'Idea of the day' trading in and out for profit

[Ike Latif]

"His people are behind him, his military is behind him."



Chamberlin said Musharraf had successfully convinced "all sectors of the Pakistani society" that his decision to cooperate with the US-led campaign was the right thing to do. She said anti-American demonstrations in Pakistan, images of which are repeatedly shown on US and international television, were not as grave as one might imagine. "I think they are a bit exaggerated in the Western press," Chamberlin said of the protests. Chamberlin said she believed Musharraf was in complete control of the country and needn't worry that anti-American demonstrations taking place almost daily posed a real threat to his rule. "I feel he is quite secure," she said. "His people are behind him, his military is behind him."


Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is "totally in support" of the US-led war on terrorism despite calls for a quick end to military operations now underway in Afghanistan, Washington's ambassador to Islamabad said Tuesday.

"He is absolutely totally in support of our effort," Wendy Chamberlin said, saying that construing Musharraf's pleas for the campaign to end early and possibly halt before Ramazan as demands were "a bit of a misinterpretation."

She noted that Musharraf had expressed his full support to her as recently as Monday when she met the president along with General Tommy Franks, the commander-in-chief of the US Central Command who is directing the operation.

Musharraf "does express a hope that the bombing ends soon," Chamberlin said in an interview
with NBC television's "Today" programme from Islamabad. "I don't think that there's a person on earth that doesn't agree that this thing should be over as quickly as possible."

But she said the war would not end until the United States had achieved its objective of bringing down Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network and ending support to them by the Taliban. "President Musharraf, (US President George W) Bush, myself, everyone else hopes that that we can achieve our objectives and achieve them very quickly," Chamberlin said.




Iqbal Latif