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| October 10, 2006 | Tuesday | Ramazan 16, 1427 |
‘Defending the indefensible’
ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: President Pervez Musharraf’s recently released memoir, In the Line of Fire, has put his media managers and government spokespersons in a tight spot.
The bestseller memoir is giving sleepless nights to various government spokespersons who continue to be bombarded with searching questions about the dramatic disclosures he has made on key national security issues.
While the government and official spokespersons zealously, defend for the record, the president’s decision to write his autobiography while in office and insist he revealed no state secrets, privately they concede it has become a liability for them.
Some of the spokespersons tasked with damage-control find themselves in an increasingly awkward position of what of them described as ‘defending the indefensible’. Their task has become even more difficult as claims made in the book continue to be refuted on an almost daily basis by relevant quarters, both at the national and international level. The book has generated endless debate and evoked much criticism in media, diplomatic, social and political circles at home and abroad. It has become a compulsory read for President Musharraf’s media managers, officials of the Foreign Ministry and Pakistani diplomats abroad.
The president has talked about some sensitive and controversial issues such as nuclear proliferation, Kargil, and war on terror. It spills many beans related to key matters of international concern that our foreign policy managers and implementers have been jealously guarding. The thick veil of secrecy maintained by the Foreign Ministry and carefully worded formulations crafted by highly cautious Pakistani diplomats went flying out of the window with the release of the tell-all memoir.
In the diplomatic community here it remains a hot topic of conversation which again puts the Foreign Ministry officials in an embarrassing situation as they are invariably confronted with queries they would rather avoid.
Foreign Office has already distanced itself from the contentious revelations made by the president on foreign policy issues. Recently, Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam declined to take any questions on The Line of Fire. “Any questions related to the president’s book should be directed to the President’s Office. They will be handling those questions,” was her loud and clear message to the probing hacks.—Q.A.
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