Bush, Rice defienden a Musharraf como 'aliado'

¡Es un dictador y un matón, pero es NUESTRO DICTADOR Y MATóN!...

CRAWFORD, Tex., Nov. 10 -- President Bush and his senior advisers offered Saturday perhaps their most extensive defense of Gen. Pervez Musharraf as an ally in the battle against Islamic extremists a week after the Pakistani president declared emergency rule and began a crackdown on human rights activists, lawyers and journalists.

Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made clear their continuing desire for Musharraf to hold elections and to resign from the Pakistani army, with Rice bluntly calling his assumption of emergency powers a "bad decision." But they mixed criticism with sympathy for what they termed Musharraf's past efforts to cultivate democracy and to help the United States go after al-Qaeda leaders in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"President Musharraf, right after the attacks on September the 11th, made a decision, and the decision was to stand with the United States against the extremists inside Pakistan," Bush told reporters here after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "In other words, he was given an option: Are you with us, or are you not with us? And he made a clear decision to be with us, and he's acted on that advice."