Richard Armitage (politician) - Pakistan and The Fight Against Terrorism

Pakistan and The Fight Against Terrorism

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with CBS News 60 Minutes on September 21, 2006, alleged that Armitage called an ISI general immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks and threatened to "bomb the country (Pakistan) back to the stone age" unless they supported the US-led fight against Islamic terrorism. Presently, Musharraf has refused to provide details, commenting that he is unable to provide details due to restrictions by the publisher (Simon & Schuster) of his book In the Line of Fire: A Memoir. President Bush on the other hand has mentioned that he only became aware of these comments as late as September 2006, when he read them in the newspapers. Armitage confirmed he had held a conversation with the Pakistani general to whom Musharraf had sourced the comments, but denied using a threat of military action couched in such terms on the claimed basis that he was not authorized to do so.