A former top Bush administration official has said that if President Pervez Musharraf does not live up to the word he gave post-9/11 attacks, the US would have to 'hammer' him.
"I, personally, have a high regard for President Musharraf and what he's done, what he's personally suffered, and, by the way, what his country has suffered in the federally administered tribal areas -- 800 or so killed, now 300 other soldiers captured and missing. So he's sacrificed a good bit," former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said at a Congressional hearing.
Armitage, who played a critical role in foreign and national security affairs in the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, said, "....however, if he's not able and we're not able to make him live up to the word he gave us... we have to hammer him, I'm afraid."
Armitage had once allegedly threatened to bomb Pakistan 'back to the stone age' if Musharraf did not cooperate in the US-led war on terror in the neighbouring Afghanistan.
"Now, I think there are two ways to do it. You can just stand up and make a declaratory policy, or you can say you think he (Musharraf) is wrong; he's made a bad error; and we wish, as a friend, that he'd correct that error. And I think that's the way to handle this initially.
"The accusation will be is that we're weak and sort of a little weasel-worded. The stakes are too high in Pakistan for all of us, I think, to be too declaratory at this early a stage," Armitage told lawmakers sitting on the House Sub Committee on National Security and Foreign Affairs holding a hearing on United States Security Strategy Post 9/11.
"Musharraf has moved a bit back to, as I understand it, having elections in January, thank goodness. I think the next move is to get him to, again, say he'll get out of uniform, start letting these folks out of jail, and jail terrorists and extremists, and not legitimate opposition," the former senior State Department official said.
"I think the question of Pakistan is so complicated....People seem to be on one side -- and the military, and I would say the elite, on the other side with President Musharraf. The question then is: What happens with our involvement in this?
"Do we actually add to the situation in a positive way by publicly being seen as promoting Benazir Bhutto? I think opinion polls would say no, we've actually had the reverse phenomenon. We've actually hurt here. So she's seen to some extent as an American girl," Armitage noted.
"... And you'll notice our ambassador today made a very graphic point of going with a CBS camera crew to the electoral commission to make the point: We want elections -- democratic, open and fair," he added.
In his opening remarks, Chairman of the House Panel Democratic Congressman John Tierney of Massachusetts argued that even with the "amazing amount of money and energy expended" since September 11, 2001, there remains an "inescapable sense that ours is a national security policy adrift."
"Unfortunately, I can't report progress in the intervening weeks since that first hearing. In fact, the world, more that ever, seems to be slipping away from our influence. A nuclear and extremist infected Pakistan is in full-blown crisis. It's path toward democracy has been barricaded by military rule -- suspension of the Pakistani Constitution and the suppression of civil institutions capable of dissent," Tierney noted.
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