NEW DELHI, 8 October 2006 — Within a few days of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s book “In the Line of Fire”, having agitated critics and excited friends, some controversial tales are now tumbling out of the Indian closet. India did not win the 1999 Kargil conflict because of excellent coordination between its army and air force.
Rather as disclosed by retired Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis, he and then army chief Gen. V.P. Malik did not see eye-to-eye on several crucial issues. Breaking his silence on this, Tipnis has said that the army did not tell the Ministry of Defense (MOD) about Pakistani intrusions until very late, “possibly because it was embarrassed to have allowed the present situation to develop.”
Tipnis has made these comments in an interview for a forthcoming issue of the magazine Force. He is likely to make more revelations in a book he is working on, tentatively titled “Up and Away into the Blue Yonder.”
“The army needed IAF (Indian Air Force) help to evict the intruders. But it was not amenable to the air headquarters’ position to seek government approval for use of air power offensively as the army was reluctant to reveal the gravity of the situation to the MOD,” Tipnis points out.
Expressing concern at “total lack of army-air force joint staff work,” since the time intrusions in Kargil were reported in early May, Tipnis said: “When army found itself in difficulties, information/intelligence had not been communicated by Army HQ, in any systematic manner to the Air HQ. There had been no call for a joint briefing, leave alone joint planning, both at the service and command headquarters; just repeated requests for armed helicopter support.”
