WASHINGTON
Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.
Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Mr. Khalilzad had planned to meet with Mr. Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai, in a session that was canceled only after Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, learned from Mr. Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing advice and help.
Can I ask what sort of advice and help you are providing? Mr. Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Mr. Khalilzad. What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personnel? Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to The New York Times by an administration official who had received a copy.
Officially, the United States has remained neutral in the contest to succeed Mr. Musharraf, and there is concern within the State Department that the discussions between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister,
could leave the impression that the United States is taking sides in Pakistans already chaotic internal politics.
Mr. Khalilzad also had a close relationship with Ms. Bhutto, flying with her last summer on a private jet to a policy gathering in Aspen, Colo. Ms. Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan in December.
The conduct by Mr. Khalilzad, who is Afghan by birth, has also raised hackles because of speculation that he might seek to succeed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. Mr. Khalilzad, who was the Bush administrations first ambassador to Afghanistan, has also kept in close contact with Afghan officials, angering William Wood, the current American ambassador, said officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter of Mr. Khalilzads contacts. Mr. Khalilzad has said he has no plans to seek the Afghan presidency.
Through his spokesman, he said he had been friends with Mr. Zardari for years. Ambassador Khalilzad had planned to meet socially with Zardari during his personal vacation, said Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations. But because Zardari is now a presidential candidate, Ambassador Khalilzad postponed the meeting, after consulting with senior State Department officials and Zardari himself.
A senior American official said that Mr. Khalilzad had been advised to stop speaking freely to Mr. Zardari, and that it was not clear whether he would face any disciplinary action.
In 1979, Andrew Young was forced to resign as the American ambassador to the United Nations over his unauthorized contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Administration officials described John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Mr. Boucher as angry over the conduct of Mr. Khalilzad because as United Nations ambassador he has no direct responsibility for American relations with Pakistan. Those dealings have been handled principally by Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Boucher and Anne W. Patterson, the American ambassador to Pakistan. Mr. Negroponte previously was the United Nations ambassador, and Ms. Patterson the acting ambassador.
Why do I have to learn about this from Asif after its all set up? Mr. Boucher wrote in the Aug. 18 message, referring to the planned Dubai meeting with Mr. Zardari. We have maintained a public line that we are not involved in the politics or the details. We are merely keeping in touch with the parties. Can I say that honestly if youre providing advice and help? Please advise and help me so that I understand whats going on here.
This is not the first time Mr. Khalilzad has gotten into trouble for unauthorized contacts. In January, White House officials expressed anger about an unauthorized appearance in which Mr. Khalilzad sat beside the Iranian foreign minister at a panel of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and a request from Mr. Khalilzad to be part of the United States delegation to Davos had been turned down by officials at the State Department and the White House, a senior administration official said.
Richard C. Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, said the administration was sending conflicting signals. It is not possible to conduct coherent foreign policy if senior officials are freelancing, he said.
It has long been known that Mr. Zardari, who has been locked in a power struggle with Mr. Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister whose party left the governing coalition on Monday, planned to run for president, administration officials and foreign policy experts said.
I know that Zardaris interest in becoming president has been clear for quite some time, said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The Bush administration has long been uneasy with the idea of Mr. Sharif as a potential leader of Pakistan, and now that Mr. Musharraf is out of the picture, the administration, despite public protestation of neutrality, is seeking another ally.
It distresses me that the U.S. government has not learned yet that having our guy is not a winning strategy in Pakistan, Ms. Schaffer said. Whoever our guy is isnt going to be the only guy in town, and if we go into it with that view, well bump up against a lot of other guys in Pakistan.
A senior Pakistani official said that the relationship between Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Zardari went back several years, and that the men developed a friendship while Mr. Zardari was spending time in New York with Ms. Bhutto.
The Pakistani official said the consultations between the men were an open exchange of information, with each one giving insight into the political landscape in his capital.
Mr. Khalilzad, being a political animal, understood the value of reaching out to Pakistans political leadership long before the bureaucrats at the State Department realized this would be useful at a future date, the official said. The ambassador did not make policy or change policy, he just became an alternate channel, the official said.
Of Mr. Khalilzads Pakistan contacts, Sean I. McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said, Our very clear policy is that the Pakistanis have to work out any domestic political questions for themselves. Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said, The Pakistani elections are an internal matter for the Pakistani people.
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Mark Mazzetti from New York.
