Musharraf responds true strategies to devastating quake in Pakistan

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that his country used tried and true corporate strategies to respond to the devastating earthquake last year. Musharraf said that immediately after the earthquake struck, he reached out to the country's residents the next day to try to inspire confidence and hope.

"The leader has to take stock and assess the situation," he told an audience of several hundred business executives, government officials and others at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. "The leader must act immediately to show solidarity with the people, to infuse confidence and hope in the people. "It may just be a flag showing, it may just be optics, but it is extremely important ... he must reach out to the people immediately," he said.

Musharraf added that some US$6.2 billion in relief was earmarked or donated to Pakistan in the aftermath, including a Swedish woman who donated hundreds of portable cabins to provide shelter.

"We needed outside assistance because we didn't have the technical know how. We asked for it and we got it, I must say," he said. Musharraf said that relief efforts in the region were continuing and would likely last another two years. But he said he would continue monitoring the efforts.

"We have already successfully implemented the relief part. We need to successfully implement the reconstruction and rehabilitation," he said. "I will keep monitoring that and going down myself to make sure that this is being done", reports the AP. N.U.