Washington, Aug. 17 : An American journalist has claimed that the Bush Administration abandoned former Pakistan Prime Minister and leader of the Pakistan People''s Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto, which needed Washington the most to make her political comeback in Pakistan after more than eight years of self-imposed exile.

According to Ron Suskind, the author of the new book "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism", Bhutto had become "a real vessel of democratic ideals" in the South Asian region but was abandoned by Washington because it "had chosen illegitimate power over spoken principle",

The Daily Times quoted the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist as telling the Democracy Now Radio that he had spent a lot of time with Benazir for six months before she died.

He quoted Benazir as telling him in Quetta "just before she died that she realized she had essentially been abandoned by the US.

"Frankly, my success and his failure are now the same things. There''s not going to be coexistence. It''s putting the United States in a choice position. They''ve got to choose. And clearly, they''ve chosen Musharraf over me," Suskind quoted Benazir, as saying, adding that she could have "turned the tide in that whole region".

To a question about a telephone conversation published in his book in which Musharraf told Benazir her safety "is based on the state of our relationship", he said: "It''s all but a—like a Mafia threat. And this is something that the United States, frankly, deep down understands, too. They let this process unfold. And ultimately, folks around [Benazir] Bhutto now are saying that she was abandoned by America". (ANI)