Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Volte-Face
situation became tense when, on 9 September, two suicide bombers
masquerading as journalists assassinated Ahmed Shah Masood, the
leader of the rebel Afghan Northern Alliance. The leaders of the
alliance blamed al-Qaeda and the ISI for the murder.
General Mahmood was watching television coverage of the Twin
Tower attacks at Ambassador Lodhi’s office when he received a call at 5
pm inviting him for an emergency meeting with Richard Armitage, the
US Deputy Secretary of State. At 10 am on 12 September, the General,
accompanied by Ambassador Lodhi and Zamir Akram, a senior official
at the Embassy, arrived at the State Department. Armitage was terse as
he began saying that Pakistan faced a stark choice. ‘We want to know
whether you are with us or not. This is a black and white choice with
no grey, ‘he said. The General enquired what his country could do in
that situation. ‘We need your country’s full support and cooperation.
We will tell you tomorrow the specifics about the cooperation that is
required,’ said Armitage and asked the General to meet him the next
day. 4
Returning to the Embassy, General Mahmood telephoned President
Musharraf. Musharraf had been speaking to a group of local government
representatives in Karachi when his Press Secretary had interrupted
to tell him about the World Trade Center attacks. He immediately
perceived the choice that he was about to be faced with. ‘I took a fast
decision,’ he later told me, ‘but I thought about it very carefully.’ 5 Only
afterwards did he consult his aides and senior military commanders.
‘I keep to Napoleon’s view that two-thirds of the decision-making
process is based on analysis and information and one-third is always
a leap in the dark.’ 6
The shock and anger in Washington which was relayed to him
by his spy chief did not surprise Musharraf. He had also received a
telephone call from Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had spelled
out the situation in stark terms, telling the Pakistani President: ‘The
American people would not understand if Pakistan was not in this
fight with the United States.’ 7 Musharraf assured him of his country’s
full cooperation.
On 13 September, General Mahmood returned to the State Department
for the second meeting. ‘This is not negotiable,’ said Armitage,
as he handed him a single sheet of paper with a list of seven demands
that the Bush administration wanted him to accept. The General, who
was known for his hardline pro-Taliban position, glanced through the
paper for a few seconds and passed it on to Ambassador Lodhi. Before