This strategic operation met with great hostility in the public circles and wide scale disapproval in the media who roundly criticised this operation. Musharraf had severe confrontation and became involved in serious altercations with his senior officers, chief of naval staff Admiral Fasih Bokhari, chief of air staff, air chief marshal PQ Mehdi and senior lieutenant-general Ali Kuli Khan. Admiral Bokhari ultimately demanded a full-fledged joint-service court martial against General Musharraf, while on the other hand General Kuli Khan lambasted the war as "a disaster bigger than the East-Pakistan tragedy", adding that the plan was "flawed in terms of its conception, tactical planning and execution" that ended in "sacrificing so many soldiers." Problems with his lifelong friend, chief of air staff air chief marshal Pervez Mehdi also arose when air chief refrained to participate or authorise any air strike to support the elements of army operations in the Kargil region.