SUDDENLY the stifling heat gave way to a whir of movement. “He’s here, he’s come, there he is!” I heard excited hacks whisper, as, lo and behold, Army Chief Pervez Musharraf sauntered across the guest-strewn lawn accompanied by his host, the American Ambassador. Nuke nervosa, Kargil (mis)adventure and Nawaz Sharif’s dash to DC had provided enough fodder to the Press present on July 4 reception at the residence of the American ambassador in Islamabad in 1999.

Sindh’s ex-governor, Moinuddin Haider engaged us as he keened about Karachi’s nightmarish law and order (I could see interest rouse among nearby US embassy officials inching towards the reporters’ radar) when, to our utter delight, (what else can one wish?) Musharraf walked up to Haider to shake hands.

Exuding a new gravitas, Musharraf fielded our questions with aplomb, saying everything without giving away anything!

Today, hewing to the American advice, Haider, our interior minister, has agreed to allow an army of big beefy men in dark suits, gelled blond crewcuts, ear and mouth gizmos properly plugged and wired direct to the Bureau, to roam the hinterlands and hunt for ‘terrorists’ across Pakistan. According to had-enough American Ambassador, Wendy Chamberlin, shortly exiting her post in Islamabad: “... the crises here were unrelenting, we couldn’t catch our breath.” The solution now lies in getting a permanent office set up for the FBI, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re going to have FBI guys here on a continual basis, not just coming in for two weeks and leaving, but stationed here.” Karachi has been chosen to home them.

As quid pro quo, Haider returned from the US recently, clutching a $75 million cheque. Press grilling of FBI for its failure to ‘connect the dots’ — concrete information of hijacking threats from Al-Qaeda before 9/11 — can result in an overkill in Pakistan. Before ‘taking his leave’, a sly wink from Haider to the Americans to kill droves of Al-Qaeda holed up in our tribal areas according to the say-so of CIA and FBI snoops lays bare our intelligence secrets.

An Indian-Muslim from Lucknow, who came to the US in the ‘70s and since worked in the periphery of nuke-technology tells me: “The chatter among us (Indians) about the raison d’etre for FBI infiltration into Pakistan is to suss out your nuke redoubt with their sophisticated surveillance-tech and whisk away classified information to the Israelis to use when the time to attack your facilities arrives!” Um, um ...

Journalist Seymour Hersh turns it around: he is not so sure about Gen Musharraf saying yes to his nukes being ‘safe’, and claims US Special Forces are prepared to go in and take control should the Pakistani leader lose his grip! (with Israeli sting operation?)

The Indians today are spoiling for war with Pakistan. Symptomatic of the gitterbugs flying all around is the Press serving souped-up versions of how close Pakistan came to a nuclear strike by leaked stories of Clinton’s aide Bruce Riedel now going on record (why the fellow kept silent for three years and has now gone on a memory jog?) portraying Musharraf as a push-button-happy adventurer who almost nuked India in July, 1999, keeping his skittish prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, out of the intelligence loop!

Naturally, Americans are less sanguine of our nuke gung ho Musharraf? Should they suddenly take a dislike to his face or khaki gear, get ready to see the end of him. Merely recall last month’s US-supported unsuccessful coup against Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, and The New York Times calling him “a ruinous demagogue” and that “Venezuela urgently needs a leader with a strong democratic mandate”. Remember NYT’s damning editorials use exact words for Musharraf?

Director Robert Mueller of FBI is vowing to crank up his foreign outfits with “super squads” who, in turn, are expected to stir up things — where else — but in Pakistan. Leery we must be for who knows but the ghosts of J. Edgar Hoover, the homosexual tyrant ruling FBI for 48 years in cahoots with another gay alcoholic, Senator Joseph McCarthy (a bogus man Americans would love to forget) may come around to haunt us with their counter-intelligence techniques? Who can vouch if their methods have become obsolete? Fusty stuff?

Who will know if agents provocateur taking advantage of ideological divisions may again whip up a groundswell of chaos by inciting Pakistanis to violent acts? The FBI has always functioned primarily as America’s political police.

According to FBI’s own records, agents have been directed to use “established local news media contacts” and other “sources available to the Seat of Government” to “disrupt or neutralize” organizations and to “ridicule and discredit” leaders. Over the years, FBI provocateurs have repeatedly urged and initiated violent acts, including forceful disruptions of meetings and demonstrations, attacks on police, bombings and so on, following an old strategy of Tsarist police director TC Zubatov: “We shall provoke you to acts of terror and then crush you.” Targeted are individuals who occupy key positions as leaders, speakers, writers, organizers, cabinet members, senior government officials, army commanders and staff officers, and so forth.

The Bureau authored by journalist Ronald Kessler graphically details the secret history of the FBI and rakes up the dust covering acts of its most unscrupulous directors. Included is the first-ever interview by Mueller whom Bush appointed on September 4 (a week before 9/11). The Princeton graduate and an attorney at law, Mueller, 56, gave up a $400,000-a-year practice to become a prosecutor enroute to working for the FBI one day.

In the weeks ahead, Mueller may be called to testify to the Congress on what he knew about the ‘famous’ Phoenix memo sent by one of the 11,000 FBI agents in last July from Arizona who Nostradamus-like predicted an attack on the World Trade Centre by Middle-Eastern men swarming the flight schools in the area. The whole of America today wants to see this report. Also, it wants Bush to share with his countrymen the contents of CIA briefing he received on his farm at Crawford, Texas, on August 6.

Why? Because Bush left all out and kept the warning of an attack close to his chest. Shades of Musharraf and his nukes ... would you say?

Democrat Senator Tom Daschle, who is leaving no wiggle room for Bush to defend, himself declares, “I have been asked by Dick Cheney numerous times to drop our demand to hear what Bush knew, but we must know.”

Defence Secretary Rumsfeld admits he also was kept in the dark. Nobody has bothered to ask Secretary of State Colin Powell. He doesn’t matter, I guess?

And believe it or not, but FBI’s own computers are so antiquated and out of sync that even charities here, who gladly lap up donations in cash or in kind, have politely declined FBI’s offer of giving away their computers for free! This is happening here in America, the richest country that makes it its business to police the world, when it can’t even ‘connect the dots’ floating around CIA and FBI!

How does minister Moinuddin Haider intend to spend $75 million? And will he be able to put the genie (FBI) in the bottle and ship it back to the US ever?