Sharif initially kept in dark about Kargil

Lt Gen (retired) Jamshed Gulzar Kayani, who served in the Inter-Services Intelligence and commanded the crucial Rawalpindi-based 10 Corps, said he believed Sharif was "not carried on board" during the initial stages of the intrusion into Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani troops in early 1999.      

Kayani, who was then in the ISI, subsequently briefed the former premier on the Kargil issue at a high-level meeting on May 17, 1999. Sharif told Musharraf, who was then the army chief, that he would support the operation "as long as you succeed".      

However, Sharif also told Musharraf that it would be very difficult for him to back the operation "if there were reverses", Kayani said in an interview aired on a TV channel last night.     

"In my individual opinion, he (Sharif) was not carried on board. If you go in for such an operation, you have to bring the chief executive on board. You have to give him comprehensive briefings on each and every step (as the Kargil operation) could have opened out into an all out war," said Kayani, who is now part of a group of retired military officers pressing for Musharraf's ouster from office.     

Reacting to Kayani's comments, Sharif said that Kargil was a "misadventure" by Musharraf who gave different versions of the operations to him and the army. "Musharraf made a blunder. It was a misadventure. He told something else to the army and something else to me," the PML (N) leader told an Indian TV channel.