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Yahoo wrote:President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan says the United States threatened to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the 9/11 attacks if he did not help America's war on terror.

The threat was delivered by Richard Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, to Musharraf's intelligence director, the Pakistani leader told CBS' "60 Minutes."

"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 the CBS television network.

It was insulting, Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark," he told reporter Steve Kroft.

But, Musharraf said he reacted responsibly. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation and that is what I did," he said.

The White House and State Department declined to comment on the conversation.

Armitage told CNN on Thursday that he never threatened to bomb Pakistan, wouldn't say such a thing and didn't have the authority to do it. Armitage said he did have a tough message for Pakistan, saying the Muslim nation was either "with us or against us," according to CNN. Armitage said he didn't know how his message was recounted so differently to Musharraf.

In a speech in January 2002, four months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, Musharraf gave a speech in which he clearly came down on the side of reform at home and opposition to Islamic fundamentalism.

Pakistan to this day is considered a close ally of the United States in the struggle with militant groups. Sometimes, however, Pakistan appears reluctant to go after Taliban, which controlled neighboring
Afghanistan until 2001 and has intensified its insurgency in the southern part of the country in recent months.

He is scheduled to meet on Friday at the White House with
President Bush and then see Bush again next week in a three-way meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

Musharraf told 60 Minutes that Armitage's message was delivered with demands that he turn over Pakistan's border posts and bases for the U.S. military to use in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some were "ludicrous," such as a demand he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States.

"If somebody is expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views," Musharraf said.

Yahoo wrote:Earlier Friday, White House counselor Dan Bartlett said he didn't know the specifics of what Armitage might have said to the Pakistanis.

"But we have made very clear that we went straight to President Musharraf in the days after 9/11 and said it's time to make a choice: Are you going to side with the civilized world or are you going to side with the Taliban and al-Qaida," Bartlett told CBS' "The Early Show."

White House press secretary Tony Snow that he didn't know what Armitage said. Armitage no longer is in the administration.

"Mr. Armitage has said that he made no such representations," Snow said. "I don't know. This could have been a classic failure to communicate. I just don't know."

"U.S. policy was not to issue bombing threats," Snow said. "U.S. policy was to say to President Musharraf, `We need you to make a choice'."

In his meeting with Musharraf, Bush played middle man in a thorny foreign policy problem that has bubbled up between Islamabad and Afghanistan — two U.S. allies in the war on terrorism who accuse each other of not doing enough to crack down on extremists.

Bush must work to placate the concerns of Pakistan, which is helping the United States track Osama bin Laden and restrain bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, as well as the struggling democratic government in Afghanistan, which is suffering its heaviest insurgent attacks since U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

Afghan officials have alleged repeatedly that Taliban militants are hiding out in neighboring Pakistan and launching attacks across the border into Afghanistan. Pakistan, which has deployed 80,000 troops along the border, rejects the accusation and says it's doing all it can to battle extremists.

Markarado wrote:Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p

Markarado wrote:Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p

Tikker wrote:

Markarado wrote:Hell, I know I was rather emotional at the time. I drove around the neighborhood with my window down shouting, "FUCK MUSLIMS." Not the smartest thing to do while living in an Islamic country lol... Good thing it was late at night ;p

you're so patriotic!

so patriotic that you live in another country, wtg