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Pakistani President Expected to Resign
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Leaders of the ruling coalition, which also includes former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party, called for Musharraf's impeachment Aug. 7. The coalition has at times appeared on the brink of collapse since the two parties swept Parliamentary elections in February. But last week, Sharif and the co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, Asif Ali Zardari, presented a united front in calling for the president to step down.
A two-thirds majority in both the National Assembly and the Senate are required to oust Musharraf from office.
Although the United States imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Musharraf overthrew Sharif in 1999, the Bush administration became a vocal backer of his government when he declared allegiance to Washington following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. His government has provided unprecedented U.S. access to Pakistani territory, including operational support to fight an Islamist insurgency that has spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan's remote tribal areas along the 1,500-mile-long Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
But while the administration supported Pakistan's return to democracy this spring, it was reluctant to sever ties with Musharraf, who remained president. Concerns over the coalition government's determination to continue the counterterrorism fight have increased measurably in recent weeks. U.S. officials have charged that Pakistan's powerful intelligence agencies -- long under military control -- have been aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, and that the government lacks the ability, and perhaps the desire, to control them.
The coalition reached its decision to impeach Musharraf only days after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani visited the White House and weeks after a top CIA official confronted Pakistan's civilian government with evidence that the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency had helped coordinate a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan last month.
The White House is thought to be split on how strongly to back Musharraf, especially since the call for his impeachment. But while Vice President Cheney is often cited as Musharraf's principal backer in Washington, officials there said that Cheney now agrees that the president should be cut off. They said that it was Bush who had not committed to a final break with someone he still considers a counterterrorism ally.
"The vast majority of the U.S. government has moved beyond their original attachment to Musharraf," one official said.
DeYoung reported from Washington.
