Israel Killed Pakistani Dictator Zia; Former US ambassador

[quote][size=18]Did Israel Kill The President Of Pakistan?[/size]

The former U.S. Ambassador to India, John Dean, has accused Israel of being behind the assassination of Pakistan President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1988.

Dean made the allegation in an article in the World Policy Journal. He said he believed the attack was carried out by Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.

It happened on August 17 1988. Pak One, Pakistan's equivalent of Air Force One, took off from a military air base outside of Bahawalpur in the late afternoon. On board was Pakistan's president, joint chief of staffs, and most of the Pakistan army's top generals, the U.S. Ambassador to pakistan Arnie Raphael and General Herbert M. Wassom, the chief U.S. military official in Pakistan, and a four-man crew. Within minutes the plane crashed and all 30 on board were killed.

The U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz pressed the FBI not to participate in the ensuing investigation, notwithstanding two very senior U.S. officials had been killed in the incident, and that a substantial team of investigators had already been assembled. Schultz was supported by the Pentagon.

The State Department actively promoted the notion that the incident was an accident and even leaked stories to that effect to several newspapers including the New York Times. The official investigation subsequently concluded the plane crashed as the result of sabotage, and not any mechanical failure.

Ambassador Dean, who served under Schultz, now says Israel brought the plane down.

Dean said he was often asked to persuade India to have closer ties with Israel.

Dean who was once Richard Nixon's White House Counsel went on to become the Ambassador to Denmark in 1975 and then Ambassador to Lebanon in 1978 before being appointed to similar posts in Thailand in 1981 and India in 1985.

It was in Lebanon between 1978 and 1981 that Dean first incurred the wrath of Israel. Caught up in a vicious civil war, Dean traveled the length and breadth of the country negotiating with more than a dozen different factions to try and restore peace. The U.S. had a strong presence in Lebanon as did Israel. Dean was a joint signatory on Lebanon's bank accounts with Lebanese President Elias Sarkis.

Dean was authorized to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) if it was deemed to be in America’s “national security interests.” When an “interlocutor” in Washington wondered if the Palestinians could help release American diplomatic hostages being held in Tehran, Dean sought—and received—Palestinian help. PLO leader Yasser Arafat and his aide Abu Jihad themselves went to Tehran in 1979 and secured the release of 13 Americans. Never, Dean noted, did the two receive any thanks from Washington for their efforts.

Anyone who gets between the U.S. president and the prime minister of Israel “finds himself in trouble,” Dean was quoted as saying in The Washington Report.

Riding in his armored limousine in Beirut with ardently pro-Israel Congressman Steve Solarz, a bullet hit the car. “What’s that?” Solarz asked. “Just a bullet,” Dean replied, “but don’t worry. We are armored.” Solarz insisted on returning to the American Embassy, where he cabled home, “Arafat shot at me.”

According to The Washington Report, to stress his support for the sovereignty of Lebanon Dean always cabled protests to Tel Aviv and the State Department in Washington whenever Israeli planes intruded—as they frequently did—into Lebanese airspace. These reminders irritated U.S. Ambassador to Israel Sam Lewis, with whom Dean preserved cordial relations but who suffered to a notable degree from what the U.S. Foreign Service calls “localitis”.. Other irritants flowed from Dean’s urging Lebanese Christian leader Bashir Gemayel to stop seeing Israeli Mossad officers.

Dean’s staunch defense of Lebanese (and American) interests came to a head in the early evening of Aug. 27, 1980, when, according to all the evidence, said The Washington Report, Mossad tried but failed to assassinate Dean and his family. The long-rumored attempted murder of Dean by Mossad, was publicly confirmed for the first time in talk by Dean in Washington.

En-route from his residence in Lebanon’s hills to the Beirut residence of the AUB president, Dean’s limousine and convoy took 21 rifle bullets. The automobile bearing the ambassador and Mrs. Dean was also struck by two light anti-tank weapons. The shot-out tires on the Deans’ bulletproof car automatically reinflated. The second car, however, carrying their daughter and her fiancé, did not have bulletproof tires and was momentarily stranded. The security guards in the convoy’s third car pushed the daughter and her fiancé into the Deans’ vehicle, and they sped away. Incredibly, none of the ambassador’s party or security guards were seriously wounded. Some shots struck where Dean was sitting, but bulletproof plastic windows saved his life, said The Washington Report.

Picked up by Lebanese security, the anti-tank canisters had made-in-America markings. After unanswered telegrams to the State Department and all but silent responses to his telephone inquiries, Dean eventually learned that the anti-tank weapons were sold and shipped to Israel in 1974. [b]Dean apparently mused to himself on the irony of an American ambassador being subjected to an Israeli assassination attempt with American weapons supplied to Israel for defense.[/b]

On the assassination of Arafat’s personal assistant, Abu Hassan, in early 1979, Ambassador Dean was told by the Lebanese intelligence service that three Mossad officers, bearing Belgian and Australian passports, had come to Beirut masquerading as tourists for the purpose of killing Abu Hassan, whose greatest “drawback,” in Dean‘s opinion, was that he was close to the Americans.

While Ambassador Dean did not commend himself to Israel, he very much gained the respect and affection of Lebanon which, on his departure form Beirut, awarded him its highest decoration. And out of the turmoil of Lebanon he also kept the confidence of the United States, which subsequently honored him with the additional ambassadorships, in Thailand and India.

It was in India in 1988, three years after his appointment, [b]that the Pakistan president was assassinated, and when Dean conveyed his views to the State Department, that Israel was responsible, he was accused of being mentally unbalanced, and was relieved of his duties.[/b]

Now Dean is challenging the State Department's charge and is calling for a fresh inquiry into the plane crash that killed the Pakistan President U.S. Ambassador along with twenty-nine others.

His theory though will compete with a number of other such allegations made since the high-profile crash.

Soviet Russia at the time was in the final throes of its war with Pakistan's neighbour Afghanistan and was irritated by Zia's close affiliation with the United States. The U.S. ruled out any Soviet involvement as it concluded it would not have engaged in an attack against a U.S. ambassador and senior military chief, notwithstanding Raphael and Wassom were not scheduled to travel on Pak One on the day of the crash.

[url=http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/6/1228/105/]MPACUK[/url][/quote]

Interesting

So was Dean mentally unbalanced, or was he telling the truth? Was Israel involved? Why (how?) was Israel involved in everything? Did Israel shoot Jr?