Unaware of his administration threatening Pak after 9/11, says Bush

Washington, Sep 23 (UNI) US President President George W Bush has said he is not aware of any threat held out by his administration to force Pakistan into joining the US fight against Taliban regime after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

At a joint press conference after their White House meeting yesterday, Bush was responding to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's reported observation that the then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb his country if it did not support the US action against the then-Taliban government in Afghanistan.

In reply to a question, Bush said he was taken aback by the harshness of the alleged US remark which he saw only in yesterday's newspaper. ''I just do not know about it,'' he said.

President Musharraf, in an interview to be aired tomorrow on CBS television network, said that Armitage told the Pakistani intelligence chief that the US would bomb his country back to the Stone Age if it did not join the fight against the Taliban.

It was a ''very rude remark,'' Gen Musharraf remarked.

However, when asked at the joint press conference yesterday about the remark, Gen Musharraf avoided a direct reply, saying it was contained in his new book to be launched on September 25 and he was honoured-bound to publisher, Simon and Schuster, not to make any comment on it in advance.

Media reports here yesterday quoted Armitage saying that an official document detailing his conversation with the Pakistan intelligence chief confirmed that he did not threaten that Pakistan would be bombed back into the Stone Age should the Pakistani leader refuse to join the US fight against al Qaeda.

He also said Musharraf had fired the intelligence director shortly after he had relayed the alleged US threat to the Pakistani president.

UNI XC DKS VP0732