ISLAMABAD, 31 July 2004 — Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif periodically flags the Kargil issue. He calls for the setting up of a Kargil Commission.
His recent call has been prompted by the biographies written by the former US President Bill Clinton and the former CENTCOM chief Gen. Zinni which he maintains establish that he was not responsible for the Kargil operation. While Kargil yet again established that the unresolved Kashmir dispute would mean the continuing strategic instability in South Asia, the manner in which the Kargil operation ended on July 4 1999, highlighted severe flaws with Pakistan’s decision-making process.
The former prime minister however personalizes the matter. He targets the COAS of Kargil days Gen. Pervez Musharraf. While the tradition of setting up inquiry commissions to clinically examine matters of national importance is almost nonexistent, there are certain facts that need to be recalled to assess Sharif’s contentions. Sharif’s first contention that the operation was conducted without his knowledge is refuted by the briefing he got from the military before and after the Kargil operation became public.
Before the operation between January and March the prime minister was briefed about the operation in four meetings, twice in the field and then at the GHQ and on May 17 at the ISI headquarters.
Also between May and June 2 the prime minister was given five briefings on the military’s assessment of the operation. However mid-June onward after the scale of the operation unfolded, and the massive Indian military-diplomatic retaliation that followed leading to Washington getting engaged, in-house criticism and the civil-military divide over the operation surfaced.
There can be questions about how much the prime minister was told and how much he comprehended about the operation, yet the ultimate responsibility for asking probing questions, for giving the go-ahead and for bringing his diplomatic team to deal with the operation did rest with Sharif.
He after all had earlier fired COAS Jehangir Karamat and had become politically confident in his dealings with the new army chief — maybe not in his ability to thoroughly question and comprehend the nature of the Kargil operation.
As the country’s chief executive Sharif in hindsight cannot take the plea “I did not understand.”
Sharif’s second allegation was that the operation was a fiasco. Yet that he had personally cleared the Misra-Naik back channel diplomacy, he had as prime minister also believed, like the army, that diplomatic advantage could be derived from the Kargil operation.
Through this back channel he had hoped, that a quid pro quo to Pakistani or “freedom fighters” withdrawal from across the LOC would be a commitment from India regarding the settlement of the Kashmir dispute within a 12 to 18 month time period.
He urged his Indian counterpart to view Kargil within the broader context of Kashmir. Sharif also defended the operation in all his exchanges with Clinton. In his meeting with Gen. Zinni, he had said “US should take a broader view of the problem. Kargil is only one aspect of the larger problem of J&K which must be addressed in its totality in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people.”
Throughout Kargil the Washington angle acquired special significance especially against the backdrop of Pakistan’s weak and fractured decision-making apparatus. The Clinton-Sharif exchanges and the Zinni trip created further divisions and distrust.
He was greatly affected by his June 24 meeting with Zinni. After the visit, during a Islamabad-Lahore flight with the prime minister in his special plane, Sharif explained to the author how “India would initiate electronic warfare, jam all military installations and how all that could lead to a nuclear war.” He feared that the Kargil operation could spiral into a bigger and dangerous war.
The scale of Indian military retaliation and the international response to Kargil had surprised the Pakistanis.
Sharif’s foreign office team, his kitchen Cabinet and the DCC increasingly worked at odds. Its final manifestation was the prime minister’s sudden dash to Washington in the early hours of July 4.
On July 2 the army chief had given a detailed military briefing to the DCC. Musharraf’s conclusion was that India would never take the war beyond Kargil and Pakistan could hold its positions.
The DCC ended inconclusively to reconvene on the afternoon of July 5. Instead on July 3 at 10 p.m. the prime minister instructed his key aides to prepare for the Washington departure.
The kitchen Cabinet had decided to seek an “honorable exit” from Kargil via the Washington route. Musharraf too was instructed to arrive at the airport. He merely told the prime minister to “get the best deal.”
Sharif’s third contention that those responsible for Kargil deserve to be penalized. This is an afterthought. It was after Kargil that the army chief was given the additional charge of the Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee. On Musharraf’s request also removed Corps Commander Quetta Lt. Gen. Tariq Parvez.
For Pakistan the most critical lesson from Kargil was the need for institutionalized decision-making. Without institutional coordination led by the country’s chief executive linear, fragmented and counter productive approaches to vital national issues was adopted.
The dangerous gaps in Pakistan’s personalized decision-making apparatus, because of incompetence and the distrust between civil and military organs, were once again exposed during Kargil.
The former prime minister misses these crucial points. Through the ghosts of Kargil he is fighting his political battle with Gen. Musharraf.
(Nasim Zehra is an Islamabad-based security analyst and fellow of the Harvard University Asia Center.)
