Unmitigated Disaster - Puppet PM's Washington Umrah
Veteran journalist Khalid Hasan minces no words:
However, let me conclude this with one of the most awkward and embarrassing performances I have ever witnessed in all my years of reporting. He made an appearance in an open dialogue with Richard Haass, one of this country’s leading foreign policy experts, at an event jointly organised by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Middle East Institute. The large invited audience contained the cream of Washington’s intellectual community. Gilani first read a prepared speech, which contained the unfortunate line — that he repeated elsewhere too — “This is not Charlie Wilson’s war. It is Benazir Bhutto’s war.”
This was followed by a question-answer session with Haass beginning to play with the prime minister as a cat plays with a mouse, since he found him dense, unable to answer questions and half the time even understand what he was being asked. Gilani seemed unable to speak coherently. Repeatedly, he failed to understand what he had been asked, gave answers that were unrelated to what the query had been. He obviously had a comprehension problem. I spoke to four foreign journalists, a few retired American diplomats and several Pakistani intellectuals and they were all agreed that Gilani’s performance was an “unmitigated disaster”.
However, let me conclude this with one of the most awkward and embarrassing performances I have ever witnessed in all my years of reporting. He made an appearance in an open dialogue with Richard Haass, one of this country’s leading foreign policy experts, at an event jointly organised by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Middle East Institute. The large invited audience contained the cream of Washington’s intellectual community. Gilani first read a prepared speech, which contained the unfortunate line — that he repeated elsewhere too — “This is not Charlie Wilson’s war. It is Benazir Bhutto’s war.”
This was followed by a question-answer session with Haass beginning to play with the prime minister as a cat plays with a mouse, since he found him dense, unable to answer questions and half the time even understand what he was being asked. Gilani seemed unable to speak coherently. Repeatedly, he failed to understand what he had been asked, gave answers that were unrelated to what the query had been. He obviously had a comprehension problem. I spoke to four foreign journalists, a few retired American diplomats and several Pakistani intellectuals and they were all agreed that Gilani’s performance was an “unmitigated disaster”.
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