October 25, 2006	Wednesday	Shawwal 1, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Tuesday said President General Pervez Musharraf’s refusal to form a Kargil inquiry commission was self serving and untenable.

In a statement, party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said that in an interview with a private TV channel Gen Musharraf had maintained that there was no need to form an inquiry commission because it was a thing of the past.

Mr Babar said Kargil would not, indeed should not, die down because it had brought to the fore some very serious questions about war and peace.

“When the sitting prime minister and the serving army chief disagree so fundamentally on who said what, it raises questions about the breakdown of communication between the civil and military leadership,” he said.

“Such a communication breakdown can be disastrous when the issue at stake is that of war and peace and the countries involved are nuclear armed.

“Who takes the ultimate decision of taking the country to war and who decides the ceasefire is a question that can be ignored at grave peril in the future.”

He said General Musharraf had insisted that Kargil plan was a marvel of military strategy. This raises the question whether a nation should be taken to war merely on the basis of optimism about field tactics or war and peace must be decided on consideration of wider issues of international diplomacy and politics.

Mr Babar said it was most regrettable that General Musharraf speaks on Kargil as if he had the last word of truth and wisdom on it. He said former chief of general staff Lt-Gen Ali Quli Khan Khattak had publicly said Kargil was an ‘unprofessional decision’ and that ‘critical questions had to be answered for sacrificing so many soldiers.’

It view of conflicting assessments given by both the political leadership as well as sections of the military leadership, it is imperative that an inquiry commission is set up to probe Kargil, he said.