ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday said Pakistan’s integrity was more important than retaining the post of the army chief.

He said democracy would not have survived if he had resigned from his army post on schedule. He said that running the “show” in his present position was the only conducive thing for the country, even if it entailed his breaking the open vow of stepping down from the post of army chief. He said that for the sake of country, he would retain the post until 2007.

He was expressing his views in an interview to a private TV channel on Tuesday evening. His wife, Sehba Musharraf was also present on the occasion.

Referring to attempts on his life, he said that they did not faze him or made him change his routine as he had faced death many times as a soldier. He said these attempts would have scared an ordinary person but did not scare him and he always managed to amaze people with his participation in routine affairs after such murderous attempts.

Referring to Osama bin Laden, he said that terrorism was detrimental to progress and peace. Expressing annoyance about the linking of Al Qaeeda with almost every terrorism-related incident everywhere in the world, he said the link should reflect actual realities. He said that there were clues about Osama, but since nothing had transpired, “we had to rethink the whole phenomena” from scratch.

Talking about his rise to power in 1999, he said that it was not a coup. It was just a “mild retaliation”, in response to what he termed irresponsible behavior of elements who refused to permit an aeroplane to land. He said their refusal had endangered the lives of about 300 innocent passengers on board, including 180 children. The army, he said, took control of the situation on the ground as there was only seven minutes of fuel left on the plane and it was the only margin of error between life and death of all the passengers aboard the jet.

He said that people had reacted with great joy at the end of what he termed ineffectual and tyrannous regime of Nawaz Sharif. People had openly celebrated in the wake of the government’s fall, which fully justified taking over of government control.

Talking about his experience as an administrator, he said that running the show as the chief executive of the country was totally a new experience since he was but a novice in the game of power and diplomacy, which had been made easier by army’s training of straight forwardness and a resolute state of mind. He confessed that lack of economic development had hampered him, but only for a while. He said that he felt that successful economic policies had played a vital role in his overall success.— Online