Bush to Musharraf: Hold elections, quit army

Official: State of emergency may lift soon
Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., said he expected Musharraf to lift the state of emergency soon. “It may go into a week or two, but I don’t think more,” he said.

Musharraf “has made this commitment already. The emergency will be lifted, he will doff his uniform, and the elections will be held as soon as possible,” the diplomat said on PBS’ “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”

On Capitol Hill, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte repeated U.S. criticism of Musharraf’s crackdown, but described the Pakistani leader as a key ally. He said Musharraf has been so indispensable in the global war on terror that extremists and radicals have tried to assassinate him multiple times.

“No country has done more in terms of inflicting damage and punishment on the Taliban and the al-Qaida since 9-11,” Negroponte told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Their record is quite impressive.”

U.S. reviewing aid to Pakistan
The Bush administration is reviewing its aid to Pakistan, but Negroponte said he hopes the U.S. will not have to punish Pakistan. “I think that the longer the situation goes on in its present form, the more difficult it’s going to become,” he said.

Many lawmakers are skeptical. They say the U.S. should be more serious about penalizing Pakistan and that Musharraf should not be so readily praised.

“Our foreign policy should not be faith-based,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., who heads the House subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia.

The war on terror is at the forefront of U.S.-Pakistan relations.

At the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, said cooperation along the border is crucial to U.S. war efforts but that communication and cooperation with the Pakistani military along the Afghan border have not been affected by the political crisis. More than half of U.S. supplies to forces in Afghanistan go through Pakistan.

“There’s good communication between U.S. and Afghan forces on the one side and the Pakistan forces on the other. And we would certainly not want to see that jeopardized in any way,” Ham said.

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