Looks like BB was reminded to keep her promise in the USA as to not spread anarchy in Pakistan.
Let’s see how long will she take to revert back to her “Miss-Museebti” attitude.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/11/19/top6.htm
WASHINGTON, Nov 18: PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto appears to have softened her attitude towards President Pervez Musharraf following a visit by a top US envoy to Islamabad, which aimed at promoting reconciliation between her and the general…
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
but is she gonna abide by it?!
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
The full article:
Although still critical of Gen Musharraf, Ms Bhutto said in an interview to CNN on Sunday that she was waiting for him to respond to the message Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte brought from Washington.
Reports in the US media suggest that Mr Negroponte asked both Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf to shelve their differences and revive a power-sharing deal.
The US envoy spoke with Ms Bhutto before a 90-minute meeting with Gen Musharraf, which a US official described to The Washington Post as “short of tough love, but still tough”.“It was made clear that if things don’t change, aid money could be cut, and it was very serious and on the table,” the official said.The New York Times noted that Mr Negroponte met Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani twice. “The time and attention paid to General Kayani, a pro-Western moderate, seemed to signal American support for him,” the newspaper said.
( I wonder how Musharraf is taking this open meetings of US delagtes with his vice chief, during NS tenure a general was fired for meeting NS in private)
In her interview to CNN Late Edition, Ms Bhutto twice avoided criticising Gen Musharraf when asked to do so, telling the interviewer instead: “I know where you want to take me.”
The interviewer also played the tape of an earlier interview with Gen Musharraf who accused Ms Bhutto of using his conciliatory gesture to come to Pakistan and later taking a confrontational stance against him. The interviewer then asked her if she still wanted to send him a reconciliatory message.
Ms Bhutto, who usually uses such opportunities to hit back with full force, politely said: “If Gen Musharraf is not responding to Washington’s call to retire (as chief of army staff), and Washington is giving him $10 billion, I wonder he would be ever ready to respond to my call for a political reconciliation.
She said she had made a reconciliatory arrangement with Gen Musharraf to “avoid the mess we are in today.” But when Gen Musharraf suspended the Constitution she came to the conclusion that he was not interested in giving the opposition a fair chance.
When the interviewer asked if she was going to reconsider her decision now, Ms Bhutto said: “I know where you are taking me. Let’s first see if he responds to Washington.”
She said for holding fair and free elections, Gen Musharraf needed to reconstruct the Election Commission, suspend existing nazims who could manipulate the elections and take other steps.
Gen Musharraf, she said, also needed to send a powerful message to the militants that they could not get away with attacking politicians by calling in international investigators to probe the attack on her procession.
Ms Bhutto said the government’s decision to release her and other political prisoners was timed to coincide with Mr Negroponte’s visit to send a positive signal to Washington. Several thousand political workers, however, were still behind bars, she added.
Ms Bhutto said the US envoy did the right thing in publicly asking the Musharraf government to lift the curbs on the media, release political workers and retire as COAS.
The nation, she said, was waiting for Gen Musharraf to give a fixed date to retire as army chief but he had not done so.
Ms Bhutto also responded to former US Secretary of Madeleine Albright’s recent statement that as bad as Gen Musharraf might be, he had made a major contribution to fighting terrorism.
Ms Bhutto said what the general had done was not enough as terrorists were spreading their tentacles from the tribal to settled areas of the NWFP and were also knocking at the doors of Islamabad.
She said that in Swat the government was conducting carpet-bombing which was also killing innocent civilians.
Ms Bhutto said she would like to see the local population co-opted against the terrorists.
Invited to comment on an article her niece Fatima Bhutto wrote in the Los Angeles Times, attacking her as a leader who had no principles and was willing to compromise her principles to gain power, Ms Bhutto said: “I know my niece is angry with me” but what she had done aimed at ensuring that fair and free elections were held in Pakistan.
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
I think BB’s double dealings are going to hurt her more than anyone else.
http://nation.com.pk/daily/nov-2007/19/index6.php
US envoy was tougher on BB than Musharraf
Afzal khan
ISLAMABAD - US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had arrived here Thursday amid a vicious anti-Musharraf media blitzkrieg in US and Europe. Everybody was reporting that he had brought a ‘tough’ message from President Bush to lift the emergency, take off uniform, free thousands of political prisoners and hold free and fair elections on time.
Negroponte has gone and has apparently further cemented Musharraf’s resolve to continue on the path he has chosen. As is the case of the officials in Washington, John made all the correct noises about emergency, uniform, political prisoners and media freedom. That was public posture directed more to placate home audience, particularly the media which has become extremely hostile to the steps taken by Gen Musharraf.
If Negroponte was tough, it was to Ms Benazir Bhutto and not to Musharraf. He talked to her on telephone and dropped plans to meet her, ostensibly at Musharraf’s urgings who feared it would convey wrong message to home audience, according to knowledgeable sources. His counsel to Benazir was to give up the path of confrontation and restart negotiations with Musharraf.
He parried question on key issues like restoration of the judiciary purged by Musharraf. While the General is willing to shed uniform once he takes oath as president, he was reluctant to give any date for ending emergency saying he has to do many things before that. It only means he must secure a seal of approval from the tamed judiciary to his election plans, the emergency, gagging the media and the recasting of superior courts. The Bush administration seems willing to buy his arguments that emergency was inevitable to combat terrorism, save nuclear assets from falling into wrong hands and checking the judicial activism that had encouraged extremists.
The gullible PPP leadership which had pinned unrealistic hopes on Negroponte’s visit has, understandably, been greatly disappointed by its outcome. Negroponte came to Pakistan declaring Musharraf an ‘indispensable ally’. His affinity with Central American military rulers is well known. His boss George Bush emphatically stated that he was not going to abandon his valued ally. Bush sidelined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as Musharraf was unhappy with her phone calls and instead sent Negroponte to Islamabad. Rice had taken tough stance on emergency and Musharraf’s reluctance to take off uniform. She made a very categorical statement on November 9 that fair and free elections were not possible under emergency. Musharraf was clearly annoyed.
In contrast, Negroponte was all praise for Musharraf in remarks to newsmen before departure. He, however, wanted Ms Bhutto to restart negotiations and abandon the path of confrontation she had recently adopted.
“If steps were taken by both sides to move back towards the kind of reconciliation discussions they had been having, we think that would be very positive,” Negroponte said adding that such talks would ‘help improve the political environment’.
Apparently referring to public rift between Ms Bhutto and Musharraf, Negroponte reminded them that reconciliation between moderate political forces was ‘very desirable’.
However, the punch line in his written statement and later at news briefing prior to departure in the small hours of Sunday morning should be an eye-opener for Ms Bhutto, to whom these were really directed. “Engagement and dialogue - not brinkmanship and confrontation, should be the order of the day for all parties,” he said.
A reliable source privy to the US official’s talks here said he did tell Musharraf that President Bush was unhappy over the rupture between him and Ms Bhutto after all that the US had done to broker the Musharraf-Benazir deal that facilitated Musharraf’s election on October 6 and addressed Ms Bhutto’s concern regarding her cases.
But the turn of events in the aftermath of October 18 blasts on Ms Bhutto’s tumultuous procession in Karachi, has upset Washington’s calculations regarding future power-sharing arrangement between Musharraf and Benazir. Though Negroponte said the verbal sparring between the two sides was unfortunate and had vitiated the atmosphere, Musharraf was able to convince him that Ms Bhutto was more to blame for this confrontational atmosphere.
“Musharraf argued that Ms Bhutto’s abrasive statements against him and his coalition partners were nothing but brinkmanship to exert pressure on him and wrest certain advantages in the run-up to the elections,” the source told this correspondent. Negroponte apparently bought much of that argument.
Both Musharraf and his guest were concerned that Ms Bhutto might actually team up with exiled premier Nawaz Sharif to wreck Musharraf’s game plan. Musharraf’s trouble-shooters and US diplomats have been impressing upon Ms Bhutto that Nawaz’ return would impinge on her political interests. He is certain to sway masses and sweep the polls, seriously undermining the prospects of her return to power.
“It struck me that the Americans are least enthusiastic about Nawaz,” the official said.
Ms Bhutto’s recent statements indicate she is convinced Musharraf and the Chaudhry cousins would massively manipulate elections to rout her party. Musharraf can then tell the Americans that he was not off the mark when telling them that her public standing has gone ‘down and down’. When he says she will lose miserably in elections, it betrays the game plan to deal her a crushing defeat.
Both the Americans and Musharraf are keen to persuade Ms Bhutto not to boycott. But if she reads the current situation correctly, it would be apparent that odds are badly stacked against her and other opposition parties. With emergency in place, judiciary and media badly mauled, the Election Commission greatly tamed, her access to the electorate seriously curtailed and entire civil and military bureaucracy and the local governments fully geared up to help PML-Q win a landslide, her party stands no chance. Gen Musharraf badly needs two-thirds majority for indemnification of the emergency and other extra-constitutional acts.
A Bhutto-Nawaz link-up can upset the applecart. If they decide to boycott the polls unless level-playing field is created, the elections would lose all credibility and deepen political crisis. Other opposition parties, including even Maulana Fazlur Rehman would have to follow suit. Ms Bhutto has given a call for forging a united front of all democratic forces.
She has received positive response from all opposition parties forgetting her previous role in cutting a deal with Musharraf. Her latest stance has put her at the centre stage of national political scene. Her party has been reinvigorated and workers galvanised to again defy state terror and repression. It has suddenly politicised the atmosphere and considerably restored her pre-eminence. If she slips again and succumbs to US pressure to renegotiate with Musharraf, she would be doing incalculable harm to herself and PPP image and seriously undermine the democratic movement.
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
^^ BB is struggling trying to obey US, but PPP cronies want to see some blood in the street. Sadly that's how our political leaders work i.e. more anarchy, and less work.
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
Indeed. Pakistanis should be working together to keep Pakistan stable and continue on the path of Unprecdented Growth that they have seen in the past eight years under the leadership of President Musharaf. :k:
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
All the big people are calling at Musharraf’s door these days, so BB must have felt a little left out. 
Did Benazir meet Musharraf?
By Tahir Hasan Khan
KARACHI: The presence of President Gen Pervez Musharraf and the PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto in the city has given rise to strong rumours of a secret meeting between the two. However, neither PPP circles nor government officials were available to confirm any such story. President Gen Pervez Musharraf arrived in the city late on Saturday night to bid farewell to the outgoing members of the provincial set-up and to thank the legislators of the ruling coalition. He inaugurated the newly-constructed Korangi-Defence Flyover built by the KPT on Sunday morning and then left for Quetta. The president returned to Karachi from Quetta on Sunday night to attend a function held at the Chief Minister House. However, due to security reasons, officials did not confirm whether he would return to Islamabad on Sunday night or on Monday morning.
The officials said that the president had some other engagements which were not official and pointed out that President Musharraf invariably met old friends and colleagues whenever he was in the city. PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto also arrived in the city on Saturday evening from Lahore. She had no party engagements on Saturday and Sunday and she spent her time in informal meetings with party leaders and in giving interviews to the foreign media. The Secretary Information, PPP, Sherry Rehman, said that she was also on leave on Sunday as she wanted to take a rest and to spend the day with her family. However, other party leaders claimed that Benazir did not even come to her office, situated next to her residence, on Sunday. President Gen Musharraf came to the city after meeting the second highest ranking US diplomat John Negroponte, who also talked to Benazir Bhutto on the phone. The US media confirmed that one of the key missions of Negroponte was to remove the misunderstandings that have developed between Gen Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto in the recent weeks.
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
Hmmm! Interesting. I guess in a way it is good for Pakistan if BB talks to the President. Our ruling elite must work together for the stability and prosperity of the country.
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
Benazir ko soften honay kee zaroorat nahi. Umar ka takaza hai, abb bhoot dair ho chuki.
Abb tu Zardari bhi dubai main rehata hai, Pakistan aa kay kiya karay ga.
Warning level: 40
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
Bhutto’s backflip as poll is called](http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22786081-2703,00.html)
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
BB will probably join him in Daubai again soon, now that she has failed in her attempt to spark a revolution against Musharraf. 
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
Reza u over estimate our nation,
backflips, retractions whatever
if there is an election she will win
teh fact that she is being sent as a viceroy would not matter to her support base :)
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
Looks like BB was reminded to keep her promise in the USA as to not spread anarchy in Pakistan.
Let's see how long will she take to revert back to her "Miss-Museebti" attitude.
Whether she spreads "anarchy" or not, she is very likely to become PM (promises promises, USA, phone call, Mushy, NRO).
Re: Benazir softens her attitude: The visit of US envoy may bring postive change in h
all hail viceroy bhutto