June 04, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 3: Pakistan Muslim League-N, emboldened by a former corps commander’s interview in which he held Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf responsible for the 1999 Kargil war, tried to force a debate on the issue in the National Assembly on Tuesday, but the speaker referred the matter to the house’s standing committee on defence.

In an interview to a private television channel on Monday, Gen Kyani, a confidant-turned-foe of Gen Musharraf, put the entire blame for the failure of the Kargil adventure on the then COAS, saying that the then premier Nawaz Sharif had not been taken into confidence. PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal said in the National Assembly: “Gen Kyani’s revelations vindicate the stance of this party’s leader … that Gen Musharraf had lied to the nation.”

Speaking on a point of order, PML-N’s Ayaz Sadiq said: “It was tragic that such a major misadventure in our history, which involved the army, went without being probed.”

He called for setting up a committee of retired Supreme Court judges to probe into the matter to fix responsibility for the fiasco.

Sheikh Aftab, another PML-N lawmaker from Attock, said in a television interview that Gen Kayani, instead of blaming politicians for the East Pakistan debacle, had held the then army generals responsible and similarly, he had held Gen (retd) Musharraf responsible for the Kargil misadventure.

Speaker Fehmida Mirza, however, proposed that the issue should be discussed by the National Assembly’s standing committee on defence.