Barely a year after the 'war-like situation' of Kargil between India and Pakistan, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif has stirred up another hornet's nest. Newspapers reported on 13 June that during a break in court proceedings at the 16th century Attock Fort, where he is detained, Sharif told reporters that he had not been informed about the Pakistan Army's foray into the strategic Kargil heights.
Reading from a prepared statement, Sharif said: "This ill-planned and ill-conceived operation was kept so secret that besides the prime minister, even some corps commanders and the air force and navy chiefs were kept in the dark." Had he been informed in time, he said, he would have dissuaded Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee from making that famous bus ride to Lahore, which started the "Lahore Process" of reconciliation in February 1999 before Kargil brought it down in May 1999.
Stating that it was time to inform the nation about the facts which led to the Kargil operation, he posed three rhetorical questions: who sabotaged the Lahore Declaration; who derailed the process of dialogue for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute; and who was responsible for Pakistan's isolation in the comity of nations.
Sharif added that he had been misinformed about the losses expected during the operation. "Our loss on the Kargil heights was more than what we suffered in the full-fledged war of 1965," he said. "Unit after unit of Northern Light Infantry were wiped out. Every passing day, Pakistan was losing posts." Pakistan lost Tiger Hills and 1514, he said, and if the conflict had not been halted, the remaining heights would have been lost. It was the Chief of Army Staff (COAS, at present the Chief Executive) Parvez Musharraf who had wanted Pakistan to involve the USA in the issue, which was why he (Sharif) had made the dash to Washington, the ex-PM said.