Dinner at the Pakistani Embassy

Last night, Pakistani Amb. Husain Haqqani hosted 130 guests for a dinner in honor of a high-level delegation of senior Pakistani officials visiting Washington. Among those invited to dine with Haqqani, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani:

U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, NSC war czar Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, NSC homeland security advisor John Brennan, plus members of Congress including Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ben Nelson (D-NE), Reps. Chris van Hollen (D-MD), Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), and Howard Berman (D-CA). Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, and Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, also attended.

The dinner was held in a “big room, 8-10 tables,” one guest told The Cable. The embassy served “mushroom soup, rice, break, chicken, mutton curry, veggies, gulub jamun” a sweet, syrupy dessert, he said.

The dinner was “short on speeches,” he added. “Just a welcome from Ambassador Haqqani.” The head table, where Holbrooke, Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi, and members of Congress were seated, “talked on and on after others started to slip out the sides.”

General Kayani dined at a table with Lt. General Lute and other senior U.S. military officials. Another source at the dinner noted that Boucher and Holbrooke, sitting at neighboring tables, never seemed to acknowledge each other. Holbrooke mentioned that he has hired a deputy — along with advisor Vali Nasr and NYU South Asia expert Barnett Rubin, who is consulting for a period of 130 days — but is running a small shop.