Between October 2002 and October 2011, eleven pieces by one Mansoor Ijaz, lately of 'Memogate' fame, appeared in the Financial Times of London.

As an 'American of Pakistani descent, chairman of Crescent Partnerships, a New York-based private equity investment firm focusing on US national security technologies', Mansoor Ijaz wrote his first article for the Financial Times on 1 October 2002. By January 2006 his profile tag had become 'chief executive of Crescent Technology Ventures, who negotiated Sudan's offer of counterterrorism assistance to the US in 1997 and jointly authored the blueprint for a ceasefire between Muslim militants and Indian security forces in Kashmir in 2000' and later in the year 'a New York financier, assisted US authorities in discovering activities tied to the illicit nuclear network of A.Q. Khan in 2000-2001'. In January 2010 he was 'chairman of Aquarius Global Partners, a London private equity investment firm' and again author of 'the blueprint for a ceasefire of hostilities between Indian security forces and Islamist militants in Kashmir in July and August 2000'. For his last piece for the Financial Times, which resulted in Memogate, his bio was 'an American of Pakistani ancestry. In 1997 he negotiated Sudan's offer of counter-terrorism assistance to the Clinton administration'.

What Ijaz was putting out to a UK and US audience moved with the times. Here are snippets from his articles.

His earliest piece on 1 October 2002 gave a nod to the lack of democracy in Pakistan, but stated that the country "has no civilian leaders capable of eradicating the new breed of terrorists that Islamabad's political [sic] scions helped to create. Institutional erosion has left ordinary Pakistanis with few choices other than the corrupt and discredited leaders of the past ... Indeed, the only institutional framework capable of governing rationally and ensuring the safety of Pakistan's nuclear materials is the army."

Musharraf "should start by dismantling the country's feudal landholdings and entitlements, which have anointed corrupt figures as fixtures in the political landscape ... Gen Musharraf should force feudal families to divest their landholdings ... If Washington is going to look the other way again, it should make clear to Gen Musharraf that the time has come to face down not only radical Islamists but feudal robber barons too."

By 2003, in a piece entitled 'Maritime Threat from Al Qaeda', Ijaz appeared to be exaggerating the threat of Al Qaeda to a US audience. Six months later he was reassuring them that: "While tussling with the Islamists in parliament this year, Gen Musharraf has quietly been appointing his successors. In the event of his death, continuity of government is assured. Besides, Gen Musharraf's reaction to the IAEA intelligence would have been unthinkable without the full support of the army and the more moderate Islamists. Pakistan is maturing, not crumbling."

Three years elapsed before Ijaz's next article appeared. Now he was back on the plutonium trail, again apparently exaggerating its threat. In July 2006 his line was that "Pakistan has successfully walked the anti-terror tightrope since September 11 2001 because Gen Musharraf has sought to be all things to all people. But what if he is gone tomorrow? Who insures the world against Islamists wresting control of a nuclear programme that is populated with some of the brightest, most radicalised minds in the Muslim world who still deeply resent the US dethroning of A.Q. Khan?"

In early 2007 he co-authored a piece with James Jones who was Nato Supreme Allied Commander 2003-2007 which said: "[A] regional intelligence centre was created recently to improve intelligence sharing. It should be beefed up so that data can be shared between countries on a transparent and factual basis using Nato's Tripartite Council as the venue to build trust among the parties. India has proved its part of the equation by assisting Pakistani intelligence to thwart assassination attempts on Mr Musharraf. Only mistrust of motives prevents this policy from being put in place."

'Prosperity can buy peace in Kashmir' appeared in August 2010, with Ijaz taking a dove-like position on the civilian government. "Pakistan's internal disarray makes the arguments against peace by its hawkish military leaders nearly irrelevant. The generals, to put it bluntly, are busy elsewhere putting out fires they started years ago. The country's flamboyant president, Asif Ali Zardari, is a wheeler-dealer who gets along just fine with his neighbours to the east and is only too happy to replace militant camps with clothing factories."

In November 2010's 'Why India needs an Obama plan for Pakistan', the message is peace in the region: "As a confidence-building measure, India could for example ask Pakistan's military to join its own in training the new Afghan army ... Gen Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's army chief, could show good faith to his Indian counterparts by shutting down supply lines to Haqqani terrorist cells in northern Waziristan where Mumbai-type terrorists plot future attacks. He could also encourage Pakistani-backed jihadists in Kashmir to back off, helping to break the cycle of violence and setting the stage for rational talks over Kashmir's future."

Just after the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in May 2011, Ijaz wrote a piece titled 'Security chiefs should end Pakistan's duplicity'. In it, he says that civilian leaders "only get to know what the ISI wants them to know. It has been that way since the country was founded. The decade-long rule of General Pervez Musharraf ushered in the era of "blind eye" firewalls to ISI activities."

Then, on 11 October 2011, came the article that brought on Memogate.

Eleven articles in almost as many years were published by the Financial Times, probably on the basis that Mansoor Ijaz was of US upbringing but Pakistani origin, had stated that he had security links as well as financial interests and chairmanships of companies. This all helped to tick the boxes for comment in a section where staff changed every few years and where the focus was always on US finance, economics and strategics. The comment desk puts out 30 articles a week or 1500 a year.

Unfortunately, it was also an editorial desk that lacked insight into what was happening in Pakistan. Nor did they wonder why without any diplomatic credentials, Ijaz had apparently worked for a variety of clients, such as the Sudanese and the US, or on nuclear issues, or with apparent access to Indian intelligence and the ISI as a negotiator on Kashmir.