Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The report of the Inquiry Committee on Dawn leaks had clearly determined that a breach of national security had indeed happened through the ‘planted’ story, learned sources have claimed. However, instead of making the report – which is being termed ‘explosive’ by the inside accounts – public, the Prime Minister’s Office issued an executive order directing relevant divisions and ministries for further action.

The actions directed by the PMO’s order included ‘proceeding against’ the principal information officer, withdrawal of portfolio from special assistant to the PM on foreign affairs, referring to APNS for disciplinary action against the author of the story, the editor and the newspaper alongside directing it to develop code of conduct for the press for reporting on national security issues.

The PMO’s order, the sources confirm, was not shared with military establishment before leaking it to media. Moreover, the contents of the order were not according to the spirit of ‘negotiations’ held during the proceedings of the inquiry committee. Sources privy to the developments inform that the members of the committee were assured that action would be taken against all the culprits identified in Para 18 of the inquiry report, and that action would be in accordance with the law of the land prescribed for the breach of national security and disclosure of national secrets.

“None of the above commitments were honored in the PMO’s directive,” a source said, adding that the name of Pervaiz Rashid was altogether missing from the directive. Pervaiz Rashid had already resigned a week before the constitution of the inquiry committee, following a preliminary investigation that identified him as one of the people responsible for ‘leaking’ an exchange that the government and the military establishment have been strongly denying ever happened. Despite being identified twice as one of the persons responsible for the ‘lapse’, Rashid got no mention in the order, which was another reason of the strong reaction by the army, he added.

It may also be noted that days before the submission of the final report to the PM, the ISPR DG had told the media that there was nothing on which consensus building was involved and that the decisions would be made strictly on merit rather than on consensus building negotiations. Responding to which, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the interior minister, overreacted and slighted the ISPR DG unnecessarily.

The government had, the source says, lowered its guards after the retirement of Gen Sharif and appointment of the new chief hand-picked by the PM, thinking the army would go easy on things including the Dawn leak issue. Same reason was cited for the unannounced visit of Indian steel magnet Sajjan Jindal ‘almost behind army’s back’, he added.

The PML-N circles are also bewildered over the change in the tone of Nisar Ali Khan on the issues affecting civil-military relations. The critics of Nisar within the PML-N expressed their nervousness about the recent conduct of the federal minister, which they think might push their party’s government down the tight rope of the civil-military relations. It is also a matter of concern among the members who have a strong feeling of being ignored by the PMO that important and sensitive matters are being tweeted by PM’s daughter who does not hold any public office. Some believe that the PM is in no mood to wait for 2018 to launch his daughter in electoral politics, especially after her name did not get stained in Panama verdict as well as this particular inquiry report.

The controversial story, “Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military” appeared in Dawn on October 6, 2016, which had described what was reportedly transpired in a high-level meeting in which the civil leadership allegedly criticised the military’s selective policies on ‘good and bad’ terrorists. The story provoked a strong reaction from the security establishment, which at that time was under Gen Raheel Sharif, soon to be retired.

After a very tense following month in terms of civil and military relationship, the federal government constituted an inquiry committee on November 7, 2016 in order to investigate what it called ‘planted’ story. The committee was headed by Justice (r) Amir Raza Khan, and comprised one member each from the ISI, MI and IB, Establishment Secretary Tahir Shahbaz, Punjab Ombudsman Najam Saeed and an FIA director. Prior to the formation of committee, the government repeatedly rebutted the story as ‘false and fabricated’, but these denials had failed to satisfy the military under a chief of army staff who was due to retire in few weeks.

The establishment under General Raheel Sharif was reported to have strongly called for unmasking the ‘conspiracy’ of fabricating sensitive information, and punishing those who were responsible for what the army at that time too had called a ‘breach of national security’. The civil-military relations during almost entire tenure of Gen Sharif remained at nadir.

One of the many causes of that discord was an overzealous ISPR that claimed a larger than life space for the military in social and political spheres. When Gen Raheel retired and the new chief made key transfers after taking over, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, prime minister’s daughter, had tweeted lines from a popular TV serial Grey’s Anatomy in three consecutive tweets saying: “There’s an end to every storm. Once all the trees have been uprooted, once all the houses have been ripped apart, the wind will hush, the clouds will part, the rain will stop, the sky will clear in an instant. But only then, in those quiet moments after the storm, do we learn who was strong enough to survive it.”

It is also a matter of grave concern for the PM’s kitchen cabinet as to how the recent overreach of the army should be responded to. There is a division within about the nature of response. The ‘respond in same coin’ group however is smaller than the ‘go soft for survival’ group, this scribe has learned. But the PM might face pressure from within the party to make the inquiry report public because some of them believe that the breach of national security, which the report concludes has happened, is on very flimsy grounds and not plausible. While many retired military officers believe that the breach was very clear and should not go scot-free.