archive: Sharif okayed Kargil incursion in January: Ex-Army chief Beg
Sharif okayed Kargil incursion in January: Ex-Army chief Beg
Shahid Ahmed Khan
The Indian Express
July 15, 1999
Title: Sharif okayed Kargil incursion in January: Ex-Army chief Beg
Author: Shahid Ahmed Khan
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 15, 1999
Former Pakistani Army chief General (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg has lashed
out at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for making the forces a "scapegoat"
in the Kargil crisis and claimed the Prime Minister had approved the
operation in January after briefings by the Army and the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Reacting to the address to the nation by Sharif on Monday, Beg said in
Karachi that the "armed forces are being made the scapegoat for the
fiasco and the government is being credited for saving the country
from a catastrophic war".
The Pakistan Premier had announced during his address that he had
saved the country from a dangerous war by asking the infiltrators to
withdraw from the Kargil heights.
Beg said Sharif had been given hours of briefings by the Army and ISI
on the operation which had been approved in January it self.
"Can the government deny about the hours of briefings given to prime
minister in general headquarters and the ISI headquarters and
mujahideen operations approved as early as January 1999... yet the
Army is being blamed for the Kargil fiasco," he said.
Beg's claim also negates Sharif's argument during his address that the
Kargil operation had been carried out by the "Kashmiri mujahideen"
with no Pakistani involvement.
Reacting to the orchestrated explanations of the government for the
Kargil pullout, Beg said they were results of "tragic and myopic
vision" because "no government can ever be viable and can sustain
itself if the armed forces are discredited and their morale is
sacrificed at the altar of expediency".
The former Pak Army chief also ex-pressed surprise at the Sharif
government's "surrender at the threat of war" from India claiming that
"Pakistan had taken appropriate measures to frustrate the Indo-Israeli
plan to attack Pakistan's nuclear installations when Pakistan had
acquired nuclear capability in 1986 and had developed the delivery
system in 1989".
"Why did our government buckle under pressure now?" he asked.
- Press Trust of India
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