New Delhi: In a throwback to the days of Indo-Pak tensions following the terror attack on Parliament, the then Army Chief Gen S Padmanabhan today (Feb 2, 2004) said "favourable circumstances and tides" were allowed to "pass" during the year-long full-fledged Army deployment in 'Operation Parakram', which was "conceived for specific operational purposes".

Strongly rebutting a suggestion that Pakistan's nuclear deterrence had acted as a "dampener" to any cross border operations by India, he said, "Pakistan's response had been adequately studied and factored in. No, they had nothing. We had them by the tail."

The former Army chief was speaking to reporters about his yet-to-be-released book 'India Checkmates America 2017'.

While refusing to go into specific war plans saying that service restrictions did not allow him to disclose them, he said during the operation, "circumstances and tides were very favourable to India. They passed time and again".

He said 'Operation Parakram' deployment was "cogent" and in place by January 8 and said whether to launch or not to launch operations was political.

Asked if US intervention had stalled the operations at the last moment, Padmanabhan said, "I would not like to talk about it."

For the first time, the former Army chief said during the operation, even Army commanders were not given the nuclear button, which remained with the chairman, Chief of Staff Committee who held it for political high command.

The General said preparations for "operations" were "almost on the cards till the Republic Day", but were changed by the country's political leadership.

To a volley of questions whether the deployment had served its purpose, he said at no time during the entire seven to eight months period any fatigue or morale problems were noticed among the troops.

During the hour-long news conference, Padmanabhan said that twice the "operations" came very near to being launched first in the opening months of deployment and later again in autumn.

He said troops had been pulled out in summer from the international border, but the deployment was in place in Jammu and Kashmir. Enhanced manpower was used to launch vigorous anti terrorist operations, which yielded immense benefits, he said.

To questions to the deployment having been too long, the former Army chief retorted that deployment was for bigger period of time in both the 1965 and 1971 wars. This time the difference was "we came back without fighting a war".

To a number of questions on whether he saw any future Indo-Pak conflict deteriorating into a nuclear tit for tat, Padmnabhan said he foresaw no such eventuality, as both countries had to act with rationale.

"Even if you have a nuclear exchange, it is going to be limited to a single tit for tat strike before the world would converge on us," he said, explaining that any use of nuclear weapons in conflict was only a remote possibility.