some more added to reuters article:

[snip]

Documents showed Armitage met the Pakistani ambassador and the visiting head of Pakistan's military intelligence service in Washington on Sept. 13 and asked Pakistan to take seven steps.

SUPPORT FOR BIN LADEN

They included ending logistical support for bin Laden and giving the United States blanket overflight and landing rights for military and intelligence flights.

The report did not discuss any threat the United States may have made, but it said Musharraf agreed to all seven U.S. requests the same day.

Musharraf said in the CBS interview he was irked by U.S. demands that Pakistan turn over its border posts and bases for the U.S. military to use.

He said some demands were "ludicrous," including one insisting he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States. "If somebody's expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views," Musharraf said.

With Taliban fighters still fighting in Afghanistan and statements by the Afghan government that Pakistan must do more to crack down on militants in its rugged border area, the issue is again a sensitive one between Islamabad and Washington.

Musharraf reacted with displeasure to comments by Bush on Wednesday that if he had firm intelligence bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would issue the order to go into that country.

"We wouldn't like to allow that. We'd like to do that ourselves," Musharraf told a news conference.

In the CBS interview, Musharraf also spoke about the embarrassment he felt when informed by then-CIA Director George Tenet at the United Nations in 2003 that Pakistani nuclear weapon technology had been passed to Iran and North Korea.

"It was the most embarrassing moment," Musharraf said, denying that anyone in the government or military necessarily knew of the transport of a total amount of more than 18 tons of secret material from Pakistan's nuclear facilities.

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from earlier thread

Besides the fact that the US in overextended and lacks a credible military threat against Pakistan (what with Iraq and now Iran on the table--yikes). But the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan has led to this:

The U.S. military plans no troop cuts in Afghanistan before March, as fighting intensifies against Taliban forces that have gained influence in a political and security "vacuum" in the southern part of the country, according to a senior U.S. commander.

Pakistan may be a staging point for jihadists, but Musharraf certainly doesn't want to be deposed. Revealing this info about Armitage is probably his attempt to reassert himself domestically and put some space between himself and Bush. This makes him look like less of a lackey and more capable of dealing with spillover security threat from Afghanistan.

The reason things have changed is that Musharraf has made the calculation that the US is no longer either psychologically or militarily in a position to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age.

We don't need troops to send Pakistan(mainly Waziristan) back to the stone age, just aircraft. I can see George turning on Mush, saying intell says Osama is in the Waziristan and bombing the whole area. The area has always been ungovernable and Mush pulling his troops out just reinforces that idea and that they are separate from the rest of Pakistan. I personally don't see Mush crying too many tears over the idea. He would make all the requisite noises, but in the end would do nothing. We have already used drones in the area and bombed a dinner party, whats a few more.

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In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning. ~ Carl Sandburg