WASHINGTON, Oct. 22: There was confusion in Islamabad during the Kargil crisis and it was not clear who was calling the shots, says Bruce Riedel, President Clinton’s special assistant for South Asian affairs who played a key role in the US-Pakistan talks on the issue.

Mr Riedel, who was the only person to attend the Sharif-Clinton talks in Washington on July 4, 1999, said in a paper on ‘America diplomacy and 1999 Kargil summit’ that the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif ‘seemed genuinely interested in pursuing the Lahore process’.

Mr Sharif had argued eloquently with a series of American guests, including Washington’s UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, that he wanted an end to the 50-year old quarrel with India, Mr Riedel said.

“His military chief, General Pervez Musharraf, seemed to be in a different mould … he was said to be a hardliner on Kashmir, a man some feared was determined to humble India once and for all.”

Commenting on the current controversy between Gen. Musharraf and Mr Sharif, he said: “We will probably never know for sure the exact calculus of decision making in Islamabad. Each of the players has his own reasons for selling a particular version of the process. Gen Musharraf and Mr Sharif have already put out different versions of who said what to whom.

“What is clear is that the civil-military dynamic between Sharif in Islamabad and Musharraf in Rawalpindi was confused and tense.”

Explaining what worried the Americans most, Mr Riedel said: “The danger was that the Indians would grow weary of attacking uphill (actually up-mountain) into well-dug Pakistani positions. The casualties the Indian forces were taking were mounting. New Delhi could easily decide to open another front elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC) to ease its burden and force the Pakistanis to fight on territory favourable to India.”

Mr Riedel’s version shows the former prime minister as getting ‘increasingly desperate’ to end the crisis. He says: “(Mr)

Sharif became increasingly desperate as he saw how isolated Pakistan was in the world. He urgently requested American intervention to stop the Indian counterattack. Washington was clear the solution required a Pakistani withdrawal behind the LoC, nothing else would do.”

According to Mr Riedel, by end of June 1999, Mr Sharif began to ask to see President Clinton directly to plead his case. “The president also consulted with (the then) Indian Prime Minister (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee on the phone. The Indians were adamant: withdrawal to the LOC was essential. (Mr) Vajpayee would not negotiate under the threat of aggression.” President Clinton “sought to reassure Mr Vajpayee that we would not countenance Pakistani aggression, not reward them for violating the LoC and that we stood by our commitment to the Lahore process, i.e. direct talks between India and Pakistan were the only solution to Kashmir, not third party intervention.”

Mr Riedel then explains how before meeting Mr Sharif, President Clinton had asked his advisers to prepare two statements about the results of the meeting.

“The first was a draft statement the President would issue if (Mr) Sharif agreed to pull back his forces to the LoC, the second a statement which would be used if (Mr) Sharif refused. The latter would make clear that the blame for the crisis in South Asia lay solely with Pakistan.”

Mr Riedel says that US officials also noted that Mr Sharif brought his wife and children with him to Washington. “(Mr) Sharif’s intentions also became clearer. He was bringing his wife and children with him to Washington, a possible indication that he was afraid he might not be able to go home if the summit failed or that the military was telling him to leave. At a minimum, (Mr) Sharif seemed to be hedging his bet on whether this would be a round trip.”

He then explains how the Clinton administration took the highly unusual decision of not sending a US official to the airport to receive Mr Sharif.

Mr Sharif would be met at Dulles Airport, where his commercial PIA flight was being diverted from JFK, by the Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The Saudi prince had a long history of helping assist key American diplomatic initiatives and also had worked with Pakistan extensively in the past during the Afghan war against the Soviets.

Prince Bandar asked for a briefing on what President Clinton needed from Mr Sharif. “I met with him in his McLean home and gave him our sense of the crisis. Bandar promised to weigh in forcefully with (Mr) Sharif on the ride from Dulles to Blair House, and he secured Crown Prince Abdallah’s support for our position.”

British Prime Minister (Tony) Blair also contacted Mr Sharif to weigh in as well on the need for withdrawal.

Contrary to the reports published in some Pakistani newspapers which said that the US faked the nuclear threat to force Mr Sharif to withdraw troops, Mr Riedel says that the Americans were genuinely worried the crisis could lead to a nuclear conflict.

“There was more disturbing information about Pakistan preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible use. I recommended that he (President Clinton) use this only when (Mr) Sharif was without his aides, particularly not when the Foreign Secretary, Shamshad Ahmad, who was known to be very close to Pakistani military intelligence (ISI) was in earshot.”

Soon after Mr Sharif arrived, Prince Bandar called Mr Riedel and told that the Pakistani PM was “distraught, deeply worried about the direction the crisis was going toward disaster, but equally worried about his own hold on power and the threat from his military chiefs who were pressing for a tough stand. In the meeting, President Clinton asked for “a full and complete withdrawal without pre-conditions” from Kargil and also warned him that “there could be no quid pro quo, no hint that America was rewarding Pakistan for its aggression, nor for threatening its nuclear arsenal at India.”

President Clinton told Mr Sharif that he “must act today.” Mr Sharif handed President Clinton a document which he said was a non-paper provided to him early in the crisis by Mr Vajpayee in which the two would agree to restore the sanctity of the LoC and resume the Lahore process. Mr Sharif said at first India had agreed to this non-paper but then changed its mind. Mr Sharif then asked that the meeting continue just with the two leaders.

“Everyone left the room except Sharif, Clinton and I. The President insisted he wanted a record of the event. Sharif asked again to be left alone, the President refused. The prime minister then briefed the president on his frantic efforts in the last month to engage Vajpayee and get a deal that would allow Pakistan to withdraw with some saving of face.

“(President) Clinton asked (Mr) Sharif if he knew how advanced the threat of nuclear war really was? Did (Mr) Sharif know his military was preparing their nuclear tipped missiles?

“(Mr) Sharif asked again to have me leave the room. The president dismissed this with a wave of his hand and then told Sharif that he warned him on the second (July 2) not to come to Washington unless he was ready to withdraw without any precondition or quid pro quo. (Mr) Sharif had been warned by others as well. The president said he had a draft statement ready to issue that would pin all the blame for the Kargil crisis on Pakistan tonight.

“The president was getting angry. He told (Mr) Sharif that he had asked repeatedly for Pakistani help to bring Osama bin Ladin to justice from Afghanistan. (Mr) Sharif had promised often to do so but had done nothing. Instead the ISI worked with (Osama) bin Ladin and the Taliban to foment terrorism.

“His draft statement would also mention Pakistan’s role in supporting terrorists in Afghanistan and India. Was that what (Mr) Sharif wanted, Clinton asked? Did (Mr) Sharif order the Pakistani nuclear missile force to prepare for action? Did he realise how crazy that was? You’ve put me in the middle today, set the US up to fail and I won’t let it happen. Pakistan is messing with nuclear war.

“(Mr) Sharif was getting exhausted. He denied that he had ordered the preparation of their missile force, said he was against that but he was worried for his life now back in Pakistan. The president suggested a break to allow each leader to meet with his team and consider next steps. He would also call Prime Minister Vajpayee to brief him on the discussions. After 90 minutes of intense discussion the meeting broke up.

“The president put through a short call to New Delhi just to tell Vajpayee that he was holding firm on demanding the withdrawal to the LoC. (Mr) Vajpayee had little to say, even asking the president “what do you want me to say?” There was no give in New Delhi and none was asked for.” Mr Riedel then says that after agreeing to withdraw Pakistani troops without any conditions, Mr Sharif asked Mr Clinton to play a role in resolving the Kashmir dispute. Mr Clinton asked him to send an emissary to Washington once the Kargil crisis was over.

“Finally in September (Mr) Sharif sent his brother … to Washington for the long-awaited discussions. Rick Inderfurth and I met with him for hours in his suite at the Willard Hotel.

“We tried to get a feel for how the prime minister wanted to pursue the Kashmir issue. Instead, Shahbaz Sharif only wanted to discuss what the US could do to help his brother stay in power. He all but said that they knew a military coup was coming.

“On October 12, 1999 it came. Ironically, it was (Mr) Nawaz who provoked the coup’s timing by trying to exile (Mr) Musharraf when he was on an official visit to Sri Lanka.”

Mr Riedel said that when Mr Sharif was jailed, President Clinton instructed the US National Security Council to “do all we could to convince the new Pakistani leadership not to execute (Mr) Sharif as General Zia had executed Prime Minister (Z.A.) Bhutto in 1978. That outcome would have been a horrible one for all Pakistanis and would have considerably setback the country’s already slim hope of a better future.

“The president urged Musharraf to let (Mr) Sharif free. With our encouragement the Saudis pressed hard for (Mr) Sharif’s freedom. Finally, in December 2000 Sharif was exiled to the Saudi Arabia.”