New Calls For Musharraf To Step Down

Opposition Party, International Think Tank Say Pakistani President Must Go Before Election

(CBS/AP)  Pakistan's U.S.-allied president must resign before next month's elections or the country could risk slipping into civil war, opposition leaders and a leading independent research institute said Thursday.

The calls came after the government pushed back polls to Feb. 18 from the planned Jan. 8 date due to unrest following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Bhutto's death in a suicide bomb and gun attack plunged already volatile Pakistan deeper into crisis and stoked fears of political meltdown as the nation struggled to contain an explosion of Islamic militant violence.

The government - which had initially ruled out the need for foreign involvement in the assassination probe - has been criticized over its security arrangements for Bhutto, who had claimed elements in the ruling party were trying to kill her. The party vehemently denies such a plot.

Bhutto supporters have insisted that a U.N. probe would be the only way to reveal the truth behind her Dec. 27 slaying. They dismissed President Pervez Musharraf's announcement late Wednesday that Britain's Scotland Yard will soon join the investigation.

"The mist of confusion will be cleared only if the regime accepts the party's demand for holding a U.N. inquiry into the assassination as was done in the case of Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri's murder," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party.

"The regime has lost all credibility. Neither a domestic inquiry nor vague foreign involvement ... would lay to rest the lingering doubts and suspicions," Babar said.

The election delay also drew condemnation from Bhutto's party and the other main opposition group, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. They said, however, that they would run in the polls anyway - seemingly a boost to Musharraf's hopes to engineer a democratic transition.

The opposition urged Musharraf to resign.

"Free and fair polls are impossible under his leadership," said Javed Hashmi, a senior member of Sharif's party. "Such a thing is unthinkable if he is there."

In a report on Bhutto's assassination, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group research institute called on the United States - which continues to support Musharraf - to recognize him as "a serious liability, seen as complicit in the death of the popular politician" Bhutto.

"It is time to recognize that democracy, not an artificially propped-up, defrocked, widely despised general has the best chance to provide stability," the group's Asia director, Robert Templer, said in a statement accompanying the report.

"Unless Musharraf steps down, tensions will worsen and the international community could face the nightmare of a nuclear-armed, Muslim country descending into civil war," Templer said.

The White House expressed no objections Wednesday to Musharraf's government's decision to delay the elections, reported CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, said in a television address Wednesday that he supported election authorities' decision to delay the vote due to riots that followed Bhutto's death. The violence killed nearly 60 people and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.

Bhutto - who the United States had hoped would enter into a power-sharing agreement with Musharraf after the elections - spent about eight years in self-exile, mostly in London, before returning to Pakistan in October to campaign.

In his address, Musharraf announced that Scotland Yard detectives had been invited to join the probe into her slaying.

He blamed Islamic militants for the death of Bhutto, a two-time prime minister, and appealed for public unity to combat them. "This is a time for reconciliation and not for confrontation," he said.

Scotland Yard said it was sending a small team of officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counterterrorism Command.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the team would leave Britain by the end of the week.

The White House said that it supported Scotland Yard's involvement, and that a U.N. investigation was not necessary now.

"Scotland Yard being in the lead in this investigation is appropriate and necessary and I don't see - we don't see a need for an investigation beyond that at this time," said presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino.

The opposition called for the vote to be held on time despite Pakistan's political upheaval, amid expectations that Bhutto's killing could give her party a sympathy boost at the polls.

[tbweb]

President Pervez Musharraf does make one valid point thats hard to dispute no matter where you stand on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and I must acknowledge I agree with him, and that is; the security put in place would have saved Benazir Bhutto''s life if she would have used it! Benazir Bhutto could have survived the assassination attempt and suicide bomber if she would have stayed in her protected vehicle! No one else in Bhutto''s vehicle was harmed by the suicide bomber, the vehicle withstood the blast and protected those inside it! Benazir Bhutto knew of the threats and risk to her life and wrote about them, yet despite this knowledge, stood up in her protected vehicle, exposed her head and body through the Sun Roof waving to supporters causing her own death! The fact is if Benazir Bhutto had remained in her vehicle she would have survived like the other occupants and not harmed is a strong argument in favor of President Pervez Musharraf. The "inconvenient truth" in this case is that Benazir Bhutto "alone" is to blame for her own demise!

[mabangash]

Disarming pakistani nukes is a wish-full thinking. First, their location is a secret second, they are spread all over Pakistan third Pakistan has the nuclear missiles to strike american bases in iraq and afghanistan as well as french stealth submarines that can remain submerged for 2 months and more and can make the trip all the way to the atlantic or the pacific ocean. these submarines have been fitted with nuclear missiles....

[papabc]

Hello, Far left liberal are you in Pakistan now. You there Nancy P, Teddy K and Harry R too? How about the hollywood crowd.

Just checking.

[denn034]

Pakistan''s nukes should be our priority. Musharraf is responsible so, we should stick behind him.

[liferocks3]

I am realy worried about the Pakistani Nukes, they dont have the delivery system to hit us however there is very huge possibilty of portable dirty bomb striking us. we should thinkg seriously about disarming pakistan of its Nukes.

[fornicario]

All one has to do is listen to Musharraf speak to know that he is nothing like Saddam Hussein. I never heard Saddam talk about the need for a free society and freedom of religion as Musharraf has done. Musharraf''''s administration is incompetant. This seems to be a fact of life in Pakistani politics, but he is not an evil man. He is simply a man with a very difficult job. To turn a country about to burst at the seems into a stable democracy. Its taken how many years and how many hundreds of billions of dollars and how many lifes and I don''''t even know how to measuure the courage or honor that is required to acomplish such a thing in Iraq and the world wants Musharraf to do it over night with nothing?

Posted by cbscrash07
You leave out his secret police, his ham-handed attempts to subvert his own country''s Constitution, how he suspended the rule of law in his own country, and to go slightly out of order, he took power after a coup. Now, I can see how him and Bush are good friends, but I fail to see how suspending the court system in Pakistan, throwing lawyers in jail, and shutting down all non-government run media services equals honourable behavior.

[fornicario]

Who is this Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group? We do need some info about his background including his political orientation.The well being of the international community does not appear to be his primary concern.Anybody can imagine what will happen if Musharraf steps down at this stage.

Posted by ozonmojo

The International Crisis Group is a international foundation dedicated to preventing worldwide violence, with a board of directors made up of former world leaders, plus a large group of journalists, political scientists, and reporters that operate outside government influence. I find them much more credible than the right wing, two man "SITE group" which the neocons quote from freely. I would rather take the advice of former world leaders and ambassadors than two people with no international prestige, and in the case of one of them, experience.

[Syndicate]

All one has to do is listen to Musharraf speak to know that he is nothing like Saddam Hussein. I never heard Saddam talk about the need for a free society and freedom of religion as Musharraf has done. Musharraf''s administration is incompetant. This seems to be a fact of life in Pakistani politics, but he is not an evil man. He is simply a man with a very difficult job. To turn a country about to burst at the seems into a stable democracy. Its taken how many years and how many hundreds of billions of dollars and how many lifes and I don''t even know how to measuure the courage or honor that is required to acomplish such a thing in Iraq and the world wants Musharraf to do it over night with nothing?

[j-whitman]

328 Days 9 Hours 17 Minutes

[j-whitman]

I''ll bet more people are calling for Bush to step down than Musharaf ----- Musharaf doesn''t have a countdown clock,,, Bush does.

[ozonmojo]

Who is this Robert Templer of the International Crisis Group? We do need some info about his background including his political orientation.The well being of the international community does not appear to be his primary concern.Anybody can imagine what will happen if Musharraf steps down at this stage.

[tylenol6]

People, wake up.....The boogeyman Bin Laden that Bush
wants you to think is out there, is DEAD.... The BBC censored Bhutto when she even stated Bin Laden was murdered. Looks like our government has ALL the people
fooled.

[alphaa10-2009]

The Real WMD Threat
Another chilling example of security in Pakistan, our "finest ally" in the region. Now, consider the parallels between Saddam and Musharraf...

Both maintained secret police agencies that matched the Gestapo for cruelty. Both aspired to be "populists" in the sense of broad popular support, yet routinely pitted one social class or religious group against another.

While claiming to represent the wishes of their people, both scourged every effort at democratic reforms and hounded political opposition into exile.

Both defied the rule of law, establishing themselves as the ultimate authority. Both were bitter enemies of certain Islamic religious hierarchs, and clashes between the army/secret police and Islamic clergy were frequent and bloody.

One or both dictators were hailed by a president named Bush as staunch allies in the region.
(see The Real WMD Threat-- 2)

[alphaa10-2009]

The Real WMD Threat-- 2
Both dictators considering becoming a nuclear power, but Musharraf managed to do it-- all the while, under the non-proliferation scrutiny of both the US and Europe.

After 911, congress told Bush to find bin Laden in Afghanistan. Enlisting the aid of Pakistan, Bush pointedly did not demand Pakistan surrender its bombs. Nor did he seriously question Pakistan''''s nuclear transfers to other Islamic states of Iran, Libya, and Malasia. Or even those to North Korea.

Instead, he praised Musharraf, whose regime had engineered the Islamic bomb and fostered nuclear proliferation for some 30 years, and attacked... Iraq.

All so obviously, WMDs never were the security issue Bush claimed. By attacking Iraq, which had no bomb of its own, and ignoring Pakistan, which had both bomb and delivery system ready, Bush revealed Iraqi oil reserves were his primary objective.

[alphaa10-2009]

The Bhutto assassination has all the marks of "assassination by proxy", in which Musharaff''s ISI and army quietly remove reasonable and basic protection from Bhutto so that any fringe element can do the assassination for them.

Bhutto, herself, suspected as much in an email sent a day before her death to a journalist working on a book about her. Bhutto said she was denied even a protective screen of police vehicles.

One witness reported the "security" provided by Musharraf was so lax, Bhutto was shielded at one rally by only a single guard with a rifle, standing before the platform on which Bhutto was seated.

Clearly, Musharraf has employed every subtrefuge and deceit to stay in power-- delaying elections, refusimg to step down as general when he took the title of president, defying the supreme court, hounding opposition into exile, breaking up demonstrations against his regime.

This is the man hailed by Bush as a staunch ally in the MidEast. It seems one wannabe dictator has no trouble admiring another.

[fornicario]

Prove it

Posted by ilikecats1

Very easily. Bush has (and has announced to the world on many occasions) That Al-Quada and OBL can be found on the Pakistani border. The fact that we refuse to invade Pakistan in the face of credible evidence that terrorists do operate there, and the man responsible for 9/11 is there, yet we can invade Iraq on less credible evidence, and even in the face of invented evidence in the case of the WMD''s, it only leaves two options, that our Administration is criminally incompetent, or criminally complicit. Take your pick of those two choices.

[fornicario]

Meh. BushCo is committed to keeping Pakistan safe as an incubator for further terrorist strikes, no matter what. He''s proven that he will only use U.S. power in the name of big business, and is firmly committed to keeping the boot firmly on the necks of the common man, no matter what nationality. His only commitment is too keeping his corporate cronies flush with government cash, while taxpayers get screwed in the name of the corporate good.

[watcher269-2009]

NOOO, The Cheney Puppet MUST stay!

[nolalou]

While I agree Musharraf must go, there needs to be an orderly democratic transition to an elected successor. He should not be allowed to run for the job, and must leave the government after the election.

The only reason I wouldn''t want to see him resign right away is the nuclear arsenal Pakistan has, and the uncertainty of who would be in power if he were to quit!

[tbweb]

Musharraf has lost favor in the Pakistan Court of Public Opinion, strike 1! Lost favor in the World Court of Public Opinion, strike 2! Lost favor among the ranks of many World Leaders, strike 3! When Musharraf does finally step down, don''t hold your breath thinking it will be anytime soon, he should be given the same security protection he authorized for Benazir Bhutto, lets see how he makes out with it since he gave it to her!