WASHINGTON, Sept 22: The White House on Friday denied threatening to bomb Pakistan after the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to force it to support the US-led war against terrorism.
The denial came as presidents Bush and Musharraf met at the White House to discuss cooperation in the war on terrorism and efforts to prevent a resurgence of the Taliban.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state at the time, had denied warning Gen Musharraf that the US would bomb his country if it did not cooperate with the US campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr Armitage told CNN earlier that he never threatened to bomb Pakistan but acknowledged delivering a tough message to Islamabad that it was either ‘with us or against us.’
“I wouldn’t say such a thing and didn’t have the authority to do it,” he said. Mr Armitage said he didn’t know how his message was recounted so differently to President Musharraf.
Gen Musharraf, in an interview with CBS News’ magazine show “60 Minutes,” to be aired on Sunday, said that after the Sept 11 attacks, Mr Armitage had told Pakistan’s intelligence director, “Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age.”
Spokesman Snow said he did not know what Mr Musharraf had been told but that the
US policy was to seek Gen. Musharraf’s cooperation.
“US policy was not to issue bombing threats. US policy was to say to President Musharraf: “We need you to make a choice,” Mr Snow said.
As for what Mr Armitage said to the Pakistanis: “I don’t know,” Mr Snow said. “This could have been a classic failure to communicate.”
The official 9/11 commission report on the attacks and their aftermath, based largely on government documents, said US national security officials focused immediately on securing Pakistani cooperation as they planned a response.
Documents showed Mr 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 Osama bin Laden and giving the United States blanket over-flight and landing rights for military and intelligence flights.
The report did not discuss any threat the United States may have made, but it said Gen Musharraf agreed to the requests the same day.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, former secretary of state Colin Powell said: “We gave them a list of things we wanted Pakistan to do, which essentially required Pakistan to completely reverse its policy with respect to the Taliban.”
Gen Musharraf ‘saw the wisdom in the decision he took,’ Mr Powell said.
Gen 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.
The only person who was in the meeting room with Mr Armitage, when he met with the then ISI chief, was Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington Dr Maleeha Lodhi. When contacted by Dawn, she refused to comment on the president’s remarks.
