Gen: Let’s see if Benazir wins

Musharraf also criticised Benazir Bhutto, saying she was confrontational and would be difficult to work with. “You come here supposedly on a reconciliatory mode, and right before you land, you’re on a confrontationist mode. I am afraid this is producing negative vibes, negative optics.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said, when asked when the Emergency rule would end. “We need to see the environment.”

He refused to say when he would step down as army leader and become a civilian president, a demand that President Bush has urged publicly and also did privately in a telephone call last week. “It will happen soon,” he said.

The General, who has been backed with more than $10 billion by the Bush administration, most of it for the military, asked for even more support, and more patience. Musharraf said the Pakistan Army had limited resources in taking on the fight.

Musharraf questioned Bhutto’s popularity, and at one point scanned an Op-Ed article she recently wrote for The Times that he had brought to the interview. In reaction to her claim that she would sweep elections, the General said, “Let’s start the elections and let’s see whether she wins.”

“She has been prime minister twice, what about the third time?” he said. “She is not legally allowed, she is not constitutionally allowed. Why are we taking things for granted?”