WASHINGTON: Stepping personally into the Pakistan political crisis for the first time, US President George W Bush telephoned President Pervez Musharraf and bluntly told him to hold elections as scheduled in January and doff his military uniform.

"I spoke to President Musharraf right before I came over here.... And my message was very plain, very easy to understand. And that is: The United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled and take your uniform off," Bush said.

The US President, who had not spoken to Musharraf since the military ruler declared a state of emergency on November three and launched a bloody crackdown on protesters, was speaking at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at Mount Vernon on November 7. During the 20-minute conversation, Bush said he told Musharraf, "You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time.

" Playing down suggestions that double standards were being adopted in the approach towards Pakistan and Myanmar, he said "our objective is same in Burma as it is in Pakistan, and that is to promote democracy. There is a difference, however. "Pakistan has been on the path to democracy. Burma hadn’t been on the path to democracy. And it requires different tactics to achieve the common objective," he said. Sarkozy while expressing his concern over situation in Pakistan, said, "It’s worrisome, and we need to have elections as swiftly as possible. You cannot combat extremism using the same methods as extremists."

"Let me remind that it is a country of 150 million who happen to have nuclear weapons. This is very important for us, that one day we should wake up with a government, an administration in Pakistan which is in the hands of the extremists," Sarkozy added. But on Capitol Hill, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told lawmakers that while Washington "strongly disagrees" with the course of action taken by Musharraf, "the disagreement should not translate into dis-engagement". "We strongly counseled against emergency rule, but Pakistan’s leadership did not follow our advice," Negroponte told Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

He acknowledged that there were a number of statutes, vis a vis, assistance programs to Pakistan but the Bush administration has not got to the point of looking at the alternatives and that there was nothing that is automatically triggered. Musharraf, the senior State Department official said, has been indispensable in the global war on terror.

"Extremists and radicals have tried to assassinate him multiple times, and no country has done more to punish the al- Qaeda and the Taliban." "We need to commend the government of Pakistan and the Security forces," he said in response to a query. But, President Musharraf and the administration did have at least one ally in Republican Congressman from Indiana, Dan Burton, who said that right now Pakistan is a "friend and ally" of the United States and that calls for action against Musharraf should be put in perspective.

"We are in a nuclear age. We have to be very, very careful about this," Burton said. Earlier, Bush had asked Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to call up Musharraf and convey that "we expect there to be elections as soon as possible and that the President (Musharraf) should remove his military uniform." "I certainly hope he does take my advice," he told journalists at the White House. Bush said Washington would work with Musharraf as well as others in the Pakistani government to "make it abundantly clear the position of the United States.

And then, obviously, we’ll deal with it if something other than that happens." He, however, declined to say what the US will do by way of assistance if the General defied American advice. Rice, who spoke to Musharraf while returning to Washington from Middle East, made it clear that the US was deeply disappointed and wanted the General to rescind the decision as well as hold elections as scheduled in January. On suspending aid to Pakistan, a US official said "we are looking at all of those to see if there are automatic triggers ...

That have been triggered by the actions taken that would require some kind of cut-off in assistance, because obviously we want to comply with the law." "... There are questions about the future of our aid and assistance. But what we’re looking for now in the next several days, some time in the course of this week, we would hope there’s some clarification on the intentions of the government and we’ve made clear the direction on which we think they ought to proceed," the official added. The official said Musharraf has made a "mistake" and that the US would work with Islamabad to get things "back on track".

At the same time, Bush praised Musharraf’s role in the war on terror and said the US wants to continue working with him in this regard. "President Musharraf has been a strong fighter against extremists and radicals...

He understands the dangers posed by radicals and extremists," Bush said. "We want to continue working with him to fight these terrorists and extremists who not only have tried to kill him, but who use parts of his country from which to launch attacks into Afghanistan and/or are plotting attacks on America," he said.