Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
November 8, 2007
Pg. 1
By David Rohde
This article was reported by David Rohde, Jane Perlez, Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, and written by Mr. Rohde.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 7 — Amid a deepening crisis in Pakistan, Bush administration officials have begun pushing Gen. Pervez Musharraf on several fronts to reverse his state of emergency, quietly making contact with other senior army generals and backing Pakistan’s opposition leader as she carries out back-channel negotiations with him.
Military attachés from the United States and several other Western nations are discreetly contacting senior Pakistani generals and asking them to press General Musharraf, the president, to back down from the emergency decree he issued Saturday night, according to a Western diplomat.
On Wednesday, President Bush telephoned General Musharraf for the first time since the crisis began and bluntly told him that he had to return Pakistan to civilian rule, hold elections and step down as chief of the military, as he had promised. Mr. Bush called him from the Oval Office at 11:30 a.m. Washington time, and spoke for about 20 minutes, according to the White House.
“My message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform,” Mr. Bush said later, appearing at George Washington’s mansion in Mount Vernon, Va., with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. “You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time.”
General Musharraf sought to assure Mr. Bush that his power grab was temporary and that he still planned to call for elections, Pakistani and American officials said. At the same time, two aides to General Musharraf acknowledged that aides to the general and the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto were engaged in negotiations, even as her supporters clashed with police officers outside Parliament and she threatened larger protests on Friday.
“Talks back channel are going on with her,” said Tariq Azim Khan, the government’s minister of state for information.
November 8, 2007
Pg. 1
By David Rohde
This article was reported by David Rohde, Jane Perlez, Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers, and written by Mr. Rohde.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 7 — Amid a deepening crisis in Pakistan, Bush administration officials have begun pushing Gen. Pervez Musharraf on several fronts to reverse his state of emergency, quietly making contact with other senior army generals and backing Pakistan’s opposition leader as she carries out back-channel negotiations with him.
Military attachés from the United States and several other Western nations are discreetly contacting senior Pakistani generals and asking them to press General Musharraf, the president, to back down from the emergency decree he issued Saturday night, according to a Western diplomat.
On Wednesday, President Bush telephoned General Musharraf for the first time since the crisis began and bluntly told him that he had to return Pakistan to civilian rule, hold elections and step down as chief of the military, as he had promised. Mr. Bush called him from the Oval Office at 11:30 a.m. Washington time, and spoke for about 20 minutes, according to the White House.
“My message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform,” Mr. Bush said later, appearing at George Washington’s mansion in Mount Vernon, Va., with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. “You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time.”
General Musharraf sought to assure Mr. Bush that his power grab was temporary and that he still planned to call for elections, Pakistani and American officials said. At the same time, two aides to General Musharraf acknowledged that aides to the general and the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto were engaged in negotiations, even as her supporters clashed with police officers outside Parliament and she threatened larger protests on Friday.
“Talks back channel are going on with her,” said Tariq Azim Khan, the government’s minister of state for information.