A rchive Date
[ 21-09-2006 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Pakistan ]

Musharraf: U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan

Leader says he was pressured to cooperate after 9/11 for safety of country

NEW YORK -

of Pakistan said that after the Sept. 11 attacks the United States threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with America’s campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show “60 Minutes” that will air Sunday, said the threat came from Deputy Secretary of State

Richard Armitage

and was given to Musharraf’s intelligence director.

“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,”’ Musharraf said. “I think it was a very rude remark.”

Armitage was not immediately available to comment, and a Bush administration official said there would be no comment on a “reported conversation between Mr. Armitage and a Pakistani official.”

But the official said: “After 9/11, Pakistan made a strategic decision to join the war on terror and has since been a steadfast partner in that effort. Pakistan’s commitment to this important endeavor has not wavered and our partnership has widened as a result.”

Musharraf is now in Washington and is due to meet President Bush in the White House Friday.

The Pakistani leader, whose remarks were distributed to the media by CBS, said he reacted to the threat in a responsible way.

“One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that’s what I did,” Musharraf said.

Relations with the Taliban

Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pakistan was one of the only countries in the world to maintain relations with the Taliban, which was harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and many Pakistanis were sympathetic with the neighboring Islamic state.

But within days of the attacks Musharraf cut his government’s ties to the Taliban regime and cooperated with U.S. efforts to track and capture al-Qaida and Taliban forces that sought refuge in Pakistan.

The official 9/11 commission report on the attacks and their aftermath, based largely on government documents, said U.S. national security officials focused immediately on securing Pakistani cooperation as they planned a response.

Documents showed Armitage met the Pakistani ambassador and the visiting head of Pakistan’s military intelligence service in Washington on Sept. 13 and asked Pakistan to take seven steps.

They included ending logistical support for bin Laden and giving the United States blanket overflight and landing rights for military and intelligence flights.

The report did not discuss any threat the United States may have made, but it said Musharraf agreed to all seven U.S. requests the same day.

'Ludicrous' demands

Musharraf

said in the CBS interview he was irked by U.S. demands that Pakistan turn over its border posts and bases for the U.S. military to use.

He said some demands were “ludicrous,” including one insisting he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States. “If somebody’s expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views,” Musharraf said.

With Taliban fighters still fighting in Afghanistan and statements by the Afghan government that Pakistan must do more to crack down on militants in its rugged border area, the issue is again a sensitive one between Islamabad and Washington.

Musharraf reacted with displeasure to comments by Bush on Wednesday that if he had firm intelligence bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would issue the order to go into that country.

“We wouldn’t like to allow that. We’d like to do that ourselves,” Musharraf told a news conference.

Musharraf’s comments came days ahead of the publication by New York-based Free Press of his memoir “In the Line of Fire.” Advance copies of the memoir have not been released to the media for review before its Sept. 25 publication.

World Fact Book

(CIA

)

]

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