Musharraf to Karzai: Wake Up and Smell the Poppies

Sept. 27, 2006 — -- When Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sit down for dinner tonight at the White House, the conversation may prove to be more heated than the food.

For the last week, Musharraf has responded politely to very public criticism leveled at him by Karzai, who said Musharraf had not done enough to fight the Taliban.

Karzai complained that Taliban-led insurgents were launching attacks on his country from bases inside Pakistan.

In an interview with "Nightline" co-anchor Cynthia McFadden, however, Musharraf came out swinging.

He said that Karzai was "not seeing reality," and that he might regret his initial support for Karzai if the Afghan leader continued to blame Pakistan for Afghanistan's homegrown terrorists.

"President Karzai is purposely overlooking this reality, and he will land us in trouble -- land the whole world in trouble," Musharraf said.

The reality, according to Musharraf, is that while some of the leadership of the Taliban is based in Pakistan, it is also firmly entrenched in Afghanistan.

He cited a U.N. Security Council report, dated Sept. 11, 2006, which identifies the leadership centers of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

"What President Karzai is very cleverly hiding is the fact that all this is happening in Afghanistan, in the southern provinces of Afghanistan," Musharraf said.

Musharraf's comments come in response to remarks Karzai first made last week on "Nightline," alleging that he had several times provided specific, actionable information about terrorist leaders -- their hideouts, their places of training, and where they live -- and that Musharraf had failed to follow up on the tips.

Musharraf, however, dismissed the information as useless and out of date.

He recalled telling Karzai that his intelligence was useless when the Afghan president visited him in Pakistan.

"Right in front of him, I told him. I ticked him off," Musharraf said. "I said, 'Is this your sense of intelligence -- that you are waiting for a presidential visit to hand over this?' Intelligence means immediate action, immediate -- pick up the telephone, immediately send information."