White House not US policy to threaten Pakistan

WASHINGTON, Sep 22 (Reuters) The White House said today it was not US policy to threaten Pakistan and former US diplomat Richard Armitage denied warning Pakistan's president the United States would bomb his country after September 11.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview with CBS News' magazine show ''60 Minutes,'' to air on Sunday, that after the September 11 attacks, Armitage had told Pakistan's intelligence director, ''Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age.'' White House spokesman Tony Snow said Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state at the time, had denied warning Musharraf that the United States would bomb his country if it did not cooperate with the US campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

And Armitage today told CNN he did not do it.

''I've never made a threat in my life that I couldn't back up, and since I wasn't authorized to say such a thing, hence I couldn't back up that threat, I didn't say it,'' he said.

The statements came as President George W Bush and Musharraf met at the White House to discuss cooperation in the war on terrorism and efforts to prevent a resurgence of the Taliban.

They were to hold a news conference at 10:10 am EDT (1940 hrs IST).

Snow said he did not know what Musharraf had been told but that US policy was to seek Musharraf's cooperation.

''US policy was not to issue bombing threats. US policy was to say to President Musharraf: 'We need you to make a choice,''' Snow said.

As for what Armitage said to the Pakistanis: ''I don't know,'' Snow said. ''This could have been a classic failure to communicate.

I just don't know.'' Armitage said he had made clear to the Pakistani intelligence director how strongly the Americans felt.

''I told him that for Americans it was black or white, that Pakistan was either with us fully or not,'' he said.

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