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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1696179.ece
Musharraf: US threatened to bomb Pakistan
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 22 September 2006
The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, reveals in an interview to be aired at the weekend that, soon after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States threatened to bomb his country "back into the Stone Age" if he didn't offer its co-operation in fighting terrorism and the Taliban.
The revelation was made by General Musharraf during his visit to New York for the annual General Assembly of the United Nations. It comes after a week in which the US has been criticised by a number of foreign leaders for trying to impose its will on other nations.
Talking to a correspondent of the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes to be shown on Sunday evening, General Musharraf claims that the warning was delivered to his own director of intelligence by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. "The intelligence director told me that [Armitage] said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age'," General Musharraf said, according to excerpts of the interview released by CBS last night.
President George Bush has been battered at the UN this week, notably from President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who bluntly called him the "devil", and by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Shortly after 9/11, Pakistan indeed ended its support of the Taliban and became a frontline ally of America in the "war on terror". However, General Musharraf makes no secret of his distaste for the strong-arm tactics he faced from Mr Armitage. "I think it was a very rude remark," he says in the interview. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation, and that's what I did."
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