US: President George Bush has said he knew nothing of an alleged United States threat to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not join the "war on terror".
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, made the claim in a CBS interview to be broadcast tomorrow evening.
Mr Musharraf said that after the September 11th attacks Richard Armitage, then US deputy secretary of state, told Pakistan's intelligence director that the US would bomb his country if it did not help in the fight against Islamist terrorists. He said that Mr Armitage had told him: "Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age."
At a joint White House press conference with Mr Musharraf yesterday, Mr Bush said he was "taken aback" by the claim.
"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," he said.
Mr Armitage has denied issuing any military threat and White House spokesman Tony Snow suggested that there may have been a misunderstanding.
"This could have been a classic failure to communicate. I just don't know. US policy was not to issue bombing threats. US policy was to say to President Musharraf: 'We need you to make a choice'," Mr Snow said.
Mr Musharraf yesterday defended a peace treaty between his government and tribes based along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border which the Afghan government claims are linked to the Taliban. "The deal is not at all with the Taliban. This deal is against the Taliban. This deal is with the tribal elders," he said.
Mr Bush said that he accepted Mr Musharraf's assurances, adding that both the US and Pakistan were committed to capturing Osama bin Laden.
"We're on the hunt together. It's in the president's interest that al-Qaeda be brought to justice. And it's in our interest. And we collaborate and we strategise and we talk a lot about how best to do this," Mr Bush said.
Pakistan's role in Afghanistan will dominate discussions next Wednesday when Mr Musharraf returns to the White House for a joint meeting with Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan.