Parliamentary Committee on National Security: Memogate, NATO strike compete for attention

Committee to meet today; Senator Ishaq Dar says PML-N will cooperate despite panel’s ‘handicaps’.

ISLAMABAD:

Deliberations on renewing the terms of cooperation with the US after the Nato attack in Mohmand Agency are likely to overshadow the memogate scandal at today’s (Thursday’s) meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, The Express Tribune has learnt.

While the Nato attack drove a wedge between Pak-US relations, the memogate scandal has pitted the two largest political parties – the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)—against each other over the alleged involvement of President Asif Ali Zardari. The committee has on its agenda a discussion of both issues: one requiring meticulous recommendations and the other a thorough probe for ascertaining the facts.

“I will push the committee members to take up the memogate affair as well,” said PML-N senator Ishaq Dar, who is also a member of the parliamentary committee. He said the committee’s focus would be on carving out a roadmap for revamping the terms of engagement with the US.

The committee chairman, Senator Raza Rabbani, confirmed to The Express Tribune that the two issues on the agenda were both the Nato attack and the memo controversy.

He said the committee would carefully examine the Supreme Court’s verdict on the petitions against memogate before deciding its approach to the matter. To a question, Rabbani said he could not elaborate on the mechanics of the committee’s working by drawing a parallel.

“Unfortunately or fortunately, in Pakistan’s parliamentary history not many committees have dealt with such issues in the past. It would be irrelevant to draw an example,” he said. Rabbani refused to comment on Dar’s statement before the Supreme Court that the parliamentary committee was void of any constitutional cover.

‘Committee is handicapped’

The Supreme Court had also asked the committee to share, if possible, incriminating material it collected as well as other findings of the probe over the secret communiqué. However, Dar said the committee would be handicapped in proceeding beyond a point.

“Unless the state or the Supreme Court asked the Blackberry company to provide the record of the conversation between Mansoor Ijaz and Hussain Haqqani, it will not be delivered,” he emphasised. He added that the committees which had previously taken up the National Insurance Company Limited scam and the corruption in Pakistan Steel Mills had been unable to perform their work after a certain point.

Asked if the PML-N would boycott the committee proceedings in protest against its handicaps, Dar ruled out the possibility and said the PML-N had been cooperating with the government on issues of national importance. He said he was the only one who had raised the issue in the parliament through a letter to the premier.

Chief of air staff’s statement

He said PPP-S chief Aftab Sherpao, leader of the opposition in the Senate Ghafoor Haideri and PML-N MNA Sardar Mehtab had raised the issue of the chief of air staff’s earlier statement, which was also on the agenda of the committee.

At the last meeting, the committee had summoned the defence secretary to explain the chief of air staff’s statement that more than 10,000 strikes against alleged militants’ hideouts in tribal areas had achieved only 15 to 20 per cent results despite huge collateral damage. The foreign secretary is also expected to brief the committee.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2011.