The White House today contradicted statements by Pakistan's president that he had received "definite assurances" that the military operation in Afghanistan would be short, the first sign of strain in the delicate relationship between US President George W. Bush and General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader.
Asked this afternoon about General Musharraf's comments, which seemed part of his government's effort to calm protests in major cities across Pakistan, Bush seemed annoyed.
"I don't know who told the Pakistani president that," Bush said. "Generally, you know, we don't talk about military plans." He said there was "one way to shorten the campaign in Afghanistan, and that's for Osama bin Laden and his leadership to be turned over so they can be brought to justice."
The public airing of differences with Pakistan reflected the growing tension between the US and Pakistan over the strategy being pursued in the war against bin Laden's terrorist network and the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan. Bush has used every opportunity to signal to the Taliban that he will apply military force until the network is cracked, and has all but said he will topple the Taliban itself for harboring bin Laden.
Containing protests
General Musharraf, in contrast, clearly wants to portray to his own people that the attacks are a brief, unpleasant chapter on the way to a friendlier government in Afghanistan. In conversations with American officials he has made it clear that a long conflict would make it far more difficult to contain the protests by Islamic hard-liners in Pakistan.
"Every day this goes on is more painful for him," one senior administration official said. "He wants to hear that it won't take long, and he's repeating what he wants to hear."
That is apparently what happened on Monday, when General Musharraf, speaking in English, said, "One is hoping -- and I have got definite assurances -- that this operation will be short."
But yesterday White House officials strongly hinted that General Musharraf never received such assurances. Asked whether the general had been told the campaign would be brief by any senior American officials, Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, said "not to my knowledge."
At another point in the same briefing, Fleischer said the action against the Taliban would be a "long one," though he appeared to be referring to activities beyond the air strikes now under way.
Bush used yesterday's event to discuss the unrest in Pakistan for the first time. "I understand people's willingness to protest," he said, "but they should not protest the decisions our coalition is making, because it is in the best interest of freedom and humankind."
Asked twice if he still wants bin Laden "dead or alive," a comment he made several times last month, he said, "I want there to be justice." And once again he turned the subject to the terrorist network, as the White House has done consistently in recent weeks. Bush, his aides say, sees no benefit in personalizing the conflict, and he has not yet said what he thought of bin Laden's taped message released Sunday afternoon.
NATO participation
Bush's comments about Pakistan came as he stood this afternoon in the Rose Garden with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany, whom he thanked for the symbolic and highly unusual step of participating in NATO-led air surveillance over the US.
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