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| Post-26/11, Condoleezza panicked wh |
| Post-26/11, Condoleezza panicked when she couldn't reach Pranab
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 28-October-2011
8:6:9 AM |
| Pranab Mukherjee's tough talking post the Mumbai-attacks rattled Pakistan so much that it called everyone from China to the US, saying that India had decided to go to war. This was according to former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her book entitled In No Higher Honor. Mukherjee was then the Foreign Minister of India.
The former US Secretary of State said she also panicked after she was given the news by a White House aide. "The Pakistanis say the Indians have warned them that they've decided to go to war," the aide reportedly told her. "What?" Rice said she uttered after the White House aide told her about the message from Pakistan. "That isn't what they're (India) telling me. In my many conversations with the Indians over the two days, they'd emphasized their desire to defuse the situation and their need for the Pakistanis to do something to show that they accepted responsibility for tracking down the terrorists."
Rice added that she too started panicking temporarily after she could not get Mukherjee on line even after repeated attempts. Consequently she started getting nervous and she thought that Mukherjee was trying to avoid her as New Delhi was preparing for war. As a result of these rumours coming out of Pakistan, former US President George Bush asked Rice to travel both to New Delhi and Islamabad to defuse the situation.
Rice added "I called back again. No response. By now the international phone lines were buzzing with the news. The Pakistanis were calling everyone the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Chinese. Finally Mukherjee called back. I told him what I'd heard," Rice wrote.
'''What?' he said. 'I'm in my constituency.''' (The Indians were preparing for elections, and Mukherjee, who was a Member of Parliament, was at home campaigning.) ''Would I be outside New Delhi if we were about to launch a war?'" Mukherjee asked.
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