WaPo :
President Bush said today he was surprised by reports that a former top State Department official threatened heavy U.S. bombing of Pakistan if it did not cooperate with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Pakistan's visiting president declined to comment on the purported threat, citing a book deal.
In a White House news briefing after a meeting in the Oval Office, Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf were asked about a threat that Musharraf has attributed to Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. In an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" scheduled for broadcast Sunday, Musharraf said his intelligence chief had informed him that Armitage warned, "Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age." Read on...
