Intelligence reports pointing to intrusion of Kargil heights were submitted to the central government just ahead of the Kargil conflict...

Spokesman news Service: Chandigarh, December 8: Intelligence reports pointing to intrusion of Kargil heights were submitted to the central government just ahead of the Kargil conflict, former RAW chief AS Dulat disclosed at the Military Literature Festival today. Participating in a discussion on `Wisdom of Spies’, Dulat said the intelligence reports were shared with the Centre with all the pointers gathered by the Army before the war started.

Dulat, who was with the Intelligence Bureau at the time of the Kargil conflict, said the vital information was shared with the Union Home Minister, who was also holding the charge of Deputy Prime Minister. Earlier, Lt Gen Kamal Davar highlighted the importance of putting all the three defence wings physically under one unified command, with convergence in decision making ensured.

Cautioning against the current trend of NSA being the 'Intelligence Czar' of the country,  Davar said it was one thing to have information but totally another to act on all available inputs. He also highlighted the need to invest more aggressively in acquiring language mastery in South Asian languages like Mandarin, Sinhalese and Pashto.

Lt. General Sanjeev K Longer however differed on the issue of collective unified command and said in a country like India we need different heads who come together to contribute towards a crucial decision. Underscoring the need to adopt technology, he said in the present times, intellect and technology need to be synchronised to achieve desired ends. Our covert capability would depend on the marriage of these two aspects, General Davar added.

Moderating the discussion,  K C Verma IPS lamented the disheartening tendency of political and public class to simply blame intelligence bravehearts for all the systemic failures. Information gathering is one important aspect of success, he said, adding taking a sound decision on available intelligence was a specialized art which not many have.