Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said Friday
that an official document detailing his conversation with the
Pakistani intelligence chief confirms he did not threaten that
Pakistan would be bombed if the Pakistani leader refuses to join
the US fight against al-Qaida.
"It did not happen. I was not authorized to say something like
that. I did not say it," local mass media quoted Armitage as
saying.
Armitage, who was former Secretary of State Colin Powell's
right-hand man at the time, said he called the State Department
Friday morning to double-check his memory and had an employee read
him the cable he had sent after his meeting with the Pakistani
intelligence chief, whom Armitage identified as Gen. M.
"I reviewed the cable, or had it read to me this morning from
the State Department, and there was in no way that threat,"
Armitage said.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday that the
United States threatened to bomb his country "back to the Stone
Age" after the Sept. 11 attacks if he did not help America's war on
terror.
Musharraf told CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" program that the threat
came from Richard Armitage and was made to Musharraf's intelligence
director.
"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be
prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'"
Musharraf said in the interview to be shown Sunday on CBS.
"I think it was a very rude remark," Musharraf said in the
interview.
Bush said Friday that he was "taken aback" by a purported US
threat to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if it did not
cooperate in the fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11
attacks.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Musharraf at the White
House, Bush said "I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the
words."
Bush stopped short of flatly denying the report. Instead, he
spoke highly of Musharraf's role in war against terrorism.
Bush praised the Pakistani leader 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."
Also on Friday, the White House said that it was not US policy
to threaten Pakistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, but acknowledged
it might have been "a classic failure to communicate."
"US policy was not to issue bombing threats, US policy was to
say to president Musharraf 'we need you to make a choice," White
House spokesman Tony Snow said, adding "This could have been a
classic failure to communicate. I just don't know."
(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2006)
