vishal,
Yes, Indian media never gave this important. Initally even US turned its face other side, thinking this will keep check India and USSR. US never understood Paki fanatics agenda, now it is haunting them.
It is now important for rest of world to understand Paki agenda.
<b>More Nations Drawn Into Iran Nuke Probe</b>
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - <b>While Pakistani scientists are believed to have played a major role in advancing Iran's nuclear program, more than a half-dozen other countries are now being drawn into the U.N. investigation, diplomats and arms experts say. </b>
They say a monthslong probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency has traced the origins of Iran's program to the late 1980s, when Iran was supplied with the first drawings on centrifuge technology, its main way of enriching uranium.
<b>The investigations have widened ``well beyond'' Pakistan, Russia and China to include companies in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other West European countries, said one diplomat.</b>
There are no U.N. or other international sanctions against Iran that would have prevented foreign companies from providing equipment that could be used in a nuclear program. But investigating companies yielded useful information when the world body investigated Iraq's weapons programs in the early 1990s.
One of those diplomats talking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity also linked Pakistan to North Korea's weapons program, saying U.S. intelligence had ``pretty convincing'' evidence of such a connection.
Iran and North Korea are the key concerns of the Vienna-based U.N. atomic agency, whose main task is to curb weapons proliferation through inspections and monitoring of countries that have ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
North Korea withdrew from that treaty after the Bush administration revealed the existence of its nuclear weapons program late last year.
After months of intense international pressure, Iran now is cooperating with IAEA efforts to unravel nearly two decades of covert activities that the United States and other countries say point to a weapons program.
Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful. But suspicions have heightened with revelations that it was enriching uranium, and the discovery of traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium on some of its centrifuge equipment.
A diplomat told AP that the agency was following up on three to four different samples of highly enriched uranium - beyond the two whose existence had been previously revealed.
The agency is trying to trace the origins of the equipment to test Iranian claims that Tehran did not enrich uranium to weapons grade and that the highly enriched traces were inadvertently ``imported'' on the components. Neither Iran nor the IAEA have revealed the countries of origin, but diplomats had previously told AP <b>that Pakistan, China and Russia were among the probable suppliers</b>.
Russia has acknowledged signing a contract with Iran in the mid-1990s to deliver equipment that could be used for laser enrichment of uranium, but officials in Moscow say the contract was canceled several years later in response to U.S. pressure in the initial stages of the program.
<b>Pakistan, itself a nuclear power, acknowledged Tuesday that several of its nuclear scientists may had shared sensitive technology with Iran, but insisted the government never authorized it. Officials said information provided by the IAEA prompted the questioning of some scientists. </b>
The White House says Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, has assured Washington that his country is not offering to export technology related to weapons of mass destruction. But David Albright, a former Iraq weapons inspector who runs the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, suggests things were different before Musharraf seized power in 1999.
``<b>It defies belief that the senior leadership of the Pakistani government, particularly its intelligence operations, did not know about the activities of these Pakistani scientists,'' he said. ``The U.S. had come to them about this several times.'' </b>
Pakistan has long been suspected of proliferation during its 30-year effort to build nuclear weapons - of sending nuclear technology to North Korea in exchange for missiles, or helping Libya and Iraq. A middleman claiming to represent Pakistan's top nuclear scientist offered Saddam Hussein help in building an atomic bomb on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, according to U.N. documents shown to AP last year.
Pakistan strongly denies the allegations.
But last month Pakistan started investigating several scientists at its top nuclear facility, the Khan Research Laboratories. Mohammad Farooq, the lab's former director general, is in detention.
Pakistani officials say among those being questioned was the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan - a 1990 winner of Pakistan's ``Man of the Nation Award.''
Khan is believed to have traveled to Iran several times in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said a nuclear expert who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
<b>A few years earlier, before international attention began focusing on the dangers of proliferation, some Pakistani scientists handed out brochures at trade shows in Germany and elsewhere ``that implied that they were willing to sell sensitive centrifuge know-how or items of equipment,'' he said. </b>
German intelligence is now investigating, he said.
The Dutch-British-German consortium Urenco has been frequently named in connection with Iran's centrifuge program but company spokesmen have denied supplying components. A diplomat said one likely explanation for the link to Urenco was the fact that several West European companies that sold components to Urenco apparently also sold them to the Iranians, who then assembled them domestically.
<b>Outside View: No free passes for Pakistan</b>
By Kaushik Kapisthalam
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
ATLANTA, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The last few days have brought about many a stunning turnaround in the world of nuclear non-proliferation. First, it was the news of Iran agreeing to submit its nuclear facilities to United Nations inspection. Then it was Libya's turn to announce that it has forsaken its weapons of mass destruction programs in order to re-enter the international community. But the most shocking news was the revelation that Pakistan's nuclear scientists were intimately involved in both the Libyan and Iranian nuclear programs.
Pakistan's nuclear proliferation, though serious, was old news for most non-proliferation experts. Indeed, Pakistan's involvement in Iran and Libya were known to have happened in the 1980s and early 1990s. This has not been the extent of Pakistani proliferation. Documents unearthed by the United Nations after the first Gulf war with Iraq revealed that middlemen representing Pakistan's nuclear program offered to help Saddam Hussein's regime with its nuclear program well into the run up to Operation Desert Storm.
Not all of Pakistan's proliferation happened in the distant past. In the summer of 2002, U.S. intelligence tracked a Pakistani Air Force Lockheed C-130 cargo plane -- supplied by the United States, ironically -- carrying a shipment of uranium enriching centrifuges to North Korea. The plane returned to Pakistan with components of the Nodong nuclear capable ballistic missile, which Pakistan repainted and called "Ghauri."
This uncovered clinching evidence of a "nukes-for-missiles" barter between Pakistan and North Korea. It also directly contributed to a nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.
In late 2003, Pakistan was reported to have concluded a "nukes-for-oil" deal with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, who had financed the Pakistani nuclear program to the tune of $1 billion in addition to around 150,000 barrels of oil a day to Pakistan in off-budget foreign aid, were moving in for their cut of the nuclear pie.
Pakistan's nuclear program has also been reportedly associated with al-Qaida-linked Islamist groups. In late 2001, U.S. officials discovered that Osama bin Laden had contacted Pakistani nuclear experts for assistance in making a small nuclear or "dirty" bomb. U.S. officials sought two veteran Pakistani nuclear scientists -- Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid, for interrogation. During interrogation, the two admitted meeting bin Laden. However, after "debriefing" the two, Pakistan quietly released them without charge.
U.S. intelligence agencies had also wanted to interrogate two other Pakistani nuclear experts, Suleiman Asad and Muhammed Ali Mukhtar, over their links with al-Qaida. However, before U.S. investigators could reach them, Pakistan sent the two to Myanmar on a "research project." Pakistani officials later admitted that President Pervez Musharraf telephoned one of Myanmar's military rulers to ask him to provide temporary asylum for the two nuclear specialists. The two scientists were later revealed to be aiding Myanmar's nascent nuclear program. Asad and Mukhtar are still in Myanmar, well away from U.S. reach.
Pakistan's nuclear scientists have also exhibited open Islamist views. In 1999, for example, when Pakistani nuclear scientists were decorated on "Pakistan Day" for their role in the nuclear tests the year before, most of them proudly sported flowing beards, making clear their Islamist leanings. The "father" of Pakistan's nuclear program, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, has long espoused support for all Islamic nations to go nuclear. Khan, and Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the nuclear scientist who met with bin Laden, used to attend the conclaves of a banned al-Qaida-linked terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, as late as the summer of 2001. Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists have been arrested as far away as the United States as well as Australia for terrorist acts. Top al-Qaida figure Abu Zubeidah, was found hiding in a Lashkar-e-Taiba safe house in Pakistan.
American response to all these revelations about Pakistan have been muted. A few months back, the United States imposed meaningless sanctions on a Pakistani nuclear entity. Other than that, American officials have touted the "400 percent guarantee" made by Pakistan's president Gen. Musharraf that his nation will not proliferate again.
The theory propounded is that Musharraf is the best bet for the U.S. in Pakistan. Pushing him now, American officials say, may cause a fundamentalist backlash in Pakistan. They see the recent assassination attempts on Musharraf as proof that the status quo is the best option.
But this policy is terribly shortsighted. Firstly, other nations watching this could learn, for instance, that the United States is only too willing to ignore nuclear proliferation as long as its other interests are satisfied. Also, America overlooking of Pakistan's proliferation has been going on for a long time and Musharraf hasn't always been as weak as he is today. Besides, Musharraf has only himself to blame for his predicament. He tried playing a high-wire balancing act between the jihadis and the United States and it backfired badly.
Secondly, there are ways to send a clear public message to Pakistan without seriously jeopardizing Musharraf. America could, for instance, impose sanctions on Pakistan under the many non-proliferation laws, such as the Glenn-Symington Act. President Bush can then waive the sanctions on a yearly basis, making it publicly clear to Pakistan that any more nuclear shenanigans could result in aid being cut off. At the very least, this would prevent the Pakistanis from sticking to their current policy of bald-faced denial.
With 2004 being an election year and with Iraq and the elections being the main focus, the current Pakistan policy may easily degenerate into a "throw some money at them and hope they behave" policy. That is why it is critical that the Congress push the Bush administration to make clear the full extent of Pakistan's nuclear profligacy and the reasons behind the current U.S. policy of private admonishments and public silence.
Pakistan's nuclear commodity trading has gone on for far too long for Americans to be worried about embarrassing an ally that few trust anyway. Without this, the American war on terror and weapons of mass destruction may be seriously jeopardized.
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(Kaushik Kapisthalam is an IT professional and commentator on U.S. policy towards South Asia and its effects on the war on terror. He lives in Atlanta, Ga.)
<b>A bomb for the Ummah</b>
Make sure to check bottom of this article to see DR. Khan sales brochure .
A Nuclear Headache: What if the Radicals Oust Musharraf?
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
Published: December 30, 2003
Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 29 â Two recent assassination attempts against Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, have renewed concern in the Bush administration over both the stability of a critical ally and the security of its nuclear weapons if General Musharraf were killed or removed from office.
Administration officials would not discuss their contingency plans for Pakistan, but several said the White House was revisiting an effort begun just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help Pakistan improve the security of its nuclear arsenal and to prevent Al Qaeda or extremists within the Pakistani military or intelligence services from gaining access to the country's weapons and fissile material.
"It's what we don't know that worries us," said a senior administration official, "including the critical question of how much fissile material Pakistan now holds â and where it holds it."
Three years ago, American officials estimated that Pakistan had enough highly enriched uranium to manufacture 40 nuclear weapons, and it is assumed that the figure has grown.
"It's one of the things that we're concerned about â nuclear materials or weapons-related information falling into the hands of terrorists or states who harbor them â irrespective of what country we're talking about," a State Department official said Monday. "We have discussed these concerns with Pakistan, and we continue to do so. Pakistan has taken those concerns very seriously."
Under both President Clinton and President Bush, the Pentagon has analyzed whether American forces could seize or secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if it appeared likely to fall into the hands of terrorists or their sympathizers, part of a broad effort at planning for nuclear emergencies around the world.
But a number of current and former administration officials said they had concluded that it was impossible to be certain where all of Pakistan's nuclear materials and weapons components were stored.
One Pentagon official said any raid by the American military to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal during a period of chaos would be "an extremely difficult and highly risky venture." Other administration officials termed it simply impossible.
Officials said they were relatively confident that even if General Musharraf lost power or was killed, Pakistan has established some fairly reliable nuclear safeguards. Nuclear warheads, triggering devices and the delivery systems for the weapons are all stored separately; thus, it would be difficult to steal a complete weapon, according to administration officials and academic analysts.
The degree to which the United States may have aided in that process is a secret, in part because the Bush administration does not want to worsen anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. But there are other reasons, administration and Pentagon officials say.
Pakistan has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and so the United States is prohibited from sharing certain technology. But two years ago a senior American official said the Bush administation would not let those rules be an impediment to improving the safety of the Pakistani arsenal.
Still, the computerized, encoded nuclear safeguards are among the United States' most prized secrets, and military officials fear they could pass through Pakistan's hands to adversaries. Pakistan, too, might reject an offer of the safeguard technology because it would have to share its own nuclear design secrets with the United States to create a compatible system.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, visited Pakistan and raised the delicate issue. On Monday, officials declined to describe the results of those discussions.
But administration officials appear less concerned that General Musharraf would lose control over actual weapons than over highly enriched uranium. Terrorists in possession of bomb fuel, even without the triggering devices needed to produce a nuclear explosion, could build a "dirty bomb" that spews radioactive material, or could attempt to engineer a crude nuclear device.
Documents seized after the invasion of Afghanistan suggested that while Al Qaeda sought to develop a nuclear weapon, it was not close to doing so. But Pakistan's scientific community has that ability, and much of the American concern centers on the issue of whether General Musharraf has the loyalty of his nuclear scientists.
"When people talk about the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear programs, they often focus on facilities and weapons and whether, if you have a coup or the death of Musharraf, these facilities come under some kind of hostile control," said Mahnaz Ispahani of the Council on Foreign Relations. "But an equal threat is the nature of these scientists, and what their connections are, and how well they are screened and monitored."
George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is among those who argue that Pakistan's self-interest is reason for confidence in the security of its nuclear arsenal. "You have an organization that runs the country that would be quite obsessive about maintaining control over these weapons," he said. "They are the crown jewels, the ultimate deterrent and source of pride and prowess."
That calculation changes, experts warn, should Pakistan, fearing war, assemble the weapons and transport them about the country for possible use. And the recent attacks raise a fresh set of concerns.
"It's very unsettling what these assassination attempts imply, that the inner security circle for Musharraf has been breached," said Gaurav Kampani of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "If security for the president, for the head of the Pakistani Army, cannot be guaranteed, what guarantee is there that nuclear assets and missiles and so forth are safe?"
David E. Sanger reported from Crawford, Tex., for this article, and Thom Shanker from Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/30/internat...sia/30DIPL.html
US to reconsider plans for securing Pakistan's nukes
Vasantha Arora, Indo-Asian News Service
Washington,
The US, worried by two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf, is likely to reconsider its contingency plans to help Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal and prevent terrorists from gaining access to weapons and fissile materials.
Even though US officials declined to discuss the contingency plans, several spoke of the renewed concern in the administration of President George Bush over both the stability of a critical ally and the security of its nuclear weapons if Musharraf were killed or removed from office.
A New York Times report Tuesday said under both former president Bill Clinton and Bush, the Pentagon had analysed such contingency plans, including the use of American troops to seize or secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, if it appeared likely to fall into the hands of terrorists.
The paper quoted one Pentagon official as saying that any raid by US forces to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal during a period of chaos would be "an extremely difficult and highly risky venture".
Other administration officials termed it simply impossible. It was also impossible to be sure where all of Pakistan's nuclear materials and weapon components were stored, they said.
The contingency plans -- which cater for possibilities like the Al Qaida or extremists within the Pakistani military gaining access to weapons and fissile materials -- were part of a broad effort at planning for nuclear emergencies around the world.
"It's what we don't know that worries us, including the critical question of how much fissile material Pakistan now holds, and where it holds it," a senior administration official was quoted as saying.
Three years ago, it was estimated that Pakistan had enough highly enriched uranium to manufacture 40 nuclear weapons and it is assumed that the figure has grown.
"It's one of the things that we're concerned about -- nuclear materials or weapons-related information falling into the hands of terrorists or states who harbour them -- irrespective of what country we're talking about," a State Department official said Monday.
"We have discussed these concerns with Pakistan, and we continue to do so. Pakistan has taken those concerns very seriously."
The report, however, said the officials were relatively confident that even if Musharraf lost power or was killed, Pakistan has established some fairly reliable nuclear safeguards.
Nuclear warheads, triggering devices and the delivery systems for the weapons are all stored separately. Thus, it would be difficult to steal a complete weapon, according to administration officials and academic analysts.
To what extent the US might have helped Pakistan in the process is a secret, in part because the Bush administration does not want to worsen anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.
But there are other reasons too, administration and Pentagon officials said.
Pakistan has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and so the US cannot share certain technology with it.
But two years ago, a senior American official said the Bush administration would waive these rules if it came to improving the safety of Pakistan's arsenal.
Included in America's most prized secrets are the computerised and encoded nuclear safeguards, and military officials fear they could pass through Pakistan's hands to adversaries.
Pakistan too might reject an offer of the safeguard technology because it would have to share its own nuclear design secrets with the US to create a compatible system.
What really worries the Bush administration officials is not that Musharraf would lose control over actual weapons but over highly enriched uranium.
Terrorists in possession of bomb fuel, even without triggering devices needed to produce a nuclear explosion, could build a "dirty bomb" that spews radioactive material or could attempt to engineer a crude nuclear device.
Another cause of concern is how the US uncovered from documents seized in Afghanistan that the Al Qaida sought to develop a nuclear weapon, even though it was not close to it.
But it is believed that Pakistan's scientific community has that ability, and much of the American concern centres on the issue of whether Musharraf has the loyalty of his nuclear scientists.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, George Tenet, director of central intelligence, and Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, visited Pakistan and raised the delicate issue.
On Monday, officials declined to describe the results of those discussions.
http://hindustantimes.com/news/181_513612,00050001.htm
<b>North Koreans went to Pakistan for nuclear study - report </b>
TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea, involved in a crisis over its nuclear weapons programme, sent three engineers to Pakistan in 1999 to study uranium enrichment technology, a leading Japanese newspaper reported on Thursday.
Quoting South Korean intelligence sources, the Mainichi Shimbun said the three went to a nuclear institute in Pakistan headed at that time by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb.
It added that the purpose of their visit was to study how to prevent radioactive damage in the process of uranium enrichment.
No further details were given, but the newspaper noted that North Korea and Pakistan have denied such links in the past.
The UN's nuclear watchdog has been investigating a possible Pakistan-Iran nuclear link, and diplomats and arms experts have told Reuters that suspicions are growing that Pakistani individuals may also have helped North Korea get enrichment know-how and hardware.
Pakistan's government said on December 22 that Khan was being questioned about reports of possible links to Iran.
The report comes as officials from nations including China and the United States are working on a schedule for six-way negotiations on North Korea's nuclear arms programme.
The nuclear crisis involving North Korea erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang had admitted to a covert weapons programme.
<b>Intercepted shipment was key to Libya deal</b>
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
02 January 2004
The interception by British and US intelligence of a shipment of uranium enrichment centrifuges bound for Libya in October appears to have been the decisive step in persuading Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to abandon his nuclear weapons programme.
The disclosure, confirmed by US officials yesterday, came as John Bolton, US under-Secretary of State and a leading Bush administration anti-proliferation hawk, set off for London for talks on how to hold Libya to its promise.
According to the officials, the shipment, aboard a German freighter, originated in a Persian Gulf port, which they would not name. The vessel's owners were alerted and ordered the freighter to divert to an Italian port. There, intelligence operatives discovered the centrifuges, which are equipment for enriching uranium for civil or military nuclear projects. Officials declined to name the country that supplied the centrifuges. <b>One likely suspect is Pakistan</b>, which has nuclear weapons, and which is believed to have provided nuclear equipment to Iran, whose alleged weapons programme is under intense scrutiny.
A preliminary inspection of Libya's nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency concludedthat the weapons programme was at a very early stage. But the US believes Libya's plans were far more advanced
January 2, 2004
COMMENTARY
<b>Pakistan Plays Nuclear Footsie; Does Anyone Care?</b>
By GOPALASWAMI PARTHASARATHY
Writing his memoirs in his prison cell just before he was executed by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1979, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto stated that his aim as prime minister of Pakistan had been to put the "Islamic Civilization" at par with the "Christian, Jewish and Hindu Civilizations," by giving the Islamic world a "full nuclear capability." In a meeting of top scientists and advisers that he had convened on Jan. 20, 1972, just after assuming office, Bhutto made it clear that he was determined to achieve nuclear capability, not merely to neutralize India's inherent conventional superiority, but also to make his country a leader of the Islamic world.
But how was a cash-strapped Pakistan to get the financial resources to achieve these objectives? Bhutto's press adviser, Khalid Hasan, has since revealed how Bhutto sought and obtained financial assistance from Saudi Arabia and the mercurial Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to fulfill his ambitions. Bhutto also indicated in his prison memoirs that China under Mao's leadership had agreed to provide Pakistan the necessary assistance to build the bomb. Despite changes in leadership in China, there has been no dilution of its nuclear and missile assistance to Pakistan.
While successive rulers in Pakistan have vowed that they would not transfer nuclear technology to others, the IAEA has come up with evidence indicating that both Libya and Iran received assistance in developing uranium enrichment capabilities from Pakistan. Col. Gadhafi had such a close relationship with Bhutto that the latter named the largest cricket stadium in Pakistan the "Gadhafi Stadium." Funds from Libya flowed freely to Pakistan "in suitcases," to fuel its nuclear ambitions. What is even more interesting is that the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran is said to have commenced in 1987, when Pakistan was professing to be a close U.S. ally. Pakistan was then under the rule of Gen. Zia. The entire nuclear program was then, as it is now, under the direct control of the Pakistan army. There is no way that there could have been any "rogue operation" by individual scientists to transfer nuclear technology to Iran, without the knowledge and consent of the Pakistan army.
While Iran and Libya have agreed to comprehensive IAEA inspections of their nuclear facilities under international pressure, there has been little or no attention paid to the nexus between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on nuclear issues. Apart from the revelations of Khalid Hassan about Saudi funding of the Pakistan nuclear program, Mohammed al Khilawi, the senior Saudi diplomat who defected to the U.S. in 1994, has also given details about how Riyadh bankrolled Pakistan and then Iraq to obtain nuclear weapons capabilities.
More recently, eyebrows were raised when the Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan was provided unprecedented access to Pakistan's nuclear enrichment facilities in Kahuta in March 1999. During this visit he invited Dr. A.Q. Khan, the "Father of the Islamic Bomb" to visit Saudi Arabia. Dr. Khan had paid over a dozen visits to North Korea and was instrumental in the transfer of enrichment technology to North Korea in exchange for North Korean missiles. Weapons inspectors in Iraq have traced Iraqi documents showing that Dr. Khan had offered nuclear technology to the Saddam Hussein regime. Dr. Khan's associates, Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood and Abdul Majid visited Kandahar for a quiet pow-wow on nuclear technology with Osama bin Laden. And more recently, Dr. Khan has been questioned for his involvement in the transfer of enrichment capabilities to Iran. He obviously did not visit Saudi Arabia at the personal invitation of its defense minister to discuss Islamic theology!
While Saudi Arabia actively uses "charities" to promote Wahhabi extremism across the world, Pakistan has been the recipient of huge direct economic assistance from the desert kingdom. The Saudis have bailed out Islamabad over the past decade by supplying Pakistan with an estimated $ 1.2 billion of oil products annually, virtually free of cost. Just after the visit of Dr. Khan to Saudi Arabia in November 1999, a Saudi nuclear expert, Dr. Al Arfaj, stated at a seminar that "Saudi Arabia must make plans aimed at making a quick response to face the possibilities of nuclear warfare agents being used against the Saudi population, cities or armed forces." After the departure of American forces from its soil, how does Saudi Arabia propose to deal with such nuclear contingencies? The 2,700-kilometer range CSS-2 missiles that Saudi Arabia obtained from China in 1987 are useless if fitted only with conventional warheads. One cannot, therefore, avoid the inference that like the Pakistan-North Korean nukes for missiles deal, there is an "oil for nukes" deal between the Saudis and Pakistanis.
Washington's response to these developments has been strange. When Mr. Al Khilawi made his revelations about Saudi nuclear ambitions in 1994, a senior official in the Clinton White House remarked: "Can you imagine what would happen if we discovered Saudi had a bomb? We would have to do something and nobody wants that. Best not to ask tough questions in the first place." We are now told that Colin Powell is fully satisfied with General Pervez Musharraf's assurances that the nuclear transfers to North Korea and Iran were done by individual scientists, before he assumed office. If this is indeed true then what is one to make of reports that during a visit of a three-member team of its scientists to Pyongyang in 2001, Pakistan shared data of its nuclear tests with the North Koreans?
In July 2002, U.S. satellites took pictures of C-130 aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force picking up missile components from North Korea. Around the same time, a Pakistani "Shaheen Airlines" aircraft is reported to have transported 47 tons of special aluminum acquired from the U.K. by the Kahuta Research Laboratories established by Dr. Khan, to Pyongyang for its enrichment program. The Clinton administration sought to appease China by pretending that it could not make a "determination" about that country's missile and nuclear transfers to Pakistan. The Bush administration would be ill advised to follow this example.
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Mr. Parthasarathy, a visiting professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, is a former Indian ambassador to Pakistan.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1073002...9911800,00.html
www.rediff.com
<b>Nuke plans came from Pakistan: Libya</b>
January 04, 2004 18:06 IST
Libya bought plans to make a nuclear bomb from Pakistani scientists for "millions of pounds", Saif al-Isalm Gadaffi, son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, has admitted.
In an interview published in The Sunday Times Saif, 32, said his country had spent $40 million to acquire nuclear capability.
Some of the "five-star Libyan scientists" working on the bomb had trained in Britain, he claimed.
He confirmed that Libya had bought nuclear components, including centrifuges, from the black market. Some of the material came from Malaysia and various Asian countries, he said. Other components had been bought on the black market in South Africa.
"We dealt with an underground network of middlemen and secret workshops," he said. "This piece from here, that piece from there."
According to the report, revelations of the extent of Pakistani involvement will certainly increase American and British pressure on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who is already accused of failing to prevent the illicit sale of nuclear material to Iran.
Pakistan admitted last week that "rogue scientists" might have peddled technology for "individual gain". It said several had been questioned, among them Abdul Qadeer Khan, regarded as the "father" of the country's nuclear bomb.
British and American experts who went to inspect Libyan weapons sites were taken aback when they found that nuclear scientists working for Gadaffi had what one western official described as a "full bomb dossier" from the Pakistanis.
Western officials said that the Pakistani scientists could have received from Libya as much as $100 million over several years, starting in the late 1990s.
They appeared to have been working on their own, without the knowledge of the authorities in Islamabad, the report said.
About Libya's decision to abandon its nuclear plans, Saif said he had worked as a "trouble shooter" in talks that alternated between London and Tripoli. "I was able to take messages to my father and explain to him. By the end we had a good relationship with the CIA, MI6 and all the Americans and British," he said.
His father needed reassurance, though, that they were not secretly pushing for "regime change".
"Once they assured us that they did not, everything went forward."
Saif said he now expected Libya to open up, with leading defence manufacturer BAE Systems and British Petroleum coming to the country for "big deals".
The report quoted a senior Arab source saying that some of the components for the Libyan nuclear programme were bought in Dubai and shipped to Libya. Dubai has hitherto been thought of as a transit point for illicit goods from Iran and other countries. This is the first time it has been accused of selling nuclear components, the report said.
<b>'When A Q Khan called me a Hindu b@st@rd'</b>
The Pakistani nuclear scientist who labelled me a "Hindu b@st@rd" is the focus of renewed interest by US and British intelligence services for his role in using Libyan slush money to further his country's weapons programme.
Indeed, Western displeasure with Khan's activities is so considerable now that the government-supplied guards who used to patrol his bungalow in Islamabad's fashionable F block have been withdrawn and the 67 year-old metallurgist is vulnerable to the inquiries of journalists, diplomats, or investigators from all parts of the world.
The questions they all want to direct to the pudgy-faced Bhopal-born scientist is what information he passed on to other governments about the wherewithal for making nuclear bombs that could one day be used to blow the rest of us off the face of this planet.
Last weekend, The Sunday Times in London asserted, controversially, that Libya was far closer to nuclear-testing status than had been previously suspected. If so, Khan's pivotal role is an issue worth considering in detail.
More important than Libya, though, is the information that Khan passed on to North Korea and Iran, offering in vain to do the same for Iraq, and thereby transforming Pakistan into the world's most terrifying nuclear proliferator since the dawn of the nuclear age.
It was my misfortune to cross swords with Khan in 1979 during the course of research for a book on nuclear proliferation. An article on Khan, entitled, 'How Dr Khan stole the bomb for Islam', was duly published in The Observer, London, the newspaper for which I then worked, and immediately attracted Khan's fury.
Three months earlier, Dutch scientists based in the small town of Almelo had briefed me on the activities of their former Pakistani colleague who had worked with them to develop a highly classified process of enriching uranium. Suspicious of Khan because of the questions he asked and the copious notes he made, they were convinced that he would pirate the Almelo technology and reproduce it in Pakistan.
How right they were! After India's first nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974, Khan told Pakistan's then prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, that he could match India's effort, and even surpass it, provided he had the funds and the unqualified backing of his government.
Bhutto gave him both. He even introduced him to Libya's Colonel Muammar Qadhafy who sent suitcases stuffed with dollars to Islamabad in exchange for Bhutto's promise, through Khan, that the technology of the top-secret uranium enrichment plant being developed close to Rawalpindi at Kahuta would one day be transferred to Tripoli.
So began the great nuclear adventure of marrying pirated Dutch enrichment technology to the warhead designs that would later be imported from China.
When details of this project leaked out to The Observer in 1979, Khan's fury was unimagineable. Some of the epithets he used to describe The Observer reporting team included words like "agents" and "bastards". The other expressions he used are too sordid to repeat even now, 25 years later.
Worse was to follow a few years later when veteran Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar, later to be a member of the Rajya Sabha, scored a worldwide scoop by securing an exclusive interview with Khan at his Islamabad home. As Khan's wife Henny served tea, cake, and biscuits to the two men, Khan confirmed the gist of my earlier investigation, namely that Pakistan was engaged in a massive clandestine effort to become the world's next nuclear power.
Nayar's interview was published in The Observer in 1987, alongside my analysis of how Pakistan was now a "threshold" nuclear power.
This time Khan's reaction went even more out of control. In a letter of complaint to the British Press Council, he described the Nayar interview as "false" and "concocted", but his special venom was reserved for me, the "Hindu b@st@rd" who had dared to single him out for so much attention.
The complaint was duly rejected, but news of Khan's letter had spread like wildfire and the "Hindu b@st@rd" on The Observer staff was the subject of many mocking jokes from his colleagues.
Later, the late President Zia-ul-Haq asked me if I retained any hurt about Khan. When I replied in the negative, General Zia smiled and said, "Actually, he's not such a bad fellow."
I have never had a chance to find out what Khan really is like. For years the Pakistani government denied he even existed. When he was later confirmed as a national hero, he became as inaccessible to the foreign media as Mao Tse Tung.
But in the changed world of the 21st century, Khan's future is as uncertain as that of anyone else. He may be dragged off to a 're-education' camp for rogue scientists, or if he is lucky, he may be allowed to live out the rest of his life in respected oblivion. If we should happen to meet, and nothing would make me happier, I will know that even 'Hindu bastards' have a God who smiles upon them.
If I were a pakistani , I would hang myself. No point in living in such shame.
Poor and broke.
Being violated daily by the same people who are supposed to protect you (Army)
Being violated by foreign 'kifir' forces running amock in your mother land(FBI, CIA)
Your leader being constantly patronized by one of your three sworn enemies.
You scientists peddling nuclear secreats like the coke addict selling his family car for 20 bucks.
Your sworn enemies (inda) just kicking your ass and totally dis respecting you and IGNORING you and letting you stew in your own misery.
Having to live with the fact that the very same group of people you used to belong to are a major global power commanding respect all over the world, just because they thought people of all religions,languages and cultures can live together.
In spite of all this lying to yourself that every thing is just all right and you are just fine and dandy.
Maybe it is the kafir Yindoo in me , but I feel sympathy for them <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Iranâs Disclosure of Pakistanâs Aid to Develop Nuclear Weapons and Ceasefire in Kashmir</b>
Guest Column-by Hari Sud
Pakistani strongman General Musharraf these days is appearing very decent and sweet towards India. The other day he offered even to side track the UN Security Council resolution, if it helps in the settlement of the Kashmir dispute. All this began in early December when he pulled a rabbit out of the hat and ordered a ceasefire along the Line of Actual Control in Kashmir (read in between the line â no infiltration along the LOC). This started the ball rolling towards a possible meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee during the SAARC meet. Even the Indian Prime Minister hailed it as a breakthrough and called this development - a result of huge amount of pressure on General Musharraf by India and US, UK & rest of the international community. Unknown to Vajpayee, Iran had at that time told the International Atomic Energy Agency that design of the Uranium-235 Centrifuge was given to them by the Pakistani Chief of the Atomic Energy in mid eighties. Other technical help continued to Iran in a clandestine manner to hoodwink the world opinion. If discovered Pakistani successive administration since 1985 had devised a scheme of deception by calling the transfer of technology as a private enterprise of rogue scientists. Even the American did not know about it. They probably were as surprised as Mr. Vajpayee was, hence quite a bit of uproar ensued in the security circles in Europe and US.
Pakistani army has for long been branded as a rogue army for its involvement with Taliban and Osma Bin Laden. In last two years General Musharraf has turned the matter around and has even managed to get himself wined and dined by President Bush in return for support to catch Osma Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The latter has partially happened. Some key operatives have been caught but the main fish keeps eluding the US, presumably with clandestine Pakistani help. This time in the matter of transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, Pakistan has been caught with its hand in a cookie jar. Various news organizations have curtailed their comments on Pakistan and its army at the behest of the US State Department, but still questions about spread of nuclear technology to Al Qeada, even in its crude state, has not escaped the media attention.
To salvage the Pakistanâs image, which has been battered with the Iranian disclosure, General Musharraf immediately decided to honor all commitments, which he had made but never put them into practice. These include:
* ISI run terrorist camps in the Pakistani Occupied Kashmir were closed in full view of India.
* ISI department responsible for operation in Kashmir was curtailed and its staff transferred elsewhere.
* Out of nowhere, Musharraf ordered a ceasefire along the LOC (India replied in Kind)
* All the minor issues which have been pending for a while â train, bus, air link, trade etc. were to be restored to where they were two years back.
* Musharraf offered to sidetrack the plebiscite issue on Kashmir.
* All the mullahs were told to control their anti American propaganda
* Etc. etc.
With the above Musharraf is pretending to be a statesman, a Kamal Atta Turk, who is willing to discuss and settle all outstanding issues with India. To please the Americans, he ordered further turning the heat a notch on Al Qaeda. He also ordered its intelligence services to cut ties, if any, with Taliban. At the home front a few unwilling generals were transferred from the critical jobs and a settlement with the religious parties in the Parliament was reached in which he will shed the uniform, but will become the Commander â in â Chief and the President of Pakistan. A job Field Marshall Ayub Khan had until his fall after 1965 War with India. Cleverly with this move, he retains the control over the army and civilian administration.
All this happened only after an open statement by the Iranians that Pakistani engineers have been providing them hardware and technical help to build an Atom Bomb for the last 15 years. To upstage this disclosure, Musharraf immediately claimed, that the rogue engineers and scientists have done all this in the past without the knowledge of Pakistani government and the army. He further claimed that this help has now been ended.
General Musharrafâs statements are partially true.
Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineer, since they started working actively on the Atom Bomb in 1978, have been under very strict military surveillance. They could not step out of the security circle as they feared India/Israel may assassinate them. The Chairman of the Pakistani Atomic Energy and Director Nuclear Laboratory at Kahuta, who is one of the engineer named by the Iranians, does not report to the civilian authorities. He reports directly to the military general staff. A senior officer of the rank of a Brigadier acts as his personal bodyguard. Hence it is difficult to assume that the Pakistani army did not know about what the scientist in question was doing. Moreover he gave a prototype of the gas centrifuge to the Iranians, hence this could only have happened with the full knowledge of the army. <b>I do agree that Musharraf at that time, a Brigadier, did not know all the activities at the general staff. Later, Brigadier Musharraf moved to become a Major General, Lt. General and then a full General - how could he avoid not knowing Pakistani Army and the Iranian nexus? It is hard to believe. </b>
I do believe that the civilian prime ministers which followed after 1989 elections, did not know about this transfer of nuclear technology. One cannot be sure about it.
Hence all that sweetness, Which General Musharraf is displaying today is born out of lost face in front of the Americans.
Lucky for General Musharraf, an assassination attempt was made on his life immediately after the Iranian disclosure. This brought in a huge wave of sympathy from the Americans. The second attempt two weeks later set the alarm bells ringing in Washington about the soundness of the American policy in Pakistan.
Not only the American are worried about losing their best friend in Pakistan, they are also worried about a Jehadi general succeeding Musharraf and letting the Al Qaeda and Osma Bin Laden on the nuclear secrets.
Hence where do we in the west stand today:
<b>
General Musharraf is a marked man. Sooner or later an assassin will get to him.
American policy in Pakistan will fall flat on its face as soon as Musharraf is not there. </b>Nuclear weapons in Pakistan could pass into the unsafe hands of a Jehadi general.
Al Qaeda is sure to get hold of enough Uranium and technology to build a crude bomb, sooner than later.
War with India is a certainty, as the new regime will shore up support for itself by starting a war.
Taliban may return to Afghanistan and start terror network all over again.
Iranians will make the full disclosure about their nuclear assets and put their nuclear ambitions on hold.
Libya has already turned around after 25 years of its quest for peace with honor with the West (It may have recently achieved it with full disclosure of its nuclear assets).
<b>Libya is about to disclose that they transferred $1billion to Pakistan in 1978 and stole enough Uranium ore from Chad for Pakistan to build a bomb. </b>
<b>It is just a matter of time that the North Koreans will make a similar disclosure that they got their nuclear technology from Pakistan. The irony is that the Iranians got it in 1984-85, the North Koreans got it in 1998-99. To the latter will be hard for Musharraf to deny or blame a few individual scientists. In this case army was eager to get missile technology from the North Koreans, hence traded a nuclear centrifuge for missiles. </b>
In conclusion, one can say only one thing with great certainty that Americans have been sweet talked into believing Pakistani Army and its ideals. In fact it is a rogue army, lead by rogue generals and helped by rogue scientists and nuclear engineers. America watch out.
(The author is a retired technocrat based in Toronto, Canada-Email-harisud@hotmail.com)
Newsletter at IndiaCause
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In his first State of the Union Address after the September 11 attacks, President Bush said "Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.â The President had Saddam Hussein's Iraq foremost in his mind when he uttered those words. Saddam is gone now and the world is still looking for his WMD cache. There is another regime, however, that is thriving despite having nuclear weapons and strong links to terrorists. It is the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Pakistan is, on the âofficial record,â a US ally in the War on Terrorâ¦â¦â¦
From Indonesia to Australia to Kenya and even Turkey, every terrorist event seems to have a Pakistan connection. Every Islamic terrorist, no matter where he is arrested, seems to be either born in, trained in or has been hiding in Pakistan. Even Pakistani media is aware that their country provides sanctuary to Islamic terrorists from every corner of the globe. One prominent daily reported that as many as 36,000 militants are being trained in the seminaries of a single Pakistani province! Indeed, despite Musharrafâs tall promises, Pakistan still remains Jihad Centralâ¦â¦.
Sinister collusion between Pakistani nuclear scientists, intelligence officials and Al Qaida linked terrorist groups illustrates a clear and present danger to America. But is the Bush administration paying attention? And can it do anything about it? Only time will tell.
Pakistan: Nuclear Trader, Islamist Swamp
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/...le.asp?ID=11298
By Kaushik Kapisthalam
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 15, 2003
In his first State of the Union Address after the September 11 attacks, President Bush said "Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.â The President had Saddam Hussein's Iraq foremost in his mind when he uttered those words. Saddam is gone now and the world is still looking for his WMD cache. There is another regime, however, that is thriving despite having nuclear weapons and strong links to terrorists. It is the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.
Pakistan is, on the âofficial record,â a US ally in the War on Terror. Under Gen.Musharraf, Pakistani authorities have arrested and handed over hundreds of Al Qaeda terrorists and the General himself has appeared intent to transform his country into a moderate, West-friendly Islamic democracy.
But there is also another Pakistan.
A U-Turn?
It would be worthwhile to revisit the speech Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf gave after the 9-11 atrocities explaining his alignment with the US. What many Americans may not know is that Musharraf gave two speeches to his countrymen. Faced with a âwith us or against usâ ultimatum from America, Musharraf gave a speech in English, which only the rich Anglophone Pakistani elite understood, blandly stating that Pakistan is aligning itself with America in the war on terror. A few days later, on September 19, 2001, Musharraf made another speech, this time in Urdu, Pakistanâs national language, not meant for Western ears.
In that speech, Musharraf likened his decision to support America with Prophet Mohammedâs temporary alliance with his enemies, the Jews, called the Treaty of Hudaybiya. He reminded his jihad loving countrymen that the Prophet made a calculated decision to side with the Jews, so that he can ward off the infidels. Later on, the Prophet went back on the alliance and was able to defeat the Jews.
Musharrafâs message was unmistakable. Pakistanâs decision to align with America, which many Pakistanis believe is âcontrolledâ by Jews, was just to ward off a threat from the âinfidelsâ, which was a reference to India, the Hindu majority neighbor of Pakistan. While most Pakistanis would find it hard to understand the intricacies of global politics, they know their Quran well and they knew that Musharraf just promised them that Pakistanâs support for jihad would resume after the immediate crisis with America was averted. Musharraf also reminded his countrymen that he had done everything he can for the Taliban and would strive to ensure that they were not defeated.
More than two years after Musharrafâs two speeches, it is quite clear that whatever Musharraf thought of the promises he made in his English language speech, he definitely meant to live up to the vows he made in his Urdu one.
Taliban Resurgence
Even amidst the chaotic Iraq situation, there has been a steady stream of reports indicating rising US and allied casualties in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters are now reported to be in control of certain districts in Southern Afghanistan and have been able to harass Afghan and US forces almost at will. Everyone, including US officials, Afghan leaders and others have squarely laid the blame for the Taliban resurgence on Pakistan.
The fact is that to date, not a single one of the 500 or so people arrested and handed over by Pakistani authorities to the US is a Taliban leader. In late 2001, Pakistan evacuated hundreds of top Taliban and Al Qaida leaders from the Afghan city of Kunduz, in an apparent deal made with the State Department. US officials later admitted that Pakistanis used that opportunity to whisk away top Taliban leaders.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf a list of top Taliban leaders comfortably ensconced in Pakistan. Gen.Musharraf has refused to arrest them. Western journalists have been easily able to meet top Taliban leaders in big Pakistani cities. Despite this Pakistani authorities brazenly deny that the Taliban leaders are in their country.
Pakistani border guards and troops, instead of stopping the Taliban, have consistently prevented the US troops from attacking the Taliban and have gone as far as attacking US troops. Pakistani madrassa Graduates have provided an unlimited number of foot soldiers for cross border attacks on US troops. Despite this, Pakistani authorities have closed down not one madrassa.
Clearly, Musharraf has lived up to the promise he made to his countrymen that he will not let the Taliban be harmed. Except for the deaths of the thousands of easily replaced foot soldiers, Musharraf has allowed the Taliban leadership to lie low and strike back when the US is distracted with Iraq. The much-touted Pakistani 180 on the support to the Taliban, has turned out to be a 360.
Nuclear Commodity Trading?
One of the biggest crises in the post 9-11 world is the current tense nuclear standoff with North Korea. This standoff came to a head when US intelligence discovered that the North Koreans were secretly developing a Uranium based nuclear weapons program with technology supplied by Pakistan. In fact, US intelligence had tracked a Pakistani nuclear shipment to the Koreans on a C-130 cargo plane that Pakistan received from the US. Egregiously, these transfers occurred as late as the summer of 2002, well after Pakistan became an official US "ally". Nuclear industry journals have given specifics on Pakistani transfer high-speed centrifuge machines, blueprints for the production of nuclear weapons and even "cold test" results to North Korea. A prominent North Korean defector has even claimed that one of the bombs Pakistan tested in 1998 was for North Korea. More recently, as Iran's nuclear program received spotlight, credible reports indicated that Iran's Uranium enrichment technology originated from Pakistan.
To complete its proliferation to the Axis-of-Evil, it is worth mentioning that United Nations inspectors dismantling the Iraqi nuclear program after Operation Desert Storm found evidence Pakistan provided the design for Iraq's nuclear bomb project. Iraqi documents also stated that Dr. A.Q. Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's bomb had offered to help Iraq in its quest for the bomb. Just days ago, Pakistan was reported to have signed a secret nukes-for-oil deal with Saudi Arabia, another militant hotbed. In off the record press conversations, Administration officials try to give gloss over the direct involvement of Pakistani strongman Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan' proliferation acts and try to pass the blame to "rogue" individuals, such as Dr. A.Q. Khan. But that leads to more questions.
If individuals in Pakistan can use state resources like transport aircrafts to transfer nuclear material to other states, then is it not likely that they could transfer, say a small nuclear warhead, to terrorist groups? Besides, what happened to the "tight grip" that Pakistan's military is supposed to have on the nukes, when proscribed material somehow found their way to the Axis-of-Evil charter members? Whether Musharraf sanctioned the proliferation or not, the fact that groups in Pakistan were crazy enough to transfer nukes to other rogue nations after the âwith us or against usâ position of the US was made clear only highlights the severe threat posed by Pakistan.
The threat of loose Pakistani nukes is worrying in and of itself, but when combined with the preponderance of suicidal terrorists in the same circles, the threat acquires a greater imminence and severity. In late 2001, two top Pakistani nuclear scientists were identified by the US as having had contact with Osama Bin Laden. Many reports indicate that when the US sought to interview the scientists and two other nuclear experts with access to the most secret of the Pakistani nuclear facilities, Pakistan shipped them off to Myanmar, far out of American reach. Just prior to 9-11, one of the missing scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin, along with the âfather" of Pakistan's bomb, Dr. A.Q. Khan attended the annual conclave of an Al Qaida linked terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Taiba. Along with other attendees (including retired Pakistan Army Generals) they watched as speaker after speaker made calls for the destruction of India, Israel and the US.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba connection is ominous. Although officially a group fighting to help Pakistan annex Indian Kashmir, the Lashkar is a pan-Islamist terrorist group. It was found to be sheltering Abu Zubeida, a top Al Qaida leader, in its Pakistan safe house. Recently convicted Virginia Jihad terrorists, including American citizens, belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Their indictment says that they trained in Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps in Pakistan. Just recently, the French terrorist arrested in Australia, Willie Brigitte was found to be a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Australian police have uncovered pictures of a nuclear reactor and a list of bomb-making components in his apartment.
Clearly, there is very obvious evidence of a direct link between Pakistanâs nuclear weapons and pan-Islamist terrorist groups whose tentacles reach as far as America and Australia.
Musharrafâs Crackdown â Real or Smoke and Mirrors?
Supporters of Pakistan might say that after 9-11 and Gen.Musharraf has âcracked downâ on such terrorist groups. But has he really? In January 2002, under heavy American pressure, Musharraf banned the Lashkar-e-Taiba and a few other groups. But, immediately, these groups were up and running under new names. The terrorist leaders were never prosecuted. Instead, they were put up in government safe houses and were even paid a fat stipend for their troubles. After the international pressure died down, they were quietly released. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Lashkar-e-Taiba has been openly printing jihad pamphlets and magazines, giving its mailing address as a building within stoneâs throw of the police headquarters in the Pakistani city of Lahore. The terrorist group even managed to publish its material online. The Wall Street Journal says about Lashkarâs website:
Other provocative offerings in recent days include downloadable, jihad-themed audio files, and downloadable computer wallpapers. One collage depicts "evil" with a broken cross, a Star of David, a broken chakra (an Indian emblem), Israeli and Indian flags, the White House, and the Eiffel Tower. An enormous sword exhorts young men to offer themselves up onto the battleground of truth and falsehood. Another vivid image depicts two red raised fists, shackled and chained -- producing a shape nearly identical to the map of undivided Kashmir -- and captioned "Mix your blood with ours."
Pakistani media also reported that the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists have even begun openly collecting funds with no interference from the government. The terrorist leader of the Lashkar has been addressing crowded rallies calling for Jihad on America. Another âbannedâ terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, is also back with a bang. The Jaish has owned up to the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl as well as scores of Church bombings in Pakistan. Despite this, the Pakistani authorities have not only released the terrorist leader of Jaish, but also allowed him to openly collect funds for terrorism.
Just last week, after an unusually stern warning by the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Musharraf banned some of the renamed terrorist groups. But he still would not arrest or prosecute the terrorist leaders. Most egregiously, he still would not ban the re-named Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was singled out by Ambassador Nancy Powell. Contrast this with Musharraf's tough action against his political opponents. One leader has been in prison for seven years without trial. Another has just been arrested on flimsy charges. And these are people whose parties received almost 50% of the popular vote amongst them. But when it comes to terrorism, Musharraf feigns an "inability" to crackdown on the extremists, even though he says that they only form 2% of his country's population. For a dictator who rules by fiats, this is a lame excuse.
The fact is that Gen.Musharraf has still not completely forsaken the idea of using jihad as a foreign policy tool, whether against India or Afghanistan. The terrorists are his allies in that effort. Therefore, he has no intent to meaningfully crackdown on the terrorists. Whenever the pressure builds up Musharraf just arrests some non-Pakistani terrorists to show âprogressâ, while leaving the Pakistani groups unharmed. By doing this, Musharraf may have closed the terror tap for now, but has left the plumbing intact.
Unable to connect the dots â or unwilling?
More than two years after the biggest terrorist attack on America, the cliché "September 11 changed everything" seems to be accepted as a fact by everyone in the policy making circles. But the fact is that the same policy mistakes that led to the 9-11 attacks seem to be repeated in the case of Pakistan. Unlike Saddam Hussein, who foolishly chose to publicly confront America in the pursuit of his goals, Pakistanâs Pervez Musharraf realized that once he publicly aligned himself with America, he could keep pursuing his terror friendly ways with impunity.
From Indonesia to Australia to Kenya and even Turkey, every terrorist event seems to have a Pakistan connection. Every Islamic terrorist, no matter where he is arrested, seems to be either born in, trained in or has been hiding in Pakistan. Even Pakistani media is aware that their country provides sanctuary to Islamic terrorists from every corner of the globe. One prominent daily reported that as many as 36,000 militants are being trained in the seminaries of a single Pakistani province! Indeed, despite Musharrafâs tall promises, Pakistan still remains Jihad Central.
So far America has had to consistently downplay the obvious Pakistani role in the development of a nuclear Iran and North Korea, Taliban resurgence at the cost of the lives and limbs of American troops and being forced to ignore Musharraf's crushing of Pakistani democracy, especially at a time where President Bush is calling for freedom in the Islamic world.
At some point, someone in American policymaking circles needs to evaluate whether all this is a fair price to pay for Pakistani assistance in the capture of a few hundred Al Qaida foot soldiers and the occasional leader, mostly timed to coincide with Musharraf's US visits. Worse still, the sinister collusion between Pakistani nuclear scientists, intelligence officials and Al Qaida linked terrorist groups illustrates a clear and present danger to America. But is the Bush administration paying attention? And can it do anything about it? Only time will tell.
Pakistan's nuclear deals
By M.R. Srinivasan
(The writer is a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.)
There would appear to be a real risk of sensitive nuclear material or even weapon components falling into jihadi or terrorist hands due to the complicity of functionaries at various levels.
NEWSPAPERS IN India and abroad are full of stories about Pakistan helping various countries acquire sensitive nuclear technologies, which can help them, over time, acquire the capability to make nuclear weapons. These reports are dismissed as untrue by Pakistani spokesmen who say they have been, and continue to be, committed to nuclear non-proliferation. The American media is full of stories about Pakistan assisting North Korea, Iran and Libya in enriching uranium, an essential step to produce bomb grade nuclear material. Senior U.S. leaders claim that Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf has assured the U.S. that no nuclear co-operation between Pakistan and these countries is taking place at present. But the reality is that such cooperation has been going on from the 1980s.
The architect of Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme, Abdul Qadir Khan, had worked for a number of years in Holland at the uranium enrichment plant owned by Urenco, a Dutch-German-U.K. consortium. This was the first commercial scale uranium enrichment plant using the gas-centrifuge process. Earlier plants of that kind used the gaseous diffusion process, pioneered by the U.S. and built thereafter in the USSR, Britain, France and China. These plants produce highly enriched uranium (having a high concentration of uranium-235), which is a bomb grade material. The alternative bomb grade material is plutonium produced from natural uranium in a nuclear reactor. The gaseous diffusion process has the limitation that it has to have a larger size or high throughput and uses large quantities of electrical energy. The gas centrifuge process is suited for smaller scale plants and needs smaller amounts of energy. When Dr. Qadir Khan worked in Holland, he systematically stole the blueprints and specifications of the process and took them with him when he decided to work for the Pakistan programme. Although a Dutch court convicted him of indulging in this unlawful activity, no punishment was imposed on him.
During much of the 1970s and 1980s, Pakistani agents were procuring from European and North American sources various sensitive material and equipment in violation of export control regulations in the countries of origin. These included maraging steel for making centrifuge cylinders, high frequency power supplies to drive the centrifuge rotors at high speed, and plants for making uranium hexaflouride gas. Some persons and companies indulging in this trade were caught by several governmental agencies in Europe and North America and were charged with offences. After lengthy trials and juicy publicity, no punitive action was taken.
Dr. Qadir Khan played a key role in identifying the commercial and industrial entities who could deliver various equipment required for the nuclear weapon programme as he was familiar with these institutions from his association with the Dutch activity. Whatever the economic difficulty Pakistan faced, the nuclear weapon activity was never starved of resources.
While Pakistan made good progress on enrichment of uranium because of Dr. Qadir Kahn's Dutch connections, it still needed vital inputs on the design of a nuclear weapon and certain critical hardware. This is where the long established friendship with China proved handy. In agreeing to give Pakistan design information on one of its early nuclear weapons and some hardware, China gained access to gas centrifuge technology for enriching uranium, which Pakistan had by them established. Some years later when Pakistan needed missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, China once again came to its aid. After the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) came into force in the 1990s at the urging of the U.S., China found it difficult to satisfy Pakistani aspirations on missile acquisition. By that time, North Korea emerged as a source for obtaining missiles and associated technology. It also coincided with a period when North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and began to work on a nuclear weapon programme. Thus Pakistan and North Korea got engaged in a missiles-for-nuclear-weapons-technology transfer. It has been widely reported that Dr. Qadir Khan made over a dozen trips to North Korea in the 1990s.
Now we come to the more recent cases. Iran admitted a few months ago that it had undertaken work on enrichment of uranium though it insisted that this was purely for peaceful purposes. Even in the early 1990s, western media reports alleged that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon programme. I had occasion to visit nearly all the Iranian nuclear facilities in 1991. At that time, Iran had just one electromagnetic separator of Chinese origin, ostensibly for research and development work. As Iraq found earlier, the electromagnetic separation process of enrichment, which the U.S. had abandoned in the 1940s, was indeed unviable. So the Iranians followed the prospects of a gas centrifuge process. There are reports that Iran had centrifuges similar to those Pakistan had used in the early phase of its programme. Radioactivity levels measured at the Iranian facilities show evidence of highly enriched uranium. Iran explained this as contamination from an earlier location. The needle of suspicion points only to Pakistan. There are reports of Dr. Qadir Khan making frequent visits to Iran and even owning a villa on the Caspian Sea. Iran has now agreed to a more stringent regime of inspections including surprise inspections, from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The most recent episode is the announcement from Libya that it was suspending all work on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and opening its facilities to the more stringent inspections of the IAEA. A few years after Pokhran-I test of 1974, Col. Maumar Qaddafi of Libya made a serious offer to India to get nuclear weapon technology in exchange for substantial sums of money, oil and other business. India fended off this proposition in a polite manner. However it appears that in recent years, Libya has sought help from the only source that was available to it, namely Pakistan, to get nuclear weapon technology. There are reports once again of uranium enrichment work in Libya using the centrifuge process, very similar to that in Pakistan.
The country that has probably picked up most of the bills for the Pakistani nuclear weapons is Saudi Arabia. All the rulers of Pakistan in recent decades have cultivated cordial relations with the Saudi royal family. Important Saudi leaders have had access to Pakistani nuclear weapons facilities. Considering that Saudi Arabia does not have the pool of technical manpower or facilities of Iraq or Iran, any transfer from Pakistan may have to be more than mere technology or knowhow. It may involve ready to assemble nuclear weapons, from kits that may be sent across should a need arise.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who launched the Pakistani nuclear weapon programme, referred to it as an `Islamic Bomb'. He talked about the goal in civilisational terms and not simply in the context of Pakistani security. He used the religion card effectively to get financial support from the conservative petro-rich Islamic states. At present when mounting evidence of Pakistani complicity in spreading nuclear weapon technology widely has come into the open, there are reports that key aides of Dr. Qadir Khan are being questioned.
It is entirely possible that the jihadi mentality pervades several levels of the Pakistani scientific leadership. Two aspects of Dr. Qadir Khan have received public attention; the first is his visceral hatred of India and the second his vainglorious attitude. It is quite possible he himself has engendered a jihadi world view among his colleagues. But it will be sacrilege to point an accusing finger at him in Pakistan and we may be certain that no guilt will be heaped on him. But
what is of concern to the outside world in general and India in particular is that the claim that Gen. Musharraf makes that he is in full control of the nuclear weapon programme and can promise that only responsible actions will be taken by Pakistan at all times, may only be rhetoric devoid of substance. There would appear to be a real risk of sensitive nuclear material or even weapon components falling into jihadi or terrorist hands due to complicity of functionaries at various levels.
Now that a thaw is Indo-Pakistan relations has set in, there is expectation of a return to normality in the relations between the two countries leading to meaningful discussions to resolve the outstanding differences. The 1999 Lahore Memorandum of Understanding signed between India and Pakistan envisages among others nuclear confidence building measures. An impediment to agreement on these CBMs would be Pakistan's track record in assisting nuclear proliferation over the past two decades or more and the general feeling that the controls on dispersal of sensitive nuclear information are porous at best. Furthermore, there is the impression that some scientists, even at senior levels, are acting as conduits in supplying sensitive WMD information to potential terrorists. Pakistan will have to be candid with Indian interlocutors and convince them that whatever may have happened in the past, Pakistan will cease to encourage nuclear proliferation and act as a responsible nuclear weapon state.
http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/13/stories/...301000.htm
<b>ABDUL QADEER KHAN â LOTASTAANI GODFATHER OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION</b>
<b>Inside the A-Bomb Bazaar
Evidence mounts that Pakistani scientists sold nuclear know-how to a triad of rogue nations</b>
Dapper Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was always a man with a mission â even if it was long shrouded in obscurity. Some 30 years ago, he allegedly stole blueprints for enriching uranium from the top-secret Dutch lab where he worked. For decades, his team in Pakistan labored behind heavily guarded walls to produce enough of the fuel to make A-bombs. In 1998 he watched proudly as Pakistan detonated its first nuclear devices beneath the scorched desert hills of Baluchistan, shocking an unsuspecting world. A public hero at last to exultant countrymen, he was hailed throughout the Muslim world as the "father of the Islamic Bomb."
Now Khan is earning new renown as the godfather of nuclear proliferation, a dangerous salesman who helped bring the Bomb within closer reach of other eager powers. Since Iran and Libya were exposed in recent months as nuclear-weapon owners in the making, Khan and more than six other scientists who worked with him, plus an undisclosed number of Pakistani diplomats and intelligence agents posted abroad, have been under investigation in Islamabad for sharing the playbook of atomic weapons with those states, well-placed foreign intelligence sources tell TIME. Khan has long been suspected of orchestrating Pakistan's nukes-for-missiles swap with North Korea, and his name even appeared in a 1990 letter from a Dubai middleman to Saddam Hussein offering to sell Iraq the scientist's nuclear know-how.
U.S. intelligence officers have joined the Pakistani probe, hoping it will provide clues to unmask and stamp out clandestine nuclear-procurement networks. The one Khan pioneered for Pakistan is considered a model for would-be Bomb builders. "I've always thought that A.Q. Khan's Rolodex is the most important thing of all in giving people advice on how to put all the pieces together," says Robert Oakley, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. Washington is worried that someone might barter away Pakistan's nuclear secrets to terrorists.
One question no one involved wants to address is whether Khan and his colleagues operated on their own or at the behest of the Pakistani government. President Pervez Musharraf, who under pressure from Washington sacked Khan as head of nuclear-weapons development in early 2001, insists that his four-year-old government has never dabbled in nuclear trade â whatever past regimes might have done. It's possible that Khan & Co. or the military and intelligence officers who long supported such deals acted independently. "I think that during his administration there was a lot going on," said Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, declining to give details. Investigators in Islamabad tell TIME that a handful of scientists now being interrogated were selling the nation's nuclear secrets for their own profit or for ideological reasons. Those investigators absolve the government and steer clear of fingering Khan as the ringleader. Eager to keep Musharraf in power and a partner in the war on terrorism, the Bush Administration also tiptoes around the issue of Pakistan's official role. Yet some proliferation experts in the U.S. doubt that rogue scientists and their cronies in the security services could have arranged such supersecret, high-level deals without government approval.
The possession of nuclear weapons haunts the subcontinent. The West has long feared that religious extremism and the violent struggle for dominance in the disputed territory of Kashmir could ignite a nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India. In a welcome rollback of tensions, the two countries pledged last week to work out half a century of differences peacefully in negotiations beginning in February.
Fear of far larger India started Pakistan on the pursuit of A-bombs in the 1960s. The U.S. concluded then that Pakistan's old patron China, also hostile to India, gave Islamabad crude technology for brewing Bombs. But it was the young metallurgist Khan who initiated Pakistan's crucial breakthrough when he went to work for Urenco, the Netherlands consortium that perfected technology for enriching uranium to Bomb-grade strength in gas centrifuges. After Khan went home to Pakistan in 1976, Dutch authorities charged him with stealing the centrifuge plans and tried him in absentia. Khan's conviction was later overturned on a technicality.
Gas centrifuges indisputably formed the basis of Pakistan's nuclear success. At the Kahuta enrichment facility, later renamed the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), the scientist and his team mastered the art of making Bomb fuel. Khan was especially clever at setting up the secret supply network that Pakistan used through the 1980s and '90s to circumvent global controls on sensitive parts and materials, even as the government denied it was doing so. Using shell companies based in the Middle East and willing or unwitting middlemen, Khan managed to scavenge the necessary components from all over the U.S., Canada and Europe.
U.S. officials are convinced that Khan was the key player in the barters that Pakistan made with North Korea. A 1994 agreement with the U.S. froze work at Pyongyang's nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant. Three years later, in exchange for the design of the centrifuges plus components to enrich uranium, Pakistan obtained from North Korea 600mile-range, nuclear-capable Nodong missiles that Khan's lab retooled and renamed the Ghauri. U.S. intelligence alleges he made a dozen or so visits to Pyongyang over several years.
Iran may have been another client. Investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who examined suspected nuclear facilities in Iran late last year found signs of a Pakistan connection. They uncovered evidence showing that when Iran's own efforts to master enrichment failed in the late 1980s, Tehran acquired Pakistani-style centrifuge technology, including parts and detailed designs for machines remarkably similar to ones in KRL's workshops. Western intelligence says Khan paid several clandestine visits to Iran's Bushehr nuclear-power plant, though he denies it.
When mercurial Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi abruptly renounced his nuclear ambitions at the end of December, he exposed another case of Pakistani proliferation. Investigators now exploring Libya's projects have found "interconnections" with Pakistan's technology and a backdoor trading network, according to a New York Times report. The U.S. thinks oil-rich Libya first began funding Pakistan's nuclear development in the 1970s and periodically supplied raw uranium. Washington officials say Gaddafi was eventually rewarded with Pakistan's centrifuge designs and secret supplies of essential materiel that helped Libya close in on nuclear-fuel production.
Khan is hardly the only Pakistani scientist to raise international suspicion. Shortly after 9/11, two retired nuclear experts with ties to Muslim extremists were questioned by the FBI about allegations that they had discussed developing weapons with al-Qaeda. Islamabad's current inquiry is focused on a group of Khan subordinates. The investigators tell TIME that Khan acknowledges "authorizing" some of their trips to Libya, Iran and North Korea but says he had "no idea" whether they were conducting clandestine business on their own. But Khan is widely regarded as the man with the knowledge and the authority to make the big deals. He was in complete, unchallenged control of KRL until 2001. A former colleague of his claims that Khan could fly anywhere without permission, make any deal he wanted. The tall, silver-haired scientist amassed a personal fortune that pays for a lavish lifestyle. His position and revered status would earn plenty of perks. But many, including U.S. intelligence officials, believe he acquired those riches peddling his nuclear expertise.
In rare public statements, Khan has insisted he is a peaceful man opposed to nuclear proliferation. (He denied TIME's requests for an interview.) A former Musharraf aide says Khan's megaton ego â almost as much as U.S. charges that he ran a nuclear bazaar â persuaded Musharraf to force him into retirement. But Pakistani investigators remain leery of squeezing the national hero too tightly. Khan is a public icon, his hawkish face known to every schoolchild. Arresting him could trigger dangerous protest among Islamist extremists and senior military officers who feel Musharraf has already gone too far in appeasing the White House. Khan's travel has been restricted, and even inside Pakistan, he is always accompanied by two military officers. He rarely leaves his Islamabad mansion except to venture out to feed wild monkeys that swing down in the nearby forest. Officials in Washington meanwhile cross their fingers that Musharraf can and will make sure that with Khan sealed away, Pakistan's nuclear giveaway is over.
Cheers
Last time I heard Kasuri was blaming India and its scientists.
Iran <b>names Pak scientists who assisted its nuclear programme</b>
Iran, which admitted that Pakistani scientists had helped its nuclear programme, has given some names to the United Nation's nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iran did give some names to IAEA and Pakistan as well, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri was quoted as saying by the official APP news agency.
He said that the names communicated by Iran not only included some Pakistanis but also some Europeans and few from a Gulf country.
Pakistan's security agencies are currently questioning some of the country's top nuclear scientists for allegedly assisting Iranian and Libyan nuclear weapons programme.
<b>Kasuri said the allegations of proliferation against Pakistani scientists concerned dates back to several years ago.</b>
He said Pakistan is a responsible country and fulfils the international obligations very seriously.
Pakistan, being a responsible country, has conducted certain debriefing sessions with some scientists as there was no way that the leakage or proliferation from Pakistan could be tolerated, Kasuri said.
01-14-2004, 09:52 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-14-2004, 09:54 AM by SSridhar.)
Though not directly relevant to this thread, I am posting this to reveal the mindset of such people as Mr. Hallam .
India and Pakistan must eliminate nuclear weapons
About a year ago Syemour Hersh had mentioned in New Yorker something like <i>"if we get incinerated with an A or dirty bomb, we can thank Pakistan for it"</i>Does anyone have that article archived?
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