NEW YORK, July 7: US President George Bush has said that the biggest challenge for the next President of the United States would be Pakistan and not Iraq or even Afghanistan, according to a report in the US News and World report on Monday.

The report quoted veteran journalist Bill Kristol of Fox News as saying that “in a mostly off-the-record meeting with a small group of journalists last week, President Bush “conveyed the following impression, that he thought the next president’s biggest challenge would not be Iraq, which he thinks he’ll leave in pretty good shape, and would not be Afghanistan, which is manageable by itself. ... It’s Pakistan.”

“The Pentagon has “requested that Bush sign an ‘executive order’ expanding its authority to go after these (Al Qadea) commanders in Pakistani territory.” But some in the Administration are reluctant to cross that line for fear of destabilizing Pakistan’s recently elected government.”—Correspondent