posted September 21, 2006 04:23 PM
Not surprised either.Looks like the relationship had already begun to dissolve...
US troops may enter Pakistan to hunt Laden
Chidanand Rajghatta
[ 22 Sep, 2006 0030hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
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.
But US analysts have questioned Pakistan's commitment in this regard. The considered opinion in the intelligence community is that bin Laden is Pakistan's insurance for continued US aid and pandering, and Islamabad has no compelling reason to capture or kill him.
Bush though frequently chooses to give Musharraf the benefit of doubt in public. The CNN interview was no exception - even amid the latest gauntlet he threw about possible incursions into Pakistan.
"I view President Musharraf as somebody who would like to bring al-Qaida to justice," Bush told CNN 's Wolf Blitzer. "There's no question there is a kind of a hostile territory in the remote regions of Pakistan that makes it easier for somebody to hide."
It is possible that Bush might have meant a short surgical strike when he spoke of a US hunt for bin Laden in Pakistan while previously rejecting the idea of stationing troops on a longer term basis in the country.
Despite Pakistan's protestations to the contrary, the US military has frequently crossed the border into Pakistan from Afghanistan in hot pursuit of terrorists.
However, Bush's public disclosure of a no-holds-barred US policy has put Musharraf in a spot given his public insistence that Pakistan has the sovereign right to decline foreign intervention in the hunt for bin Laden and do the job on its own.
For that slight alone, Bush is expected to praise the Pakistani dictator even more during his Friday call at the White House despite urging from many analysts that he has to hold the general's feet to the fire.
"America's staunchest ally presides over the breeding grounds of the very people who seek to kill as many Americans as they can, while US taxpayers foot the bill," Pakistani-American analyst Manzoor Ijaz wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday in an op-ed piece titled "Musharrafstan," pointing out that the general was in cahoots with radicals despite his protestations to enlightened moderation.
Pakistan, he said, needed innovative solutions to move away from its radical path, and Musharraf was not the man to deliver them.
The Times of India Online
Copyright ©2006Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2015515.cms