Former Lahore corps commander Lt General (r) Shahid Aziz has said that the Kargil war with India was an “unsound military plan based on invalid assumptions, launched with little preparations and in total disregard to the regional and international environment”.
In an op-ed in a local English daily, the former general said the Kargil adventure was “bound to fail”.
He said former army chief Pervez Musharraf put a tight lid over the programme and the very reason for such a calling must have been because the mission was a “total disaster”.
Gen (r) Musharraf even put on hold a study commenced by GHQ to identify issues of concern at the lowest levels of command three years after the Kargil fiasco.
“It certainly wasn’t a defensive manoeuvre. There were no indications of an Indian attack. We didn’t pre-empt anything; nothing was on the cards. I was then heading the Analysis Wing of Inter-Services Intelligence and it was my job to know. Our clearly expressed intent was to cut the supply line to Siachen and force the Indians to pull out,” the former general said in his op-ed piece.
“This was not a small result we sought and cannot be classified as a tactical manoeuvre, where no one other than the local commander needed to be aware,” he said.
“The entire planning and execution was done in a cavalier manner, in total disregard of military convention. In justification, to say that our assessment was not wrong, but there was, ‘unreasonably escalated Indian response’ is a sorry excuse for not being able to assess Indian reaction. Assumptions were made that they would not be able to dislodge us and the world would sit back idly.”
Aziz said Pakistani soldiers were made to occupy barren ridges, with hand held weapons and ammunition.
“There was no way to dig in, so they were told to make parapets with lose stones and sit behind them, with no overhead protection. The boys were comforted by their commander’s assessment that no serious response would come. But it did — wave after wave, supported by massive air bursting artillery and repeated air attacks. The enemy still couldn’t manage to capture the peaks, and instead filled in the valleys. Cut off and forsaken, our posts started collapsing one after the other, though the general publicly denied it.”
The former corps commander added that the operation never had the capacity to choke Siachen, adding that the country needlessly continued to indulge in bloody enterprises under the hoax of safeguarding national interest.