Probe Musharraf for Kargil blunder, demands Sharif

Former premier Nawaz Sharif renewed a demand for setting up a commission to probe the Kargil "blunder", saying that his stand that he was kept in dark about the 1999 operation by the then Pakistan army chief Pervez Musharraf has been vindicated.

Sharif was referring to revelations by Lt Gen (retired) Jamshed Gulzar Kayani, a former aide of Musharraf, who said in an interview on Monday night that Sharif was not initially aware of the Army's plan to intrude into Kargil but on learning of it, offered to support the operation as long as it meets success. "I have been asking for a commission to probe the Kargil issue for a very long time. (Kayani said last night) that Kargil was a very big blunder committed by Musharraf it was a misadventure that was a major failure," Sharif told reporters at the airport in Lahore before departing for London.

Holding Musharraf responsible for the intrusion by Pakistani troops into the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir, Sharif, whose PML (N) is part of the ruling coalition, said a commission should be set up to probe the episode.

Musharraf, he said, should be tried for treason for his actions over the past nine years, for overthrowing the elected government on October 12, 1999 and for imposing emergency on November 3 last year.

Sharif said "dictatorship is the enemy of Pakistan and every Pakistani says there should now be accountability and Musharraf should be tried". Sharif said he had travelled to the US to meet the then President Bill Clinton to work out modalities to end the conflict in order to protect the dignity of Pakistan's armed forces. "I took the burden on my shoulders and I did not let anything blemish the armed forces of Pakistan," he said.

"Musharraf told me something and he told the army something else. He said Nawaz Sharif was saying we should surrender, but that was a big lie. I played a role to save the dignity of the army," Sharif said.

Meanwhile, Kayani, who served in the Inter-Services Intelligence, told Dawn News channel in a separate interview that Sharif, the air force and navy chiefs, a majority of the army's corps commanders, the Director General of Military Operations and the ISI were kept in the dark during the initial stages of the Kargil operation.

Kayani said Musharraf, the then commander of the Rawalpindi-based 10 Corps, Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed, then Chief of General Staff, Lt Gen Muhammad Aziz, and then Force Commander of Northern Areas, Maj Gen Javed Hassan, comprised the team that was "collectively" responsible for the "Kargil debacle". He also said Kargil was not a viable operation.