Islamic Nuke

01-14-2004, 09:11 PM

John Hallam should talk. Where was he when Australia enthusiastically supported Britain by allowing nuclear testing on her soil in the fifties. It is all very easy to talk when you are provided a nuclear umbrella by the superpower. People living in glass houses should not throw rocks at others. We should ignore the non-prol mafia. If they are really sincere they should first get Australia out from under the nuclear umbrella of the US.

01-14-2004, 11:55 PM

LIBYA RATIFIES NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY

VIENNA: Libya has ratified the nuclear test ban treaty, an UN agency said Wednesday, less than three weeks after the North African country publicly renounced its weapons of mass destruction.

Libya's nuclear program was nowhere near producing a weapon. Still, the announcement by the U.N. agency overseeing the agreement appeared to be a further sign of commitment by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to give up nuclear weapons activities.

The Vienna-based agency _ known as the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization _ said in a statement that in ratifying the pact, Libya agreed to host a monitoring station at Misratah. That would be part of a network of 337 stations being set up to verify compliance with terms of the
treaty.

Libya announced Dec. 19 that it was giving up its weapons of mass destruction after months of secret talks with the United States and Britain. It said then it would sign the test ban treaty and become a party to the convention prohibiting chemical weapons.

Cheers

01-19-2004, 01:04 AM

Another screen play by Mushy, what a jokeSources: Nuclear scientists questioned in Pakistan
From Syed Mohsin Naqvi CNN
Sunday, January 18, 2004 Posted: 12:33 PM EST (1733 GMT)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Authorities in Pakistan are questioning three former army officers and four people in the country's nuclear program as part of an investigation into the possible spread of the country's nuclear weapons technology, Pakistani intelligence sources said Sunday.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told CNN that the questioning was related to Pakistan's ongoing investigation of Pakistani scientists who are suspected of passing nuclear technology to Iran.

Those being questioned include two retired brigadier generals, a retired major, three scientists and a technician, the intelligence sources said.

Sultan said the interrogation is a routine procedure, "part of the greater investigation that has already been under way" and that "these people were taken in to fill in the gap."

The investigation was opened in mid-November 2003. Pakistani authorities questioned three nuclear scientists in December. One has completed the debriefing session and two others are still being debriefed, according to Pakistani authorities.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apa...ear%20Detention

Pakistan questions nuclear scientists

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan has expanded an investigation of its premier nuclear weapons laboratory, detaining as many as seven scientists and administrators amid allegations sensitive technology may have spread to countries such as Iran, North Korea and Libya, officials said Sunday.

Pakistan has strongly denied any official involvement in sharing technology to those countries but has acknowledged that individual scientists acting on their own account may leaked information.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said over the past few days between five and seven personnel at the Khan Research Laboratories were taken in for questioning. But he said the detained men were not "necessarily involved in something or have allegations against them."

Among the detained was Islam-ul Haq, a director at the laboratory, who was picked up Saturday as he was dining at the residence of the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The laboratory is named after Khan, a national hero for leading Pakistan to its underground test of the Islamic world's first nuclear bomb in 1998. The bomb was designed as a deterrent to Pakistan's nuclear-armed neighbor, India. Haq is Khan's principal staff officer.

Haq's wife, Nilofar Islam, said Khan told her that her husband was detained but "we have had no contact with him. We don't know where he is and what he is being asked."

The nuclear program investigations came as Pakistan intensifies crackdowns as part of the U.S.-led war on terror, most recently arresting seven suspected al-Qaida militants on Sunday and seizing a weapons cache in the teeming port city of Karachi.

During the past two months, Pakistan has interrogated a handful of scientists at the laboratory, acting on information about Iran's nuclear program from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. watchdog, officials say.

Khan has also been questioned, although he has not been detained and is still treated as an official dignitary in Pakistan.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said American officials have presented evidence to Pakistan's leaders of Pakistani involvement in the spread of nuclear weapons technology.

The Jan. 2 arrest of South African-based businessman Asher Karni at a Denver airport, accused of smuggling nuclear bomb triggers to Pakistan, deepened suspicions of the country's involvement in the nuclear black market.

The New York Times also reported that sophisticated centrifuge design technology used to enrich uranium had been passed to Libya even after a pledge by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to rein in Pakistani scientists. Pakistan dismissed the allegation as "absolutely false."

Libya announced last month it was giving up its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs and pledged to name its suppliers.

U.S. officials say many of the names probably will be Pakistani. They say evidence points to Pakistani nuclear experts as the source of at least some technology that Libya used; similar reports have arisen about probable Pakistani assistance to Iran.

Pakistan also has been accused of swapping nuclear technology to North Korea in return for missiles.

On Sunday, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for Pakistan's powerful military, said Pakistan remained "committed to nonproliferation."

The allegations could damage a growing U.S. relationship with Pakistan, a key ally in the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks.

01-19-2004, 02:08 AM

LOTASTAAN DETAINS AIDE TO COUNTRYâS NUCLEAR BOMB PIONEER

ISLAMAWORST: Pakistani authorities have detained a senior aide of top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan amid a probe into the alleged leaking of nuclear information to Iran, his family said Sunday.

"Major Islam ul-Haq was picked up by the security officials from the residence of Doctor Qadeer Khan at about 8:30 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday," his wife Nilofer told. Islam, a retired member of the military, is the principal staff officer of Qadeer Khan, who created Pakistan's nuclear bomb.

"Some army officers, including members of the military intelligence, came in two jeeps and said they want to take Major Islam for interrogation," Nilofer said. No official comment was immediately available.

Qadeer Khan headed the country's uranium enrichment facility, the Kahuta Research Laboratory (KRL), near Islamabad until retiring in 2002. Two KRL directors, Yasin Chohan and Farooq Mohammad, were taken from their homes in December for questioning. Chohan has since returned home but Farooq is still being questioned.

Qadeer Khan had also been questioned earlier but officials denied his movements were restricted. Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan said last month "a very small number" of scientists were being questioned over allegations of leaking nuclear information to Iran and a subsequent request from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Pakistan for cooperation.

The spokesman said Pakistan had placed some senior nuclear scientists under investigation because of information they may have cooperated with Iran's
nuclear programme for "personal ambition or greed."

Pakistan became a nuclear power in May 1998 when it conducted underground
nuclear tests. But it has consistently denied reports that it has exported its
nuclear know-how to any other country.

Cheers

01-19-2004, 09:11 PM

Wahabi nuke

Waiting for the Wahabi time-bomb?

B Raman

In 1995, Wahabi terrorists belonging to a Pakistani organisation then called the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), and now called the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), kidnapped a group of Western tourists in J&K. They operated under the assumed name, Al Faran. One of them, an American, managed to escape. It was reported that the terrorists slit the throat of an European, like one slits the throat of a sacrificial goat. As he bled to death, they sat round him, prayed and thanked Allah for giving them an opportunity to kill a Christian. We do not know what happened to the remaining Western tourists.

In October 1997, the US designated Al Faran a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. Pakistan did not act against it. In December 1999, two months after the Pakistan Army under General Pervez Musharraf seized power, Wahabi terrorists from the same organisation hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft and forced it to fly to Kandahar, Afghanistan, which was then under the control of the Taliban and where Osama bin Laden was then living and plotting his terrorist strikes against the US.

On the way, they separated a young boy (Rupin Dang) from his newly-married wife and slit his throat like one slits the throat of a sacrificial goat. As he bled to death, they sat round him, prayed and thanked Allah for giving them an opportunity to kill a Hindu. After the hijacking ended, the Pakistani hijackers escaped to Pakistan. Till today, Pakistan has not arrested them and handed them over to India for trial. Nor did it ban the organisation.

Today, three years later, the Wahabi hijackers are still roaming free in Pakistan, plotting more terrorist strikes against India, the US, Israel and other nations of the world. Pakistan has avoided acting against them. In January 2002, Pakistani Wahabi terrorists belonging to organisations allied to the HuM and the Al Qaeda kidnapped a young American journalist Daniel Pearl. After some days, they slit his throat like one slits the throat of a sacrificial goat. As he bled to death, they sat round him, prayed and thanked Allah for giving them an opportunity to kill a Jew. Pakistan claimed to have brought to trial the terrorists responsible. One of them was even sentenced to death, but the sentence has not been carried out. The world does not as yet know the full facts of the case.

President Pervez Musharraf recently sought to reward this officer by posting him as Pakistan's High Commissioner to Australia. It reportedly refused to accept him. The Pakistani media has reported that Musharraf now proposes to send him as Ambassador to Indonesia. Reward for what? For raising a terrorist and motivating him to kill Indians and Americans? The world does not know the truth.

The Muslims of Kashmir are largely descendents of converts from Hinduism and had been influenced in the past by the traditions of tolerance of Sufism. Since 1993, the ISI, by infiltrating hundreds of jihadis of Wahabi-Deobandi orientation into the State, has been trying to Wahabise the Muslims and rid them of the influence of tolerant Sufism. The extent of the infiltration of ISI-trained Wahabis into the State would be evident from the fact that whereas before 1999, the number of foreign Wahabi mercenaries killed by the Indian Security forces in the State came to an average of 172 per annum, it has steeply gone up to an average of 951 per annum since the Army under Musharraf seized power in October, 1999. The majority of them were Pakistanis. A small number of terrorists belonging to 18 other nationalities have also been killed or captured.

The Wahabi mercenaries from Pakistan have introduced suicide terrorism into J&K since 1999. There have been 46 acts of suicide terrorism or fidayeen attacks in J&K since General Musharraf came to power, of which 44 have been carried out by Pakistani Wahabi terrorists. The hopes placed by the US Administration in the Government of Pervez Musharraf that it would eradicate the snake-pit of Wahabi jihadi terrorism in the Pakistan soil have been belied. While pretending to take action, he has taken no action to prevent the infiltration of Wahabi terrorists not only into India, but also into Afghanistan, to stop the flow of funds to the terrorists and to wind up the terrorist infrastructure.

The time has come for the US to act to eradicate this snake-pit of Wahabi jihadi terrorism, which threatens international peace and security. Otherwise, there will be no enduring freedom for the free nations of the world. A democratic state, whether the US, India, Israel or any other country, has no greater duty than to protect its citizens from these irrational jihadi serial killers and eradicate them before they manage to lay hands on what they call Pakistan's Islamic atomic bomb and turn it into a Wahabi atomic bomb.
http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_...t&counter_img=3

rhytha · (This post was last modified: 01-20-2004, 12:40 PM by rhytha.)

Link Leaks
The Iran-Pakistan nuclear story continues to unfold.

By Simon Henderson

âMy father told me that if ever anything happened to him, I was to call you," said the plaintive, attention-grabbing voice of a young Pakistani woman on the telephone to me Sunday. Her father, a nuclear scientist, had been detained by Pakistan's feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). They had come in the evening and told her father to pack a small bag, with personal articles sufficient for a few days. Barely able to hold back the tears, she passed me onto her brother. "There had been five or six standing by the door and another three or so in a four-wheel-drive vehicle and another car outside," he told me.

At least four men have been arrested in the last few days, bringing my tally to a total of at least seven scientists arrested since the beginning of December. (One person over the weekend told me between 25 and 30 scientists and other experts might have been detained so far.) The Pakistani authorities have publicly acknowledged only a few of the detentions, saying they are trying to work out whether "renegade nuclear experts" have helped neighboring Iran develop a nuclear-weapons program.

Why phone me? I have written about Pakistan's nuclear-weapons endeavors for more than 25 years. I have a variety of good contacts. The woman who called me clearly thinks publicity could help her father and the others. I previously wrote "Nuclear Spinning: The Iran-Pakistan Link" in December for NRO, a few days after the first arrests. It had been prompted by other telephone calls.

The story is bizarre. It is also probably true â although it is safe to assume we have so far learned only a fraction of that truth. In essence, the story is that Pakistani scientists, directly or indirectly, allowed Iran to acquire centrifuges suitable for enriching uranium. The centrifuges were discovered when international inspectors visited Iran last year, much to the embarrassment of President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader turned dictator. Under pressure to cooperate with the U.S. against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, Musharraf himself is threatened by Islamic extremists, as two failed assassination attempts in the last month testify. Iran's public nuclear-centrifuge admission is giving Washington an excuse to hammer Pakistan for its long history of reckless proliferation, previously thought to have been in exchange for Chinese and North Korean assistance. But whatever Musharraf might have known about Iran for years, first as a senior general, and then as chief of army staff (the Pakistani army is guardian of the country's nuclear project), he is now claiming total ignorance â and innocence â as head of state.

The arrested men all worked at the Khan Research Laboratories, a uranium-enrichment plant outside the capital city of Islamabad. In 1981, the then military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, gave the plant its current name in honor of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who created it in the 1970s. This gesture was intended to annoy the United States, and it did. What is going on now appears, in part, to be Washington's revenge. Using the Iran-centrifuge scandal, Washington can pressure Musharraf to shut down perhaps half of his nuclear-weapons projects.

Khan himself was retired on his 65th birthday in April 2001, against his own wishes. President Musharraf, who had taken power in a military coup in 1999, apparently was responding to U.S. demands. He also retired Khan's main rival, Samar Mubarakmand, at the same time. Khan had followed the highly enriched-uranium route to the bomb; Mubarakmand's team had followed the plutonium route. Both groups successfully tested devices in Pakistan's May 1998 nuclear blasts. Both teams also separately worked on providing Pakistan with missiles capable of carrying nuclear bombs. Khan's group acquired a Nodong production line from North Korea â the missile is known as the Ghauri in Pakistan, and is in operational service. The plutonium team chose the Chinese M-11 missile, known in Pakistan as the Shaheen.

Last month the Pakistani government briefed a select few of its journalists to report that rogue scientists had used German go-betweens to sell their secrets to Iran. The scientists had also been helped by two Sri Lankan businessmen in Dubai, the journalists were told. "The [scientists] were motivated entirely by money," went the briefing line.

Khan's name did not appear in the subsequent reports, but it is clear that Khan is considered the center of the web. He probably hasn't been arrested himself only because he is a national hero. In Pakistan, he is known as "the father of the Islamic bomb." But he has been invited in for questioning nonetheless, most recently last Saturday evening. It started at 6 P.M. and was not finished until after 9 P.M. A friend who spoke to him later reported that, although Khan said he was okay, he sounded exhausted.

Two other men were detained around the same time: Major Islam ul-Haq, Khan's personal staff officer, and Nazeer Ahmed, a director at KRL with a British Ph.D., who was Khan's principal and closest aide in the KRL headquarters for many years. The men arrested in December had been linked to centrifuge production and purchases of equipment from abroad. One, Saeed Ahmed, had been head of the centrifuge-design office, another, Yasin Chohan, ran a production line. Both have been released. A third, Farooq Mohammed, is still detained; his family went to court last week to secure his release. This week, they will learn the result â but they are not optimistic. Legal niceties about habeas corpus take second place in a military regime.

The story could be bigger than just leaks of uranium-enrichment technology. Two other men arrested last week, Abdul Majid and Mansoor Alam (also directors at KRL), had both been directly involved in the first 1998 nuclear test, watching from a distance when a device using highly enriched uranium had been detonated under the Chagai Hills in Pakistan's southwestern region.

But to believe the storyline dictated so far by the Musharraf regime, you have to believe that a group of scientists, motivated by national glory (the quest for a bomb), was distracted by the opportunity to earn a quick buck (selling secrets to Iran, a potential enemy). The whole escapade apparently completely escaped the notice of a wide array of governments, some military, some democratic.

None of this makes any sense, yet. But with the keywords "Iran," "Islamic terrorism," and "nuclear proliferation," this should be one of the stories to watch in 2004.

â Simon Henderson is a London-based associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

01-21-2004, 10:20 PM

---NYTIMES.com

Pakistan Bars Its Nuclear Scientists From Traveling Abroad
By SALMAN MASOOD and DAVID ROHDE
Published: January 21, 2004

SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 20 â Pakistan on Tuesday barred all scientists working on its nuclear weapons program from leaving the country, as the government intensified its inquiry into allegations that nuclear technology had been shared with Iran.

At the same time, a senior intelligence official said a former army commander had approved the transfer of technology to Iran.

The official said the scientist who had led the effort to build an atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had told investigators that any sharing of nuclear technology with Iran had the approval of Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the commander of Pakistan's army from 1988 to 1991. The official said aides to Dr. Khan had told investigators the same thing.

It is not known if investigators have questioned General Beg, who is retired. While army chief, General Beg publicly advocated a strategic partnership between Iran and Pakistan. But in an interview in November, the general said he had not approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran or any other country.

"I was privy to the nuclear policy," he said. "There was a policy of nuclear restraint."

American officials say they believe that Pakistan has shared nuclear technology with Iran, North Korea and Libya. Pakistani officials have said that no technology was given to Libya, that no technology is currently going to North Korea and that the allegations about Iran are being aggressively investigated.

They have said that individuals may have leaked technology to Iran in the late 1980's and early 1990's, but that the government never authorized such a move.

In a speech to Parliament on Saturday, President Pervez Musharraf, a general who seized power in a coup in 1999, said Pakistan had to prove to the international community that it was a responsible nuclear power.

Within hours, eight former and current officials were taken into custody for questioning, government officials said. Three scientists had already been detained for questioning in November and December.

The aggressiveness of the inquiry has provoked protests across the political spectrum and accusations that the Musharraf government is reacting to pressure from Washington.

On Monday an alliance of hard-line Islamic parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Front, announced that it would begin nationwide street demonstrations.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the acting head of the religious alliance, which holds the third-largest number of seats in Parliament, called the inquiry the "worst kind of victimization of national heroes to please the Bush administration."

Secular, pro-Western political parties and analysts, as well as the families of the scientists, also criticized the government, saying scientists lauded as national heroes weeks ago were now being humiliated. They said senior army and government officials were scapegoating scientists to increase their own credibility with Western leaders.

Khwaja Asif, a member of Parliament for the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), a secular party, said it was doubtful that individuals could secretly transfer technology without the military knowing.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan Khan, a military spokesman, called the new travel restriction a security precaution. "Until the time investigations are completed," he said, "the government has to ensure that the scientists are present here."

Government officials said eight current and former officials in the nuclear program, including two retired brigadiers, a retired major and at least three scientists, were undergoing voluntary questioning and were able to contact their families. They emphasized that no one had been accused of wrongdoing so far.

Families of the officials give an entirely different account. They put the number of people being questioned at 20 to 25. They also said those being held were forcibly detained and had not contacted their families while in custody.

Two of three scientists known to have been detained in December have been allowed to return to their families, relatives said. Most of the others have not contacted their families, including one scientist taken into custody at the end of November, the families say.

All of the officials being questioned appear to have been employed at the Khan Research Laboratories, the country's main nuclear weapons development facility in Kahuta. All are believed to be close aides to Dr. Khan, who is himself being questioned.

Saima Adil, the eldest daughter of Dr. Nazir Ahmed, a chief engineer at the Kahuta labs, said 8 to 10 unidentified men surrounded the family's house on Saturday evening.

"They took our father away," she said, "and till now we don't have no idea about his whereabouts or his condition.

"Such a treatment is tantamount to terrorizing those scientists who have given their lives to serve their country."

Salman Masood reported from Islamabad for this article and David Rohde from New Delhi

01-22-2004, 04:47 AM

LIBYA NUCLEAR DEAL EXPOSES BLACK MARKET

Details of Libya's nuclear weapons programme have exposed a thriving international black market in nuclear technology on an unsuspected scale.

Government officials, diplomats and nuclear specialists have described Libya's efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology as more aggressive and successful than had been realised. Last month, Libya said it would give up its weapons of mass destruction programme.

They said Libya used a clandestine network of middlemen for a programme aimed at making enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon.

Procurement efforts continued even as Libya negotiated with US and British governments last year. Its success was revealed only by inspections that followed Libya's agreement last month.

Libya had already secured many of the parts needed for thousands of steel centrifuges, based on a sophisticated German design. Many important components of a complete uranium enrichment programme were missing and Libya was still a long way from building a bomb, but the scale of what it had achieved opened experts' eyes.

"This is a major intelligence failure and a major failure of export controls," said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. But a senior US official said yesterday that Washington had been aware of Libyan efforts, stepped up after United Nations sanctions were suspended in 1999 when Libya handed over two agents accused in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Libya sourced many materials from manufacturers in Asia and Europe. Many were shipped via the Gulf emirate of Dubai. Libyans also had "real time" access to nuclear expertise, Mr Albright said. A shipment of other centrifuge parts was made to order in Malaysia and seized on a German cargo ship last October.

Libya had also acquired two centrifuge designs that experts say came from Pakistan.

"They were buying for quite some time and a lot of stuff was still in shipping crates," said the senior US official.

"The important lesson from Libya is that there's no point in intelligence agencies collecting information . . . unless there's executive action that follows," said a senior western security official.

"We have been very lucky that on this occasion [the Libyan leader Muammer] Gadaffi came clean. But if he hadn't, what could we have done?"

New details of Libya's inventory:

Two sets of centrifuge designs. Centrifuges separate weapons- useful Uranium 235 from the more common isotope Uranium 238. The first and more primitive design was developed by Pakistan from a design stolen from the Anglo-Dutch-German consortium Urenco in the 1970s. But Libya had also acquired designs of the more sophisticated German G2 type.

An arrangement or cascade of tens of centrifuges, tested without nuclear material. This was then dismantled and put in boxes. Tripoli had acquired many but not all high-quality parts to build thousands of G2 centrifuges.

Large quantity of uranium-conversion equipment to manufacture uranium hexafluoride, the gas introduced into the centrifuges. Some elements of the array were missing.

PROBE REVEALS HUGE LIBYAN PROCUREMENT EFFORT

Early examinations by nuclear weapons inspectors in Libya have revealed a successful nuclear procurement effort that was on a scale greater than almost any expert had imagined. The success of a government previously thought to have been ineffective in procuring weapons technologies points to a thriving black market in nuclear components and weaknesses in the international regime of measures aimed at curbing it.

Libya's success in acquiring many of the components needed to fuel a nuclear bomb expose profound flaws in export control regimes and western intelligence gathering. According to David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, the shock in the intelligence community is likely to rival that created by the discovery of Iraq's nuclear ambitions more than a decade ago.

Much remains to be learned about Libya's programme. Inspectors from the US, Britain and the International Atomic Energy Agency have yet to carry out an exact inventory of what Libya acquired.

While Libya seems to have been some way from making a nuclear weapon, thousands of the components needed to manufacture weapons-grade uranium were already in the country. The country denies having manufactured highly-enriched uranium and elements both of an enrichment programme and a nuclear weapon appear to be missing. There is no evidence that the Libyans worked on high explosive or nuclear triggers, for example.

Yet the procurement was continuing even as the Libyans were negotiating with the US and Britain to abandon its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction. A further shipment of centrifuge parts - made to order in Malaysia, according to officials - were seized aboard a German cargo ship in October.

But Malaysia was not the sole source for Libya's programme. According to western officials, material was sourced from a variety of European and Asian manufacturers, often via third parties. Dubai was frequently used as a transit point for the materials, as in the case of the Malaysian shipment.

Gary Samore, a WMD expert at the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, said yesterday that Mr Khan "pioneered the technique of acquiring centrifuge technology on the black market".

"The word was out that Pakistani scientists had set up a business selling centrifuge blueprints and technology. They must have approached other countries. They approached Iraq before 1990. But Iraq said no, because they had already got it from German scientists," Mr Samore said.

But security officials tracking black market and government sources of nuclear technology said states such as Libya used both, and bought equipment from a range of countries and suppliers to make it more difficult to piece together their intentions.

Cheers

01-25-2004, 07:17 AM

My Webpage
Check under Pakistan - list of different companies who use dual technology.

01-25-2004, 09:50 AM

Nuclear Inquiry Heightens Divisions Within Pakistan

01-26-2004, 11:03 PM

Pakistan's twisted trail of nuclear knowledge
By Peter R. Lavoy and Feroz Hassan Khan

When Pakistan set out to become a nuclear power in the 1970s, it found itself squarely at odds with much of the rest of the world, which was focused instead on stopping proliferation. With legitimate routes of acquiring nuclear technology blocked, Pakistan turned to clandestine means -- cooperating with shady middlemen, financiers and front companies overseas.

By the mid-1980s it had secretly built its first nuclear bomb.

That experience, it turns out, was just the beginning of the international intrigue surrounding Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. In recent weeks, each day has produced yet another dramatic twist as Pakistan responds to allegations that it, in turn, secretly shared its nuclear expertise with other nations, specifically North Korea, Iran and Libya.

The unfolding drama involves, among other things, an intercepted ship, top-secret investigative missions and, as of last week, word that Pakistan had detained more of its leading -- and most popular -- nuclear scientists, apparently to probe allegations that the men illicitly spread their knowledge. The interrogation comes after evidence provided last year by the International Atomic Energy Agency forced Pakistan to acknowledge the possibility of past misdeeds.

On Friday, President Pervez Musharraf went so far as to say, in an interview with CNN, that it appeared some scientists had shared nuclear designs. When asked if the government had authorized nuclear transfers to Iran, Musharraf said the scientists probably had acted for their own financial gain, and he discounted any government involvement. Western officials, however, remain skeptical that such transfers could have occurred without the express consent -- much less knowledge -- of government officials.

If the investigation ultimately concludes nuclear technology was transferred to other nations, the challenge for Pakistan, as well as the United States and other Western powers, will be to determine how to help Pakistan become a more responsible nuclear power, rather than a rogue.

Even though opposition groups within Pakistan claim that the inquiry is being staged to appease the United States, Musharraf told a joint session of parliament a week ago that Pakistan cannot achieve its national objectives of boosting its economy and strengthening its might against India if it becomes isolated from the world. Musharraf also said Friday that Pakistan will ``move against violators because they are enemies of the state.''

Allegations of misdeeds

Pakistan's nuclear conduct has long been controversial. When the South Asian country tested nuclear explosives and declared itself a nuclear weapon state in May 1998, the world viewed this as an unavoidable reaction to India's earlier nuclear tests. However, three years later, when it became known that two retired scientists previously associated with Pakistani nuclear research institutions had met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, new and deeper concerns arose over Pakistan's nuclear stewardship.

Pakistan came under fire again in 2002 when the media reported that U.S. intelligence services discovered that North Korea, which already had enough plutonium for a few nuclear bombs, had received substantial foreign assistance for a uranium enrichment plant, which when operational could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for another two or more nuclear bombs per year.

Western analysts suspect that North Korea gave Pakistan ballistic missile technology -- which Pakistan could not obtain from Western sources -- in exchange for Pakistan's help with uranium enrichment. While acknowledging missile aid, Musharraf denies that any nuclear exports to North Korea took place since he took office in October 1999.

Other reports tie Pakistan to the uranium enrichment efforts of Iran and Libya. Washington learned from an Iranian opposition group in August 2002 that Iran was secretly building a large uranium centrifuge enrichment plant, and Iranian officials told the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency last year that Pakistan had provided support. Centrifuges are the most common device used for producing bomb-grade uranium from naturally occurring uranium.

That charge sparked a dramatic change in the position of Pakistan's leadership, from denial to investigation. After a ship carrying centrifuge parts to Libya was interdicted last October, Libyan officials told Western authorities that Pakistani scientists also were the source of some of their centrifuge designs.

`Father' of the bomb

Pakistan's probe becomes more intriguing each day. More than two dozen officials, including two retired army brigadiers, have been detained over the past several weeks. At the home of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the popular ``father'' of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, his former military assistant was arrested as he dined with his old boss. The government decided to question the top scientists after it sent secret teams to Iran and Libya to investigate allegations that the men had sought payment for nuclear secrets.

Khan reportedly has pointed fingers, alleging that Pakistan's army chief from 1988 to 1991, Gen. Aslam Beg, approved sharing nuclear technology with Iran. Although Beg rejects this, his well-known vision of a Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan partnership and its ``strategic defiance'' of the West makes Khan's claim plausible.

Alternatively, Khan could be attempting to cover up his own personal gains -- or those of his deputies -- by claiming state approval of his actions. Either way -- whether the government was responsible for the alleged nuclear exports or whether it was unable to control the people with nuclear know-how -- the country's shrewd path to the nuclear club provides clues to how it could be a recipient as well as a provider of nuclear secrets.

Pakistan's nuclear program was established in the 1970s with two competing laboratories, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the other under Khan. With two organizations to police, governmental oversight was weak. And there were few scruples in the fierce contest.

The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission's effort to produce bomb-grade plutonium was blocked in 1978 when Washington pressured France to cancel its sale of a plutonium reprocessing facility. This opened the door for Khan to obtain unprecedented latitude and state resources in his bid to acquire foreign technology.

By the early 1980s, Khan had mastered not only the production of highly enriched uranium, but also the art of acquiring dual-use technology, sensitive materials and critical equipment through a web of seedy black-market ties. The international contacts and procurement techniques Khan acquired during this period would later become worth their weight in gold to other nuclear aspirants.

Growing ambition

Paradoxically, the end of the Cold War intensified Pakistan's strategic ambitions. Islamabad's military significance to the West plummeted with the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan and the thaw in relations between Washington and Moscow. In 1990, the United States canceled F-16 aircraft sales to Pakistan. Without these jets, Pakistan looked elsewhere for missiles that could carry nuclear weapons.

This period also saw Pakistan return to democracy. From 1988 to 1997, power was shared among a troika: the president, the prime minister and the army chief. The diffusion of authority enabled national security organizations to manipulate the system and become nearly autonomous.

In this environment, Khan would have needed to convince only one of the power centers that sharing nuclear technology with foreign entities would be in Pakistan's interest. He could have argued that parting with nuclear know-how was needed to obtain additional funding or access to new clandestine networks for procuring still-elusive materials and technology. The current inquiry is asking whether Khan and his associates sold such precious information or other nuclear technology for personal gain.

As long as Khan's group delivered the goods, no state authority questioned its tactics. But the 1998 nuclear tests put the spotlight squarely on Pakistan's nuclear conduct; it now was expected to prove itself as a responsible nuclear power.

The United States played a critical role in changing Pakistan's nuclear practices. After the 1998 nuclear tests, Washington applied intense pressure on Islamabad to restrain nuclear exports, including the sharing of know-how. In February 2000, Pakistan revealed a new nuclear command and control structure to show it was operationally prepared to face India's growing military threat and to prove that it could be a responsible custodian of nuclear weapons.

As the government tightened its control over all nuclear and missile-related organizations, Khan's laboratory resisted. This prompted the Musharraf government to replace the top officials of Khan's lab in 2001 and to appoint Khan to a ceremonial post.

Keep ties to West

In addition, the government established rigorous accounting and auditing practices and announced its intent to create a program to test the reliability of all soldiers and civilians with access to nuclear technology and weapons. Since then, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pakistan has tightened security over its nuclear establishment, and it must continue to implement long-overdue reforms.

It is in America's interest not to let Pakistan and Musharraf falter. If Pakistan lost all meaningful contact with the West, radical internal forces could prevail and the country could become a haven for terrorists and a colossal exporter of weapons of mass destruction.
<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' />
PETER LAVOY is director of the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey (www.ccc.nps.navy.mil) and directed the Pentagon's counterproliferation policy office from 1998 to 2000. BRIG. GEN. FEROZ HASSAN KHAN is a research fellow at the Center for Contemporary Conflict and recently retired from the Pakistani army, where he was director of arms control and disarmament affairs. They wrote this article, which expresses their own views, for Perspective.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ial/7793106.htm

01-28-2004, 05:11 AM

PAKISTAN & DANGERS OF NUCLEAR JIHAD 
B.Raman
..
22. When Pakistan faced difficulties in the late 1980s in developing its indigenous missiles (based on the Hatf series), it was to China it turned. Beijing helped it by supplying it with technology and fully tested short and medium range missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons up to Delhi and Mumbai in India, but was reluctant to supply long-range missiles capable of striking Chennai and Kolkatta
...
28. In response to periodic Western media reports about Pakistanâs clandestine co-operation with these countries, Musharraf has been taking shifting stands just as he has been doing so in the case of the Pakistani links with Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist groups.
..
31. After Libya and Iran made a clean breast of the inputs received by them from Pakistan, he has again shifted his stand. He is now trying to give the impression as if this was the unauthorized doing of rogue elements in Pakistanâs scientific community who, according to him, betrayed Pakistanâs nuclear secrets out of greed for money.

32. He has been enacting an elaborate nuclear charade of detaining and âdebriefingâ A.Q.Khan and eight other nuclear scientists close to him and four ISI officers who had served in the Kahuta uranium enrichment factory and by projecting the proliferation which has taken place, which he no longer denies, as the act of these rogue elements
...
35. Putinâs concerns have been justified by the recent discoveries of the role of over a dozen members of Pakistanâs WMD community, civilian scientists as well as their military supervisors, in the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to Libya and Iran. Even if one were to accept Musharrafâs unconvincing arguments that this was a rogue operation by greedy scientists without the knowledge of the military, these concerns would only be aggravated and not lessened because if greedy scientists were prepared to help other States in return for money, they would be equally capable of selling material and expertise to jihadi terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, which can pay as well as these Islamic States.

36. If an Islamic fundamentalist orientation was an additional factor in their sale/transfer of these technologies to Iran and Libya, the international community would have reasons to be even more concerned. Till now, strategic analysts have been focusing only on the dangers of a possible Talibanisation or Al Qaedisation of the Pakistan Army. It is time now to pay more attention to the dangers of a Talibanisation or Al Qaedisation of Pakistanâs scientific community.
....
37. The recent developments and the shifting stands of Musharraf only add to the misgivings in the minds of many about him. If he has been telling a lie by putting all the blame on individual scientists, it shows how he continues to be as unreliable as before befitting his reputation as âtricky Mushâ. If he is telling the truth, it shows how ineffective is his control over the jihadi elements in the Pakistani Army and scientific establishment

01-29-2004, 05:06 AM

Nothing new....just that this is now on the front page of Yahoo <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' />
Top Pakistan Nuke Scientist Tied to Leaks

01-29-2004, 08:06 AM

Nuclear Jihad, Nuclear 9/11

The following analysis report by B. Raman should be read carefully by US policy makers interested in National Security, State Department and Defense. US is clearly playing with fire by turning a blind eye to the islamic nuke in Pakistan and allowing the Chinese connection with Pakistan to strengthen. This ain't no way to contain Bharat.

As the nuclear dangers unravel, the failed state of Pakistan is clearly seen to be incapable of controlling the nukes. What policy options does US have to denuke the Islamic nuke? This should be a strategic policy issue of urgency to avoid a nuclear 9/11.

Kalyanaraman

Paper no. 904

http://www.saag.org/papers10/paper904.html

27. 01. 2004

PAKISTAN & DANGERS OF NUCLEAR JIHAD

by B.Raman

( An update of âWMD Terrorism: Another Wake-up Call From Pakistanâ at http://www.saag.org/papers9/paper867.html)

Pakistan is not the original birth place of the Islamic fundamentalist and jihadi organizations. Islamic fundamentalism and jihadi terrorism were born elsewhere in the Islamic Ummah and thereafter spread to Pakistan after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

2. But, Pakistan is the original birth place of the concept of the nuclear jihad, which highlighted the need for an Islamic atomic bomb and advocated the right and the religious obligation of the Muslims to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and use them, if necessary, to protect their religion. The jihadi terrorists and their ideologues in Pakistan perceived the nuclear weapon as the ultimate weapon of retribution against States which they viewed as enemies of Islam, particularly the USA and Israel.

3. It was, in fact, the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, a Western-influenced liberal and not a religious fundamentalist, who first projected Pakistanâs clandestine quest for an atomic bomb as the quest for an Islamic bomb to counter what he described as the Christian, Jewish and Hindu atomic bombs. He used this depiction in order to convince other Islamic States such as Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran to fund Pakistanâs clandestine military nuclear programme.

4. It was only subsequently that Pakistani jihadi organizations such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and fundamentalist organizations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI) adopted Z.A.Bhuttoâs depiction of the Islamic bomb and projected it as rightfully belonging to the Islamic Ummah as a whole.

5. They described Pakistanâs nuclear and missile capability as held by it on trust on behalf of the Ummah. In 2000, when Abdul Sattar, Gen.Pervez Musharrafâs then Foreign Minister, advocated Pakistanâs signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Islamic fundamentalist and jihadi organizations started a public campaign against him and projected him as a traitor and as anti-Islam. Thereafter, he gave up his advocacy.

6. After he shifted to Afghanistan from the Sudan in 1996, Osama bin Laden of Al Qaeda not only started speaking of the right and the religious obligation of the Muslims to acquire WMD and use them, if necessary, to protect Islam, but also initiated a project for the acquisition/ development of WMD under the leadership of Abu Khabab in his training complex in Afghanistan.

7. After 1998, Al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish People launched a campaign for the recruitment of students of science and scientists already working in the scientific establishments of the Islamic countries for helping them in their quest for the acquisition/development of WMD.

8. Many analysts of what has come to be known as catastrophic or new terrorism have remarked on the presence of a large number of educated persons in the ranks of the jihadi terrorist organizations. Even the pre-1991 ideological terrorist organizations of the world, influenced by leftist ideologies, had attracted a large number of educated youth. Thus, the attraction of educated youth to terrorism is not a new phenomenon. Most of them were students or Graduates or teachers of humanities. There were hardly any students of science or scientists in their ranks.

9. What is new about jihadi terrorism is the gravitation of a number of students of science or working scientists to the jihadi organizations to help the terrorists in their jihad. While the students of science came to the jihadi organizations from many Islamic countries of the world, working scientists came mainly from Pakistan.

10. The late Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, strengthened the Islamic motivation of not only the Pakistani Armed Forces, but also of its scientific community in the nuclear field. Just as he started projecting the Pakistani Army not only as the Army of the State of Pakistan, but also as the Army of Islam to serve the Islamic cause, similarly, like Z.A. Bhutto whom he overthrew and sent to the gallows, he started providing a religious justification for Pakistanâs clandestine quest for the atomic bomb.

11. Ziaâs policies resulted in the injection of the fundamentalist virus into the Pakistani Army and the scientific establishment. While the increasing influence of fundamentalism in the lower and middle levels of the Pakistani Armed Forces received the attention of the analysts of the world, a similar increase in the influence of fundamentalism in the scientific establishment did not receive similar attention despite the fact that sections of the Pakistani media had been reporting about the presence of unidentified scientists of Pakistanâs nuclear establishment in the religious conventions of Pakistani jihadi organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

12. The first indications of the presence of pro-jihadi scientists in Pakistanâs nuclear establishment came to notice during the US military operations in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban when documents recovered by the US forces reportedly spoke of the visits of Sultan Bashiruddin Ahmed and Abdul Majid, retired scientists of Pakistanâs nuclear establishment, to Kandahar when bin Laden was operating from there before 9/11. Sultan Bashiruddin was the first head of the Kahuta uranium enrichment project before A.Q.Khan, who subsequently became famous as the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, replaced him in the 1970s.

13. At the instance of the USA, the Pakistani authorities detained the two for some weeks and interrogated them. They reportedly admitted visiting Kandahar and meeting bin Laden, but maintained that the visit was in connection with the work of a humanitarian relief organisatiion for helping the Afghan people which they had founded and had nothing to do with Al Qaedaâs quest for WMD.

14. Since no evidence linking them to Al Qaedaâs Abu Khabab project could be found, they were released, but banned from traveling abroad. However, the USA and, at its instance ,the UN Security Council initiated action for banning their so-called humanitarian organization and for freezing its bank accounts.

15. Since 9/11, one of the major concerns of the US intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies has been over the dangers of Al Qaeda and its jihadi associates in the IIF managing to acquire a WMD capability. In this connection, attention was particularly focused on Pakistan as the most likely spot from which such leakage could occur.

16. Pakistan has been the epicentre of State-sponsored nuclear proliferation since the late 1980s. Having benefited from funds contributed by Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia for its clandestine military nuclear project, the Pakistan State had to agree to requests from these countries for helping them in acquiring a similar capability.

17. Large sections of the media and the community of strategic analysts have been writing as if the Pakistan Stateâs collusion with Iran in the nuclear field came to light only last year. In fact, this came to light in the early 1990s when Nawaz Sharif was the Prime Minister. The Pakistani political and military establishment, including Nawaz Sharif himself, had then strongly refuted these reports.

18. If one goes back to the 1990s---immediately before and after the first Gulf war of 1991âone would find reports of the role played by Gen.Mirza Aslam Beg, the then Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), and Dr.Abdul Qadir Khan, in the clandestine nuclear co-operation not only with Iran, but also with Iraq. Dr.A.Q.Khan had been the honoured guest of Saddam Hussein, the then President of Iraq, on many occasions.

19.The reports of those years were dismissed by the apologists for Pakistan in the US on the following grounds: first, the reports about the co-operation with Iran came from sources in the anti-Teheran Mujahideen-e-Khalq, which were not reliable. Second, it did not sound logical that Pakistan should be helping Iran as well as Iraq, both sworn enemies of each other.

20. Such arguments have no validity in the case of Pakistan. Duplicity has been the defining characteristic of Pakistanâs foreign policy ever since it was born in 1947. It co-operated with China against India and with the US against China. It co-operated with the USA against Iran by allowing the USAâs Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use Pakistani territory for its operations against the Islamic regime in Iran and , at the same time, had no qualms about helping the Islamic regime in strengthening its conventional capability and developing a nuclear capability.

21. The political and military leadership of Pakistan clandestinely helped not only other Islamic countries, but also North Korea. Whereas in the case of the Islamic countries, the motivation was money and religion, in the case of North Korea it was the desire for the North Korean missile technology.

22. When Pakistan faced difficulties in the late 1980s in developing its indigenous missiles (based on the Hatf series), it was to China it turned. Beijing helped it by supplying it with technology and fully tested short and medium range missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons up to Delhi and Mumbai in India, but was reluctant to supply long-range missiles capable of striking Chennai and Kolkatta.

23. It was then that Pakistan turned to North Korea when Benazir Bhutto succeeded Nawaz as the Prime Minister in 1993. During a visit made by her to North Korea from China, the agreement for co-operation in the missile field was concluded. Gen.Pervez Musharraf, who was the Director-General of Military Operations under her, was made responsible for co-ordinating this project. He and A.Q.Khan had made many secret visits to North Korea in this connection---together as well as separately of each other.

24. Initially, Pakistan paid for North Koreaâs missiles and related technology with dollars and wheat purchased from the US and Australia and diverted to it. The supplementary agreement to help North Korea in developing a military nuclear capability was reached after Musharraf assumed power in October,1999.

25. Zia, Benazir, Nawaz, Beg, Gen. Asif Nawaz Janjua, who succeeded Beg. Gen. Abdul Waheed Kakkar, his successor, and Gen.Jehangir Karamat, his successor and Musharrafâs predecessor, were all privy to the clandestine nuclear/missile relationship with Iran,Libya and North Korea.

26. Right from its inception, the clandestine nuclear and missile projects in Pakistan were treated as a top secret intelligence operation of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to ensure deniability. All payments to the foreign suppliers were made not from the accounts of the Government of Pakistan, but from private accounts in the BCCI, which collapsed in 1991, and other Dubai and Geneva based banks. These accounts were opened by the Gokul brothers of Geneva, one of whom was jailed for cheating in the UK after the collapse of the BCCI, Shaukat Aziz, Pakistanâs present Finance Minister, who was working in the Gulf for the Citibank in the 1990s, Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader who was designated by the USA as an international terrorist in October last year, Dubai-based Pakistani smugglers and A.Q.Khan and other trusted Pakistani scientists.

27. The financial contributions from Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia were transferred to these accounts from numbered secret Swiss accounts and payments to the overseas suppliers were made from these accounts.

28. In response to periodic Western media reports about Pakistanâs clandestine co-operation with these countries, Musharraf has been taking shifting stands just as he has been doing so in the case of the Pakistani links with Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist groups.

29.When the first reports about Pakistanâs clandestine co-operation with North Korea in the missile and nuclear fields appeared, he totally denied them and repeatedly maintained that Pakistanâs medium and long-range missiles were totally indigenous and there was no North Korean role. In October last year, during a visit to South Korea, he changed this stand and openly admitted for the first time North Korean inputs in Pakistanâs missile programme. However, he continues to deny any Pakistani inputs into North Koreaâs nuclear programme. At the same time, he sought to blame the previous Governments of Nawaz and Benazir for the missile co-operation with North Korea as if he had no role in it.

30. After 9/11, when there was considerable speculation about the dangers of Pakistanâs WMD assets falling into the hands of Al Qaeda, he asserted on innumerable occasions that Pakistanâs nuclear capability was in the secure hands of the military and that there was no question of its leakage to anybody outside Pakistan.

31. After Libya and Iran made a clean breast of the inputs received by them from Pakistan, he has again shifted his stand. He is now trying to give the impression as if this was the unauthorized doing of rogue elements in Pakistanâs scientific community who, according to him, betrayed Pakistanâs nuclear secrets out of greed for money.

32. He has been enacting an elaborate nuclear charade of detaining and âdebriefingâ A.Q.Khan and eight other nuclear scientists close to him and four ISI officers who had served in the Kahuta uranium enrichment factory and by projecting the proliferation which has taken place, which he no longer denies, as the act of these rogue elements.

33. When President Vladimir Putin of Russia visited India a year ago, he stated in an interview that Musharraf had repeatedly assured him that Pakistanâs nuclear and missile assets were in the safe hands of the Army and that there was no question of their leakage to Al Qaeda or other jihadi terrorists.

34. Putin added that while he had no reasons to distrust Musharraf, he continued to be concerned over the dangers of individual members of the Pakistani scientific community helping the jihadi terrorists to develop a WMD capability. Even though he did not say so explicitly, it was apparent that he was having in mind the case of Sultan Bashiruddin and Abdul Majid and was worried that they represented only the tip of the jihadi rogue iceberg in Pakistanâs nuclear and missile fields.

35. Putinâs concerns have been justified by the recent discoveries of the role of over a dozen members of Pakistanâs WMD community, civilian scientists as well as their military supervisors, in the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to Libya and Iran. Even if one were to accept Musharrafâs unconvincing arguments that this was a rogue operation by greedy scientists without the knowledge of the military, these concerns would only be aggravated and not lessened because if greedy scientists were prepared to help other States in return for money, they would be equally capable of selling material and expertise to jihadi terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, which can pay as well as these Islamic States.

36. If an Islamic fundamentalist orientation was an additional factor in their sale/transfer of these technologies to Iran and Libya, the international community would have reasons to be even more concerned. Till now, strategic analysts have been focusing only on the dangers of a possible Talibanisation or Al Qaedisation of the Pakistan Army. It is time now to pay more attention to the dangers of a Talibanisation or Al Qaedisation of Pakistanâs scientific community.

37. The recent developments and the shifting stands of Musharraf only add to the misgivings in the minds of many about him. If he has been telling a lie by putting all the blame on individual scientists, it shows how he continues to be as unreliable as before befitting his reputation as âtricky Mushâ. If he is telling the truth, it shows how ineffective is his control over the jihadi elements in the Pakistani Army and scientific establishment.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )

01-31-2004, 12:12 AM

Paki Dictator Faces Difficult Choice in Resolving Nuclear Secrets Scandal
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - An investigation into charges that Pakistani scientists sold nuclear weapons technology is nearing its conclusion, and President Pervez Musharraf appears to face a bleak choice: either condemn a national hero or undermine his government's own credibility.
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of the program that made Pakistan the Islamic world's only nuclear power, has been linked along with a top aide to shady dealings in the nuclear black market that supplied technology to Iran and Libya.

The government has stopped short of publicly condemning them, but a welter of allegations about their personal wealth and overseas bank accounts has increased pressure on Musharraf to take action.

"The government either has to determine there was no leakage or contact of the establishment with the black market, or if they admit there may have been, they have to do something about it," Khalid Mahmood, a senior research fellow at Islamabad's Institute of Regional Studies, said Friday. "They cannot wriggle out of this."

Prosecuting the scientists risks airing embarrassing evidence, but a mere slap on the wrist for Khan - such as stripping him of his post as an adviser to the prime minister - would disappoint Islamabad's Western allies.

"Doing nothing would damage the credibility of the government after they started this entire process," Mahmood said.

Pakistan began its investigation in late November after admissions by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated a Pakistani connection. Allegations also have surfaced that Pakistani technology spread to Libya and North Korea.

For years, Pakistan rejected allegations of sharing nuclear weapons knowledge, but the Iranian evidence has forced it to concede publicly that "one or two people" from its program acted for personal gain - possibly exploiting their ties with clandestine suppliers who helped Pakistan get around international restrictions and build its own bomb, tested in 1998.

Officials familiar with the investigation say Khan and Mohammed Farooq, former director-general of the Khan Research Laboratories, had black-market contacts that supplied nuclear technology to Iran and Libya.

"A lot of money has been found in the bank accounts of Khan and Farooq," a senior government official said Friday on condition of anonymity. "It is yet to be determined who gave them this money."

But in a sign the government may be reluctant to punish Khan, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat came to his defense in a flurry of media interviews published Friday.

"We are questioning a number of scientists and some of them are suspect, but Dr. Khan is not among them," Hayyat told The Nation daily.

In all, six scientists and security officials remain in custody, including Farooq, and several others have been released after questioning. Khan has been questioned and friends say he is restricted to Islamabad, but has not been detained.

Controversy has long surrounded Khan, who was convicted in absentia of stealing blueprints from a nuclear lab in the Netherlands where he worked in the 1970s. He was later acquitted on a technicality.

He remains an icon of impoverished Pakistan's successful campaign to create a formidable nuclear defense against a much larger foe, India.

Punishing him would anger many Pakistani nationalists and likely trigger demonstrations, and the decision on his fate has preoccupied the country's leadership. Musharraf, an army general, discussed the case Thursday with top military commanders.

A public prosecution could embarrass the military and government, which face unanswered questions over how they could have been in the dark about any nuclear transfers.

"Individual scientists might come out into the open and tell the whole story," said A.H. Nayyar, a physicist at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University who has closely followed Pakistan's nuclear program.

"That should be in the minds of government people, too, and they are likely to be very careful," he said.

01-31-2004, 12:15 AM

My Webpage
Nuclear Inquiry Skips Pakistani Army
By DAVID ROHDE

Published: January 30, 2004
SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 29 â For the past week, senior government and intelligence officials, speaking anonymously, have steadily disclosed details of a deepening inquiry into what seems to have been the transfer of Pakistan's nuclear technology to Iran and other countries in the late 1980's and early 1990's.

Their version of events â expected to be released publicly this weekend â blames the country's nuclear scientists, including Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, for selling technology for personal gain.

But one issue rarely addressed by officials of the military-led government is the extent to which the inquiry has examined the role Pakistan's powerful military â which had tight control over the nuclear program â may have played in the sale or sharing of nuclear technology.

In interviews this week, retired Pakistani civilian and military officials, former American diplomats and proliferation experts said the country's military-led government appeared to be glossing over evidence that senior military officials might have approved the sales.

More recent reports of proliferation â including allegations that the governments of the current president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto shared nuclear technology with North Korea â are also being given short shrift, they said.

The officials and analysts emphasized that they had no proof that the army was involved, but wondered why Pakistani investigators had not questioned any senior army officials.

George Perkovich, a proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Washington, said General Musharraf, who seized power in 1999, was trying to appease American demands for an investigation while not angering the army, his base of support.

"The problem for Musharraf is that people in the army would know about this," Mr. Perkovich said in a telephone interview. "And he wants to protect his club."

One focus of suspicion is Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the commander of the Pakistani Army from 1988 to 1991, American analysts said. Robert B. Oakley, who served as the American ambassador in Islamabad from 1988 to 1991, said in a telephone interview that General Beg told him in the spring of 1991 that he was discussing nuclear and conventional military cooperation with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

"He said he had a good conversation with the Revolutionary Guards about nuclear cooperation and conventional military assistance," Mr. Oakley said. "Iran was going to support Pakistan with conventional military aid and petroleum and the Pakistanis would provide them with nuclear technology."
In an interview this week, General Beg denied ever sharing nuclear technology with Iran. But he did confirm that he proposed that Pakistan adopt a doctrine of "strategic defiance" involving an alliance between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

General Beg said such an alliance would thwart an American invasion of all three countries that he expected after the United States defeated Iraq in the Persian Gulf war of 1991. This week, he predicted that history would prove him right and that an alliance similar to the European Union would form and the three countries would become "the core of the Muslim world, to emulate."

Mr. Oakley said he was so concerned by General Beg's statements in 1991 that he went to Pakistan's prime minister at the time, Nawaz Sharif, and urged him to quash any such arrangement. Mr. Oakley said that Mr. Sharif agreed to speak to Iran's civilian leaders.

Mr. Sharif, who was toppled by General Musharraf and now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia, declined a request for an interview this week.

Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan, a cabinet minister and senior aide to to Mr. Sharif, said he remembered that General Beg proposed an alliance with Iran and Afghanistan. But he said senior civilian officials did not take General Beg's ideas seriously.

02-02-2004, 01:11 AM

Nuclear Scientific Community of Pakistan: Clear and Present Danger to Nonproliferation 
Dr. Rajesh Kumar Mishra

Recent revelations of support to North Korean uranium enrichment programme and the connections of some of the scientists with Al Qaeda appear to confirm that Pakistan is developing into one of the most dangerous proliferant countries in the world. The nuclear scientific community plays a pivotal role in it. Right at the top, Dr. A.Q. Khan to several other scientists who were involved in the nuclear development programme of Pakistan, remain suspects. More than a dozen scientists in Pakistan can be called as nuclear proliferation agents.

Including a list of suspected scientists in Pakistan, this paper is an effort to draw attention of the international community on the existing alleged rogue nuclear scientific community in Pakistan and their potential involvement in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction worldwide at different state and non-state levels.

For comprehensive understanding, this paper may be read in continuation with a few earlier papers of the same author on Pakistanâs nuclear development complex- (i) Pakistan as a proliferator state: Blame it on Dr. A.Q. Khan (http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper567.html); (ii) âNuclear Safety and Security in Pakistan: Under the shades of terrorismâ (http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper520.html); and, (iii) âNuclear Pakistan: Implications for National and International securityâ (http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper429.html).

Pakistan today is not only the epicenter of international terrorist network but it is also placed in the world as the hub of the international proliferator nuclear scientist network.

The possible fallout may be spread of knowledge, technology, design, material or development of wide range of nuclear devices for both the non-state and state actors worldwide. Given an opportunity, international terrorist networks like Al Qaeda might have hardy lost any stone unturned to acquire technical know-how of radiological dispersal bomb or dirty bomb. Whether Al Qaeda had got it or not, by now it is widely accepted that Al Qaeda has had the motivation for acquisition of nuclear weapons terror strike capability. Countries like North Korea, have been immensely benefited from the Pakistani scientists.

Proliferation: wanted list in Pakistan

Pakistani President and officials of the government at various levels have repeatedly denied any suspected association of scientists from Pakistan with the outside entities. But, the fact remains that the key scientific personnel of Pakistan have lost credibility and their integrity is at stake. Media and intelligence sources indicate following names as frontrunners in the murky deeds, though not all, have as yet not been exposed!

1. Dr. Abdul.Qadeer Khan: 
The most revered nuclear scientist in Pakistan remains the most suspected rogue scientist in Pakistan. He has illegal linkages with nuclear aspirants throughout the world. His stature is so elevated and protected by the Pakistani government that he has been epitomized as larger than the ânuclear imageâ of Pakistan. Anything said or done against the scientist is supposed to be anti-Pakistan, anti-Islam and so non-tolerable. But, no doubt, the recent media and intelligence expose suffice evidence for Dr. Khanâs pivotal role in proliferations emerging from Pakistan.

"If the international community had a proliferation most-wanted list, A Q Khan would be the 'most-wanted' on the list," Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation in the Clinton administration was so quoted in The News. (The News, Sunday Weekly, Special Report, January 19, 2003)

Dr. A.Q. Khan, the so called father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, who is alleged to have stolen the design and engineering plans for gas centrifuges from Netherlands, has visited many Islamic and non-Islamic countries. Dr. Khanâs interaction with the scientists of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Libya and his reported visits to North Korea and Iran have brazenly violated the norms of the nonproliferation regimes.

2. Dr. Bashiruddin Mehmood:
It is now known that the Pakistani nuclear scientist, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who was arrested on October 23, 2001, had held extensive meetings in August 2001 with Osama bin Laden, one of his top lieutenant Al Zawahiri, and two other Al Qaeda officials in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Including former military officers Brig (rtd.) Mohammad Hanif, foundationâs finance director and Commodore (rtd.) Arshad Ali Chaudhary, vice president of the foundation many other associates of Dr. Mahmood in his suspected charitable foundation âUmmah Tameer-e-Nauâ or " Islamic Reconstruction " can be said to be the conduits to the scientistâs alleged connection with Al Qaeda.

Dr. Mahmood had also several meetings with Mohammad Omar, head of the ousted Taleban government, during his visit to Kandahar in mid-summer of 2001.

He has been quoted saying in public that Pakistan should help other Islamic nations build nuclear bombs. He also had admired the fundamentalist regime of Taleban militia.

Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood is popularly known in Pakistani scientific circles as SBM and a staunch believer in Islamic science. In 1986, he founded the Holy Koran Research Foundation to explore the intersection between Islam and science.

Pakistani officials have maintained that the scientists did not pass important secrets to Al Qaeda, but they have no proper explanation to the fact that Mahmood failed multiple polygraph examinations about his activities.

Dr. Mahmood has experience in both uranium enrichment and plutonium production. The Scientist is said to be a significant contributor to Khushab nuclear reactor, mainstay of Pakistanâs weapon grade Plutonium. During interrogation, in an interview to The News he had said that he could never stay before the (lie-detecting) machine beyond a few minutes because of his age and health!

By early 1990s, he was a key figure in Pakistanâs nuclear weapons programme. He headed the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant in the early 1990s and was given charge of the Khushab reactor, in 1998. He worked there till his resignation in 1999.

3. Chaudhary Abdul Majid:
Abdul Majid has worked in Afghanistan along with Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmood. He worked till 1999 as Chief Engineer in PAEC.

4. Dr. Mirza Yusuf Baig:
A former scientist of PAEC, Mirza Yusuf Baig is a close associate of Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmood. The scientistâs alleged connection with mastermind of Al Qaeda has not yet been cleared.

5. Mohammad Nasim:
Mohammad Nasim had co-authored Bashiruddin in 1999 to an article in opposing Pakistanâs probable stance on signing CTBT. It is not yet clear whether he was interrogated for his association with Dr. Bashiruddin.

6. Humayun Niaz:
Humayun Niaz is a former PAEC personnel and has allegedly tried to explore the occurrence of uranium and plutonium in Afghanistan.

7. Sheikh Mohammed Tufail:
Sheikh Mohammed Tufail is the owner of one of Pakistanâs leading engineering companies and, also, one of the directors of Dr. Mahmoodâs charitable foundation, âIslamic Reconstructionâ.

8. Dr. Muhammd Ali Mukhtar:
Dr. Mukhtar is Ph.D in nuclear physics and has served in Khusab and Islamabad offices of PAEC. He is said to have joined PAEC in early 1980s. This Scientist is a weapon expert. He was allowed to slip out of Pakistan to Myanmar along with Dr. Suleiman Asad fearing interrogation by American agencies. The duo are said to have participated in an unspecified âresearch programmeâ in Myanmar. Before leaving to Myanmar, the scientist had been working in Khan Research Laboratories in the department dealing with defence production. The scientist is said to have connections with Al Qaeda.

9. Dr. Suleiman Asad:
To escape the interrogation regarding his linkage with Al Qaeda, with the support of Musharraf government Dr. Asad along with Dr. Ali Mukhtar had flown to Sagaing division of Myanmar. Dr. Asad is a weapon expert.

IT IS NOT YET OVER:
Between 1997 to 2002, nine scientists are said to have left Pakistan for unknown destinations as listed in an internal memo of Chasma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) as âabscondersâ. This further adds to the worry of international community of the fear of falling of nuclear know-how into wrong hands. Wherever they are they could easily fall prey to shady middlemen and money launderers working for both the state and non-state actors internationally. It all depends on the price one will be willing to get for transferring classified information and sensitive technologies. They are:

1. Muhammad Zubair, worked as Asst. Engineer, CNS Fellow, in Electrical Division, absconding from April 1997,

2. Murad Qasim, worked as Senior Engineer, KINPOE (KANNUP Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering) fellow, in Mechanical Division, Maintenance, absconding from February 2000,

3. Tariq Mahmood, worked as Senior Engineer, CNS Fellow, in Operation Division, absent from May 2000,

4. Saeed Akhther, working as Senior Engineer, CNS Fellow, in Training Division, absconding from June 2000,

5. Imtaz Baig, worked as Senior Engineer, KINPOE Fellow, of Operation Division not available since July 2000,

6. Waheed Nasir, had been working as Senior Engineer, KINPOE Fellow, in Mechanical Division, absconded from August 2000,

7. Munawar Ismail, employed as Senior Engineer, CNS fellow, in Technical Division absconding from October 2000,

8. Shaheen Fareed, had been working as Senior Engineer, CNS fellow, of Operation Division, not available since February 2002 and,

9. Khalid Mahmood, worked as Senior Engineer, in Operation Division, absconded from July 2002.

Why Pakistani nuclear scientists are proliferants personified?

Media and intelligence reports reveal illegal involvement of Pakistani scientists in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Scientists in Pakistan are inclined for performing unlawful services for primarily three main reasons.

First, there exists a close nexus of Islamic fundamentalist identities in between scientific community, military and the government agencies- both political and intelligence. The shared feeling for the development and spread of Islamic bomb, has its bearing on the scientists who have actively participated in the development of nuclear weapons in Pakistan as their âreligious dutyâ. The scientists are motivated to indulge into illegal practices in the name of national religion i.e. Islam. Pakistani scientists whose credentials are verifiable for alleged hobnobbing with other Islamic countries fall in this group. Infiltration of extremist ideologies into this group raises vulnerability. Radical Islamist scientists of such nature are identifiable for possible connection with the âJehadisâ too.

Second, Pakistani government institutions oversee and support the scientists whose services are employed in furtherance of Islamabadâs interest internationally. Pakistani scientists who are alleged to have been involved in the nuclear development programmes of the frequently referred âaxis of evilâ states, Iran-North Korea and Iraq, fall in this category.

Also, the third, desire for getting more financial rewards can be said as great impetus for the scientists to cross the essentially required moral conduct limits. Scientists of both the above mentioned group may or may not belong to this category, but in an atmosphere of state sponsored evils, there must emerge a few outlawed scientists who dare to be disloyal to institutional affiliation in terms of self-interest. This section of scientists is most dangerous for any non-proliferation regime or for any international coalition to fight against nuclear terrorism.

In a nutshell, Pakistan as a state actor not only sponsors scientists in covert activities but also harbours rogue scientific elements in the country.

The Challenges ahead:

* Pakistani nuclear weapons programme has a long history of illicit procurements and deliberate deceptions that involved many scientific personnel too. The heroic accreditations as attached to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, despite international condemnations, remains a dream objective of many fellow scientists in Pakistan.

* Therefore, in a state sponsored illegal nourishing environment like one in Pakistan, chances are always high of commissions and omissions by the Pakistani scientists. But for the long-term security and safety of international community, this practice needs to be monitored and checked. Consolidated international efforts are required to make Pakistan a responsible state actor.

* The whereabouts of the absconding Scientists should be checked and they should be interrogated for possible connections.

* Verification and control regimes of nonproliferation should review the policy approach towards this problem. Pakistanâs scientific community is already excessively influenced by the ideology of developing âIslamic bombâ. Close monitoring is required over the movement and activities of the brains that have worked in the Pakistanâs nuclear weapons development programmme.

* Periodic examination of credentials of the scientists working in different sensitive facilities in Pakistan may have to be undertaken.

* There should be an arrangement by which scientists with radical motivations could be dissuaded from indulging in unlawful activities. This is a responsibility of the state and a duty towards the international community.

* Sharing of information should be a priority for the nations who are committed to fight against the menace of terrorism in general and nuclear terrorism in particular. Mutual trust and diplomatic initiatives will add to its effectiveness.

* An international consensus could be evolved to crack down on the terrorist outfits worldwide, with the slightest indication for the possession of weapons of mass destruction capability in any form, without discrimination.

02-03-2004, 03:04 AM

AP: Nuclear Black Market Is Small, Covert 
1 hour, 8 minutes ago

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria - The nuclear black market that supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea (news - web sites) is small, tight-knit and appears to have been badly hurt by the exposure of its reputed head, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, diplomats and weapons experts told The Associated Press.

They describe the network that circumvented international controls to sell blueprints, hardware and know-how to countries running covert nuclear programs as involving people closely dependent on one another.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, who founded Pakistan's nuclear program, is emerging as the head of the ring believed to have been the main supplier through middlemen over three continents. A Pakistani government official revealed Monday that Khan has acknowledged in a written statement transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The sales, during the late 1980s and in the early and mid-1990s, were motivated by "personal greed and ambition," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official added that the black market dealings were not authorized by the Pakistani government.

European diplomats also said it appeared unlikely President Pervez Musharraf sanctioned the deals. But with Khan close to previous governments, senior civilian and military officials before Musharraf's takeover in 1999 likely knew of some of the dealings, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity in interviews Monday and this past week.

They described Khan as the head of an operation likely involved in supplying both North Korea and Iran with uranium enrichment technology and hardware in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Libya was also a customer, receiving an array of nuclear-related equipment and know-how that included blueprints of a nuclear bomb handed over to U.S. and British intelligence officials late last month, they said.

Middlemen responsible for meshing supply and demand were located in European capitals, Asia and the Middle east, they said, typically working with Iranian, Libyan and North Korea's diplomats stationed abroad.

These would identify their country's needs and the intermediaries would then procure the orders, often ordering sensitive parts from manufacturers unaware of the end destination or purpose of what they were selling, they said. Most of those companies, were in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and other West European countries with the technological expertise to make finely machined centrifuge parts and other components.

Hundreds of millions of dollars changed hands over the past 15 years, in deals as easy to hide as a floppy disc storing sensitive drawings or as bulky as thousands of centrifuge parts for nuclear enrichment, a key part of building a weapons, the diplomats said.

A key beneficiary appears to be Khan, whose salary as a civil servant cannot account for what Pakistani newspapers say are far-flung real estate holdings and other assets worth millions of dollars.

Khan, who hasn't spoken publicly about the charges, but has been prevented from leaving Pakistan, has denied during interrogations with investigators that he made the transfers for personal gain.

Pakistani authorities began investigating Khan and key associates on information from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that some Pakistani nuclear scientists helped Iran and Libya get centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi revealed â and renounced â his weapons and programs of mass destruction in December. Iran continues to maintain it has no nuclear weapons ambitions, but IAEA officials said Tehran has cooperated in revealing the sources of its centrifuges.

U.S. officials also suspect Pakistan bartered nuclear secrets in exchange for North Korean missile technology, a charge Pakistan denies. American officials believe North Korea already has one or two nuclear bombs and could make several more within months. North Korea has never confirmed or denied having atomic weapons.

While he has not been linked to the nuclear network headed by Khan, the case of Asher Karni, an Israeli businessman awaiting trial in the United States, offers a window on how those suspected of nuclear smuggling cover their tracks.

Court records allege Karni used a series of front companies and misleading shipping documents to buy detonation devices whose possible uses include setting off nuclear weapons from a Massachusetts company, then had them sent through New Jersey to South Africa and on to the United Arab Emirates and later to Pakistan.

A federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled last week Karni could be released while he awaits trial as long as he agreed to waive his immunity from extradition from Israel or South Africa, to pay a $100,000 bond and to be electronically monitored while he stays in Maryland.

The diplomats said thousands of components used for uranium enrichment and bound for Libya that were seized on a German ship in October had bogus papers masking their use, point of origin and end destination.

The ring supplying Iran, North Korea and Libya was small â probably no more than around a dozen major players who knew details of what was being sold to whom, said the diplomats. Many of them were probably dependent on Khan for his contacts, first as an employee of Urenco, the West European uranium enrichment consortium and then as the architect of the clandestine weapons program that publicly established Pakistan as a nuclear power in 1998.

The fact that he is now sidelined has, in combination with the world focus on interdiction and monitoring countries under suspicion, probably crippled the supply chain, the diplomats said.

David Albright, a former Iraq (news - web sites) nuclear weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security, agreed. With Khan exposed, the ring that accounted for much of the three countries' illicit nuclear hardware and know-how is "now busted up," he said.

"There are still remnants, and that has to be watched, but this is a major victory for nonproliferation," he said from Washington.
___
On the Net:

Institute for Science and International Security, www.isis-online.org

02-03-2004, 03:44 AM

Great paki whining crying and Hindu-Yahood bashing delirious wailing and lamenting

Hillarious article
Pakistani nukes: Put humiliation on fast forward

Abid Ullah Jan <abidjan@sympatico.ca>

01/12/04: (ICH) Frequency and the number of times a subject appears in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Washington Times are good indicators for anyone to figure out the next victim on the imperial chopping block.

From December 21, 2003 to January 08 2004, there were no less than 13 stories in these publications highlighting Musharraf's importance and exaggerating Pakistan's nuclear threat.

Most of these were editorials and some multiple-part articles. These stories appeared in simultaneously with the seeming surrender by Libya, mounting pressure on Iran and peace prospects between India and Pakistan.

These developments simplify the issue even for a layman in the street. The Taliban were not the threat.

Similarly, the whole world now knows that the most lied about Iraqi WMD were not the threat. Even the much trumpeted democracy was not the issue. The real threats in view of the global totalitarians from quite some time are Iran and Pakistan in the short and China in the long run.

Subsequently, Pakistan and Iran are there, right on the chopping block. After two years of unmatched lies, deception and barbarism, the stage is now set to deal with Pakistan, Iran and later on China.

As Eric Margolis nicely exposes, the Libyan surrender was no more than another drama, which the twin liars, Bush and Blair, were working upon since long. Margolis writes that "after eight months of secret negotiations" Qadaffi agreed to surrender "only small amounts of World War I technology mustard gas, a primitive battlefield weapon," to give the liars a justification for confirming "the wisdom of invading Afghanistan and Iraq."

Libya, in Margolis words, with "a single elevator repairman in the country" had "no biological and nuclear weapons" at all. In this situation the "leaks" of Pakistan's transfer of nuclear technology to Libya and Iran; US unofficial visits to North Korean nuclear facilities and Vajpayee's peace overtures are all parts of the same unfolding drama.

It will give Musharraf some solid justifications for surrendering Pakistan's nuclear weapons into "safe hands." The hands in which the weapons are most probably already secured. Just a formal ceremony is left to glorify the ultimate surrender.

One minor intermediate step could be surrendering Pakistan nuclear weapons into "joint US-Pakistan" hands, but that is irrelevant in a situation in which Pakistan is set to lose the Kashmiri cause after bleeding Pakistan to death for more than 50 years.

British Foreign Secretary has recently declared that Israel is a "unique case" which deserves stockpiles of nuclear and biological weapons. So would declare the US for India, which already claims its using nuclear weapons as a deterrence against China, not Pakistan.

So, it is China's turn to worry about the US moves in its backyard. Pakistan has hardly anything left to lose.

A People and its leaders - who surrendered their faith for secularism, who surrendered principles of justice and fair conduct for personal safety, who assisted the globalist totalitarians in the continued butchery of their fellow Muslims - deserve this treatment.

Those who cannot keep their honour cannot keep their weapons. Nature makes them turn on each other to hasten further surrender and disintegration.

For example note an article by Pakistan born Mansoor Ijaz in the January 8 issue of Standard, a Republican weekly magazine. Ignoring the facts about Israel's passing on American military technology to India and China, he writes that Pakistan has "a moral responsibility to come clean about what has been done" with respect to transfer of technology.

However, toeing the US "mainstream" media's line of defence for Musharraf, Mr Ijaz concludes that even in cases where the alleged transfer "took place after the September 11 terrorists attacks, Musharraf appears to have had no knowledge."

The question is: What is Musharraf doing there, sitting at the top? Is it just signing surrender deals for which Mr. Ijaz concludes: "Bush needs to help distance the Pakistani president in the minds of the American public from the crazies who want to destroy Pakistan by sharing its nuclear secrets with rogue states."

This is the ultimate plan: save Musharraf like Gorbachov till the long awaited disintegration completes. Then Pushtuns in the North West of Pakistan may have autonomy like Kurds in Iraq.

Pashtoon may also join their brethren in Southern Afghanistan so as to be under a more focused eye of the neo-imperialists, who would like to have different set of strategies for people from different backgrounds, such as those in "Sunni triangle," "Kurdish North," "Taliban influenced South" and "Persian speaking North." It is just to mention a few terms to be used as a basis for future break-ups and convenient colonisation.
Like every other conceivable thing, Musharraf's surrendering Pakistan's nuclear weapons is just a matter of time. This humiliation has come to pass. There will soon be no justification for keeping these weapons. Opposition to Musharraf's policies is already absent in Pakistani government. It is as if every politician has joined Pakistan's army.

Muslim Ummah is a lost cause, as Qaddafi declared the other day. Israel's recognition is on cards. The sooner Musharraf surrenders, the better it is for completing the much deserved humiliation for the so-called Muslims. Also the better it is for those who are due to replace them.
Muslims do not require nuclear weapons to be good Muslims or to convert others to Islam. After all, Islam is not American democracy.

As far as defense is concerned, these weapons are not worth defending for defense against anything. Where secularism reigns supreme, where faith is lost, sovereignty curtailed and all principle of justice sacrificed, keeping a bomb or two or even the state established in the name of Islam, doesn't make any sense at all.
When Muslims become Muslim in the Qur'anic sense, only then would they realize what they need to defend, why and at what cost. That would not happen until we hit the trough in this final phase of Muslim humiliation. If we don't know how to end this humiliation, let us put it on fast forward as hitting the rock bottom of humiliation seems inevitable for a meaningful resurgence.

December 12, 2004.

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbup.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbup.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbup.gif' />

02-05-2004, 02:33 AM

Right from the theiving Khan's mouth <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' /> <!--emo& Confused

tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' />
QUOTEA.Q. Khan's Apology to Pakistanis
Published: February 4, 2004

My dear ladies and gentlemen, Assalam-ul Alaikum, it is with the deepest sense of sorrow, anguish and regret that I have chosen to appear before you in order to atone for some of the anguish and pain that have been suffered with the people of Pakistan on account of the extremely unfortunate events of the last two months.

I am aware of the vital criticality of Pakistan's nuclear program to our national security and the national pride and emotion which it generates in your heart.

I am also conscious that any untoward event, incident or threat to this national security draws the greatest concern in the nation's psyche.

It is in this context that the recent international events and their fall out on Pakistan have traumatized the nation.

I have much to answer for. The recent investigations was ordered with the government of Pakistan consequent to the disturbing disclosures and evidence by some countries to international agencies relating to alleged proliferation activities by certain Pakistanis and foreigners over the last two decades.

The investigations have established that many of the reported activities did occur and these were inevitably initiated at my behest.

In my interviews with the concerned government officials I was confronted with the evidence and findings and I have voluntarily admitted that much of it is true and accurate.

My dear brothers and sisters I have chose to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies to a traumatized nation. I am aware of the high esteem, love and affection in which you have held me for my services to national security and I am grateful for all the awards and honor that have been bestowed upon me.

However it pains me to realize in retrospect that my entire lifetime achievements of providing foolproof national security to my nation could have been placed in serious jeopardy on account of my activities which were based in good faith but on errors of judgment related to unauthorized proliferation activities.

I wish to place on record that those of my subordinates who have accepted their role in the affair were acting in good faith like me on my instructions.

I also wish to clarify that there was never ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government.

I take full responsibility for my actions and seek your pardon.

I give an assurance my dear brothers and sisters such activities will never take place in the future.

I also appeal to all citizens of Pakistan in the supreme national interest to refrain from any further speculations and not to politicize this extremely sensitive issue of national security. May Allah keep Pakistan safe and secure. Pakistan Paindabad! [Long Live Pakistan!].

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