NEW YORK - The man behind Pakistans 'memogate scandal now claims that former Pakistan ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani and President Asif Ali Zardari both had advance knowledge of the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden and to use the situation resulting from it to the Zardari regimes advantage. ... Zardari and Haqqani both knew the US was going to launch a stealth mission to eliminate bin Laden that would violate Pakistans sovereignty, wrote Mansoor Ijaz in a detailed article posted Friday night on the website of The Daily Beast-Newsweek. They may have even given advance consent after CIA operations on the ground in Pakistan pinpointed the Saudi fugitives location, Ijaz, a Pakistani-American businessman, said in the article in which he again alleged that Haqqani was the author of the memorandum seeking US help in May to prevent a military coup against the civilian government. The businessman said he used his contacts to deliver the memo to the then Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Ijaz wrote, The unilateral US action, they might have surmised, would result in a nation blaming its armed forces and intelligence services for culpability in harbouring bin Laden for so many years. They planned to use the Pakistani publics hue and cry to force the resignations of Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani and intelligence chief Gen Shuja Pasha. Pliable replacements would have been appointed... Haqqani is now trying to deflect attention, and possible culpability, away from Zardari. But why would he fall on his sword for the man he once dubbed Mr 10 Percent? ..., If it all went wrong, the Pakistanis could unite in their hatred of America for violating their nations sovereignty, with Zardari leading the chorus aimed at Washington. If it went to plan, the long-sought aim of putting civilians (ie, Zardari & Co) in charge of the Army would be complete. Washington would have bin Ladens scalp; Zardari would have Kayanis and Pashas. And US taxpayer-funded aid would flow unabated under the Kerry-Lugar bill in which Haqqani had pushed so hard to include civilian-supremacy language as a sine qua non. Not a bad plan. Really, not a bad plan. Unfortunately, plans leave footprints. Consider that Operation Neptune Spear was approved by President Obama at 8:20 am on April 29. After waiting one day for bad weather, the operation commenced. Ask Haqqani where he was during those fateful days prior to, and on the day of, the bin Laden raid. Answer: London. Coincidentally, he would have left at just about the same time Obama gave the green light. Why? Whom did he meet? What did he discuss with his British hosts? Why was he back for another round of meetings with the same peopleSir David Richards, chief of the Defence Staff (Admiral Mullens British equivalent), and Tobias Ellwood, parliamentary private secretary to the defence secretary a week later? For what were characterised as private visits, Haqqanis appointment agenda was pretty hefty an agenda that only one man knew about beforehand: Asif Ali Zardari. What private matter could be so important that it required Pakistans eyes and ears in America to be away from his desk on the very day his host country was about to execute one of the most daring military missions in history to kill the worlds most-wanted terrorist on Pakistani soil? Was Haqqani in London so he could plausibly deny having any knowledge of the bin Laden raid on the day it occurred, having just conveyed Zardaris approval for the raid to the Obama national-security team? Or was he tasked with informing Pakistans key allies to keep everyone in the loop playing the role of a back channel within his own government? Haqqani made just one critical mistake seconding me into his scheme. I dislike the brinksmanship and heavy-handed role that Pakistans military and intelligence organisations have played throughout the nations history, and have said so over and over again. Democracy cannot exist in a police state managed by an intelligence agency. But I dislike even more feudal civilian cabals that feign love for democracy only to orchestrate their grandiose schemes on important security issues through abuses of power that simply cannot be tolerated in an open society... In the article, Ijaz gave his version of the events that led to Haqqani resignation, the contacts he had with former Pakistan envoy, the exchange of the Blackberry messages and how the memo was prepared and then passed on to Admiral Mullen.