IN THE LINE OF FIRE
- A MEMOIR BY PERVEZ MUSHARRAF

Free Press New York London Toronto Sydney- 2006-352 p-ISBN 10 1 4445 1.

This is a fiery book by a fiery impulsive show man Pakistani General suffering from ‘I’ fever- a General as we all know brought both India and Pakistan to catastrophic and avoidable kargil War causing unnecessary death, destruction and demise of democratically elected Nawaz Sharif’s government in Pakistan. The book, released with great fanfare in 2006 during Musharraf’s visit to his mentor the US, is dedicated to the people of Pakistan and his mother.

Beside, the preface, prologue (face to Face With Terror) and the epilogue (Reflections), the book is laid in six parts discussed briefly in the succeeding paragraphs.

In the preface Musharraf says he has lived passionate and impetuous life focused on self improvement and betterment of his country and that he decided to write his autobiography due to intense curiosity about him and his country’s role in the world’s conflict management including the war on terrorism and what future would look like for both Islam and the West. In the prologue, he describes number of times he has been face to face with death and the subsequent book tells why assassins were targeting him.

Part One of the book-In The Beginning has five chapters namely Train to Pakistan, Settling in Karachi, Turkey: the Formative Years, Home and Leaving the Nest basically dealing with his middle class family migrating to Pakistan in 1947, the new homeland for the Muslims, his initial years as naughty and carefree child in Karachi, his formative 7 years in Turkey where his father was posted as superintendent of the accounts in his country’s embassy in Ankara and the home coming in October 1956.

In the Part Two –Life In The Army of the book Musharraf describes his formative years till the Kargil War in the next six chapters. In chapter 6, The Potter’s Wheel, describes his joining the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in 1961 where he was one of the top cadets excelling in sports, academics and military training though almost at the verge of withdrawal just before his passing out. In the next chapter, Into the Fire, he states he was commissioned in 16 Self Propelled Artillery Regiment (SP Arty) much against his wishes. Though professionally very good and popular with his men, he was undisciplined and would have been in lot of trouble for being absent without leave but for 1965 Indo-Pak War. As part of elite armoured division equipped with Patton tanks, his formation launched offensive in Kasur – Khem karan Sector and seized enemy territory up to 15 miles deep capturing Khem Karan town. Subsequently, his division was ordered to move to critical Lahore sector and thereafter to Sialkot front and for his two gallant actions he was decorated only once for the gallantry. In 1966 he was assigned to the Special services Group (SSG)-the elite commando outfit where training was physically exacting, active, thrilling dangerous and very fulfilling. Captain Muharraf got married on 27 Dec1968 to extremely beautiful young girl Sheba and was blessed with two children- daughter Ayla and son Bilal named after his best friend Lieut Bilal who died in 1965 in action.. Musharraf states that the myopic and rigid attitude of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, nexus between Bhutto and a small coterie of military rulers, Indian intervention and simply incompetent senior army leadership in 1971 brought avoidable disgrace that created Bangladesh and destroyed Pakistan.

In Chapter 8, Line in the Fire, Musharraf says that after 1971 war his SSG Company was moved to kamri in the mountainous Northern Areas, deep in the Himalayas to check reported Indian incursion. Life in high altitude, devoid of all means of communications, low in oxygen during winter was tough. To overcome isolation and loneliness he used to move around to various valleys that also contributed as show of force to enemy (Indians) who stay put in their bunkers throughout the winter. He further states that with East Pakistan gone, Bhutto, with his dubious majority became the President of Pakistan. Musharraf did prestigious staff course in 1974 with top grade and was posted as Brigade Major of 206 Brigade, Karachi. He gained tremendous experience in staff work while operating in Balochi tribal area and assistance in flood relief operations in Sukkur. He also states that he was initially a great admirer of Bhutto, but got disillusioned with his despotic, dictatorship and fascist misrule. He had set up Gestapo like force called the Federal security Force (FSF) that was much hated and feared. In the environment opposition formalized its unity into political alliance called Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) to fight 1977 election that was grossly rigged resulting in large scale violent political disturbances in Lahore forcing Bhutto to impose martial law that was struck by the high court. Finally in July 1977, General Zia ul-Haq removed Bhutto and imposed martial law after suspending the constitution. Musharraf became staff officer to the Deputy Martial Law Administrator and gained rich experience. He was promoted as Lt Col and given command of 1 SP Artillery Regiment which was weak in sports. He improved not only the sports standard but also the training, operational preparedness and administration of the unit by his down to earth motivational leadership. In 1979 he was posted as instructor in the Command and Staff College-a highly prized appointment awarded to top Lt Cols only. Thereafter, he was sent to do the armed forces war course the National Defence College (NDC) in Islamabad that groomed him for the highest command, staff or instructional appointments. He knew now well that if all went smoothly he would make it to general. He served for a while in the Military Operations Directorate as Colonel where he was involved in operational planning specially concerning Siachin Glacier. Indians used to suffer heavy casualties and he was amused to know how Indians troops would transmit stories of their ‘fake encounters’ with the Pakistan Army duly intercepted by them while nothing actually happened on the ground! In the next chapter, Living Through the Dreadful Decade, Musharraf describes events so unfolded that from 1985 to 1998 he rose from Lt Col to Chief of the Army Staff. In 1985 he was promoted to Brigadier and posted to NDC as instructor, moving after 2 years to command artillery brigade of the armoured division in Kharian. When Indian Army had moblised in the garb of Exercise Brass Tacks carrying all their ammunition, Pakistan Army gave strong and strategically superior response by mobilizing strike corps elements to Sialkot giving them superiority of strategic orientation. Musharraf was lucky to survive death again as he was selected to be President Zia’s Military Secretary but that posting was cancelled and he survived that mysterious C- 130 crash that killed Zia, his military secretary Brigadier Najeeb, US Ambassador Arnold Raphel beside many others. The next assignment of Musharraf was as Deputy Military Secretary in the GHQ dealing with career management of all majors and lower ranks of the army. In 1990he was selected to attend prestigious one year course at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London where he made good friends with many civilian and military officers of many countries. On returning home he was promoted to major general and appointed GOC of 40 Division of the strike corps. As GOC he would PT and obstacle course with men or swim canals during exercises with troops giving him moral authority to check and reprimand the men for any weaknesses. In 1993 he was appointed DGMO and this tenure was quite eventful as Pakistan contributed largest contingent to UN peacekeeping missions around the world and got indirectly involved in the affairs of the state. He was promoted as Lt Gen in 1995 and was posted to command Mangla strike corps. After Zia’s death in 1988, in the next decade no state or national assembly completed its term and there were four national governments, three different presidents and four army chiefs all eventually clashing with the prime ministers. Never in the history of Pakistan had seen such a combination of the worst kind of total lack of governance along with corruption and plundering of national wealth while the army tried to play reconciliatory role avoiding a military take over. Politics aside, Musharraf enjoyed his DGMO and corps commander tenures immensely raising morale and offensive spirit of the troops. On 7 Oct 1998, General Jhangir Karamat, the army chief, due to acute differences with overbearing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who had gathered all the powers in his office, reducing President as figure head and his goons had attacked the Supreme Court, resigned and Musharraf was appointed army chief instead.

In the last chapter of the Part 2, The Kargil Conflict, Musharraf states that the Kargil conflict was not a one off operation but latest of series and counter moves at tactical level by both India and Pakistan capturing weak localities of each other. This is how Indian Army captured Siachin ostensibly without clearance from the Indian government and this is how Kashmiri freedom fighting Mujahideen occupied the heights vacated by the Indian Army for winter. India falsely reported it had beaten back two Pakistani attacks in the area of the Siachin Glacier on October 16 and 18 while no official Pakistani incursions were under way. By early November1998 Musharraf had received reports of another five such make-believe attacks by the Indian Army. Probably these were related to activities by the Mujahideen .as thousands of them mostly of indigenous to Indian held Kashmir supported by free lance sympathizers from Pakistan did operate across the LOC. Since number and frequency of reported attacks were unprecedented and could be used as casus belli to launch an operation against Pakistan. Pakistani artillery started shelling road between Kargil and Dras in response to shelling by Indians in Neelum valley. To counter Indians creeping forward policy against the Shimla Agreement, Pakistan moved five battalions of the second line of defence called the Northern Light Infantry (NLI) of the FCNA under Rawalpindi corps to occupy gaps and the heights at the watershed quite oblivion to Indians. On May 2 Indians bumped into Pakistani position in Shyok sector and again in Battalik sector on May 7 suffering heavy causalities Indians over reacted by bringing its air force in action that started crossing and bombarding positions of Pakistan army resulting in the shooting down of one of the Indian helicopters and two jet fighters The Indians deployed four regular divisions along with concentrated artillery fire against five NLI battalions, The Indians build up having failed to dislodge resorted to Brigade sizes attacks on outposts held by as few as eight to ten Pakistani men that gained little ground until middle of June but Indian media hyped their success. Neither side’s political leadership had aptitude for war but Indians worked hard diplomatically and international pressure had demoralizing effect on Nawaz Sharif By now freedom fighters had captured 800 sq Kms of territory of Indian occupied Kashmir (400 sq kms in Mushko, 100 sq kms in Dras, 50 sq Kms in Kaksar, 200 sq kms in Battalik and 60 sq kms in Shyok) while Pakistani by July 4 that marked the cease fire had lost some ground in Dras, Battalik and Shyok. While Kaksar and Mushko ingresses remained untouched. Musharraf says,” On our side, I am ashamed to say, our political leadership insinuated that the achievements of our troops amounted to a “debacle’ and some people even called the Pakistan army a ’rouge army’ causing so much despair. He further states that perception that operation was launched without the army’s taking the political leadership into confidence is very unfortunate perception and nothing could be farther the truth as explained by him in details.

The Part Three of the book describes The Hijack Drama in four chapters. In Chapter 12, Plane To Pakistan, Musharraf describes how the commercial PIA flight PK 805 from Colombo to Karachi carrying him and other innocent passengers was hijacked by Nawaz Sharif refusing it landing facilities any where in Pakistan. Running low on fuel when suggested by the pilot to land either in Ahemdabad in India or Oman, Musharraf angrily told the pilot that over his dead body he would go to India. However, once army swiftly took over the control over the Karachi airport, the plane finally with only seven minutes of fuel to spare landed at Karachi ending the harrowing drama on which perhaps Hollywood can make excellent James Bond movie. Chapters 13 and 14 unfold the conspiracy after the Kargil, dismissal of Musharraf by Sharif and promotion of ISI head Lt Gen Ziauddin when he was away to Colombo, Nawaz Sharif’s paranoia that Musharraf planned to remove him and the countercoup, arrest and deportation of Nawaz Sharif and crucial role played by the Pakistan Army loyal to Musharraf are highlighted giving insight of psyche of Pakistani political and military leadership. In Chapter 15 Musharraf describing ‘Why Nawaz Sharif committed political suicide states that Nawaz Sharif had thought that being a son of migrant parents, Musharraf feeling insecure and vulnerable would acquiesce in his demands and do his bidding but such parochialism does not exist in the Pakistan army. The Kargil episode created the biggest divide between the prime minister and Musharraf as the former blamed the army and under external pressure was forced to vacate the liberated areas. Due to poor governance, abysmal political, social, economic conditions, sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis, demoralized police and administration and corruption, Pakistan was about to be declared as a failed state, a defaulted state or even a terrorist state while Nawaz Shariff wanted to usurp all power and become Ameer ul Momineen, ’commander of the faithful’ but the army’s loyalty to their own chief and their patriotism and love for the nation and its people was stronger than their loyalty to the blundering prime minister.

In Part Four, Rebuilding The Nation, Musharraf in Chapter 16 states, without declaring martial law, he first clarified his philosophy of good governance to top brass of the army and went about selecting his cabinet and other critical members of his team and various measures adopted by him as per seven point agenda to bring country back to rail. In the next chapter Musharraf says that the dysfunctional democracy in Pakistan has caused grief, most hauntingly in the separation of East Pakistan in 1971.His contentions are how best to make democracy work for country and setting up system that produce the genuine democracy that people yearn. Pakistan was frontline country to fight terrorism but has paid heavy price as sophisticated weapons found their way into Pakistan’s arms market and private hands and hard line mullahs given official patronage. Then came Kargil and Nawaz Sharif’s capitulation to Washington on 4 Jul 1999 making Musharraf and army the scapegoats; and Nawaz Sharif’s attempts to hijack his plane to deliver him to enemy’s hands. In Chapters 18 and 19 Musharraf highlights efforts taken by him in Putting The System Right and Kick Starting The Economy.

The Part Five covers The War On Terror and efforts made by Musharraf in combating terrorism and chapters on Omar, Osama and Al Qaeda though biased make interesting reading. In the Part Six in the last six chapters Musharraf projects himself as a visionary statesman far away from a military dictator while talking on issues like nuclear proliferation, international diplomacy, the social sector, the emancipation of women, the soft image of Pakistan and the devastating earthquake. He has immensely praised rapid and timely assistance from various countries but has conveniently not mentioned helping hand that was offered by India but not accepted by him in time. What ever was accepted was not with open mind and gratitude due to his unfound so called security constraints when both sides of Kashmir were devastated by the same earthquake.

Overall an interesting controversial book that gives insight of the fertile and restless mind of a military dictator who is insecure but projects the world as most secured. Though, not part of the book, Musharraf is doing all that what Nawaz Sheriff did forcing him Military take over- gagging democracy and press, sacking of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, subordinating Pakistani interest over fighting terrorism to the US, his inability to leash Taliban and Al Qaeda,supermacy of the Pakistani army and so on the list goes endlessly. This book must be read by all those dealing with national security, diplomacy, governance, Indo-Pak relations or Pakistan by itself.

Courtesy: Col. N.N. Bhatia, Industrial Security Consultant, Noida, India

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