Kargil: A Debacle or A Lost Opportunity?
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Investigating Kargil
Investigating Kargil
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Taj M Khattak
'What have you done, my friend, Nawaz Sharif?' was how, as narrated in Bill Clinton's memoirs My Life, the Clinton-Nawaz discourse began soon after the photo-op at the steps of the White House on July 4, 1999. Nawaz Sharif had embarked on that fateful sojourn a little over ten years ago for a face-saving climb-down from Kargil. It triggered politico-military consequences for the country and within a span of another three months, Sharif was overthrown, and the country is still reeling from its effects. Musharraf's unceremonious exit after a rule of nearly nine years has made little or no difference at all.
During much of the eight week period preceding the July 4 meeting in Washington, we had looked helplessly at TV images of pinpoint artillery shoots and resultant instant pulverization of some of the nation's bravest sons on such mountainous salients in the war zone as Point 5140 (Dras), Point 5203 ( Batalik), Three Pimples (Dras) and Tiger Hill.
'Operation Badr', as it was called, was launched to coincide with thawing of snow and summer opening of India's National Highway 1A, which links Srinagar to Leh via Kargil. Regular army personnel of the Northern Light Infantry, supported by special forces, artillery, engineers and other combat support personnel, in the garb of mujahideen and under a well-executed cover plan, infiltrated through gaps into Indian territory to occupy mountain tops between the LoC and the highway at several points.
It is a historical fact that any surreptitious military operations, executed howsoever brilliantly and courageously, are unfortunately of no real consequences, unless backed by such other elements of national power as a robust foreign policy, vibrant economy, national consensus, a cause based on sound internationally acknowledged principles and above all a zeitgeist for what a country sets about to achieve.
As the then Indian Army Chief, General V P Malik observed: "Militarily this situation could not have been better for Pakistan after the incursions, since its troops were inside India and had occupied strategic heights along the highway. Had they stayed, they could have cut off the supply route to Leh along the 160 kilometres LoC, seriously affecting Indian's ability to move, re-deploy or augment troops from one sector to another. They were poised to launch operations in Turtuk close to southern Siachen glacier and re-draw the LoC in Dras-Kargil-Batalik-Turtuk sectors. Intensified, enlarged or prolonged fighting would have enabled them to draw the world's attention to Jammu and Kashmir and a war between two nuclear nations."
So far so good – but beyond that, it appears, it was all lost on our military and political leaders.
At the height of the crisis, Benazir Bhutto had disclosed in an interview to Third Eye Television that President Pervez Musharraf had brought the Kargil plan to her when she was prime minister (when he was director-general military operations) and that she had rejected it.
The Indian army too is by this bug; venturing into Siachen under a similar impulse, and to date India retains under its control an area of the glacier of some 900-1000 square miles. Pakistan launched quite a few efforts to push back the Indians from a nearly 43 miles icy front, the most significant one being in 1984 with a sizeable troop's concentration at Khapalu spearheaded by elite SSG elements, but this was repulsed by the Indians.
This failure too reportedly bears Musharraf's hallmark signatures as one of the masterminds and planners. The 'Banna Post' named after Naib Subedar Banna Singh (the only Param Veer Chakra recipient of the Kargil conflict), taken away from us in fierce hand-to-hand combat in broad daylight, continues to be an eyesore on an otherwise glistening and pristine glacier. The Pakistan Army has just celebrated 'Year of the Soldier'. No prizes for guessing who would win hands down any contest for the 'The Most Failed Soldier of the Decade', were there to be any nominations.
But herein lies the whole irony; the Indian army exploited a 'lack of clarity' in a border demarcation agreement and occupied stretches of glacier which were open to different interpretations. The Pakistan army was trying to change lines over which wars had been fought and which, over a period, had morphed from a ceasefire line post-1965 to line of control after Simla Agreement. This fundamental difference, if not clear to the small coterie of Kargil planners, would have been clearer, had there been a broader consultative decision-making process.
The Hamoodur Rahman Commission on the 1971 debacle had observed that the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Navy learnt about the outbreak of war from the news bulletin on Radio Pakistan. Mainly as a result of this report, naval and air headquarters were shifted from Karachi and Peshawar to Islamabad at tremendous cost to the national exchequer. The National Defence College (NDC) was established at Rawalpindi to jointly train potential senior officers from the three services in the art of war. A Joint Services Headquarters was established to chalk out joint operational plans.
It was hoped that as a result of such measures, a generation of officers would foster closer tri-services understanding, and make joint operational planning more sensible. It is evident from the Kargil misadventure that this is not happening. The bonhomie and camaraderie garnered at the NDC, it seems, is only for extending mundane favors to fellow senior officers from time to time and never quite put to higher national purpose.
At best, Kargil was a tactical surprise -- beyond that it failed at the strategic level. After some hesitation and denials, we accepted the mortal remains of Captain Colonel Sher Khan and Havaldar Lalak Jan and honoured them with the highest gallantry awards, as praise for their courage by the enemy was becoming too embarrassing. There was of course no compunction or embarrassment in promoting/rewarding the four generals largely perceived to bear prime responsibility for the fiasco.
The Hamoodur Rehman commission report remained shrouded in mystery for over three decades, with people remaining unaware all this while as to why exactly we lost East Pakistan, till portions of it were beamed at us only recently from across the border forcing us to release it in its totality. On Kargil too, the people of Pakistan to this day are unaware as to what actually happened and why we drifted to the precipice of a potentially disastrous conflict.
What is known at best are nebulous and hazy facts between Musharraf's now famous 'everyone was onboard' quip to the BBC reporter, the phone call intercept between General Aziz and Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif's approval in principle at a moment when his concentration, to the nation's misfortune, was at the lowest ebb. This is clearly not enough.
The central issue is not whether Nawaz Sharif, the elected civilian prime minister had given an approval in principle and was onboard. It is also not whether another prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, had vetoed the Kargil plan when it was presented to her. Rather, it is the near absolute obsession, of our brethren in Khaki with the LoC, and their inability to resist temptation to do something or the other with it at considerable peril to the country. This obsession has not waned since Ayub's era, without realization that the opportunity to etch the Kashmir border permanently in stone through military campaigns was lost forever, when the Indian Army beat us to the Srinagar airport in 1948 Kashmir War by landing a company strength of troops there. Since then, it has always been only this Line or that; with the square miles area under control of the two adversaries in Azad & Indian Held Kashmir being, more or less a constant.
For as long the LoC remains an LoC, there will always be a danger for another adventure if and when we are through with yesterday's mujahideen turned today's terrorists in Swat, Waziristan and other areas in the north. Isn't it time there was an exhaustive enquiry into it and the right lessons learnt for all time to come. In comparison with re-opening Zulfiquar Bhutto's judicial murder case, which the government is thinking about, it might be easier to investigate Kargil where at least most of the principal witnesses are still around. The chances of that, however, happening in a country where a retired chief of the air staff, has to seek permission from the incumbent COAS just to appear before a National Assembly/Senate Committee, are slim -- unless we undergo a cathartic experience in one form or the other, there will be no relief from this lingering national pain.
The writer is a retired vice-admiral and former vice-chief of the Naval Staff, Pakistan Navy. Email: tajkhattak@gmail.com
Investigating Kargil
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Taj M Khattak
'What have you done, my friend, Nawaz Sharif?' was how, as narrated in Bill Clinton's memoirs My Life, the Clinton-Nawaz discourse began soon after the photo-op at the steps of the White House on July 4, 1999. Nawaz Sharif had embarked on that fateful sojourn a little over ten years ago for a face-saving climb-down from Kargil. It triggered politico-military consequences for the country and within a span of another three months, Sharif was overthrown, and the country is still reeling from its effects. Musharraf's unceremonious exit after a rule of nearly nine years has made little or no difference at all.
During much of the eight week period preceding the July 4 meeting in Washington, we had looked helplessly at TV images of pinpoint artillery shoots and resultant instant pulverization of some of the nation's bravest sons on such mountainous salients in the war zone as Point 5140 (Dras), Point 5203 ( Batalik), Three Pimples (Dras) and Tiger Hill.
'Operation Badr', as it was called, was launched to coincide with thawing of snow and summer opening of India's National Highway 1A, which links Srinagar to Leh via Kargil. Regular army personnel of the Northern Light Infantry, supported by special forces, artillery, engineers and other combat support personnel, in the garb of mujahideen and under a well-executed cover plan, infiltrated through gaps into Indian territory to occupy mountain tops between the LoC and the highway at several points.
It is a historical fact that any surreptitious military operations, executed howsoever brilliantly and courageously, are unfortunately of no real consequences, unless backed by such other elements of national power as a robust foreign policy, vibrant economy, national consensus, a cause based on sound internationally acknowledged principles and above all a zeitgeist for what a country sets about to achieve.
As the then Indian Army Chief, General V P Malik observed: "Militarily this situation could not have been better for Pakistan after the incursions, since its troops were inside India and had occupied strategic heights along the highway. Had they stayed, they could have cut off the supply route to Leh along the 160 kilometres LoC, seriously affecting Indian's ability to move, re-deploy or augment troops from one sector to another. They were poised to launch operations in Turtuk close to southern Siachen glacier and re-draw the LoC in Dras-Kargil-Batalik-Turtuk sectors. Intensified, enlarged or prolonged fighting would have enabled them to draw the world's attention to Jammu and Kashmir and a war between two nuclear nations."
So far so good – but beyond that, it appears, it was all lost on our military and political leaders.
At the height of the crisis, Benazir Bhutto had disclosed in an interview to Third Eye Television that President Pervez Musharraf had brought the Kargil plan to her when she was prime minister (when he was director-general military operations) and that she had rejected it.
The Indian army too is by this bug; venturing into Siachen under a similar impulse, and to date India retains under its control an area of the glacier of some 900-1000 square miles. Pakistan launched quite a few efforts to push back the Indians from a nearly 43 miles icy front, the most significant one being in 1984 with a sizeable troop's concentration at Khapalu spearheaded by elite SSG elements, but this was repulsed by the Indians.
This failure too reportedly bears Musharraf's hallmark signatures as one of the masterminds and planners. The 'Banna Post' named after Naib Subedar Banna Singh (the only Param Veer Chakra recipient of the Kargil conflict), taken away from us in fierce hand-to-hand combat in broad daylight, continues to be an eyesore on an otherwise glistening and pristine glacier. The Pakistan Army has just celebrated 'Year of the Soldier'. No prizes for guessing who would win hands down any contest for the 'The Most Failed Soldier of the Decade', were there to be any nominations.
But herein lies the whole irony; the Indian army exploited a 'lack of clarity' in a border demarcation agreement and occupied stretches of glacier which were open to different interpretations. The Pakistan army was trying to change lines over which wars had been fought and which, over a period, had morphed from a ceasefire line post-1965 to line of control after Simla Agreement. This fundamental difference, if not clear to the small coterie of Kargil planners, would have been clearer, had there been a broader consultative decision-making process.
The Hamoodur Rahman Commission on the 1971 debacle had observed that the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Navy learnt about the outbreak of war from the news bulletin on Radio Pakistan. Mainly as a result of this report, naval and air headquarters were shifted from Karachi and Peshawar to Islamabad at tremendous cost to the national exchequer. The National Defence College (NDC) was established at Rawalpindi to jointly train potential senior officers from the three services in the art of war. A Joint Services Headquarters was established to chalk out joint operational plans.
It was hoped that as a result of such measures, a generation of officers would foster closer tri-services understanding, and make joint operational planning more sensible. It is evident from the Kargil misadventure that this is not happening. The bonhomie and camaraderie garnered at the NDC, it seems, is only for extending mundane favors to fellow senior officers from time to time and never quite put to higher national purpose.
At best, Kargil was a tactical surprise -- beyond that it failed at the strategic level. After some hesitation and denials, we accepted the mortal remains of Captain Colonel Sher Khan and Havaldar Lalak Jan and honoured them with the highest gallantry awards, as praise for their courage by the enemy was becoming too embarrassing. There was of course no compunction or embarrassment in promoting/rewarding the four generals largely perceived to bear prime responsibility for the fiasco.
The Hamoodur Rehman commission report remained shrouded in mystery for over three decades, with people remaining unaware all this while as to why exactly we lost East Pakistan, till portions of it were beamed at us only recently from across the border forcing us to release it in its totality. On Kargil too, the people of Pakistan to this day are unaware as to what actually happened and why we drifted to the precipice of a potentially disastrous conflict.
What is known at best are nebulous and hazy facts between Musharraf's now famous 'everyone was onboard' quip to the BBC reporter, the phone call intercept between General Aziz and Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif's approval in principle at a moment when his concentration, to the nation's misfortune, was at the lowest ebb. This is clearly not enough.
The central issue is not whether Nawaz Sharif, the elected civilian prime minister had given an approval in principle and was onboard. It is also not whether another prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, had vetoed the Kargil plan when it was presented to her. Rather, it is the near absolute obsession, of our brethren in Khaki with the LoC, and their inability to resist temptation to do something or the other with it at considerable peril to the country. This obsession has not waned since Ayub's era, without realization that the opportunity to etch the Kashmir border permanently in stone through military campaigns was lost forever, when the Indian Army beat us to the Srinagar airport in 1948 Kashmir War by landing a company strength of troops there. Since then, it has always been only this Line or that; with the square miles area under control of the two adversaries in Azad & Indian Held Kashmir being, more or less a constant.
For as long the LoC remains an LoC, there will always be a danger for another adventure if and when we are through with yesterday's mujahideen turned today's terrorists in Swat, Waziristan and other areas in the north. Isn't it time there was an exhaustive enquiry into it and the right lessons learnt for all time to come. In comparison with re-opening Zulfiquar Bhutto's judicial murder case, which the government is thinking about, it might be easier to investigate Kargil where at least most of the principal witnesses are still around. The chances of that, however, happening in a country where a retired chief of the air staff, has to seek permission from the incumbent COAS just to appear before a National Assembly/Senate Committee, are slim -- unless we undergo a cathartic experience in one form or the other, there will be no relief from this lingering national pain.
The writer is a retired vice-admiral and former vice-chief of the Naval Staff, Pakistan Navy. Email: tajkhattak@gmail.com
pakomar
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here we go again
Pakistan have to do nothing with Mumbai attacks.
anyway what are the Achievements in mumbai attacks?
after your own country admitted that kasab is your citizen - you sitll have nothing to do with mumbai?
pakomar
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How dumb you can be....
by being Pakistani citizen dose n t mean Pakistan government is evolved.Anyway what are the tactical achievements that Pakistan had in mind(Mumbai attacks)? We all know the Pakistani goal of kargil war.
Answer the highlighted question which was raised by your fallow country man.
for one a satisfying feeling you get from destroying your enemy
sergente rehan
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Mumbai attack was just a firing in a hotel killing few people...where is the satisfaction in all this? what did Pakistan achieved? who gained the real benefits? i think only India gained the benefits and damaged Pakistan image.
If you talked about satisfaction then few jews dead isn't really my ambition in life.....rather if there were a serial of bomb blasts or maybe better if bombay was wiped out then you can talk about some satisfaction! lol
believe me there is no satisfaction in all this....killing some civilians gained no satisfaction and i've some serious doubts on all this case!
Mumbai attack was just a firing in a hotel killing few people...where is the satisfaction in all this? what did Pakistan achieved? who gained the real benefits? i think only India gained the benefits and damaged Pakistan image.
If you talked about satisfaction then few jews dead isn't really my ambition in life.....rather if there were a serial of bomb blasts or maybe better if bombay was wiped out then you can talk about some satisfaction! lol
believe me there is no satisfaction in all this....killing some civilians gained no satisfaction and i've some serious doubts on all this case!
Thanks for sharing your true feelings...you are brave and honest
sergente rehan
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maybe somebody missunderstood my comment...i was trying to say that killing innocent civilians won't give me any satisfaction bcz it's against moral and ethical principles, it's barbaric and inhuman, even if they are jews (bcz this will make me simlar to them for what they are doing to the poor innocent palestinians), it dosen't mean that this gives you the right to kill them...unless the UN approve some sort of law; the liberty to kill the jews (just kidding)!! lol
P.S. Sorry for the off topic post.
pakomar
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It is base less to say Mumbai attacks were made to have satisfying feeling.
Those attacks did n t favor Pakistan in any way. We were put under pressure by US after Mumbai attacks.
What were the basic goals in Mumbai attack that favor Pakistan tell me.??????
pakomar
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chindit. pak gov didn't have a clue of mumbai stuff like in kargil.
I dont think anybody outside army would have known.
Pakistan government found out later about kargil. Army did n t tell the government because to was a covert operation.
In case of Mumbai attacks I bet even the Indian intelligent agency do n t knows.
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