I'm not a poodle of George Bush: Musharraf

LONDON: Insisting that he was 'not a poodle' of U S President George Bush, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that covert US air strikes against Al-Qaeda terror network inside his country were an infringement of national sovereignty.

"When you are talking about fighting terrorism or extremism, I'm not doing that for the US or Britain. I'm doing it for Pakistan. It's not a question of being a poodle. I'm not a poodle of George Bush. I'm nobody's poodle. I have enough strength of my own to lead," Musharraf said in an interview published in The Guardian daily on Friday.

He admitted that his popularity was waning, but rejected the charge that he was running a military dictatorship. "My popularity has gone down... but at this moment my country needs me. I've put a strong constitutional democratic system in place. That will throw up a successor. I'm a strong believer in democracy," he said.

He pledged to hold free and fair polls in 2007. "It is ironic that I'm sitting in uniform talking of democracy ... but to bring democracy into Pakistan I thought I needed it."

Musharraf's comments came days after exiled former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif pledged to return to Pakistan for the 2007 polls to try to oust him through the ballot box.

Referring to a January attack carried out by US drones in Bajaur tribal agency that killed 18 people but missed its target, Al-Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri, Musharraf said, "the strike  was an infringement of our sovereignty and I condemned it."