Bush 'Taken Aback' By Musharraf Claim

President Bush said Friday he was "taken aback" by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's contention that the U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate right after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Musharraf said in an that Richard Armitage, who was then deputy secretary of state at the time, told a Pakistani official that the United States would attack Pakistan if it didn't back the war on terror.

Musharraf wouldn't comment on his statement, saying he has a book coming out and that he's promised the publisher he wouldn't talk about it.

Mr. Bush accepted that answer and told reporters to "buy the book," CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports.

Musharraf's book will be published by Simon & Schuster, which is part of CBS Corp.

Appearing at a joint White House news conference, Mr. Bush praised Musharraf for being one of the first foreign leaders to come out after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to stand with the United States to "help root out an enemy."

Musharraf said a peace treaty between his government and tribes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is not meant to support the Taliban.

He said news reports had mischaracterized the deals. "The deal is not at all with the Taliban. This deal is against the Taliban. This deal is with the tribal elders," Musharraf said.

Said Mr. Bush: "I believe him."

He said that Musharraf had looked him in the eye and vowed that "the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people and that there won't be a Taliban and there won't be al Qaeda (in Pakistan)."

In the CBS interview, Musharraf told Steve Kroft that after the Sept. 11 attacks, Armitage told Pakistan's intelligence director that the United States would bomb his country if it didn't help fight terrorists.

"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'" Musharraf said.

Armitage has disputed the language attributed to him but did not deny the message was a strong one. The former senior U.S. official told Associated Press Radio on Friday: "There was no military threat, and I was not authorized to do so."

"It did not happen," Armitage said.

Asked about the report, Mr. 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 the contract agreement with a publisher on his upcoming book. However, he told CBS the Stone Age warning "was a very rude remark."

Mr. Bush has repeatedly praised Pakistan for arresting hundreds of al Qaeda operatives inside its borders. Pakistan is the world's second-biggest Islamic country, with a population of 160 million.

But the United States has also urged Pakistan to do more to stop militants from crossing from its tribal regions into Afghanistan, where Taliban-fanned violence has reached its deadliest proportions since the American-led invasion that toppled the hard-line regime.

Pakistan earlier this month signed a truce with tribal figures. Afghanistan has protested that the militants are linked to the Taliban, the militant Islamic group that once ruled Afghanistan until driven from power in 2001.

But both leaders shrugged off such links and said they were united in pursuing terrorists, especially Osama bin Laden.

"When we find Osama bin Laden, he will be brought to justice. We are on the hunt together," Mr. Bush said.

Musharraf echoed him. "We are in the hunt together against these people," the Pakistani leader said.

Mr. Bush will have talks Tuesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Then, he will have a three-way sit-down with both leaders at the White House on Wednesday.

Mr. Bush must work to placate the concerns of Pakistan, a chief ally in the war on terror, as well as the struggling democratic government in Afghanistan, which is suffering its heaviest insurgent attacks since U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

Earlier Friday, White House counselor 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 civilized world or are you going to side with the Taliban and al Qaeda," Bartlett told CBS' 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."

"U.S. policy was not to issue bombing threats," Snow said. "U.S. policy was to say to President Musharraf, 'We need you to make a choice.'"