E-Paper
I'm not a poodle of George Bush: Musharraf
Pak Prez Pervez Musharraf has said that he was 'not a poodle' of US.
Insisting that he was "not a poodle" of US President George W Bush, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that covert US air strikes against al-Qaeda terror network inside his country were an infringement of national sovereignty.
"When you are talking about fighting terrorism or extremism, I'm not doing that for the US or Britain. I'm doing it for Pakistan. It's not a question of being a poodle. I'm not a poodle of George W Bush. I'm nobody's poodle. I have enough strength of my own to lead," Musharraf said in an interview published in The Guardian daily on Friday.
He admitted that his popularity was waning, but rejected the charge that he was running a military dictatorship. "My popularity has gone down... But at this moment my country needs me. I've put a strong constitutional democratic system in place. That will throw up a successor. I'm a strong believer in democracy," he said.
He pledged to hold free and fair polls in 2007. "It is ironic that I'm sitting in uniform talking of democracy ... but to bring democracy into Pakistan I thought I needed it."
Musharraf's comments came days after exiled former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif pledged to return to Pakistan for the 2007 polls to try to oust him through the ballot box.
Referring to a January attack carried out by US drones in Bajaur tribal agency that killed 18 people but missed its target, al-Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri, Musharraf said, "the strike was an infringement of our sovereignty and I condemned it."
The strike underlined tensions in the anti-terror alliance between Pakistan and the US, which has also been strained by the Indo-US nuclear deal, Washington's insistence on democratic reforms and alleged American meddling in the Southwestern province of Baluchistan, the report said.
Amid criticism from the US and Afghanistan for not doing enough to flush out extremists from its tribal areas, Musharraf insisted there was no question of Pakistan submitting to American scrutiny and said claims that his government acted at Washington's bidding were nonsense.
"There is no need of any checks -- that is the reality," he said.
Musharraf also played down unrest in the resource-rich province of Baluchistan, where nationalist militants are blowing up gas pipelines and trains and attacking army positions. He described the rebels as "mercenaries" and their attacks as "pin pricks", and said the disturbances were confined to one-twentieth of the province's area.
"So what revolt are you talking about? People talk about an East Pakistan situation," he said, referring to the secession of Bangladesh in 1971. "I understand strategy. These people are pygmies."
Criticism of his military-driven strategy came from "people who sit in drawing rooms and talk;" he said but added that a political solution was also being sought.
