NDTV.com Exclusive: Did India Consider Nuclear Option During Kargil War?

[I S I]

they have realized this 4 time since 1947.

Pak didn't have bomb until 1998

 

[Windjammer]

beta what were the goals of military operation ? to leave your dead comrades behind & run ? where was pakistan's air force in this operation?
It was musharaff who sent nawaz sharif to US to beg for halting indias strikes as the casualties were rising on pakistans side.

Nonsense, Pakistan had chocked your supply line as the NA was directly under Pakistan artillery fire, the IAF carried out bombings within it's own side of the border, neither air force intruded into others airspace, the few times IAF ventured, it paid the price.... more over, do you think no Indian dead soldiers were handed over by Pakistan.....but unlike you people we didn't play in front of the cameras. Musharaf wasn't even aware of NS going to Washington as he was with his Commanders in Murree, some 50km outside the capital until asked to be present at the airport.
As for your tall claims, you need some introspection as these claims are also made by Indian sources.

Tehelka - The People's Paper

 

[zebra7]

LOL, Ok

Bolla ekdum sahi bolla patriot.

 

[PARIKRAMA]

Kargil was a war where India initially suffered a bit due to non arising to the serious challenges (enemy in heights) but post 1 month when army and IAF started doing their job splendidly the work and task was cut out. Even though what Barkha had said is something i am aware for a long time. In my personal capacity, i can confirm that my own relative who was in upper echelon of ONGC decision making was deputed to oversee the movement of extra staff from all bombay high fields as well as Oil producing assets of Cambay, Mehsana, Ankleshwar etc from Gujarat and two places from Rajasthan. It was a directive from GOI (Oil Ministry) for safeguarding the Onshore and Offshore assets and moving of maximum civilians (non essential) from such locations to more of desk jobs temporarily. It was essential that the Oil production and security and refineries were maintained at all cost during the course of a operation which was described as a week long operations envisioned somewhere in Rajasthan border corridor, implying a short war at a new front. During that time, the IN movement was well known and many of ONGC assets and support staff did serve them with rations and supply centers (for food and amenities). I also have to say Prithvi-1 Nuke Missile group was already deployed for this plan. Very few people know behind the poetic heart of AB Vajpayee, he was a very very determined man of highest honesty and when Kargil happened he had said clearly that uptill his least breathe come what may, he will do the impossible to make Kargil incursions a failure for Pakistan. He was not only deeply hurt by backstabbing but he also resented that his friendship was used as an excuse to harm his country. Moreover, after N explosions, his view of N weapon usage was very different when India is at war versus when India is at peace times.

The NFU is an option actually more for diplomatic measures. For Pakistan, rest assured the actual efficacy of NFU is really on paper.

BTW Pakistan always will claim Kargil as their own victory just like every war they fight and every action they take against terrorists. So, even if Ginni or Clinton himself says on record, they will admonish him also and say that they lied.

Unfortunately, there is a other side of the coin too. Kargil may have happened in 1999 but 16 years later we are just able to protect ourselves (a tad better than 1999 state) but our modernization at crippling pace had not provided us the strategic advantage of making it virtually impossible for adversaries to even dream about such operations.

I also must admit and commend Gen Musharaff. Whatever be the case history will tell that he was one of the few Generals of Pakistan who had the courage to take such a plan like Kargil incursions. History will also tell you that Musharaff was also a man who could have changed the face of Pakistan forever and signed eternal peace with India. The present Sharif duo are playing the good cop bad cop roles and unfortunately cannot have the same hold of able to take a decision and do something extraordinary like Musharaff. Thats why you will keep seeing infiltration, constant harping of Kashmir and PA saying ready to reply to every action of IA with PM sharif always saying want talks with India, yet in ground realities nothing will be done by Pakistan and they will keep blaming India for everything. (No surprise there).

BTW Barkha Dutt and NDTV headlines was quite a shock to me personally. i actually thot like this comment on HT website about the same
Barkha Dutt's book probably read- The Evil, Saffron terror fuelled India threatened to use N-weapons and forced Bill Clinton to talk to peaceful Secular Pakistan where terror has no religion..

Dayuuum India is an intolerant nation....

 

[anant_s]

Parvez Musharraf who was architect of this conflict didnt't have to pay one bit. both sides lost lives which could easily have been avoided and whats more all the efforts made by PMs Vajpayee sahab and Sharif in March 1999 went down the drain.
Both nations lost a golden opportunity to reconcile and more importantly country's last statesman Vajpayee ji lost his position to hardiners.
and all this for what, both sides returning to their original positions.
Ain't politics a wonderful thing!

 

[surya kiran]

Nonsense, Pakistan had chocked your supply line as the NA was directly under Pakistan artillery fire, the IAF carried out bombings within it's own side of the border, neither air force intruded into others airspace, the few times IAF ventured, it paid the price.... more over, do you think no Indian dead soldiers were handed over by Pakistan.....but unlike you people we didn't play in front of the cameras. Musharaf wasn't even aware of NS going to Washington as he was with his Commanders in Murree, some 50km outside the capital until asked to be present at the airport.
As for your tall claims, you need some introspection as these claims are also made by Indian sources.

Tehelka - The People's Paper

So why did you withdraw? US telling you to?

 

[rubyjackass]

Barkha Dutt is trying to regain her lost prestige with such bites of hoax information which can be, in anyway neither admitted or denied by anyone close to Indian administration. She is not getting it back. She is a crooked corrupt power player and she is exposed. She is just a liability for NDTV now.

 

[Eminent Mainstream Media]

Cover of Barkha Dutt's just released book 'This Unquiet Land - Stories from India's Fault Lines'

A secret letter sent by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to U.S President Bill Clinton at the height of the Kargil war in 1999 made it clear that if Pakistani infiltrators did not withdraw from Indian territory, "one way or the other we will get them out." Though India's options were never spelt out in the missive, in an interview to NDTV's Consulting Editor, Barkha Dutt just two months before he died, the former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra revealed that "Crossing the Line of Control was not ruled out, nor was the use of nuclear weapons." Mishra who handed over Vajpayee's letter to a top U.S official in Geneva, said had the Americans asked him a direct question, "I would not have expanded on what I meant." These dramatic details are disclosed in Barkha Dutt's just released book, This Unquiet Land - Stories from India's Fault Lines. The book also reveals that the Army had prepared a 'Six Day War' plan to cross the boundary separating India from Pakistan, in less than a week, if needed.

These are exclusive extracts from the book:

In May and June, as the war showed no signs of letting up, the Indian military leadership began to draw up secret contingency plans to expand the theatre of the war beyond Jammu and Kashmir. In
other words, India's retaliation for the intrusions would most likely not be along the LoC - which had never been officially accepted as permanent by either country - but along the actual, undisputed
international border. The states of Punjab and Rajasthan were to be readied as launch pads for a counter-attack. In the army's assessment, if the Kargil peaks were not entirely back in Indian control before the monsoon's ******** drenched the northern plains, any counterattack would have to wait till after the rains.

In preparation for the worst-case scenario, the army had already fleshed out a 'Six Day War' plan, deploying troops so that the boundary separating India from Pakistan could be crossed in less than a week, if needed. Upset with Vajpayee's public announcement that India had no intention of entering Pakistani territory, General Malik met the prime minister and explained that such absolutisms unfairly restricted the strategic manoeuvrability available to his troops. The army chief was blunt: 'If we can't undo this in Kargil, I will have to attack somewhere else,' he told Vajpayee, making it clear that a new war front could soon be opened in another part of the subcontinent-one that, by definition, involved crossing over. Seeing the need for a more nuanced articulation of the Indian position, that same evening, Brajesh Mishra went on television to say that the approach of confining operations to the Indian side of the LoC held good only for the present. In the meantime, General Malik quietly moved an army brigade from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the western border and the navy's Eastern Fleet was moved from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea.

Even as all these developments took place behind closed doors, India's main effort took place on two fronts - the war on the ground, and a delicately nuanced diplomatic initiative to try and get the Americans to intervene. Pakistan was trying hard to present the dispute around Jammu and Kashmir as a potential nuclear flashpoint so there would be aggressive international mediation. India wanted America to help contain the conflict, but on terms that would be set by India. Washington could not drive hard bargains, especially not on Kashmir. The India-Pakistan equation was still a hyphenated one for the US and India was apprehensive that the classic ambivalence practised by America in all its dealings with countries in the Indian subcontinent would yet again dominate the proceedings.

So when Bill Clinton phoned Vajpayee in June 1999, three weeks into the war, and promised that he was working on Pakistan to pull back its soldiers from Indian territory, a sceptical Indian prime minister - a man who knew how to make masterful use of silence - did not respond. Later, Clinton would say of him, 'that guy's from Missouri big time', after the American state known for the disbelieving demeanour it preferred to adopt when confronted with a tricky situation.

Two days after Clinton's call, Vajpayee sent Mishra, in his capacity as national security adviser, to Geneva, where the American president was to address a meeting of the ILO. From there, Clinton was headed to a meeting of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries in Cologne on 19 June. India clearly wanted intercession from this gathering of the world's most powerful nations. In Geneva, Mishra handed over a secret missive from Vajpayee to Sandy Berger and Karl Inderfurth, both high-ranking officials in the US government. To this day, the contents of the letter have never been released. But Mishra told me that the kicker in the letter addressed to Clinton was the paragraph that warned, 'One way or the other, we will get them out'. 'They were taken aback,' Mishra said. 'Inderfurth pointed to that particular paragraph immediately.' The letter never spelt out what option India was considering. However, the subtext that all bets were now off the table was clear to the Americans. 'Crossing the LoC was not ruled out, nor was the use of nuclear weapons,' Mishra revealed to me, adding that had the American asked him a direct question 'I would not have expanded on what I meant'. Mishra believed that without this letter, Clinton would not have got actively involved. The G-8 countries did not just jointly ask Pakistan to pull its men back behind the LoC; two days later, Clinton sent Anthony Zinni - the commander-in-chief of the US Central Command - to Pakistan. There, Zinni did some plain speaking with Pervez Musharraf. His message was unvarnished - Pakistan's position was untenable and the country stood isolated internationally. When Musharraf pressed for US mediation on Kashmir, Zinni was terse and dismissive. 'My mandate is Kargil, not Kashmir,' the US general said. 'If you don't pull back, you're going to bring war and nuclear annihilation down on your own country.' By now, there was enough evidence to show that, contrary to Pakistan's claims, the armed intruders were not Kashmiri militants, but mainly soldiers of the Pakistan Army's Northern Light Infantry. But Pakistan needed a face-saver, a respectable way to extricate itself from the military mess, and Zinni had none to offer. He returned to Washington without a breakthrough.

For the rest of June, both the war and the diplomatic offensive eddied back and forth. On the ground, the momentum was shifting in India's direction. Just as Indian troops were preparing to take back Tiger Hill, Pakistan's beleaguered prime minister was on the hotline to Washington. On 2 July, Nawaz Sharif pleaded with Bill Clinton for his personal intervention. Twenty-four hours later, at fifteen minutes past five, even as fireballs formed luminous red clouds over Tiger Hill, Sharif was packing his bags to leave for America.

This Unquiet Land is available at all leading bookstores and online at Amazon andFlipkart. Excerpts reproduced courtesy of Aleph Book Company.

NDTV.com Exclusive: Did India Consider Nuclear Option During Kargil War?

A lame attempt to bring India on level with Pakistan on the Nuclear issue- and sabotage civil nuclear deals India is having with other nations and the NSG entry-

Its a well known fact that civil nuclear deals and uranium supply will be key to IN's strategic plans to operate a Nuclear submarine fleet in the IOR- and possibly a CBG too-

 

[Windjammer]

So why did you withdraw? US telling you to?

It was NS who buckled under pressure.

 

[Chanakyaa]

It was NS who buckled under pressure.

Thank You Mr. Nawz, Our Job was Done. Period.

DONT GIVE SHIT EXCUSES.
Even Hitler commited Suicide.. so What ? Did the Axis Loose coz Hitler pulled the Trigger ?

It was a Huge Victory for India. Our Soldiers Won.. They Insures our Victory, without even Crossing the LOC.

 

[Windjammer]

Thank You Mr. Nawz, Our Job was Done. Period.

DONT GIVE SHIT EXCUSES.
Even Hitler commited Suicide.. so What ? Did the Axis Loose coz Hitler pulled the Trigger ?

It was a Huge Victory for India. Our Soldiers Won.. They Insures our Victory, without even Crossing the LOC.

If you can't be civil then don't quote me you despicable moron.

 

[Chanakyaa]

If you can't be civil then don't quote me you despicable moron.

Talk of being "Civil" using words like "despicable moron" in the same Sentence. Kya baat H..

Reality Check : Since you mentioned "Civility" Look at what YOU have done to your Name and Your Nation :

Are you from Pakistan ? Passenger asked the taxi driver and shot him.

Jaago Grahak Jaago

 

[surya kiran]

It was NS who buckled under pressure.

So US telling you to. Thank you.

 

[axisofevil]

If you can't be civil then don't quote me you despicable moron.

You are not exactly civil moron

 

[Windjammer]

You are not exactly civil moron

if your opinion is needed then i'll throw you a bone.

Talk of being "Civil" using words like "despicable moron" in the same Sentence. Kya baat H..

Reality Check : Since you mentioned "Civility" Look at what YOU have done to your Name and Your Nation :

Are you from Pakistan ? Passenger asked the taxi driver and shot him.

Jaago Grahak Jaago

Really, you want me to post something about how Indians are treated like animals even in Middle East.

 

[Chanakyaa]

Really, you want me to post something about how Indians are treated like animals even in Middle East.

Im Sure you can do Much Much Better than That.
However, Im surprised over who used the words "civil" in the First Place.