Excerpt:
The president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf in Washington. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" after the September 11 attacks if the country did not cooperate with America's war on Afghanistan, it emerged yesterday. In an interview to be aired on CBS television this weekend Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by the assistant secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in conversations with Pakistan's intelligence director.
"The intelligence director told me that (Mr Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age'," Gen Musharraf was quoted as saying. The revelation that the US used extreme pressure to secure Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terror arrived at a time of renewed unease in the US about its frontline ally.
Gen Musharraf told CBS he was stunned at the bluntness of the US approach in the aftermath of the attacks. "I think it was a very rude remark," he said. But he yielded to the request.
Mr Armitage disputes the language used, CBS said, but he did not deny that Pakistan was put on notice to help America's war effort.
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=53578
"The intelligence director told me that (Mr Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age'," Gen Musharraf was quoted as saying. The revelation that the US used extreme pressure to secure Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terror arrived at a time of renewed unease in the US about its frontline ally.
Gen Musharraf told CBS he was stunned at the bluntness of the US approach in the aftermath of the attacks. "I think it was a very rude remark," he said. But he yielded to the request.
Mr Armitage disputes the language used, CBS said, but he did not deny that Pakistan was put on notice to help America's war effort.
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=53578
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