain seeking his immediate response to following SEVEN demands by Bush conveyed by Colin Powell through the Ambassador:
1.. Stop Al-Qaeda operatives at your borders, intercept arms shipments through Pakistan, and end all logistical support for Bin Laden
2.. Provide the United States with blanket overflight and landing rights to conduct all necessary military and intelligence operations.
3.. Provide territorial access to United States and allied military intelligence as needed, and other personnel to conduct all necessary operations against the perpetrators of terrorism and those who harbor them, including the use of Pakistan's naval ports, air-bases, and strategic locations on borders.
4.. Provide the United States immediately with intelligence, immigration information and databases, and internal security information, to help prevent and respond to terrorist acts perpetrated against the United States, its friends, or its allies. .
5.. Continue to publicly condemn the terrorist acts of September 11, and any other terrorist acts against the United States or its friends and allies, and curb all domestic _expression of support for terrorism against the United States, its friends or its allies.
6.. Cut off all shipments of fuel to the Taliban and any other items and recruits, including volunteers en route to Afghanistan who can used in a military offensive capacity or to abet a terrorist threat.
7.. Should the evidence strongly implicate Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan and should Afghanistan and Taliban continue to harbor him and his network, Pakistan will break diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, end support for the Taliban, and assist the United States in the aforementioned ways to destroy Osam Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
What is surprising and became immediately known (even by Colin Powell) that Musharraff accepted all seven conditions without any conditions or objecting to any one. (This is due to his training as a soldier, i.e "Obey all commands, without any questions." [A Conditioned Response as a Military Personnel]
Chapter 21: Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden:
- After A;-Qaeda was formed, OBL with the mentorship of Dr. Abdullah Azzam in 1998 founded Islamic World Front
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (3rd tanking official of Al-Qaed) netted in Peshawar
- OBL was helped out of Tora Bora operation by Jallauddin Haqqani, Mohammad Rahim, Aminul Haq and Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti (an Iranian)
- Abu Fraj Al-Libbi netted
- Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a British Born Pakistani, who was recruited by MI6, while he was studying at London School of Economics for espionage and covert operations. . . .Sent to India in 1994 . . . Knew Mohammad Hashim related to murder of Pearle . . . trained at camps run by Mohammad Masood Azhar
- Shaukat Aziz's assassination attempt story . . . how the Military intelligence folks tracked the assassin and his links from a mangled face and his shirt made by a talilor named Asif in Campbellpur. They deciphered his thumb prints from 67,000 in the data-base to pin point towards a man named Irfan (whose finger prints matched with those of the assassin) with nick-name Zeeshan connected with Maulvi Nizar of Jaish-e-Mohammad "“ leading this to be labeled by US as a terrorist organization
Chapter 23: Manhunt!
- Links between Abu Zubaida (AZ) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM)
- .
Chapter 24. Tightening the Noose!
- Attempt of Assasination on MUSH's life, Dec. 14, 2003
- Lt. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani assigned the investigation task "“ leading towards Mushtaq à Mullah Omar (having 150 to 200) followers tracked from a Cell phone belonging to assassin and the SIM card inside this phone "“ connecting the dots with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Masood Azhar.
- US CENTCOM "˜s General Abizaid visits Islamabad in May 2005. Like an excited child Mush could not hide his exuberance to collect his bounty by telling him trhat he had netted the big fish, Abu Zubaida. Like an obedient soldier he begged Abizaid to call Bush and tell him this news. He advised him to call Bush and give him the good news himself, which he finally did, being anxious to collect his reward of Bounty, which he boasted in the book and the back cover of the book.
Chapter 25:
- Al-Qaeda in the Mountains
- FATA has 3.a million Tribal population spread over 10,660 Sq. Miles areas
- Dec. 2001: US Assault on Tora Bora led most of AQ folks to migrate East towards FATA
- The First Joint Operation (alliance with US and CENTCOM Special Forces) "Kazha Punga" launched on June 25, 2002, was conducted to flush them out, using Helicopters, UAV's and Special Operations Task Force (SOTF)
- Next operation, "Baghar China, : was launched in October 2003, resulting in the arrest of 19, out of which 8 were of foreign origin.
- Wana was the first major joint Operation killing and capturing many suspects, including 200 to 300 people (Chechens, Uzbecks and a few Arabs)
- June 10, 2004. Operation "Shakai Valley" was launched to flush them out of the region.
- September 9, 2004. A joint major Operation involving Air-Strikes killed more than 70 foreign and local people.
Chapter 26: The Symbiosis of Terrorism and Religion.
- It all began after USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and Reagan sought help of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (Zia-u-Haq).
- His tone of description puts the blame on Zia-ul-Haq in using religion intertwined with terrorism, inculcated in the Tribal folks through the concept of Jihad, to oust the Soviet menace using Saudi Money and other support.
- 1995 Taliban emerged during Benazir Bhutto's tenure, with the concept of friendly and controllable friends on the Western flank to deal with hostile forces of India facing on the Eastern border and Kashmir.
- After Bush's election in 2000, things began to change, as he vowed to finish the unfinished business of destroying Iraq with the false pretext of eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) possessed by Iraq. And his second argument was that "He (Saddam) tried to kill my Dad! Theme to muster the public opinion against Iraq.
- 2001, September 11. Four planes were hijacked, two hitting the WTC, and third crashing into Pentagon, and fourth crashing in a field in Pennsylvania (considered to be shot down). This incident was used as a pretext for Securing America from Muslims who became suspects overnight for revenge like it happened to Japanese Americans soon after the Pearl Harbor during the WWII. But this changed America for Muslims in the 21st Century, as envisaged by the Neocons responsible for the draft of a document "Project for a New American Century." Originally published in Foreign Affairs Magazine in 1996, after defeating the USSR perceived as Red Menace or "Evil Empire."
- The Threat to Pakistan as Reported in 2001, not as reported in MUSH's book as a new revelation: Bush demands through his emissaries like Colin Powell and Richard Armitage to align Pakistan for a new War on Terror "“ Threatening Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, ISI, Pakistan. On September 12, 2001, Deputy Sec. of State, Richard Armitage meets with Gen. Mahmood, and tells him bluntly" Help us breathe in the 21st century along with the international community or be prepared to live in the Stone Age" [Reported in DeutschePresse- Agentur of Sept. 12, 2001 and Los Angeles "LA Weekly," of November 9,2001].. This was the result of 26 years of US-USSR conflict in Afghanistan on the Western flank of Pakistan and 16 years of hostilities in occupied Kashmir.
- Page 279: Unfortunately the "enlightened classes did all the tasks n the society but delegated the religious tasks or teaching religion to semi-literate clerics, who are responsible to plant the seeds of extremism.
- MUSH believes that London Train Bombing on July 7, 2005, blaming foreigners for Terrorism in UK, were the result of such religious brain-washing by these semi-literate clerics.
Chapter 27, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
- Starts from the nuclear explosions of India in Pokhran on May 11 & 13, 1998, and reciprocated by Pakistan in Baluchistan on May 28 and 30.
- Blames Bhutto, Zia and later Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK) for taming a tiger without any accountability, ultimately realized by GIK, when finally he was supposed to report to DGCD
- He was made to report his activities in nuclear domain in 1992 by DGMO
- After October 8, 1998, Army took charge of Nuclear activities taking place at KRL, because of the publicly exhibited rivalries between AQK and Samar Mubarakmand, being an ego-maniac, and having abrasive personality.
- It was known that KRL and PAEC were at odds and AQK was not willing to cooperate with others, because of his personality, after the nation declared him as "father of the bomb" and he became a national hero after May, 1998.
- Early 1999, preliminary plan was set up for oversight and controls after MUSH became suspicious of his activities learning from various sources, and his autocratic management style and unauthorized travel to foreign countries, and Pakistan's links with North Korea as touted in the Foreign media.
- MUSH takes the credit of putting the genie in the bottle by requiring AQK to retire in 2000, which he finally did in March 2001.
- MUSH discloses in his book that in spite of the great regard for Dr. Shfaq Ahmed of PAEC, he had to let him go as well around the same time for the sake of bringing everything under control of Army
- U.S. was still not sure of MUSH's actions due to two factors:
a. MUSH's Job security as President of Pakistan
b. Doubted Pakistan's ability to guard nukes. These doubts were created in the media by prominent US visitors to Pakistan after observing the realities on the ground, as well as certain secularist Muslims and Academics having contacts with media like New York Times and NPR.
- After 2002 media started exposing the links between North Korea's efforts to
build nukes, and the Zionist scientists (The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, David
Albright et al. and his Pakistani links) began to connect the dots
- Mid 2003 IAEA Inspectors visiting Iran's centrifuges found some remnants of
Radioactive contamination, which was assumed or coming from used Centrifuges
supplied to Iran through AQK's efforts.
- All this had emanated from BUSH & MUSH meeting in September 2000, when
the two met during the UN Summit meeting. Bush requested MUSH to see
George Tennet, DCI of CIA, next morning who had some important matter to
discuss with him. Surely, like they had tried the same tricks with Benazir and
Nawaz Sharif to scare the Dickens out of them for submission, George Tennet
opened his brief case and brought out blue prints of original P-! Centrifuge Plans
to show Mush that those documents came from IAEA inspectors collected from
Iran, trying to create doubts about AQK in the mind of this obedient Soldier and
try to do more about the non-proliferation fiasco created by AQK network as
published by David Sanger et al., New York Times in February 2004.
- During late 2003, a ship, "BBC China" was intercepted and seized in the
Mediterranean, carrying Centrifuge parts, to prove that it was carrying Parts built for the Centrifuges being shipped to Libya, linking them with some folks in Dubai and a workshop in Malaysia/Indonesia. Mush says that the blueprints of P-1 Centrifuges shown to him by Tennet bore the tell-tale signs of AQK involvement although these were no longer being used by Pakistan and discarded. In 1980, the technology of which US claimed to have been transferred to North Korea, Iran and Libya, to implicate Pakistan in the Nuclear Proliferation business.
Comments:
The truth lies somewhere else as the Pakistani authorities were not as cautious to determine their authenticity like the Sunday Times folks, who were given a roll of film brought to them by Mordechai Vannunu, to verify the validity of the photographs taken inside the Dimona Bomb factory of Israel, by Vanunu, before even publishing them in their newspaper on October 5, 1986. But every-time such revelations by CIA to leaders of Pakistan were used as scare tactics for them to submit to US and stop the pursuit of Nuclear knowledge, as clearly indicated in the book "THE ISLAMIC BOMB: The Threat to Israel and the Middle East," by Steven Weissman and Herbert Krosney of New York Times, in 1981, in which two threats are clearly described as follows:
a. Page 163: By Henry Kissinger to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto: "Drop Chashma, or else, we will make a horrible example of you."
The same Henry Kissinger who made Nixon sign a Top-Secret Non-
Disclosure Document between Golda Meir and US , aka :Don't Ask, Don't
Test," treaty during September 1969, to let Israel continue building and
amassing more than 300 nukes in her arsenal.
b. Page 205. Mossad's Threat to Muslims or Others attempting to pursue
Nuclear know-how or weapons as follows:
"We will not hesitate to use violent means to make those responsible for
nuclear arms proliferation understand the seriousness of their actions. . . . We
believe it better to eliminate a few individuals and destroy a few factories
rather than risk the wholesale massacre of millions of human beings."
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II
Compiled by Bashir A. Syed (
bsyed@worldnet.att.net)
, no matter where it happens in the world, is a tragedy and deeply traumatic for the victim. My heart, therefore, goes out to Mukhtaran Mai and any woman to whom such a fate befalls
An 'Ally' With His Own Agenda
By TUNKU VARADARAJAN
October 19, 2006; Page D5
Toward the end of "In the Line of Fire" -- in a chapter on the emancipation of women that has all the passion of a government circular -- Pervez Musharraf writes that "rape, no matter where it happens in the world, is a tragedy and deeply traumatic for the victim. My heart, therefore, goes out to Mukhtaran Mai and any woman to whom such a fate befalls."
Ms. Mukhtaran is a woman from a benighted village in Gen. Musharraf's Pakistan: After her brother broke a taboo by having a (consensual) sexual relationship with a woman from a tribe deemed superior to his own, a village tribunal decreed that the brothers of the higher-status woman could right this wrong by having their way with Ms. Mukhtaran.
![[In the Line of Fire]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/ED-AE855_brfire_20061018162228.jpg) |
| Insights into a man accountable to no one, elected by no one and trusted by no one. |
Gen. Musharraf relates in his book that Ms. Mukhtaran was dragged into a room and "came out visibly ruffled and partly undressed" -- which is one way to describe a woman's state after gang rape. Generals are allowed to be coy, occasionally, I suppose. Yet so coy is this general that he does not tell us that he -- the omnipotent chief executive of Pakistan -- ordered a travel ban on Ms. Mukhtaran when an NGO wished to fly her to the U.S. to publicize her plight. He did not, he said last year, want her "to bad-mouth Pakistan" abroad.
Not content with muzzling Ms. Mukhtaran -- a woman who had, through her fight for justice, become a genuine Pakistani heroine and a force for social good -- Gen. Musharraf told the editorial board of the Washington Post last year that rape had become "a money-making concern" in Pakistan. "A lot of people say that if you want to go abroad and get a visa from Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."
This jaunty little aperçu about entrepreneurial rape doesn't appear on the pages of "In the Line of Fire." Indeed, there's much else that is missing from Gen. Musharraf's account of his life and times. The book is not so much an autobiography as a highly selective auto- hagiography, by turns self-congratulatory , narcissistic and mendacious.
And yet, at a certain level, the general deserves our thanks, for no one can possibly read "In the Line of Fire" and maintain the illusion that Gen. Musharraf offers a template for enlightened rule -- unless, of course, one is Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary, who cooed these words at a recent love-in for the general at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York: "There is a very, very good chapter in this book about economic policy. I suggest to President Musharraf when he finishes in Pakistan he should come and govern here for a while."
A catalog of the book's omissions and revisionisms would require a book in itself, but two stand out as especially egregious. The first is his account of the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl -- whom he describes gratuitously as "a citizen of both the United States and Israel," even though Pearl was in Pakistan on an American passport and working for an American newspaper (to wit, this one).
Gen. Musharraf neglects to mention that Omar Saeed Sheikh, the mastermind behind Pearl's kidnapping, turned himself in to Brigadier Ijaz Shah -- the home secretary of the Punjab, a former spook of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and a bosom buddy of Gen. Musharraf -- a whole week before Sheikh's "arrest" was announced by the police. What was Sheikh doing with Brig. Shah and why has Gen. Musharraf never acknowledged this week-long ISI cocoon? The book doesn't deign to tell us.
The second distorting omission concerns India. Gen. Musharraf makes no mention in his book of the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, conducted by a terrorist group based in Pakistan and armed by the ISI. Instead he writes merely of "war hysteria" in early 2002, as if India's ire came from nowhere. Typically, he spins the episode his way, in a comic passage of machismo: "We went through a period of extreme tension throughout 2002, when Indian troops amassed on our borders during a hair-trigger, eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. We responded by moving all our forces forward. The standoff lasted ten months. Then the Indians blinked and quite ignominiously agreed to a mutual withdrawal of forces."
My advice to readers is this: Believe little of what you read in "In the Line of Fire." News accounts have made much of the book's claim that Richard Armitage, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, told a Pakistani official after 9/11 that the U.S. would bomb Pakistan back into the Stone Age if it did not collaborate in the quest for Osama bin Laden. This threat is almost certainly pure Musharraf fiction.
There is another fatuous passage where the general writes of the death in an airplane explosion of Zia-ul-Haq, a predecessor as military dictator: "The black box was recovered but gave no indication of a problem. It seems likely that gases were used to disable the pilots. But who unleashed them, we don't know. I have my suspicions, though."
So who killed Zia, and why are we kept, soap-operatically, on tenterhooks by Gen. Musharraf? Was it the CIA or the Russians, India or the Mossad? Or was it little green men? Perhaps we must wait for the sequel to this book for all to be revealed.
DETAILS
![[In the Line of Fire]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/it_books09142004171604.gif)
IN THE LINE OF FIRE
By Pervez Musharraf
(Free Press, 368 pages, $28)
Though there's much the book doesn't tell us, it does offer invaluable (and frequently hilarious) insights into the levels of delusion that a man may reach when he is accountable to no one, elected by no one and trusted by no one. Self-preservation, here, becomes paramount -- democracy be damned. The general is quick to dismiss Pakistan's elected governments as "sham democracy." He offers himself as an antidote: a true patriot who is "putting the system right" -- in his own sweet time.
The only patsies to have swallowed this line are those who inhabit the upper reaches of the Bush administration. Gen. Musharraf has played the Americans beautifully. Anyone who could incriminate him has been placed out of reach. A.Q. Khan, for instance, conveniently dubbed a "rogue" nuclear scientist, was publicly scolded by Gen. Musharraf in a gaudy show of theatrics; but no American has been allowed to question him. And it is incredible to claim, as Gen. Musharraf has done, that a military command responsible for approving the foreign tours of nuclear scientists and providing security for Pakistan's nuclear establishments knew nothing of Khan's proliferation activities.
After five years of Pakistani collaboration with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, not one Taliban leader of consequence has been captured or killed. Afghanistan' s president, Hamid Karzai, cries himself hoarse over the Taliban functioning out of Pakistan's western regions and he is treated with open ridicule by Gen. Musharraf. There is precious little, however, that George W. Bush can do about this: He cannot now admit that a man he has called his "ally" for the past five years has been double-crossing him nearly every minute of that time.
Mr. Varadarajan is editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal.