President condemns assassins

President condemns assassins
Bush calls Bhutto killers ‘cowardly.’

Published Thursday, December 27, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush demanded today that those responsible for killing former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto be brought to justice.

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy," he said. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice."

The president looked tense in delivering a brief statement to reporters at a hangar near his Crawford ranch in central Texas. He took no questions. His appearance came as U.S. officials here scrambled to cope with the immense policy implications involving a nuclear-armed country that has received billions in U.S. financial assistance and has been an ally in the war on terrorism.

Bush expressed his deepest condolences to Bhutto’s family and to the families of others slain in the attack and to all the people of Pakistan. And the White House also reached out to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, spokesman Scott Stanzel said. He said Bush planned to speak with Musharraf as soon as it can be arranged later today.

"Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as prime minister, and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk, yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country," Bush said. "We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life," he said.

Bhutto was mortally wounded today in a suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. She served twice as Pakistan’s prime minister between 1988 and 1996. She had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile Oct. 18.

Her homecoming parade in Karachi was also targeted by a suicide attacker, killing more than 140 people. On that occasion she narrowly escaped injury.

U.S. officials - who had labored to promote stability in the nuclear-armed country that has been an anti-terrorism ally - huddled to assess the effect of Bhutto’s death two weeks before legislative elections in the turbulent nation in which her party was expected to do well.

The United States had been at the forefront of foreign powers trying to arrange reconciliation between Bhutto and Musharraf, who under heavy U.S. pressure resigned as army chief and earlier this month lifted a state of emergency, in the hope it would put Pakistan back on the road to democracy.

Bhutto’s return to the country after years in exile and the ability of her party to contest free and fair elections had been a cornerstone of Bush’s policy in Pakistan, where U.S. officials had watched Musharraf’s growing authoritarianism with increasing unease.

Those concerns were compounded by the rising threat from al-Qaida and Taliban extremists, particularly in Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal areas bordering Afghanistan despite the fact that Washington had pumped nearly $10 billion in aid into the country since Musharraf became an indispensible counter-terrorism ally after Sept. 11, 2001.

Irritated by the situation, Congress last week imposed new restrictions on U.S. assistance to Pakistan, including tying $50 million in military aid to Department of State assurances that the country is making "concerted efforts" to prevent terrorists from operating inside its borders.

Under the law, which provides a total of $300 million in aid to Pakistan and was signed by President Bush yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also must guarantee Pakistan is implementing democratic reforms, including releasing political prisoners and restoring an independent judiciary.

The law also prevents any of the funds to be used for cash transfer assistance to Pakistan, but that stipulation had already been adopted by the administration.

Despite the congressional move, Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs who had been instrumental in engineering the Bhutto-Musharraf reconciliation, said he had little doubt that the administration would get the money.