Islamic Nuke

[Guest]

This whole thing seems to be a badly produced "C" class movie. The Investigation, the drama of whether AXK will be punished, the great change of heart of the villian, and finally every body is happy and laughing.


All these events make me think that U.S. should be treated with great caution and taken advantage of ( just like they do) . They are just trying to play us against China.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->They are just trying to play us against China<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Here you are wrong, think other way round.
Remeber these events and link dots -
Asking Nehru to take Kashmir issue in UN
1962 war- promise broken
1965 war- who gave weapon to roque country
1971 - Nixon used slurs against Indra
1971 - who immideately sent seventh fleet
who asked China to attack North East and we will ignore
1980-86 - who was funding terrorism in Punjab

1989-current - Who is ignoringing cross border terrorism against India
1999 - Who was expecting India to give Kargil area to Pakistan
2001 - Who is funding Pakis with billions of dollars- funds/Aids

Who is ignoring Human rights problem in China but never spare a single minute pointing India.
No one is discussing Nuclear and missile proliferation by China

Don't you think US-China-Pak have common interst to hurt one country - India
Or US as and when please change gears.

[Guest]

<b>Who sold nukes ?</b>
Drumbeats on Pakistan’s nuclear black-marketing are getting louder. The international community (read Washington) is alarmed and worried at the rapidly accumulating pile of evidence against Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist, Dr AQ Khan, and a few of his associates for selling nuclear technology and materials to nations that are considered "rogue". (<b>China is not the target yet and hence do not qualify to be a rogue despite overwhelming evidence</b>). The heat and dust being created by the "revelations", obviously made by muckracking journalists of influential western newspapers, begs the question: Why does the world get drawn into the carefully planned and orchestrated propaganda, year after year? First it was al Qaida, then WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and now a nuclear blackmarket racket. This is not intended to be a defence of AQ Khan or Pakistan. If Dr Khan and his associates in the military and nuclear establishment have indulged in buying and selling nuclear technology and materials for several years, they should be punished, that is if there is a punishment for a crime that qualifies to be categorized as crime against humanity. If the allegations currently being made in the media were true, a special court should be set up by the United Nations to try them. In fact, the first step towards that direction would be to institute an independent investigation and send UN Inspectors to Pakistan immediately. But the question is: who will be the judge?

Take the case of Pakistan. Pakistan decided to go nuclear after a humiliating defeat in the 1971 battlefield. Within weeks of surrender at Dhaka, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto called a secret meeting (January 24, 1972 at Multan) of nuclear and military officials and said he wanted a Bomb. A 125 MW heavy water reactor became operational near Karachi the same year. It was built with Canadian assistance. The US was not in the dark about these developments either. Three years after Mr Bhutto’s secret meeting, the State Department prepared a short note on Pakistan and the Non-Proliferation Issue (January 22, 1975) which said Pakistan was not only building more power reactors, it was also negotiating with the Belgians for a heavy water facility, with the Canadians for a fuel fabrication plant and with the French for a chemical separation plant. "These facilities, "the note (since declassified and available at www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB6/ipn20_1.htm) said, "together with the heavy reactor, will give Pakistan a virtually independent nuclear fuel cycle and the opportunity to separate a sufficient amount of plutonium to build a nuclear weapon….the earliest the Pakistanis are likely to be able to produce a weapon would be 1980.’’ Just a year later, so clear was the evidence that Pakistan was buying nuclear technology and materials from European countries that the State Department issued a Demarche to Pakistan. On June 23, 1983, the State Department prepared a four-page note for the US President on "The Pakistani Nuclear Programme" which began on this ominous note". There is unambiguous evidence that Pakistan is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons development program."

Besides the declassified documents, the following findings have been pieced together from open sources that reveal the involvement of the United States and other western nations in helping Pakistan build the nuclear capability. Pakistan’s initiation into the nuclear club had begun in 1958 when it was invited to join the Atoms for Peace Programme launched by the Eisenhower administration. Two years later, Pakistan received a grant of $350,000 from the US to build its first research reactor. In 1962, US supplied a 5 MW light water research reactor known as the Pakistan Atomic Research Reactor (PARR-1). In 1971, the Canadian General Electric Co. completed a 137 MW CANDU power reactor for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant. Plans for the plutonium separating facilities designed by the British Nuclear Fuels Limited were finalised the same year. A Belgian firm, Belgonucleaire and a French corporation, Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles, designed a pilot reprocessing facility called the New Labs at PINSTECH. In 1976, under a highly secretive project codenamed 706, Pakistan bought components for centrifuges from the Netherlands; orders for 6500 tubes of specially hardened steel were placed with Van Doome Transmissie. Other support components and subsystems were bought from Vakuum Apparat Technik (high vacuum valves) of Haag, Switzerland and Leybold Heraeus ( gas purification equipment), Hanan, Germany. A year later, the British subsidiary of Emerson Electric sold 30 high frequency inverters to Pakistan for controlling centrifuge speeds. In 1987, West Germany sells a tritium purification and production facility with a capacity to produce 10g of tritium daily. Tritium can be used to produce a thermonuclear device. In 1989, German magazine, Stern reported that ``since the beginning of the eighties over 70 (West German) enterprises have supplied sensitive goods to enterprises which for years have been buying equipment for Pakistan’s ambitious nuclear weapons programme.’’ There is more evidence, gathered from US sources, to show how the US blinks when it wants to. The most basic is the CIA’s unclassified report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions (www.cia.gov/cia/reports/721_jan_jun2000.html)

which, since 1999, have been religiously reporting Pakistan’s acquisition of "a considerable amount of nuclear-related and dual-use equipment and materials from various sources-principally in the FSU (former Soviet Union) and Western Europe" .
.............
......
<b>The only conclusion one can draw from these findings is that the US was not only aware of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development programme from the beginning but was willingly assisting the latter to develop the capability, even brushing aside CIA’s intelligence reports on Pakistan’s purchases from the west. No one else had the technology to sell them anyway. So who, in the final analysis, should stand trial for nuclear proliferation </b>?

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Feb 4 2004, 05:34 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Feb 4 2004, 05:34 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->They are just trying to play us against China<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Here you are wrong, think other way round.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And don't forget (I think) it was Kissinger who said "<i>if India and Pakistan had not broken up we'd be discussing as to how to contain India using China</i>"

[Hauma Hamiddha]

This whole Xerox Khan affair is a well-staged attempt at image-manipulation/ building (IMHO). The US knew all this all along and knows that the totalitarian states like TSP, NK and China have been proliferating in a state-directed show. The US allowed this because it was useful for them to curb Russia and India. Now that the equations have changed slightly they want to give a clean chit for Mushy and build a beatific image for the dictator for he will still be useful in their long term strategy of neutering India. So they picked up Xerox as a goat to be sacrificed, probably with Mushy's consent. In return Pakistan has been given a cleanliness certificate. At the same time the US cannot really antagonize China so they are using Xerox to even absolve China and thereby themselves.

As Paddy said US is a rogue state of sorts- do we all not know that Sammy is always in bed with dubious characters. We just cannot trust the US: Do you business professionally and do not get into personal matters, as the Americans themselves advocate <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

Not a Kannada expert - but remember a saying from few months that I spent there:
<i>nanu hoddaange madeate, neenu teedadange maddu</i>
(loosely translated: me pretend hitting you, you pretend being hurt) <!--emo&:liar liar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Mushy "Pardon" Xerox Khan

Who are these Pakis fooling? <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo--> I have a bridge to sell.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Viren+Feb 5 2004, 08:41 PM-->QUOTE(Viren @ Feb 5 2004, 08:41 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> Not a Kannada expert - but remember a saying from few months that I spent there:
<i>nanu hoddaange madeate, neenu teedadange maddu</i>
(loosely translated: me pretend hitting you, you pretend being hurt)  <!--emo&:liar liar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Mushy "Pardon" Xerox Khan

Who are these Pakis fooling?  <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->  I have a bridge to sell. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah the whole thing is bullshit <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Last thursday they framed xeroxe khan and this thursday they have pardened him, and inbetween they have "de-brifed" him and his associates and checked his bank accounts and other related activites, what a crap of bull, cross confirming how much he had swindled would itself take weeks not to speak of months.

But the case of paki nuke-profilaration is solved in 1 week, thats it, the case closed, the whole affair got over in 1 week, :f*(k <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Viren+Feb 5 2004, 04:56 AM-->QUOTE(Viren @ Feb 5 2004, 04:56 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Feb 4 2004, 05:34 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mudy @ Feb 4 2004, 05:34 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->They are just trying to play us against China<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Here you are wrong, think other way round.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And don't forget (I think) it was Kissinger who said "<i>if India and Pakistan had not broken up we'd be discussing as to how to contain India using China</i>" <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
now from that you should now get clear idea why vajpayee want good relation with pakistan....or maybe reunification to produce strategic and geo-political IMBALANCE for ameticans?

if reunification happens then,
1)there will be no pakistan in south asia or asia to carry forward evil's design against India.(yes....USA supported paki NUKES to counter indian nukes and probably russian too.)
2)Then, USA will try to increase military help with nepal,bangladesh or maybe nuclearisation of IRAN to counter new BIG india.
3)And it will be very hard for USA to find some nuclear power in asia to counter india.Only china and India will be left alone nuclear powers in Asia.
THEN REAL GAME will start.USA-China-India-Russia.HERE i pray that India will get some good leadership rather than a funky looser type,self-f*cker pro-US leadership.

I honestly think geo-political game will completely become clear if pakistan goes down.GOING DOWN(de-nuking) of pak will only happen after osama/someone/Mossad nukes washington.I see this coindition remote.

god save india now from madly nationalistic americans and impotent bh*nch*d indian politicians.

[Guest]

<b>I want to add one more thing.Indian planners+politicians has created a fund of 25000 for timepass for multinational weapon companies for next 3 years.(we can see how they immediately came with licking tounges for tapping that HUGE fund.)

For me this is not good use of money.Instead,
1)Immediately roll out a 5 year plan for next generation R&D in optronix,strategic electronics,survellience UAVs,thermal imagers etc.etc.etc.etc. Donate 15000 in this area.
2)Donate 10000 carore in R&D of nanotechnology,SPECIAL MATERIALS(great application in aerospace) etc.etc.etc.
Nanotech. includes application of nanotech. in spying gadgets for RAW etc.etc. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Within next 6 years India will become self-sufficient in thermal imagers and all technologies related with optics(and related electronics),special materials for making wings of aircrafts,advanced light long range cruise missiles etc.etc.(do i need to elaborate further?)

Now,calculate the LOSSES if we didnot started(which we didnot) these moves today.
1)We will be progressing at same pathetic speed in defence R&D.
2)So,we will setup a fund of 50000 carore rupees in 2010 for modernisation of IA,IN,IAF.</b>

<b><i>NOTE : Atleast 70% of this 25000 carore fund proposed by me in next generation R&D areas will be only for Indian PRIVATE Comapnies.And these companies will be allowed to do joint R&D with foreign companies provided some conditions like they are from friendly country(russia,china*,malaysia,singapoor,israel,brazil) etc.

*china - I Refer china as friendly because atleast they donot play double games like USA today.china is certainly more more welcome than USA.China can help on in electronics if i know.do they have anything else?
</i></b>

our military planners are more dumb than politicians if their responsibility is considered.

That was just my thoughts.no offence. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

vishal ,
woh woh! slow down,
In 1947, there was no industry in India, India skiped/missed industrial revolution. It will take atleast decade to be self sufficient in defence, space sector etc with. Even then India will be using patent technolgy, I hope you are not suggesting reinventing everything.
To even reach to that level India need more than exponential times 250000 crores. For that period, do you think Indian defence forces will lock them self in defence mess or baracks till our scientist comeup with the greatest technolgy. Do you think our neighbor are that generous. We have over 5000 years of history to be cautious.
For last 4 years we are seeing funds.
For furture development and to keep this pace of growth, India need to improve infrastucture, which first and most important at this time. R&D invest should go along. Defence expenditure should also stay same to modernise our forces and maintain them, so that we can have peace in country and can have excellent growth and development.

[Guest]

china does not play double games ?????????? when did that happen ????? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<b>Europe wants to discuss Pak N-imbroglio at UNSC</b>

By Zia Iqbal Shahid

BRUSSELS: Despite a wide international acknowledgement of the official Pakistani position that ‘only a few individuals, not the government of Pakistan’ was involved in nuclear peddling, European members of the IAEA apex board want to raise in the UN Security Council what they describe as the core question: <b>"whether a country incapable of guarding nuclear secrets can be trusted with nuclear weapons",</b> a credible diplomatic source here told The News.

The European countries also intend to raise the issue related to Pakistan at the forthcoming meeting of the IAEA board of governors in Vienna on March 8. The meeting is scheduled to discuss a report on the IAEA’s verification of nuclear programmes in Iran and Libya. IAEA Director General Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, according to the source, is engrossed in finalising the report, which he would send to the IAEA board of governors over the coming week.

"The issue of investigations on Pakistani scientists’ alleged involvement in nuclear trafficking will also be touched during discussion on the director general’s report on the IAEA’s verification of nuclear programmes in Iran and Libya," a source in Vienna confirmed.

Eleven EU countries represented at the 35-member IAEA board are: Denmark, Germany, France, the UK, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain (full members) and Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (EU accession countries).

The EU members abhor Washington paradigm of unilateralism in handling the sensitive issue like nuclear proliferation and plead that the UNSC should play a key role in such problems, the source said.

The IAEA cannot do much in preventing nuclear proliferation by the non-NPT member states. The agency can only provide information to the member states, besides taking the case to the UN. "Coaxing non-NPT states to join the international treaty is essentially the responsibility of the member states, particularly the members of the nuclear club", the IAEA source said. There is a move in Europe to raise this issue in the forthcoming meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board meeting on March 8, the official source confirmed.

Even the European countries including the UK and France that have applauded the Pakistani government’s handling of the nuclear scientists are raising what they describe as the core question: "whether a country incapable of guarding nuclear secrets can be trusted with nuclear weapons", a report underlined. They plead that multilateralism; the cardinal principle of the "EU Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction" should be put to practice with its full force in the context of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

Presently, Europeans are engaged in such consultations surreptitiously. However, the trepidation of the web of authorised EU spokespersons in Brussels is conspicuous, as they are still following the policy of ambivalence in answering several questions on this issue. The Irish Presidency of the EU in Brussels is struggling hard to get answers to the questions on this issue sent by the EU accredited journalist, even after two weeks.

"Dear Sir, Please see attached extract from the Programme of the Irish Presidency of the EU which refers to Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. I will come back to you later when I get a response from Dublin on your query", the spokesperson of the Irish Presidency in Brussels, James McIntyre, said in a e-letter addressed to this scribe after several calls requesting the views of the current president of the EU on the Pakistani nuclear imbroglio.

The ‘extract’ underlines the policy of multilateralism and an essential role of the UN Security Council in handling the proliferation issues.

"A multilateral approach is also a key in countering the threat of proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and in promoting disarmament. This is reflected in the Union’s ‘Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction’, which the Irish Presidency has been tasked to carry forward," the extract further underlines.

The policy document regards the role of the UN Security Council in non-proliferation as central. "The Union’s commitment to multilateralism permeates the Strategy; support for disarmament and non-proliferation treaties and fostering the role of the Security Council with regard to Weapons of Mass Destruction will be central elements of this work", emphasises the EU document excerpt provided by the presidency’s spokesman. In several background briefings in Brussels, European diplomats have called for invoking the European Union (EU)’s "Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction".

Ignoring Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s demand that probe on European countries and individuals indicated in the IAEA documents should also be expedited, the European diplomats are increasingly asking whether Pakistan can be trusted with nuclear weapons."

Pakistan and India both are governors at the IAEA board for 2003-2004. The presence of China and the US at the IAEA board is regarded as elements of relief for Pakistan, as the board in its upcoming meeting in Vienna, would discuss the issues related to the ongoing investigations on the so-called nuclear black market. The IAEA board, chaired by a senior European diplomat, Ambassador and Permanent Representative from Spain, Antonio Nunez Garcia-Sauco consists of 35 countries.

www.Jang.com

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-vishal+Feb 5 2004, 04:58 PM-->QUOTE(vishal @ Feb 5 2004, 04:58 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> *china - I Refer china as friendly because atleast they donot play double games like USA today.china is certainly more more welcome than USA.China can help on in electronics if i know.do they have anything else?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Communist China is nobody's friend - not even to their own people.
As far as their 'help in electronics' they'll help only if they can help themselves first. There is a good article in the lastest Forbes (will try to see if I can find it online) as to how they screw others - case was how they ripped their partner General Motors by stealing plans and coming out with a local version of the same car with shoddy parts at a chepaer price.

[Guest]

So much for the ummah <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> How Iran spilled the beans implicating Pakistan

[Guest]

Now that the Xerox Khan tamasha is over, another one coming...in a terrorist nation near you!

Masood Azhar eludes agencies

[Guest]

If Pakistan's Khan were in India
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India, too has been remiss in its response to the events, given the peace process that is in place, and does not want to indulge in any verbal sparring with its neighbor. The Indian government has all along kept a studied silence on the issue, except for a mild statement criticizing Pakistan issued by foreign minister Yashwant Sinha during the visit of his British counterpart Jack Straw. Even as election-related speeches gain tempo in India, nobody from the Indian establishment has overtly attacked Pakistan.

This story illustrates a critical difference in the way corruption or moral standards in public life are viewed separately in the two nations. It is not as if corruption is not endemic in India - it is, as evidenced by a slew of recent scams involving tinkering with the stock market, spurious stamp paper and ministers being caught on camera accepting bribes.

A recent analysis titled "Why Indian N-tech wont leak," in The Times of India, reads: <b>"In the past, other countries like Iraq and Iran have expressed interest in Indian nuclear and missile technology, but have been politely shown the "not for sale" sign.</b> How do Indian scientists resist the lure to flog WMD technology around the world? According to a former nuclear scientist, there are several reasons - foremost being the strong culture of bureaucratic control by the prime minister and the Cabinet.

However, Indian nuclear and missile scientists have not been needlessly lionized and made to feel they are above the law. Second, Indian efforts have been largely indigenous and did not require an extensive network of illegal back-channels where the "hook or by crook" and "money is no object" culture prevailed.

Third, Indian WMD capabilities have evolved with a strong system of formal and informal government controls. According to a former atomic energy department head, India has had such export controls since the 1950s' Atomic Energy Act. Since the 1990s, even these have been tightened by written guidelines disseminated to all public sector units on what can be exported and to whom.

Indeed, it is the informal controls in the form of norms of behavior that define the way the corrupt, or others who are perceived to be corrupt, are treated in this country.

Such has not been the case with Pakistan, where all is fair as long as it meets the agenda of putting Pakistan on an even keel militarily with India.

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>DR KHAN AND ASSOCIATES NOT SCIENTISTS BUT BOMB MAKERS : HOODBHOY</b>

WASHINGTON: <b>Noted Pakistani physicist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy said here on Monday that to call Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and his associates scientists was a “slur on science” as they were not scientists but “bomb-makers”.

In a lecture at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dr Hoodbhoy said Dr Khan was a metallurgist who was responsible for the enrichment of uranium required for a weapon, while the weapon was actually built by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission people. He said Pakistan had made the bomb in 1985-86, while the first contacts with Iran started in 1987 and continued until 2000.

The Pakistani anti-nuclear campaigner said it was not possible for Dr Khan to have passed on nuclear technology to other countries on his own. The level of security at Kahuta was “incredibly high” as he knew from his own students, some of whom worked there, said Dr Hoodbhoy, adding that all that could have gone out of there unnoticed was perhaps “an idea or two” but there was no question of any equipment leaving those nuclear facilities undetected by the security personnel, overseen by a Lt General of the army.</b>

Dr Hoodbhoy said in answer to a question that Pakistan would now be forced into accepting a monitoring system that the international community would consider reliable and reassuring. The country would be subjected to a “very high degree of pressure,” he added. There would be strict monitoring of the uranium enrichment process to determine what went in and what came out. There would be insistence that Pakistan institute an audit system governing fissile material. He said that the “ethos” of those involved in the nuclear establishment was solidly middle class and conservative. Their worldview was accordingly shaped, he pointed out. He said Pakistan’s defence budget was not transparent as it consisted on “just one line”.

Dr Hoodbhoy said transferring technology to Libya was a strange decision as the country had no technical base and its decision-making was “quirky and idiosyncratic”. It was lucky for the world that what Libya was given did not get transformed into a weapon. He accused India of having triggered a nuclear race in South Asia, starting with its first bomb in 1974. India’s missile programme had caused Pakistan to follow suit. No amount of pressure, he predicted, would stop Pakistan from taking the necessary steps in missile development every time India went ahead with another upgrading or test of its missiles, one of which was Pakistan-specific.

Asked about Dr Khan’s motivation, Dr Hoodbhoy called him a Pakistani nationalist who vowed in 1971 that he would do what he could to make Pakistan safe from further dismemberment. That was when he approached Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and was invited to come. He came and with him he brought the necessary uranium enrichment technology. He said he helped Pakistan make the bomb and he also made money for himself. He said Dr Khan had broken no law as Pakistan was not an NPT signatory. He also said that President Musharraf could not possibly have had knowledge of nuclear transfers to Libya as they had begun years earlier and came to an end in 2000. He said Libya bankrolled Pakistan’s nuclear programme at its inception. Saudi Arabia also provided financial help.

Asked about Dr Khan’s exposure, <b>Dr Hoodbhoy said President Musharraf had acted out of compulsion as the United States was “breathing down his neck”. He said the deal with Dr Khan could be called plea-bargaining. He predicted that this was “not the end of the matter” as further new revelations would come. He said the US used a double standard in nuclear matters. American satellites, for instance, were not permitted to take any photographs when they flew over Israel. Asked how thorough the Pakistani investigation into the nuclear leaks, sales and transfers was going to be, he replied that the investigation was being handled by the ISI, the very agency that was responsible for the security of the compromised programme.</b>

Dr Hoodbhoy warned that the danger did not lie in Pakistan but in Russia where there were hundreds of disassemble nuclear weapons just “rotting away.” Washington had stopped buying them as it had started to do because it had taken the position that this amounted to giving assistance to Russia. He said there was “tons of fissile uranium and plutonium” in Russia and that was posed “the real danger”. —Khalid Hasan

Cheers

[Guest]

Here's Pakis doing what they are best at. An New York Times gives them the due credit by dedicating this story on their prime spot - front cover!
Pakis shinning <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->

(subscription site so posting in full) Link

<b>
A Tale of Nuclear Proliferation: How Pakistani Built His Network
By WILLIAM J. BROAD, DAVID E. SANGER and RAYMOND BONNER
</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
The break for American intelligence operatives tracking Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear network came in the wet August heat in Malaysia, as five giant cargo containers full of specialized centrifuge parts were loaded into one of the nondescript vessels that ply the Straits of Malacca.

The C.I.A. had penetrated the factory of Scomi Precision Engineering, where one of the nuclear network's operatives — known to the workers only as Tinner — watched over the production of the delicate machinery needed to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.

Spy satellites tracked the shipment as it wended its way to Dubai, where it was relabeled "used machinery" and transferred to a German-owned ship, the BBC China. When it headed through the Suez Canal, bound for Libya, the order went out from Washington to have it seized, according to accounts from American officials.

That seizure led to the unraveling of a trading network that sent bomb-making designs and equipment to at least three countries — Iran, North Korea and Libya — and has laid bare the limits of international controls on nuclear proliferation.

Yesterday, President Bush proposed to enhance that system by restricting the production of nuclear fuel to a few nations.

The scope and audacity of the illicit network are still not fully known. Nor is it known whether the Pakistani military or government, which had supported Dr. Khan's research, were complicit in his activities.

But what has become clear in recent days is that Dr. Khan, a Pakistani national hero who began his rise 30 years ago by importing nuclear equipment to secretly build his country's atom bomb, gradually transformed himself into the largest and most sophisticated exporter in the nuclear black market.

"It was an astounding transformation when you think about it, something we've never seen before," said a senior American official who has reviewed the intelligence. "First, he exploits a fragmented market and develops a quite advanced nuclear arsenal. Then he throws the switch, reverses the flow and figures out how to sell the whole kit, right down to the bomb designs, to some of the world's worst governments."

The story of that transformation emerges from recent interviews on three continents — from Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; from the streets of Dubai, where many of the deals were cut, to Washington and Vienna, where intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency struggled to understand and defuse the threat.

Taken together, they show how Dr. Khan assembled a far-reaching organization of scientists, engineers and business executives who operated on murky boundaries between the legal and the illegal, sometimes underground but often in plain view, unencumbered by international agreements that prohibit trafficking in nuclear technology.

Dr. Khan started in the mid-1980's, according to nuclear proliferation experts, by ordering twice the number of parts the Pakistani nuclear program needed, and then selling the excess to other countries, notably Iran.

Later, his network acquired another customer: North Korea, which was desperate for a more surreptitious way to build nuclear weapons after the United States had frozen the North's huge plutonium-production facilities in Yongbyon.

And in the end he moved on to Libya, his ultimate undoing, selling entire kits, from centrifuges to enrich uranium, to crude weapons designs. Investigators found the weapons blueprints wrapped in bags from an Islamabad dry cleaner.

In his speech yesterday, Mr. Bush said the network even sold raw uranium to be processed into bomb fuel. He also identified Dr. Khan's deputy — "the network's chief financial officer and money-launderer," he called him — as Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir, a businessman in Dubai, who, investigators say, placed the order for the Libyan equipment.

One longtime trading partner of Dr. Khan's was Peter Griffin, a British engineer who said in an interview that he had been a supplier to Pakistan for two decades, in the period when Dr. Khan was building nuclear weapons.

"Anything that could be sent to Pakistan, I sent to Pakistan," he said. But he said that all his sales had been approved by British trade authorities.

Mr. Griffin is also the partner in a Dubai company that investigators said placed the order for materials that wound up on the ship headed for Libya, although he denies knowing anything about that shipment.

For years hints of Dr. Khan's operation circulated widely among intelligence officers and officials in Pakistan, the United States and elsewhere. But Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, confronted Dr. Khan only after the BBC China was seized on its way to Libya and evidence of the network tumbled out. Last week Dr. Khan issued a public confession and then was pardoned by General Musharraf.

The deference shown Dr. Khan at the end began decades before, when he was working secretly and successfully to make his country a nuclear power.

"Khan had a complete blank check," said one aide close to General Musharraf. "He could do anything. He could go anywhere. He could buy anything at any price."

<b>Research Roots in Holland</b>

Dr. Khan's start came with India's first atomic test in 1974, an event that so traumatized Pakistan that developing its own weapon became the country's most pressing goal. "We will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own," said Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then the prime minister.

Dr. Khan, a bright young Pakistani metallurgist working in the Netherlands, lent his aid. From his perch at Urenco, a European consortium, he possessed blueprints of the world's best centrifuges — the hollow metal tubes that spin very fast to enrich natural uranium into bomb fuel.

A set of thousands of centrifuges, called a cascade, concentrates the rare U-235 isotope to make a potent fuel.

"I saw top-secret technical drawings in his house," recalled Frits Veerman, a Dutch colleague who shared an office with Dr. Khan.

Dr. Khan stole the designs, Dutch investigators found, and he fled back to Pakistan in 1976. He used the blueprints and his knowledge to set up an enrichment project in Kahuta, near Islamabad, that reported directly to the prime minister. He drew heavily on Dutch lists of nearly 100 companies that supplied centrifuge parts and materials.

"They literally begged us to buy their equipment," Dr. Khan boasted in 2001 in a publication celebrating the 25th anniversary of his Pakistani laboratory. "My long stay in Europe and intimate knowledge of various countries and their manufacturing firms was an asset."

Business executives and merchants, including German, Dutch and French middlemen, flocked to Pakistan to offer price lists for high-technology goods and learn what Pakistan needed. The multilingual Dr. Khan led the acquisition effort. His shopping spree spanned the world.

"Africa was important because of the materials needed," said a senior Pakistani official involved in the investigation of Dr. Khan. "Europe was crucial for bringing in high-tech machines and components. Dubai was the place for shipments and for payments.

"We were not the first beneficiaries of this network. But the intensity of Pakistan's nuclear acquisition effort did enlarge the market. Everybody knew that there is a buyer out there, loaded with money and hellbent on getting this ultimate weapon."

Even in the early days, the trade was no secret. Washington sent Germany dozens of complaints about their leaky export-control system that let "dual use" technology leave even though some was clearly intended for Pakistan's nuclear program, said Mark Hibbs, a Germany-based editor of a technical journal, Nucleonics Week. But many of those warnings were ignored, he said.

Mr. Veerman said Dutch companies continued to work with Dr. Khan after it was clear he was developing centrifuges for a weapon. Dr. Khan even sent scientists to the Netherlands in the late 1970's for centrifuge-related training.

Eventually the flow of technology reversed, two senior Pakistani military officials involved in the probe of Dr. Khan said. "These contacts and channels were later used for sending technology out of Pakistan by certain individuals," a military official said, "including Dr. A. Q. Khan."

<b>From Buyer to Seller</b>

Dr. Khan had three motives, investigators say. He was eager to defy the West and pierce "clouds of the so-called secrecy," as he once put it. He was equally eager to transfer technology to other Muslim nations, according to a senior Pakistani politician. "He also said that giving technology to a Muslim country was not a crime," the politician said.

But another motive appears to have been money. As Dr. Khan's nuclear successes grew, so did his wealth. He acquired homes and properties, including a tourist hotel in Africa.

A family friend said Dr. Khan spoke of the centrifuge designs he perfected as if the technology belonged to him personally, not to Pakistan. A senior politician said that in meetings with Chaudry Shujat Hussain, leader of a pro-Musharraf political party, Dr. Khan never spoke of selling the technology, only of "sharing" it.

He started slowly. He simply ordered more parts in the black market than he needed for Pakistan.

At first, Western intelligence agencies tracking Dr. Khan were perplexed.

"In the 1980's, I remember being told by officials that Khan was over-ordering centrifuge parts and they couldn't understand why," recalled Simon Henderson, a London-based author who has written extensively about Dr. Khan. It eventually became clear that the extras went to clients outside Pakistan.

Around 1987, Dr. Khan struck a deal with Iran, which wanted to build 50,000 centrifuges of a type known as P-1, for Pakistan-1, an entry-level model, Western investigators found. If ever completed, a plant that size would let Tehran make fuel for about 30 atom bombs each year.

As Pakistan's own technology became more sophisticated, Dr. Khan sold old Pakistani centrifuges and parts, Western investigators found, some contaminated with highly enriched uranium.

Iran appears to have acquired such second-hand gear. "They were not happy to discover they overpaid for old wares," said one American intelligence official. But for Iran, it was a start.

A Pakistani military official involved in the investigation of Dr. Khan said foreign requests for technology "came on paper, in person, through third parties, in meetings with Khan himself."

The scientist then used the vast logistic system available to him, which included government cargo planes, to ship the components to middlemen, who cloaked the source.

"The same network, the same routes, the same people who brought the technology in were also sending it out," said the military official.

In the final stages of his export career, Dr. Khan simply used his middlemen to order large shipments of parts for foreigners, even if Pakistan had no apparent role in the transaction and appeared to receive no direct benefits, American investigators said.

A Made-to-Order Customer

When Libya embarked on a two-step effort to become a nuclear-weapons nation, Dr. Khan's network was presented with an opportunity to sell a particularly sophisticated system. The network was moving to a new level of ambition.

Libya's initial focus was the aging P-1 design, American and European investigators said. But eventually the Libyans sought a more efficient technology, the P-2, made of maraging steel, a superhard alloy. That design has steel rotors that could spin nearly twice as fast as earlier aluminum ones, doubling the rate of enrichment.

The central figure in the Libyan P-2 effort, American officials said, was Mr. Tahir, a Sri Lankan native who had moved to Dubai as a child. Dr. Khan had attended Mr. Tahir's wedding in 1998, Malaysian officials said.

In his speech yesterday, Mr. Bush said Mr. Tahir used a company in Dubai, SMB Computers, "as a front for the proliferation activities of the A. Q. Khan network." Corporate records list him as an owner.

Another associate whose name surfaced in the Libyan deal was Mr. Griffin, the British engineer who long procured gear for Dr. Khan, according to investigators in several countries, corporate records and company officials.

Interviewed by telephone from France, Mr. Griffin, 68, declined to discuss details of his early relationship with Dr. Khan but said he had known him for decades. "We met ages ago," he said.

Mr. Griffin said that all the items he sent to Pakistan were approved by the British Department of Trade and Industry and that he had done nothing illegal. He said the British authorities had seized his computer in June from his home in France. That had given rise to false "suspicions that Gulf Technical Industries and myself were doing things for Libya," Mr. Griffin said. "There's no such truth in it."

In June 2000, according to investigators and public records, Mr. Griffin set up a trading company in Dubai, Gulf Technical Industries. The following year, it contracted with a Malaysian manufacturing conglomerate to make sophisticated parts.

The manufacturer, Scomi Group Berhad, said it signed a contract with Gulf Technical in December 2001 to supply the components. Mr. Griffin and Mr. Tahir had met with company officials months earlier, in February 2001, to discuss the possible deal, said Rohaida Ali Badaruddin, a Scomi spokeswoman. After the contract was signed, Scomi set up Scomi Precision Engineering, hired some 40 workers, bought costly machine tools and began work, she said.

Dr. Khan provided the blueprints for the machines and parts, said a close aide to General Musharraf who is familiar with the Pakistani investigation. "He had given most of the designs," the aide said. At one point Dr. Khan suggested that two of his senior aides join the Malaysian enterprise, the aide said.

Scomi Precision made its first shipment to Gulf Technical in December 2002 and the last in August 2003. Investigators said the shipments were largely P-2 centrifuge parts.

Throughout the work at Scomi Precision, the man known as Tinner, an engineer sent from Dubai by Mr. Tahir, was on site overseeing the work, a Scomi official said.

In a statement, Scomi said the shipments had consisted only of "14 semifinished components." Company officials said they never knew of the intended use of the parts.

A senior Bush administration official disputed the company's account, saying it would be highly unlikely that someone there did not know what they were producing. American and European weapons experts also said that the shipment headed for Libya contained thousands of centrifuge parts.

"Their goal was far reaching," a top European nuclear expert said of the Libyans. "They had ordered this very large amount."

Mr. Griffin acknowledged that he had been to Malaysia and that he and Mr. Tahir had met with Scomi officials. But he said the discussion had to do with exports of tank trucks, a deal he said never materialized. Mr. Griffin said that if Mr. Tahir had continued to meet with Scomi officials, or struck any deals, he had not authorized it.

But a Scomi official insisted the meeting was to discuss Scomi's contract for finely tooled parts.

Malaysian officials said Mr. Tahir was under investigation in Malaysia, but was not under arrest. His younger brother, Sayed Ibrahim Bukhari, said in a telephone interview this week that Mr. Tahir does not hold any ownership position in SMB Computers.

Mr. Bush said the Malaysian authorities had assured Washington that the Scomi factory was no longer producing centrifuge parts.

An American expert said the Libyans planned on making at least 10,000 of the machines. Such a complex would make enough highly enriched uranium each year for about 10 nuclear weapons.

But the advanced centrifuges never reached Libya. They were seized on the BBC China.

When investigators went to Libya, they found that Dr. Khan's network had also provided blueprints for a nuclear weapon. For investigators, it was a startling revelation of how audacious and dangerous the black market had become. And it made them recognize that they did not know who else out there was buying and selling.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said, "We haven't really seen the full picture."


<i>Reporting for this article was contributed by David Rohde and Talat Hussain from Pakistan, Craig S. Smith from the Netherlands and Tim Golden from New York.</i>

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Bhatia has the last laugh over Xerox Khan <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
'When A Q Khan called me a Hindu b@st@rd' - Shyam Bhatia

[Guest]

Boss of NPT still thinks, AQK is just a black marketer. They just don't want to touch his boss- Pakistan Army. What a shame?