Nothing in memo indicated Zardari sent it: Mullen spokesman

Pakistan

Nothing in memo indicated Zardari sent it: Mullen spokesman

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Pentagon spokesman has said Admiral Mullen knew intermediary who brought secret memo to him.

21 November,2011 11:13 pm

Captain Kirby, who was earlier serving as the press secretary to the then Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, when the secret memo was received by him, said Monday that he would not speak about what Gen James Jones has said about his role in the memo-gate controversy.Gen James Jones has already confirmed that he was the conduit between Mansoor Ijaz and Admiral Mike Mullen, and received the secret memo from Ijaz before handing it over to Admiral Mullen.We can only confirm that Admiral Mullen knew the intermediary who brought the memo to him, Kirby said, adding that the memo was not signed and Admiral Mullen, therefore, did not take it seriously.The letter had no imprimatur of the Pakistani government and Admiral Mullen did not find its contents credible,” he stressed.There was nothing in the letter that indicated that it was from President Zardari, Kirby pointed out.Admiral Mullen simply received the memo from a third party, read it and decided not to do anything about it because he did not find the memo at all credible,” he recalled.To a question why Admiral Mullen did not take it seriously when somebody like former National Security advisor to the White House, Gen James Jones was handing over the memo to him, Kirby said: If he is speaking about it, that it certainly his account and you should ask him why he decided to play this intermediary role.”Kirby, on the occasion, also reiterated that Admiral Mike Mullen had never met Mansoor Ijaz and neither did he ever communicate with him about the memo. It may be mentioned here that Admiral Mullen confirmed receiving the letter last week after initially denying it when the memo-gate scandal first broke out.Admiral Mullen, through his spokesman Captain Kirby, had said that he used to receive several such letters on a daily basis and did not remember the contents or paying attention to this very memo. -- Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC