Washington: President George W Bush on Friday said that he was "taken aback" by a purported US threat to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate in the fight against terrorism after the September 11 attacks.
He praised Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf for being one of the first foreign leaders to come out after the September 11, 2001, attacks to stand with the US to ''help root out an enemy.''
In an interview to air Sunday on CBS television's 60 Minutes program, Musharraf said that after the attacks, Richard Armitage, then deputy secretary of state, told Pakistan's intelligence director that the United States would bomb his country if it didn't help fight terrorists.
He said that Armitage had told him, ''Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age.'' Armitage has disputed the language attributed to him but did not deny the message was a strong one.
Asked about the report, Bush said, ''The first I heard of this is when I read it in the newspaper. I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words.''
For his part, Musharraf declined to comment and cited a contract agreement with a publisher on an upcoming book. However, he told CBS that the Stone Age warning ''was a very rude remark.''
Earlier Friday, White House counsellor Dan Bartlett said he did not know the specifics of what Armitage might have said to the Pakistanis.
''But we have made very clear that we went straight to President Musharraf in the days after 9/11 and said it's time to make a choice: Are you going to side with the civilised world or are you going to side with the Taliban and al-Qaida,'' Bartlett told CBS's The Early Show.
White House press secretary Tony Snow that he didn't know what Armitage said. Armitage no longer is in the administration.
''Mr Armitage has said that he made no such representations,'' Snow said. ''I don't know. This could have been a classic failure to communicate. I just don't know.''
''US policy was not to issue bombing threats,'' Snow said. ''US policy was to say to President Musharraf, 'We need you to make a choice'.''
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