Pak was preparing to use nuke missiles during Kargil war: Book

LONDON: Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear missiles against India during the Kargil war, a new book has claimed, citing a conversation between US President Bill Clinton and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif eight years back.

"When President Clinton met Sharif at Blair House (in July 1999), Clinton asked Sharif if he knew how advanced the threat of nuclear war really was? Did he know, for example that his military was preparing to use nuclear missiles?" the book "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy" says.

Answering Clinton's query, Sharif shook his head implying he was unaware of his military's moves, investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have claimed in their 586-page book.

Warning Sharif, the President said he had a statement ready for release that would pin all the blame for Kargil on Pakistan if the Prime Minister refused to pull his forces back.

Clinton further questioned Sharif on whether the Pakistani leader could be trusted on anything.

The US President reminded Sharif that despite his promise to help bring Osama bin Laden to justice, the ISI had continued to work with bin Laden and the Taliban to foment terrorism and the Americans knew that.

The Americans were unsure as to who was really in control in Islamabad, the authors said, as confusion prevailed over whether Sharif was in reality pushed into a war by General Pervez Musharraf, or he attempted to diminish his role in the crisis.

After his meeting with Clinton, Sharif briefly left the room to seek advice.

When he returned, "he was getting exhausted. He denied that he had ordered the preparation of their missile force, said he was against war but was worried for his life in Pakistan", the book said, quoting Bruce Riedel, who was at the National Security Council.

"There was a break in the middle of the day: Clinton lying down on the sofa at Blair House while Sharif went to his hotel room for a nap.

"When they reconvened, Clinton placed the prepared statement on the table. Sharif left the room again to read it to his advisers and then returned finally ready to order a volte-face and call for his troops to withdraw back to the line of control", Riedel said.

"The mood changed in a nanosecond," he recalled.

"Clinton told Sharif that they had tested their personal relationship hard that day but they had reached the right ending."

Sharif posed for photographs with Clinton at the White House before returning to Dulles airport.

"His mood was glum," said Riedel.

"He was not looking forward to his trip home. The PM knew he had done the right thing for Pakistan and the world, but he was not sure his army would see it that way."

Sharif pulled back the troops.

But two months later his brother Shahbaz Sharif turned up in Washington, the book said.

Karl Inderfurth, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, recalled meeting him at the Willard Hotel: "We were hoping to see what new thinking there might be in engaging India. But after lunch, Shahbaz took me off to a corner table and confided that his brother was under intense pressure."

A few days earlier, while attending the funeral of his father-in-law, Nawaz Sharif had been warned by Pakistan's Attorney General that he was about to be unseated in a military coup.

According to the book, while Musharraf, with his centre-parting and neatly clipped moustache, did not come across as a fundamentalist to officials like Inderfurth, the Clinton administration was worried that a significant number of senior generals in Pakistan's new military structure owed their allegiance far more to men like bin Laden than to the West.

"There was firm intelligence that showed proximity between these military leaders, KRL (Khan Research Laboratories), and al-Qaeda, with nuclear material being offered for sale in Pakistan and Afghanistan, further cementing the idea that, due to the unsecured nature of the
Pakistan nuclear programme, terrorists might get their hands on a doomsday device.

"Such was the fear that in the spring of 2000, CIA Director George Tenet established a national security advisory panel, a team of security analysts, chaired by Admiral David Jeremiah, a former vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

It was asked to think the unthinkable", the book said.

The book quoted Robert Gallucci of the State Department and a member of the panel, as saying: "It was all sources, all clearances. Of the 15 people with me, 10 to 12 were flag officers (generals).

"I was the nuclear freak and got briefings set up on the nuclear terrorist thing. Every single scenario was extremely scary, and entirely believable. There was lots and lots of intelligence. Put it this way, the US number one enemy was looking more and more like Pakistan", he added.

The book claimed that in February 1983, a plan to strike at Pakistan's nuclear project at Kahuta was at an advanced stage, and an Indian military team had undertaken a secret mission to Israel to buy electronic warfare equipment to neutralise Kahuta's air defences.

On February 25, 1983, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had accused Pakistan of "covertly attempting to make nuclear weapons", and three days later, Raja Ramanna, Director of India's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, had revealed that India, too, was developing a uranium enrichment facility.

Suspecting something was brewing, the ISI warned that if India were to strike at Kahuta, Pakistan would hit India's nuclear facilities at Trombay.

"New Delhi paused. Israel stepped in, suggesting that it carry out the raid, using India's airbase at Jamnagar to launch Israeli air force jets and a second base in northern India to refuel", the book said.

"As US President Ronald Reagan's staff finalised arrangements for the President's visit to China in March 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed off the Israeli-led operation, bringing India, Pakistan and Israel to within a hair's breadth of a nuclear conflagration.

"And after (Pakistani nuclear scientist) A Q Khan's outbursts in the Pakistani newspapers, India and Israel had backed off", it added.

Besides this book, the authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have written two highly acclaimed books 'The Stone of Heaven (2001)' and 'The Amber Room (2004)'.

They worked as foreign correspondents for the Sunday Times before joining The Guardian and won the One World media Award in 2004.