Musharraf made ‘number of mistakes’, says Rice

“I have said.... to him that he made a number of mistakes. And I thought that the state of emergency was a mistake,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview.

The Bush administration official that the issue of Musharraf’s resignation was an “internal matter” of the country but insisted that he “has been a good ally” and did a “great thing for his country by giving up uniform and bringing back civilian rule. “This is clearly a Pakistani matter. He’s the President of Pakistan and we’ll treat him as the President of Pakistan. But Pakistan is in a period now of bringing its new democratic institutions into being. They will work through these matters,” she told CNN when asked about Musharraf’s ouster during an interview whose transcript was released by the State Department.

The PPP which leads Pakistan’s ruling coalition has already declared that Musharraf’s days as president were numbered with its Chairman Asif Ali Zardari saying over the weekend that he was planning a strategy with ally PML(N) for the President’s ouster.