Musharraf's true lies

October 27, 2006

The book written by Gen Pervez Musharraf should have been titled 'A Bundle Of Lies' instead of 'In the Line of Fire'. It just presents a concocted image of Pakistan, deceit and treachery in his so-called memoir.
The lies from the serving president are so evenly spread out and logically explained that it just appears too convincing.

Lies
1 - It starts with the first page itself. The map of India and Pakistan is blotched with Kashmir being depicted as ‘disputed territory’. The commando wanted to hurt India sensibilities, which he did blatantly. Even according to the United Nations, Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India and all international maps show valley as a part of India, including Northern Areas occupied by Pakistan. Diplomatically, the book tried to show Indian ‘occupation’ in poor light, something which has not gone down well with the Indian government.
2 - He blames the Indian army of fabricating encounters at Siachen glacier that none would believe.
He mentions that the Indian Army occupied Siachen without the clearance of the Indian government. How would Prevez Musharraf have known whether the Indian army occupied it without the consent of the government, questions an army official. Surely, Musharraf knows more about India than Indian establishment knows itself.
He writes that skirmish in Siachen on October 16-18, 1998 was fake. Naturally, Musharraf is taking a fig from the reported fake encounters last year which embarrassed the Indian army.
3 - The biggest lie is perhaps reason of the Kargil war and how the general tries to blame Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sherif. Citing threats of a possible attack by the Indian army in Northern Areas, Shaqma sector (near Kargil), frequent visits of then defence minister George Fernandes to the region, India buying snow equipment, Musharraf defends the occupation of Kargil heights.
After losing three wars to India, the Pakistan Army is desperate to take revenge against India at any cost. It has been a long dream project of the Pak army to take over Kargil. The Pakistani army has given proposal for occupying Kargil to Zia ul Haq and Benazir Bhutto in the 80s and early 90s.
But Musharraf got his say when he took over in October 1998 as chief of the army. The ambitious general for his nefarious designs gave a go ahead for operation Badr, as it was named in GHQ in Rawalpindi.
Musharraf says the troops had instructions not to cross the Line of Control, which is a true lie. The troops did cross over and occupied Indian territory.
The mendacious president writes that mujaheedin elements occupied the Kargil heights vacated by the army. It is a known fact that regular Pakistani troops also took part in the operation, in which SSG commandos also took part. It is widely known that Pakistani troops in the guise of mujahideen, were trained and deployed along the Kargil in the winter of 1999.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s disclosure that he was unaware of the plans, hugely embarrassed the general. In his book, he even carries a photograph of Sharif in which he is being briefed by army officials. By carrying the photographs of February 5, 1999 in which Sharif is seen Khel sector, Musharraf mischievously tries to convince the readers that Sharif was told about the Kargil war.
To mislead the readers, he edits Pakistani causalities in the Kargil episode in the English version of the book, while the Hindi edition mentions 357 casualties.
While Musharraf claims Kargil war as victory, Pakistani Lt Gen Ali Quli Khan Khattak. Said, "It was a disaster bigger than the East Pakistan tragedy".
More lies -
Rape victim Mukhtaran Mai was not allowed to travel to the US, even as Musharraf tires to paint a picture of women emancipation in Pakistan.
According to a report, Musharraf had told the editorial board of Washington Post last year that rape had become "a money-making concern" in Pakistan. "A lot of people say that if you want to go abroad and get a visa from Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."
The kidnapping of Daniel Pearl
Musharraf neglects to mention that Omar Saeed Sheikh, the mastermind behind Pearl's kidnapping, turned himself in to Brigadier Ijaz Shah, the home secretary of the Punjab, a former spook of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and a bosom buddy of Gen Musharraf - a whole week before Sheikh's "arrest" was announced by the police.
Did Richard Armitage, the US deputy secretary of state, told ISI chief after 9/11 that the US would bomb Pakistan back into the "Stone Age" if it did not collaborate in the quest for Osama bin Laden. Sources say this is a pure work of fiction on the part of the general.

Famous omissions
How Pakistan ordered the attack on the Indian Parliament and details of Operation Parakram
Khandhar hijacking and release of Ghazi baba and his presence in Pakistan.

Activities and presence of Dawood Ibrahim and other terrorists organizations.

The presence of training camps in Pakistan and its role in fomenting trouble in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country.

Musharraf fails to explain how Zia ul Haq was killed as he would have access to any file in Pakistan and could easily have found out what happened to that fateful flight.
Whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar: Obliviously, he reiterates that he does not know where Osama is hiding even as ISI is in control of the terrorist situation in Afghanistan.

Weapon and drug trade in Pakistan
Army operations in Baluchistan and other tribal areas.
In Urdu version, the book mention that the CIA was paying money to the Government of Pakistan in exchange for the capture of Al-Qaeda suspects. "We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars," by handing over 369 Al Qaeda members to the US.
True lies
The Urdu translation of Musharraf's book "In the Line of Fire" has dropped the part about the CIA paying bounty money to the Government of Pakistan in exchange for the capture of Al-Qaeda suspects.
The Dawn reported that while the Urdu version keeps the part about capturing the suspects in the chapter called Taaqub or Manhunt, the bit about earning "millions of dollars" and the CIA prize money had been dropped.
When confronted with this controversial line from his autobiography by journalists in New York two days after launching his book, Gen Musharraf said he had made a mistake, that the money did not go to the Government and that he would rectify it in the next version.


No one in the Indian Army is taking the book seriously.