"Daughter of the East": a rejoinder
Gen (r) Mirza Aslam Beg
Saturday April 14, 2007 (0615 PST)
Benazir Bhutto has updated her book "Daughter of the East" which was first published years back. She has added a preface and a new chapter titled: "Prime Minister and Beyond," which contains some new revelations, with particular reference to Pakistan Army and the ISI. Extracts of these additions were published in the national dailies of Pakistan on April 7 and 8.
Referring to a briefing in the GHQ when I was the army chief, she says that I asked her to approve a new policy. "He said that if Islamabad went on `offensive defensive`, it could capture Srinagar. General Beg told me: `Prime Minister, you just give the order and your men will take Srinagar and you will wear the crown of victory and glory`. I thought he had lost all sense of reality."
I would like to put the record straight. During the exercise Zarb-e-Momin, held in November/December 1989, Pakistan Army tested the new concept of offensive defence, whereas in Kashmir, on the outbreak of war, the army had orders to remain on the defensive and maintain the sanctity of the Line of Control. This policy had resulted into loss of territory in the 1965 war, including Kargil. Both in 1965 and 1971 wars, the army had launched unprepared offensives in the sensitive areas of Indian-held Kashmir, and failed miserably. I therefore suggested to the prime minister that the war directive might be amended and the mission might be changed, so that after the war the government of Pakistan would find itself in a better bargaining position.
After listening to the presentation, she asked: "Can you capture Srinagar?" I said: "Yes, if you place the resources at our disposal." She did not answer. I tried to look into her eyes to see if she was really serious, but she had lowered her gaze and offered no comments. Perhaps, her silence betrayed the feelings of guilt and shame she had suffered after the defeat of her offensive against Jalalabad, which she had launched in March 1989 without consulting the GHQ. In fact she wanted to get a feather in her cap for her march towards Kabul. But that was not to be. She got frustrated and distanced herself from the Afghan policy altogether. Later on she called me and assigned to me the responsibility to handle the Afghan mujahideen and work out a politico-military solution for transfer of power in Afghanistan. She placed at my disposal the services of competent persons from the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Afghan Cell, the ISI and the Joint Services Headquarters.
For four months, I laboured on this assignment, having long meetings with Afghan mujahideen leaders including Ahmad Shah Masood, and evolved a comprehensive plan which I handed over to Benazir Bhutto. But the plan did not see the light of day because she had lost interest in Afghanistan. Thus Afghanistan was back-burnered and drifted into civil war, a situation which led to the emergence of the Taliban, which Nasrullah Babar, then her interior minister, claims to have created,
Benazir Bhutto must remember that briefings at the GHQ are fully recorded and statements made there can be confirmed and verified. She held a very responsible position at that time and now making irresponsible statements is not in the fitness of things. Someone has rightly said: "The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
Gen (r) Mirza Aslam Beg
Rawalpindi
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?175140
