Tuesday, Jul 02, 2002
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By B. Muralidhar Reddy
The Pakistan English daily, Dawn, in a front-page report quoting sources has said that each of the three planned exercises, some of which to be held in August, will last about a week. It said the exercises would be carried out in plains, mountains and sea. The paper said these would be the first joint tri-services exercises to be conducted between Pakistan and the U.S. and would be of a much larger scale than those India carried out with the U.S. in May. The report quoted a senior defence official as saying that "the operational significance of these exercises is far more as they will follow the full operational cycle of military coordination, planning, execution and then de-briefing''. Dates and specifics including the number of personnel who would be part of U.S. special operations forces in the "high-tech military exercises" are still being worked out. The Press Secretary to the Pakistan President, Rashid Qureshi, announced a few days ago that the exercises were at the planning stage. Dawn said the U.S. embassy spokesman, John Kincannon, had confirmed joint exercises. The report said the exercises were likely to be "company level" and each exercise would involve around 150 personnel from each side. The personnel would comprise mostly commandos and infantry. The exercises were likely to take place around Jhelum, Kharian and the Sonmiani ranges. The objective of the exercises is to familiarise each other with the procedures, tactics, technology and doctrines. "The idea is to know the strengths and weaknesses of the other side and to learn from them," the paper quoted a Pakistani defence observer as saying. The paper said the recent Indo-U.S. exercise, India's largest-ever with the U.S., were seen as an "alarming signal" by observers in Pakistan. However, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, told the paper there was no reason for any apprehensions. He has argued that the cooperation between Pakistan and the United States was free of any third-party's relationship with Washington. The paper said "some analysts believe that the U.S. decided to undertake these exercises with Pakistan so that its "most allied ally'' in the region does not feel alienated after the recent Indo-U.S. joint military manoeuvres held in Agra''. According to the report, Pakistan conducted two army exercises with the U.S. in the Nineties. The last major exercise code-named "Inspired Gambit 2" was conducted in 1997. "Inspired Gambit 1" was held in 1995.
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