Zardari says he plans to go after Taliban

NEW YORK: New Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that he intends to "go after Taliban and other radical forces in his country" as well as "handle" powerful bodies like the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
    
"It is my decision that we will go after them (Taliban), we will free this country," Zardari said, asserting that this will be his first priority, "because I will have no country otherwise. I will be President of what?"
     
Labelling Taliban and other radical forces as a "cancer in the society", Pakistan President minced no words to say "I will suck the oxygen out of their system so there will be no Talibs."
    
Asked if the assassination of his wife was motivating him to confront Islamic militancy, he said, "Ofcourse. It is my revenge. I take it every day."
    
"I will fight them because they are the cancer to my society, not because of my wife only but because they are cancer, Yes and they did kill the mother of my children, so their way of life is what I want to kill."
   
Asked if he was afraid, 53-year-old Zardari, in an interview to the New York Times, said, "I'm concerned. I'm not afraid. Because I don't want to die so soon, I have a job to do."
    
The paper said that Zardari had a tough job ahead as "if Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world, its Presidency is one of the world's least enviable post."

The Times said billions of dollars in US aid to the Muslim country's former military government had not stopped the northwestern tribal areas' in becoming the new al Qaeda-Taliban central.
    
"But money is worthless, as the seven years since 9/11 have demonstrated, unless some basic things change. One is the double game played by Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, in an apparent effort to ensure Afghanistan remains weak," it said.
    
To this Zardari said, "The ISI. will be handled, that is our problem."
    
In a sharp dig at his predecessors, the Pakistan President said, "We don't hunt with the hound and run with the hare, which is what Musharraf was doing."
    
The paper said, aside from his official meetings here, Zardari held an unpublicised meeting with Michael Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It also said that the heads of three ISI directorates have already been replaced.
    
"Anyone not conforming with my government's policy will be thrown out," Zardari said of the ISI.
    
He also indicated that he wants to cooperate with the United States in training specialised counterinsurgency army units.
    
"I mean business," he said. "We will train ourselves with the US present as trainers to raise the quality of certain forces."
   
But he warned against further US military incursions inside Pakistan, the object of recent tension. "It is counterproductive and a political price is paid," he said, especially if no high-level target is found".

Zardari said his "new medicine" for the tribal areas would include industrial investment, incentives for alternative crops to poppy like corn, and a message that "we are hitting the Taliban" so make sure "your space is not being used by them."
    
But, the New York Times said, Pakistan is short of cash to strike deals like those done in Iraq's turbulent Anbar-province, in its own tribal areas.
    
The paper said that Zardari had made an impassioned plea for the Saudis and others to slash his annual oil bill by USD 15 billion and give "a democratic Pakistan oil at their base price."
    
He also asked the French for helicopters and the US for "blanket support" in persuading every country to buttress Pakistan "according to its strengths," the Times reported.     

The New York Times said Zardari came out as a man who wanted genuine conciliation with India and Afghanistan, which was essential to the region's stability.