Bush and Musharraf letting strains show

Bush and Musharraf letting strains show
The Associated Press: September 22, 2006

WASHINGTON President George W. Bush said Friday he was "taken aback" by a purported U.S. threat to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate in the fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks.

He praised Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, for being one of the first foreign leaders to come out after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to stand with the United States to "help root out an enemy."

At a joint White House news conference, Musharraf said a peace treaty between his government and tribes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was not meant to support the Taliban.

He said news reports had mischaracterized the deals.

"The deal is not at all with the Taliban," he said. "This deal is against the Taliban. This deal is with the tribal elders."

Bush said: "I believe him."

He said that Musharaff had looked him in the eye and vowed that "the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people and that there won't be a Taliban and there won't be Al Qaida" in Pakistan.

In an interview to air Sunday on CBS television's "60 Minutes" program, Musharraf said that after the attacks, Richard Armitage, then deputy secretary of state, told Pakistan's intelligence director that the United States would bomb his country if it didn't help fight terrorists.

He said that Armitage had told him, "Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age."

Armitage disputed the language attributed to him but did not deny the message was a strong one, according to CBS.

Asked about the report, Bush said: "The first I heard of this is when I read it in the newspaper. I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words."

For his part, Musharraf declined to comment and cited a contract agreement with a publisher on an upcoming book. However, he told CBS the Stone Age warning "was a very rude remark."

Bush has repeatedly praised Pakistan for arresting operatives from Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, and hundreds have been detained.

But the United States has also said that Pakistan can do more to stop militants from crossing from its tribal regions into Afghanistan, where Taliban violence has reached its deadliest level since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the hard-line regime.

On Thursday, the Pakistani government vowed that it would not let foreign military forces enter its territory.

The whereabouts of Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, are unknown, but he is believed to be hiding along the porous Pakistani-Afghan frontier, where about 100,000 Pakistani, U.S. and Afghan forces are hunting Taliban and Qaeda militants.

Pakistan had long supported the Taliban, which came to power after the civil war in Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996. But the Taliban's harboring of bin Laden and of his training camps for militants made Pakistan a potential target of U.S. anger as well after the Sept. 11 attacks.

For text of Bush-Musharraf Press Conference on September 22, 2006, click here
Also see CNN report, by clicking here