US may have threatened to bomb Pakistan in 2001

The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" after the Sept. 11 attacks if the country did not cooperate with the US war on Afghanistan, it emerged on Sept. 21. In an interview aired on CBS television, Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage in conversations with Pakistan'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 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. 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. Armitage disputes the language used, CBS said, but he did not deny that Pakistan was put on notice to help the US war effort. Musharraf told CBS he balked at some of the US demands such as turning over border posts and bases to US forces. Pakistan abandoned its support for the Taliban government in Kabul and allowed US overflights of Pakistan. In the past five years, Pakistan has deployed thousands of troops in the border areas with Afghanistan in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and has cooperated with US intelligence services. It has also arrested a number of al-Qaida figures, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation, and that's what I did," the general told CBS. Other US demands, which Musharraf described as "ludicrous" such as barring anti-US demonstrations, were also refused. "If somebody's expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views," he said. Musharraf visited the White House on Sept. 22 where discussions were reportedly focused on his recent decision to pull Pakistani troops out of North Waziristan, ceding checkpoints to tribal militias. US officials fear the withdrawal will be viewed as a sign of weakness, and will allow the Taliban a safe haven at a time of increased attacks against NATO forces in the south of Afghanistan.