Bush Threatened to Bomb Pakistan?

by **HMKGrey** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:21 am

Today's Guardian: Bush threatened to bomb Pakistan, says Musharraf  Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Friday September 22, 2006 The Guardian 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. Article continues 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. Gen 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 September 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 Gen 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. Gen Musharraf is to visit the White House today where discussions are expected to focus 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. ================================= Is it just me or does this piece of information not fit with lots of other bits of information that we have? Reading Paul Thompson's Timeline and plenty of other sources, it's not hard to see Pakistan as at least enablers in 9/11... so what's this about? Any thoughts?

by **rain** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:40 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>so what's this about?<hr></blockquote> I'll play the eternal optimist and say that maybe the wheels are coming of the buggy. LOL. Brzezinski's worst nightmare. (eh. I'm allowed to dream) but really, there are signs of movement, and maybe Musharraf is just trying to sleaze.... oops, sorry, have a bet each way. 'the devil made me do it'

by **Sepka** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:46 am

Did anyone really believe that Musharraf was cooperating because he's a nice fellow and has our best interests at heart? -Sepka the Space Weasel

by **rain** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:50 am

then again, maybe not, shrubby seems to actually be threatening to invade Pakistan. WASHINGTON: President George Bush has dropped a bombshell ahead of his Friday meeting at the White House with Gen. Pervez Musharraf by declaring that US troops would not hesitate to enter Pakistan in their hunt for Osama bin Laden. Asked on CNN if he would order military action inside Pakistan if intelligence indicated bin Laden and other top terrorists were hiding there, Bush asserted: "Absolutely...absolutely." "We would take the action necessary to bring them to justice," Bush said. The US President's assertion is a sharp departure from his remarks only last week that Pakistan is a "sovereign nation" and American troops could not enter the country without invitation. But in the days since those remarks, the US media and strategic community has relentlessly questioned Pakistan's bonafides in the war on terrorism, topped by critical remarks by Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. Gen. Musharraf and Afghanistan's elected President Hamid Karzai clashed bitterly at the United Nations this week with each leader asking the other to "do more" to contain the resurgence of Taliban. On Wednesday, Karzai virtually urged US to invade and punish Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism, saying the war on terrorism could not be won without hitting the root source of the violence, which he clearly indicated was Pakistan. "We must destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm and deploy terrorists," Karzai told the UN General Assembly without naming Pakistan, but clearly implicating his neighbour. Following the Bush-Musharraf meeting on September 22, Karzai is to meet the US President separately on September 24, before a trilateral meeting next week with Bush and Musharraf on September 27. Bush's remarks on CNN came as a virtual public rebuke to Musharraf, who only hours before had insisted to the media in New York that Pakistan will not allow foreign troops on it territory and would conduct the hunt for bin Laden itself. <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2015515.cms">timesofindia.indiatimes.c...015515.cms</a>

by **FourthBase** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:57 am

Perhaps the release of 9/11: Press for Truth has inspired some tongue-wagging, but it's years after the fact. Pakistan had a major and direct role in 9/11, and the time for BushCo to invade them as a "justifiable" response has long, long expired. The fact that Pakistan wasn't invaded or even punished in any way will always put the lie to the "War on Terror". EDIT: Oh, and it will always put the truth to LIHOP/MIHOP. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=fourthbase>FourthBase</A> at: 9/22/06 1:12 am

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:07 am

"The intelligence director told me..." That would be Mahmood Ahmed, paymaster of 9/11. Armitage didn't have to travel far, as Ahmed was in Washington at the time. Wouldn't it be nice to see someone report that as background to this story? It would seem to be somewhat important.

by **rain** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:32 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Bush works to defuse fray between allies Pakistan and Afghanistan<hr></blockquote> blah blah blah <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/22/america/NA_GEN_US_Bush_South_Asia.php">www.iht.com/articles/ap/2...h_Asia.php</a> so I'm just wondering, is this arranging props for an 'October Surprise' - Osama bin Missin' raised from the grave to be rattled through the courts ?

by **HMKGrey** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:34 am

Wild guess: This whole story feels like a pre-emptive strike to me. Bush and Co protesting too much even before someone fingers the ISI for complicity. Anyone know what Hersch is up to these days? Perhaps he's about to publish the story... Jeff's right, it's an old, old story but it's still one that could harm the Repugs ahead of the election. 'Course, with the polls as bad as they are - and I get the feeling that they're far worse than NBCNNCBSABC will tell us - we could just be setting the scene for Pakistan giving up an Osama figure. Curious how the 'October Surprise' ie. blatant political manipulation with the connivance of the MSM has now been largely branded as a Fine American Democratic Tradition,  btw.

by **Gouda** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:43 am

Whatever is going on is part of a longer-term plan, one that could care a less about american electoral coin flipping. As if it isn't bad enough, something nastier is in the works for both pakistan and afghanistan and both Karzai and Musharraf are now feeling the waning of the brief, false light of anglo-american favor for which they'd sold out their people. The americans and russians are heavily arming both sides. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 9/22/06 9:45 am

by **sunny** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:52 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>both Karzai and Musharraf are now feeling the waning of the brief, false light of anglo-american favor for which they'd sold out their people.<hr></blockquote> Yeah, they should pay visits to Saddam and Noriega, among many others.

by **chiggerbit** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:27 pm

President George Bush has dropped a bombshell ahead of his Friday meeting at the White House with Gen. Pervez Musharraf by declaring that US troops would not hesitate to enter Pakistan in their hunt for Osama bin Laden. Asked on CNN if he would order military action inside Pakistan if intelligence indicated bin Laden and other top terrorists were hiding there, Bush asserted: "Absolutely...absolutely." Doesn't the way this question is asked have a stiff, posturing feel, kind of like, "Ok, you ask me if I would bomb Pakistan so I can sound tough about my buddy." I think somebody is realizing that the news is finally leaking out about Pakistan's real role in 9/11, and they want to pre-empt any unfriendly questioning on it, so they get some sweet Jeff Gannon-type to toss the question, so they can take ownership of the issue. But, the issue is "Oops, we invaded the wrong country!"

by **AlanStrangis** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 1:17 pm

I'm with HMKGrey on this one... if I were a betting man, I'd put $10 in on an OBL capture (alive or dead), given the Rovian rumours of an October Surprise, as well as Pakistan's deal with the Taliban... All it takes is a single Taliban/al Q attack within Pakistan's border to neutralize the treaty, and open the door for foreign troops, while minimizing the negative impact on the Muslim population in Pakistan...

by **Qutb** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:27 pm

Jeff said - "That would be Mahmood Ahmed, paymaster of 9/11. Armitage didn't have to travel far, as Ahmed was in Washington at the time. Wouldn't it be nice to see someone report that as background to this story? It would seem to be somewhat important." Woodward did, in Bush at War. This same story of Armitage threatening Ahmed was told there, back in 2002 or so, and he does mention that Ahmed was already in town. It was also reported several years ago (by Sy Hersh I think) that Israeli Sayeret Matkal operatives arrived in the US only a few days after 9/11 in order to plan for a joint strike against Pakistani nuclear facilities with US special forces. This information fits with the other things we know (or think we know) about Ahmed, Omar Saeed Sheikh etc, but only if we abandon the hypothesis that the Bush administration allowed/made/wanted 9/11 to happen. And that's too much of a leap to make for many. (Of course, we also have to abandon the theory that the CIA "controls" the ISI, but that theory was always completely unfounded anyway, and contrary to everything that's known about the CIA-ISI relationship) But invading or bombing Pakistan was never a realistic option. Countries that can bite back with nuclear weapons, like North Korea or Pakistan, don't get invaded. If the administration had really believed that Iraq had WMD, they wouldn't have invaded that country either. Hence the rush to "do something" about Iran, before they join the nuclear club and it'll be too late. Instead, some kind of a deal was apparently struck with Musharraf. Pakistan would allow the US to invade Pakistan's back yard Afghanistan and replace the Pakistani puppet government known as the Taliban with a US puppet government headed by Unocal man Karzai, arrest some key figures connected to the attacks (Ramzi Bin al-Sibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Omar Saeed Sheikh, with the insignificant and mentally disturbed Abu Zubayda serving as the first symbolic "present" from Pervez to George), detain A.Q. Khan, and "cleanse" the security services of its most hardcore Islamist elements (such as general Ahmed, who was removed along with many other pro-Taliban/al-Qa'ida officers). In return, the US would respect Pakistan's territorial integrity, resume the sale of fighter jets - and keep their hands off Osama Bin Laden. According to Bernard Henri-Lévy in Who killed daniel Pearl, shortly before 9/11 a Pakistani general accompanied by nuke salesman A.Q. Khan made a visit to Kandahar, Afghanistan, "spiritual capital" of the Taliban. Who were they meeting with there? Who else could it have been, than Osama? The madrasa-educated mullahs of the Taliban were hardly sophisticated enough to have any use for nuclear technology. It makes sense that the Pakistanis would not want Bin Laden tried before an American court of law and his ties to high-ranking Pakistani officials exposed (with the other suspects, there's perhaps an agreement that they'll never be tried in public). By the way, we should also keep in mind that the original source of the claim that Ahmed ordered money to be transferred to Atta (the time of the transfer is a matter of dispute - one version puts it shortly before the attacks, another in 2000) is Indian intelligence, perhaps not the most unbiased and neutral source on Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism. And the Indian government has been strangely silent on this link. Why haven't they made more out of this information, if it's true? The Indian government has <a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie20011019/ed4.html" target="top">lamented</a> US support of Pakistan, but despite their frequent accusations against Pakistani authorities of supporting terrorists, Indian officials have never publically mentioned this alleged link to the 9/11 hijackers. Are US, British and Israeli intelligence services the only ones that are capable of spreading disinfo?

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 5:00 pm

Qutb, you seem to fall for the same fallacy as many 9/11 truthers: that the players are monoliths, and 9/11 was either an "inside" or an "outside" job. This is a failure to both see competing agendas within a nation's security apparatus and also the international, criminal ties across agencies and factions of agencies. Surely this is clear in the drug war, where the CIA and the DEA have so often acted at cross purposes. It was the FBI which connected Ahmed's phone records to Saeed. With the jig up Ahmed was allowed to retire to a life of private business. He has refused to speak to the press and has never been questioned by US authorities. Do you not think there were some mighty frustrated FBI agents out there? Do you remember the suppression of pages concerning Pakistan in the 9/11 report? The silence that greeted the tapes of Randy Glass's undercover work with alleged terrorists who turned out to be ISI agents, and who pointed at the WTC and said "those towers are coming down"? The protected airlift of Pakistani fighters during the early days of the Afghan war? The standdown at Tora Bora to let bin Laden move to Pakistan, and the virtual amnesty he has been granted ever since? Pakistan's intelligence agency enjoys a special relationship with both the CIA and al Qaeda, and Pakistan, despite the evidence of collusion in the attacks by elements of its security apparatus, enjoys protection by elements within the American security apparatus. Or don't you think so? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rigorousintuition>Rigorous Intuition</A> at: 9/22/06 3:25 pm

by **Qutb** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:08 pm

Jeff, you make a good points about the danger of false dichotomies. I only want to address a couple of things - "Do you remember the suppression of pages concerning Pakistan in the 9/11 report?" I thought that was supposed to be Saudi Arabia? I don't know who claims it was about Pakistan. About ISI agents pointing at the towers - there definitely are ties between the ISI and Salafi terrorists, I'm not denying that. Beyond that, I don't know how much we can discern from Glass's story. There are many known and unknown unknowns there... "The protected airlift of Pakistani fighters during the early days of the Afghan war? The standdown at Tora Bora to let bin Laden move to Pakistan, and the virtual amnesty he has been granted ever since? But that's what I'm talking about. Osama's amnesty (and the airlift of Pakistani fighters) may be a part of the agreement between US and Musharraf's government that ensured Musharraf's reluctant cooperation in the "War on Terror" and Pakistani passivity during the invasion of Afghanistan. Of course, the Bush administration could never admit to having made such a deal. Musharraf has been striking a delicate balance between American demands and the anti-American sentiments of his constituency and military/security forces . His predecessor was ousted in a military coup, and there have been several attempts at Musharraf's life. He can't go too far in supporting the US, but the Bush administration needs him as an ally in their greater geopolitical strategy and, as a direct military confrontation has been out of the question, they use a time-tested combination of carrots (F-16s, airlifts, amnesties) and sticks (do as we say or we'll nuke you back to the stone age) to get what they want. And of course that leaves a few FBI agents very frustrated. "Pakistan's intelligence agency enjoys a special relationship with both the CIA and al Qaeda, and Pakistan, despite the evidence of collusion in the attacks by elements of its security apparatus, enjoys protection by elements within the American security apparatus. Or don't you think so?" Again, the unknowns probably outnumber the knowns (ok, I'll stop with the Rumsfeldisms now). But no, I don't think the ISI's relationship with the CIA is particularly special. There has been pragmatic cooperation, chiefly during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, but even then there was a deep mutual distrust, according to most accounts (see, for instance, Steve Coll's Ghost Wars). There seems to have been little cooperation since the early 90s. The ISI do have a special relationship to many Islamist guerrillas/terrorist group, some of whom are/have been connected to al-Qaida. These are instruments of Pakistani geopolitics, chiefly the conflict with India.There seems to have been close connections to al-Qaida itself too, including to Bin Laden. Elements within the Pakistani government have been known to espouse pan-Islamic and Islamist views, and AQ Khan, father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, has stated that the bomb is an "Islamic bomb", rather than just a Pakistani one. What I mean to say, is that to me it looks more like a "mess", than a "conspiracy". If that makes sense.

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