Rejecting the charges that the government was complicit in the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, President Pervez Musharraf has called for exhumation of her body to determine once and for all whether she was killed by a bullet.
In an interview with Newsweek magazine, President Musharraf also expressed his refusal to let the United States launch CIA operations against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
He was asked about reports that the United States is thinking about launching CIA operations in Pakistan with or without Pakistan's approval. "We are totally in cooperation on the intelligence side," he said. "But we are totally against (a military operation). We are a sovereign country. We will ask for assistance from outsiders. They won't impose their will on us."
He told the magazine: "Yes, exhume it. A hundred percent. I would like it to be exhumed." But he ruled out ordering a post-mortem without the agreement of Bhutto's family.
Asked why he should not use his executive power to order one, he said: "Everything is not black and white here. It would have very big political ramifications. If I just ordered the body exhumed, that would be careless, unless (Bhutto's) people agreed. But they will not."
He said Bhutto's supporters have not agreed to a post-mortem "because they know it's a fact there is nothing wrong." "Everybody is trying to gain political advantage; the entire opposition is trying to take political advantage," he said.
FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW:
NW: How do you take Hillary Clinton's suggestion that the United States and Britain help Pakistan secure its nuclear weapons?
President: Does she know how secure [the weapons] are and what we are doing to keep them so? They are very secure. We will ask if we need assistance. Nobody should tell us what to do. And I'd ask anyone who says such things, do you know how our strategic assets are handled, stored and developed-do you know it?
NW: Have you told the American government that?
President: No, why should we? We have said we are totally under control.
NW: Graham Allison of Harvard says that these weapons must be disbursed for them to have survivability, which means that they could also fall into the wrong hands, because there might be a local command structure that is weak.
President: He doesn't know anything-how disbursed they are, and he shouldn't think that we don't know these things. We are from the military, we understand how to handle things, whether they need to be disbursed or concentrated.
NW: But you understand that due to past episodes there is concern.
Yes, the past has [caused] some concern, but we must understand the difference between past and now. Before we were a declared and covert nuclear state, we had to hide everything. Everything was covert. Only the scientists and the president of Pakistan knew what was going on. Now there is a national command authority. It is the top body, headed by the president and the prime minister, and there are members from the military and the civilian side.
And there's a huge strategic planning division, a full secretariat headed by now-retired [Lieutenant General Khalid] Kidwai. He is in charge of this Strategic Planning Division that is the secretarial arm of the National Command, responsible for development and employment. Then we have army, navy, air force, the strategic force command. If anything happens, indeed it's a failure of everyone from myself to SPD to the Army Strategic Force Command. NW: But it would need the collusion of several people, up and down the chain.
President: Absolutely. It's like an army unit. Can one rifle be taken away from an army unit? Can the bullet of a rifle be taken away from an army unit? I challenge anyone to take a bullet, a weapon, away from an army unit.