ISLAMABAD: Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer prize winning journalist, stood by his report containing comments offered by former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf about President Asif Ali Zardari. He disclosed that the former president had given even harsher comments about his successor but in the ultimate scrutiny he made them mild and allowed the remarks that he made part of his article. Hersh will appear in Geo News programme ‘Meray Mutabiq’, at 2:05 pm today (Tuesday). Renowned journalist Dr Shahid Masood hosts the programme. Group Editor of The News Shaheen Sehbai will also participate. It is the maiden interview of the US investigative journalist in the wake of his thrilling write-up in the New Yorker magazine.

Hersh also discussed the role of the US embassy in Islamabad. He said it was the report that was received from the US embassy in Islamabad that highly classified US military and civil-emergency response team was put on alert indicating that a Pakistani nuclear component had gone astray. The team, which operates clandestinely and includes terrorism and non-proliferation experts from the US intelligence community, the Pentagon, the FBI, and the DOE, is under standing orders to deploy from Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland (Washington), within four hours of an alert. When the report turned out to be a false alarm, the mission was aborted. By the time the team got the message, it was already in Dubai on its way to Pakistan. Hersh made several startling disclosures in the interview with Geo News.