Source: ET
While a frenzied debate is raging over the Abbottabad Commission report released by Al Jazeera, the report is actually an earlier draft that had been prepared by the commission through a bizarre internal arrangement under which several versions were to be produced by the members in the hope of reconciling them all into a final one in the end.
Interviews with senior civil and political sources reveal that after the formation of the commission, differences crept up among its members on the approach to the inquiry, the scope and method of inquiry and more important, in drafting the findings of the commission.
Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, a former foreign office bureaucrat with an international career stint in Iraq, wanted to give the report “an extraordinary cutting edge, one that would make the substance stand out for a long time to come,” said a source at the law ministry.
The Abbottabad Commission’s President, Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, a former Supreme Court judge, wanted the report to “not exceed the requirements as communicated by the ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs”. These requirements were to ascertain the full facts regarding the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan; investigate the circumstances and facts regarding the US operation in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011; determine the nature, background and causes of lapses of authorities, if any; and finally to make consequential recommendations.