by EJAZ HAIDER
Even as adversity struck, with military pressure mounting on Pakistani troops, Commander FCNA [Force Command Northern Areas] lost his nerve … In a meeting [then major-general, later lieutenant-general, Javed Hasan] implored the others: for God’s sake, forgive me. I have made a big mistake. Now is the time for prayers.”
This Napoleon was one of the four architects of Operation Koh Paima, commonly known as the Kargil operation.
In her book, From Kargil to the Coup, journalist Nasim Zehra calls them the Kargil clique. Cabal would be a better word to describe them because, as Zehra says, “These generals planned operation KP [Koh Paima] less as intelligent and accountable strategists [and more] as covert, unaccountable campaigners.”
Her work is the first critical book-length account not just of the operation but also its aftermath, which led to a coup. Ironically, the cabal, which should have been tried for tactical and strategic idiocy, went up the totem pole. One of them, then Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf entrenched himself as the president of this country. His Chief of General Staff Aziz Khan became a four-star general and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Javed Hasan became a three-star general and went on to head the National Defence University and, later, the Administrative Staff College. Commander 10 Corps Mahmud Ahmed was made director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The civilians were ousted and several, including then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, ended up in jail.
Who says failure is an orphan?
India set up a Kargil Commission to look into how and why its strategic intelligence failed so badly, why its military response was so slow and sloppy in the beginning, the problems of interoperability between the army and the air force, the high Indian casualties and the flaws in logistics and leadership in the field. The commission was headed by a civilian, not a military officer. Its mandate was wide and deep. It went into every little detail, from the tactical to the strategic. It calculated any future threat and recommended force reconfiguration, etcetera. And – this is the best part – it made its report public. In short, that country tried to learn its lessons.
No such thing happened, or could happen, in Pakistan.
Instead, as Zehra’s book title says, what began as a covert, unauthorised, illegal military operation, outside the purview not only of civilian principals but also without the knowledge of the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Navy and even the military’s own intelligence agencies, led to a military coup and the ouster of a civilian government.
But before that, the cabal had to handle the deep resentment within the army. Musharraf had to face tough questions. Hasan, the FCNA commander, could not face his troops. As Zehra mentions: “Internally … there was disquiet after the withdrawal. Instructions were that Kargil would not be discussed in any school of instruction … No courses would be taught at then-NDC [National Defence College].”
Kargil was a taboo subject and remained so for a fairly long time.
There has been a lot of speculation since 1999 about how much then prime minister Nawaz Sharif knew about the operation and also when exactly he got the full picture. Zehra’s book puts an end to that speculation. In one of the chapters, Necks on the Line and Lotus Lake, she describes the “deceptive briefings” that were given to Sharif: “On 29th January in Skardu, they told Sharif the general thrust of their intentions while not revealing the plan in full. In order to [boost] the Kashmir struggle, they said, [the FCNA troops] needed to become active along the LoC [the Line of Control].” (Emphasis added)
Sharif had no clue that Pakistani troops had already crossed the LoC and entered Indian-occupied Kashmir. As Zehra mentions, he thought that “small-scale operations could complement his political and diplomatic efforts to move forward on detente and peace with India”.
A second briefing was given in February and a third on March 13 by then major-general Jamshed Gulzar of the ISI. These briefings were completely unrelated to Operation Koh Paima or its specifics. Reason: the ISI, as also the Military Intelligence (MI), had no idea about the operation.
At one of these briefings, Musharraf proposed that militants scale up their operations in Kashmir. He also suggested that they be provided Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Former lieutenant-general and cabinet member Majeed Malik strongly objected to the proposal. Theprime minister, however, did not reprimand Musharraf for proposing the induction of a platform that would obviously be considered escalatory by India at a time when the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan were attempting to carry forward gains from the Lahore Declaration, held earlier the same year between Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Zehra calls it “divergent tracks”. The Kargil cabal was pushing Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif into a direction that ran completely opposite to what Sharif was trying to achieve through the dialogue process initiated subsequent to Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore in February 1999.
Herald for more
(Thanks to Razi Azmi)