The Intercept reported on responses from Islamabad and Washington to its publication of the cable by Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, showing the US State Department last year muscled Pakistan to dump their Prime Minister Imran Khan. In sum there was an outbreak of blather.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the publishing of the cable to be a “massive crime.” He admitted that the cable was authentic, but claimed that there was no conspiracy against Khan. Evidently, the US State Department’s order to dump Khan and Islamabad’s promptly dumping of Khan were two isolated events. Otherwise, Sharif thought it pertinent to tell the Guardian that he himself had the cable, “but he had lost it.”
Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, lined up with Washington against Khan, took a different line. He suggested that the recently published cable was “inauthentic,” and that “anything can be typed up on a piece of paper.” Still, he called for Imran Khan to be tried under the Official Secrets Act - for disclosing the supposedly inauthentic piece of paper. Shortly afterwards, on August 16, Pakistan’s government did file charges against Khan for mishandling and misusing the cable. (One can only imagine what charges he would face if he had simply misplaced the cable… as his successor Sharif admitted.)
