The decision to conduct tests took place at a meeting that Sharif convened with the Chairman joint chiefs, General Jehangir Karamat, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Ishfaq Ahmad, and Munir Ahmad Khan and members of the Cabinet of Pakistan. In talks with Sharif, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, offered a lucrative aid package in an attempt to get Pakistan to refrain from nuclear testing, and sent high level civic-military delegations led by Strobe Talbott and General Anthony Zinni to Pakistan to lobby against the tests. Popular public opinion in Pakistan was in favor of nuclear blasts. Information minister Mushahid Hussain was the first who argued for the tests in reply to the Indian nuclear tests. The Opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, spoke emphatically in favour of Pakistani atomic tests.