President Pervez Musharraf says the former chief justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was trying to remove him illegally and Pakistan would have been in trouble if he had been allowed to have his own way. What would have happened if we had allowed this chief justice to have his own way. We would have landed Pakistan into chaos, he said in an interview with Al-Jazeera televisioin. Musharraf said he was ready to work with any party which would come into power after the general elections. I interact with people quite well. I am not such a trouble creator. Speaking about his association with the Army, which he served for 46 years, the president said it was still there but not directly. My relationship with the Army is not direct of course. There is an Army chief. However, 46 years of association does not get washed off. He said the Army would remember him and he would remember the Army for quite some time to come. He said the role of the Army was to defend the nation from internal and external threats. About relations with the US, Musharraf said that he was not fighting their war rather it was the war for Pakistan which he was fighting. The president said that he did not want the al-Qaeda elements on the Pakistani soil nor he would like the militant Taliban to go across the border into Afghanistan and fight there. We don t want the militant Taliban to get safe haven in our area. He said the decision to send troops into Swat was taken after consulting politicians, adding it was essential otherwise the country s northern areas would have been cut off from the rest of Pakistan.
