Some incidents and lessons from 1971 and 1973 Wars

Contributing Editor Vice Admiral (Retd) Iqbal F Quadir discusses lessons learnt from the 1971 Indo-Pak and the 1973 Arab-Israeli wars.

Lately, there has been a fair amount of write-up on the 1971 Crisis in East Pakistan and the 1973 Egypt-Israeli War. The following incidents, thoughts and ideas could, therefore, be of interest for researchers, historians and policy makers:

The 1971 Crisis
KM Kaisar the Pakistan Ambassador to China was in Pakistan from the middle of February to 5 March 1971 with a personal message from Mr. Chou en Lai the Chinese Prime Minister for General Yahya the President and Mr. Mujeeb ur Rahman the Awami League leader. But despite all efforts for almost a fortnight by him and the Foreign Office for an appointment with the President he was unable to or was prevented from doing the bidding of Mr. Chou en Lai in Islamabad. The message amongst other things advised the two leaders to avoid a situation that could only lead to benefit India at the expense of Pakistan. According to Kaiser, he secretly met Mujeeb in Dhaka, courtesy Admiral Ahsan the Governor, who showed willingness to defer to the wishes of one of the greatest friends Pakistan ever had so far. But undaunted by the failure in Islamabad, on learning of President Yahya’s visit to Karachi on 2/3 March, Kaiser took a chance and was able to see Yahya onboard the PIA aircraft who told the Ambassador to see him at 9:00 the next morning. According to Kaiser, at about 7:00 AM next morning either General Pirzada or General Umar, he did not remember exactly which one of them, telephoned him to inform that the President was too busy and would be unable to see him. (General Umar does not remember any such incident). That proved a sad end to the effort by a genuine friend to save Pakistan from itself and its “leaders”.
On 5th March during my farewell call on DG ISI Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan (before proceeding to take up my assignment as Army and Naval Attache in Paris) when I mentioned Kaiser’s visit to Islamabad and his inability to meet the President, he was very upset at not being informed earlier. Kaiser had left Pakistan by that time. On 8 March 1971 during my farewell call on Admiral Muzaffar Hasan, the C-in-C Pakistan Navy told me that a Major General visiting Karachi sometime earlier had mentioned in passing to him that the Army would be ready for military action in East Pakistan by the 17th of that month. This officer I later learnt was the DG ISI Maj Gen. Akbar Khan. In 1978, a West European Consul General in Karachi told me that during 1971 while serving in Dhaka, on 11th March Mujeeb came to him with a message for President Yahya “to be passed through his government” that he (Mujeeb) did not want a breakup of the country and that he was willing to discuss possible solutions with the President. According to the Consul General the message was passed in the manner requested.
From above narrations it would appear that a certain group within GHQ had a preconceived course of action ready about the future destiny of the nation and being over confident of Pakistan’s strength the group proceeded accordingly, even to the extent of preventing Chou en Lai’s message reaching General Yahya. Army Intelligence, a separate identity from ISI, must have come to know of the secret meeting between Mujeeb and Kaiser in Dhaka and informed GHQ of it. Under the circumstances the group, unaware of Chou en Lai’s message, would (from their point of view) have been suspect of Kaiser’s doings with Mujeeb and the request to meet the President. The fact that DG ISI was upset at not being informed of Kaiser’s presence in Islamabad shows he could not be enjoying the confidence of the Group. Further, it raises the question, “Whether General Yahya was in fact his own master?”
An important fact that has not figured in the Hamood ur Rehman Commission Report or in any other published document so far is the fact that from April 1971 onwards Soviet Union started massive supplies of military equipment of all types to India, by air and by sea, from its stock-piles in Egypt and from USSR itself. This information picked up by this scribe from a friend in Paris was passed on to Islamabad in May 1971 and soon confirmed through contacts with embassies concerned. The information obtained further indicated that the Indian Army would have absorbed the new inductions; including latest tanks, and be ready for action in September 1971. Someone in Paris even went to the extent of suggesting that Pakistan might act soon after the monsoons were over to pre-empt India. Not knowing the records, it would seem no similar information was received from other Pakistani embassies or sources and, therefore, the report from Paris was not given due importance, passed on to other authorities concerned or verified by other means.
To my mind, the most important military point that came out of HRC Report and from what has been written above is the fact that Indians were able to mask their military intentions in East Pakistan so successfully that a massive military invasion of that province from India, while being readied under our very noses from March/April 1971 onwards, was not given credence in Pakistan. All plans except those that remained resting on paper only catered for stopping Indian border incursions till it was much too late.

1973 Egypt-Israeli War
The compelling motivation for the Egyptian attack in Sinai Peninsula in 1973 would appear to have been to rehabilitate the pride and morale of the Egyptian Army after its failures against the British, French and Israeli aggressions earlier. The inability to browbeat Saudi Arabia under President Nasser by an attack through Yemen must have been playing on Egyptian High Command’s mind as well. There is no doubt that Egyptian planning and execution of the strike across the Suez Canal was absolutely brilliant. The objectives set for that war indicate how clearly the High Command and the Government understood the limitations of their military power. Even the rehearsals for the attack were planned in a manner that despite their open display they did not arouse any suspicion either in Israel or in the United States of America. Military planners would do well to study the Egyptian side of the 1973 War in greater details, particularly of the pre-execution stage.
On Israeli side, suffering tremendous losses in the pride of its military wing — the air force; on the fourth day of the war, its government decided to start negotiations with Egypt. But the United States, not willing to suffer either a loss of face for its Policeman of the Area or what amounted to a failure of US supplied air power against a Russian supplied air defence system decided to rush maximum assistance to Israel in the form of more modern platforms, weapons, equipment and trained manpower for the newer type of supplies. It was interesting to observe at Paris airport hundreds of young American/European Jews, who even in mufti appeared to be servicemen, proceeding of all things for holidays to Israel at that time.
This turning point in Israel’s favour, its consequences were further augmented by the good luck of Israel finding the dividing line between the two Egyptian Armies East of Suez Canal unguarded and that too located at the exact spot where the Israelis had marked a route for night navigation of armoured vehicles from Sinai Peninsula to a crossing point over the Canal. A small force of Israeli tanks having crossed over, finding no resistance on the West Bank of the Canal, it was soon able to destroy most of Egyptian air defence missile batteries that had inflicted heavy losses on Israeli aircraft earlier and prevented their operations over Egyptian units East of the Canal.
For the skeptics of the reasons for US rushed aid to Israel, it may be revelation to know that during the 1971 Indian invasion of East Pakistan, when PAF made an urgent request for a large quantity of drop tanks for Mirages; within hours Marcel Dassault the manufacturer finding not enough available in France, had the first lot airlifted from Israel. While informing this scribe of the direct demand received from PAF by them and their action, the No. 3 of that huge Company stated that the name of the aircraft, the Company and of France against the Russian built Indian MiGs was more important to them than anything else. Later in that war, many in France thanked Pakistan for proving the superiority of their equipment when our Daphne class submarine HANGOR sank the British supplied modern anti-submarine frigate KHUKRI off Kutch/Kathiawar coast and damaged another.
It must be added that the Egyptian success in demolishing the Barlev Line and the myth of an invincible Israeli military structure, by achieving its objectives East of the Canal within a short period, provided President Sadaat and the Egyptian Army an opportunity to go for a peace accord with Israel under US aegis at Camp David on an equal footing. At the time of Nasser’s death, our then ambassador Mr. S K Dehlavi having earlier served in Egypt, had told me that both Anwar Sadaat, the successor to President Nasser, and Sadaat’s young protege Husn-e-Mubarak were in fact pro-Americans; but the manner in which USSR had dispatched military stores from her stockpiles in Egypt without first informing the Egyptian government, even if both were pro-Russian earlier, they must have been deeply offended and aggrieved by the Soviet affront.
Finally, it is certain, had President Clinton handled the Kargil crisis in a manner similar to Nixon’s of the 1973 Egypt-Israeli War and let both Pakistan and India feel they had won; rather than humiliating Nawaz Sharif, not withstanding the photo sessions in Washington later, making Pakistan the ‘bete noire’ and giving appearance of an Indian victory; the political situation in South Asia could have been very different from what one finds at present. US and world interests, as well as those of the region, would then have been served better.