Yesterday, the interview was repeated.... Gen. Said, there were two presentation, one in March and other in May, the Nawaz Sharif was not present in May Presentation where the whole operation was briefed/discussed... In March a general discussion was held.... the same discussion was held with Slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto..
Nevertheless, the important point is, The Prime Minister is supereme commander of the Armed Forces ( as per the ammendment done by the parliment then, now i dont know if the case is same or not) so without his direct orders, The operation can never take place... Like Gen. Kiyani said, there is need of inquiry, and I believe in the same, The Inquiry commision can figure out that if Nawaz Sharif ( then prime minister) has ordered the operation or not and if NS was briefed about the operation.
There was a follow up program in Bolta Pakistan on General Kiyani's interview in which Raja Zafarulhaq and General Majeed Malik were online....they made some startling revelations....the salient features of the information provided by both the gentlemen were as follows:
1) The operation started in February 1999 before the Indian forces could take their yearly positions on Kargil mountains, solely on the initiative of General Musharraf and General Mehmood, without disclosing to the prime minister, corps commanders, or heads of Pakistani Navy and Airforce...
2) Briefing took place on May 17th where everyone was taken by surprise....besides these two gentlemen, then foreign minister Sartaj Aziz was also present....General Musharraf was critisized by everyone in the meeting and was asked why he took such an initiative...and the reply from the General was it was done to bring the Kashmir cause in to limelight...General offered to retreat his forces if the civilian government wanted...
3) The cilvilian government felt at that time that the blame was being shifted to them....by the General....and they asked the General not to retreat before the government could negotiate with the Indian government...
Whatever happened after that is an open secret...
Question is whatever happened why General Musharraf is opposing an enquiry of the incident...there are serious allegations on him....nobody is saying he should be punished without an enquiry....but it is only fair to demand an impartial enquiry commission to fix the responsibility of this ugly episode, where there was a considerable loss of life...and whoever is responsible should be taken to task...
I agree with Spock that Nawaz Sharif is equally to be blamed for not only his failure in keeping his COAS in a sane frame of mind....but also his appointment of such an incompetent person as a COAS....I think he should be punished equally if the enquiry finds COAS Musharraf behaved in the manner as being alleged by all these gentlemen....