Mansoor Ijaz

Mansoor Ijaz (born 1961) is an American businessman of Pakistani ancestry. He is an investment banker and conservative media commentator , mostly in relation to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. ^[1]. He is the founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York investment partnership since 1990 that includes retired General James Alan Abrahamson, former director of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Ijaz has had ties to former CIA Director James Woolsey. Ijaz is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[2]

Life

Mansoor Ijaz was born in Tallahassee, Florida and grew up on a farm in rural Virginia.^[3] Ijaz received his bachelor's degree in nuclear physics from the University of Virginia in 1983 and master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985, where he was trained as a neural sciences engineer. His father, Dr. Mujaddid Ahmad Ijaz, was a theoretical physicist who played a major role in nuclear detterence development throughout 1970s and 1980s, and was a pioneering figure in the designing of the weapons.

Ijaz developed CARAT, a currency, interest rate and equity risk management system. He started his own investment firm in 1990. Away from Crescent's daily business affairs, Ijaz serves on the College Foundation Board of Trustees at the University of Virginia and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Media commentator

He used to appear regularly on a variety of financial and political news programs for CNN [1] [2], Fox News, BBC, Germany’s ARD TV, Japan’s NHK, ABC^{[disambiguation needed ]} and NBC. He has commented for PBS’ Newshour with Jim Lehrer [3], [4], [5], [6] and ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel. Ijaz has been featured twice in Barron's Currency Roundtable discussions. He has also contributed to the editorial pages of London’s Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International, The Christian Science Monitor, The Weekly Standard, National Review, USA Today, and the Times of India. He endorsed views in the period prior to the Iraq War, later proven to be false, that included the presence of WMDs in Iraq and ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Among other topics, he commented on the Osama bin Laden ^[4] and Nuclear Proliferation ^[5]

Fox News analyst on Special Report

Mansoor Ijaz was a Fox News Analyst and played a popular role on Special Report. . He was the most popular guest on the show and appeared on Fox more than 100 occasions. Ijaz would articulate opinions in support of the Bush White House and neo-conservative foreign policy. ^[6]

Iran Nuke Exclusive

In 2006, in an interview with Gulf News, he made the world exclusive claim that Iran already had a nuclear bomb and that US think-tanks were already formulating strategies to overthrow the Iranian Government ^[7]

International negotiator

Mansoor Ijaz has been involved in unofficial negotiations between US and Sudanese governments with regard to extradition of Osama bin Laden. In 1996 the United States Congress had imposed sanctions against the Sudanese government over the terrorist operations on its soil.^[8] Mansoor Ijaz reportedly tried to negotiate a deal between Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir and Clinton administration officials including Sandy Berger. Ijaz argued the U.S. should adopt a policy of "constructive engagement" with Sudan, in return for deporting Osama bin Laden.^[9] However bin Laden made his way to Afghanistan after the deportation from Sudan. According to Ijaz, that was a missed opportunity to capture bin Laden who has not even been indicted by US authorities,^[10] a claim that Clinton's administration has denied^{[citation needed]}. The 9/11 Commission found that although "former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to the United States", "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.".^[11]

Statements Regarding bin Laden

According to Ijaz, the Sudanese government offered the Clinton administration numerous opportunities to arrest bin Laden and those opportunities were met positively by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright but spurned when Susan Rice and counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke persuaded National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to overrule Albright.

Ijaz’s claims in this regard appeared in numerous Op-Ed pieces including one in the Los Angeles Times ^[12] and one in the Washington Post co-written with former Ambassador to Sudan Timothy M. Carney .^[13]

Similar allegations have been made by Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose^[14] and Richard Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, in a November 2003 interview with World.^[15]

Several sources dispute Ijaz's claim, including the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (the 9-11 Commission) which concluded in part “Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment out-standing.” ^[16]

The Mullen Secret Memorandum

In October 2011, various press reports stated that Mr. Ijaz passed a memorandum whose principal architect was Pakistan's ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani to Admiral Mike Mullen from President Zardari without the knowledge of the Pakistani Foreign Office or Foreign Minister. Amb. Haqqani denied in an official statement that he had any involvement in the writing of the memorandum or authorizing it to be passed on to Adm. Mullen. The memorandum, in its original form, was published by the Washington Post on November 18 [[7]].

References

1. ^ CNN (October 18, 2001) Mansoor Ijaz: The Pakistan perspective (CNN interview of Ijaz) Obtained February 14, 2007.
2. ^ http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/08/exclusive_mullen_denies_secret_back_channel_in_us_pakistan_relationship
3. ^ Rediff.com (November 28, 2000) The Rediff Interview/ Mansoor Ijaz Obtained February 14, 2007.
4. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A64828-2002Jun29
5. ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/575nerhn.asp?pg=1
6. ^ http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1187
7. ^ http://gulfnews.com/news/region/iran/iran-has-bomb-and-trying-to-make-more-1.222961
8. ^ Gellman, Barton (October 3, 2001). "U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts To Capture Bin Laden or Have Him Killed". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A61251-2001Oct2. 
9. ^ http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_hr/h970610i.htm
10. ^ http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/568
11. ^ http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_5.pdf
12. ^ Ijaz, Mansoor (December 5, 2001). "Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/05/opinion/oe-ijaz05. 
13. ^ Carney, Timothy; Mansoor Ijaz (June 30, 2002). "Intelligence Failure? Let's Go Back to Sudan". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64828-2002Jun29. Retrieved 2008-12-01. 
14. ^ Rose, David (January, 2002). "The Osama Files". Vanity Fair. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2002/01/osama200201?currentPage=1. Retrieved 2008-12-01. 
15. ^ Belz, Mindy (November 1, 2003). "'Clinton did not have the will to respond'". World. http://www.worldmag.com/articles/8206. Retrieved 2008-12-01. 
16. ^ http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch4.htm

External links

• His testimony to House Judiciary Committee Sub-Committee on Terrorism and Crime, June 10, 1997
• His November 2000 interview with rediff.com on Kashmir's ceasefire
• A New Threat and a Renewed Organization NRO online
• Richard Clarke Top Seven Questions for Commissioners
• FT: Time to take on Pakistan's Jihadist Spies, October 10, 2011
• The News: Memo Epicentre, October 26, 2011
• Pakistan Business Recorder: Foreign Office rejects Financial Times report, October 29, 2011
• The News: A Dangerous Path for Pakistan, October 31, 2011
• The News: The man who played with four govts, November 2, 2011

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Name	Ijaz, Mansoor
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Date of birth	1961
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