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Kargil was a complete shock to govt: review panel

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The Kargil review committee's executive summary report released in Parliament today claims it has "overwhelming evidence" that the Pakistani armed intrusion came as a complete and total surprise to the government, the army and intelligence agencies".

It says the Jammu and Kashmir state government was also caught unawares, underlining that "the committee did not come across any agency or individual who was able to clearly assess before the event the possibility of a large-scale Pakistani military intrusion across the Kargil heights. What was conceived of was the limited possibility of infiltration and enhanced artillery exchanges in this sector," it said.

The report was only released at 4 pm, after the Lok Sabha was adjourned twice following protracted protests by the Opposition parties which stalled the proceedings in the house over the Gujarat government's allowing its employees to join the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The report points out that former army chiefs of staff and director generals of military operations "were near unanimous in their opinion" that a military operation on the scale attempted was unsustainable because of the lack of supportive infrastructure". They also felt it was militarily irrational, it said.

"These factors, together with the nature of terrain and extreme weather conditions in the area, had generated an understandable Indian military mindset about the nature and extent of the Pakistani threat in this sector," the executive summary of the report says.

As reported by rediff.com yesterday, the report has hauled up army intelligence for security lapses. It says in its findings that there was inadequate co-ordination at the ground level among the army intelligence and other agencies.

"This was lacking even at the joint intelligence committee, because of the low level of representation by the DGMI in the assessment process and the DGMI representative not coming fully briefed on the latest situation. It is also apparent that the assessment was conditioned by the two-decade-old mindset that Kargil was unsuitable for military action across the Line of Control, the report says.

It went on to say that the Intelligence Bureau was meant to collect intelligence within the country and is the "premier agency for counter-intelligence". This agency had filed inputs on activities in the FNCA region that were considered important enough for the IB director to sign on June 2, 1998 and communicate to the prime minister, the home minister, the cabinet secretary, the home secretary and the directorate-general of military intelligence. This communication was not addressed to the three officials most concerned with the information, including the secretary, RAW, who is responsible for external intelligence and had the resources to follow up leads in the IB reports, it says.

It says the JIC chairman, who would have taken such information into account, said he expected the information to filter down to these officials through the official hierarchy. The secretary, RAW who, at that time, was holding additional charge as JIC chairman, did not get it, the reports emphasises, stressing that the Kargil review committee feels that a communication of this nature should have been directly addressed to all the officials concerned.

According to the report, the committee had noted such lapses, committed at one time or the other by all the agencies. These illustrate a number of deficiencies in the system. There was need for greater appreciation of the role of intelligence and who needs it most and also more understanding with regard to who must pursue any given lead. It further highlights the need for closer co-ordination among the intelligence agencies.

The review committee notes that the Indian intelligence structure is flawed since there is little back up or redundancy to rectify failures and shortcomings in intelligence collection and reporting that goes to build up the external threat perception by the one agency, namely the RAW, which has a virtual monopoly in this regard.

" It is neither healthy nor prudent to endow that one agency alone with multifarious capabilities for human communication, imagery and electronic intelligence," it notes. Had the RAW and DGMI spotted the additional battalions in the FCNA region that were missing from ORBAT, there might have been requests for ARC flight in winter and these might have been undertaken, weather permitting. As it happened, the last flight was in October 1998, long before the intrusion, and the next in may 1999, after the intrusion had commenced. The intruders had come out in the open by then, it says.

The report says the present structure and processes in intelligence gathering and reporting leads to an overload of background and unconfirmed information and inadequately assessed intelligence that needs to be further pursued. It says there is no institutionalised process whereby the RAW, the IB, the Border Security Force and army intelligence officials interact periodically at levels below the JIC.

The executive summary says this was perhaps responsible for the RAW, which knew of the presence of one additional unit in Gultari in September 1998, not following it up with ARC flights on its own initiative. Nor did the army press the RAW for more information, it says. It adds that the "army never shared its intelligence with other agencies or with the JIC. There was no system of army authorities at different levels from the DGMI downwards for providing feedback to agencies".

There are no checks and balances in the Indian intelligence system to ensure that the consumer gets all intelligence that is available and is his due, the committee notes. There is no system of regular, periodic and comprehensive intelligence briefings at the political level and to the committee of secretaries. In the absence of an overall, operational national security framework and objective, each intelligence agency diligently preserves its own turf and departmental prerogatives, it says.

There is no evidence that the intelligence agencies have reviewed their role after India became a nuclear weapon state or in the context of the increasing problems posed by insurgencies and ethno-nationalist turbulence backed with sophisticated hi-tech equipment and external support. The government too had felt no need to initiate any such move, the report warns.

RELATED REPORT:
Centre accepts 25 recommendations of Kargil panel

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