According to press accounts this morning, the Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” in 2001 unless it cooperated in the US-led war on terror. We know this, apparently, because President Pervez Musharraf says so.
According to a wire story, the Pakistani leader said former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage delivered the comments shortly after the attacks of 9/11 to his intelligence director.
“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age’,” Musharraf said…. “I think it was a very rude remark.”
Yes, as a rule, when a superpower threatens to bomb your country into the stone age, it’s not particularly polite.
But did this actually happen? The subject came up during this morning’s brief White House press conference with Bush and Musharraf. The responses were … odd.
PRESIDENT BUSH: First, let me — she’s asking about the Armitage thing. The first I heard of this was when I read it in the newspaper today. You know, I was — I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words.
All I can tell you is, is that shortly after 9/11, Secretary Colin Powell came in and said, President Musharraf understands the stakes and he wants to join and help route out an enemy that has come and killed 3,000 of our citizens. As a matter of fact, my recollection was that one of the first leaders to step up and say that the stakes have changed, that attack on America that killed 3,000 of the citizens needs to be dealt with firmly, was the President. And if I’m not mistaken, Colin told us that, if not the night of September the 11th, shortly thereafter. I need to make sure I get my facts straight, but it was soon.
I don’t know of any conversation that was reported in the newspaper like that. I just don’t know about it.
PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: I would like to — I am launching my book on the 25th, and I am honor-bound to Simon and Schuster not to comment on the book before that day. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT BUSH: In other words, buy the book, is what he’s saying. (Laughter.)
The presidential stand-up routine notwithstanding, the responses weren’t entirely persuasive. The president of Pakistan wants to talk about it, but Simon & Schuster won’t let him?
Regardless, there’s also something deeply amusing about Bush playing dumb. (“Us? Threaten Middle Eastern countries with bombs? Who me?”) As Josh Marshall put it:
At some level I almost have to admire the in-your-face, out in public and entirely brazen sort of payback the Bush White House metes out to those who are so villainous as to break the Bush code of silence. You can see it now in an almost comical mendacity about whether Dick Armitage was somehow off the reservation when he threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if the country didn’t get religion, shall we say, on rooting out the Taliban in the days after 9/11.
Exactly. Given Bush’s response this morning, we’re to believe that Armitage went off on his own to threaten to take Pakistan off the map. It doesn’t seem very likely.
Reader S.S. offered this compelling take via email:
President Bush’s claim that he was wholly unaware of Armitage’s threat to bomb Pakistan leaves only three possible conclusions, none of them attractive.
1. Musharraf is lying
2. Bush is lying
3. Armitage threatened war without the Bush’s knowledgeMy read on the above is as follows.
1. Musharraf may just be trying to shore up support back home by formally distancing himself from Bush, not inconceivable.
2. I can’t imagine that anyone would be surprised.
3. Bush should decry Armitage’s statement as beyond the pale.Hence it seems reasonable to me that someone is fibbing.
Sounds right to me. My money’s on Door #2.