Islamic Nuke

[Guest]

<b>French Envoy: Iran Entitled to Enrich Uranium</b>
Resalat, Daily Newspaper, No. 5419, Oct. 19th, 2004, Page 1-17
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->French Ambassador to Tehran Francois Nicoullaud says Iran is entitled to have nuclear technology. "We have mentioned this issue in our Tehran Declaration but the Islamic Republic should account for some questions," he says. The ambassador notes that enrichment of uranium is a perilous process but it is an advantage. Iran wants to enjoy this advantage but it has to accept certain conditions. Nicoullaud also says Iran-France economic relations are picking up speed and registering 30 percent annual growth. The two countries have to increase the level of their ties with mutual investment. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Pakistan's disturbing nuclear trail | csmonitor.com
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1027/p03s01-usgn.html

Materials from A.Q. Khan's black-market nuclear network remain
unaccounted for.
By _Faye Bowers_

http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/encryptmail.pl?
ID=C6E1F9E5A0C2EFF7E5F2F3&url=/
2004/1027/p03s01-usgn.html
| Staff writer of The
Christian Science Monitor
October 27, 2004 edition

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Overall, the Khan network is the biggest nonproliferation disaster of the nuclear age," says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "It is certainly good news that at least the beginning of breaking up that network has occurred. <b>Unfortunately, a substantial number of players in that network are still walking around free people</b>."

Those walking free are probably additional businessmen, still unidentified, with specific technical capabilities to manufacture parts for centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium, a necessary ingredient for a nuclear bomb.

Moreover, Dr. Khan and his top aides remain free, or at least semi-free. Although Khan publicly <b>admitted his guilt this past February, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pardoned him. Khan is said to be under house arrest in five costly mansions</b>. His top aides are free as well, their movements apparently monitored.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-k.ram+Oct 27 2004, 09:29 AM-->QUOTE(k.ram @ Oct 27 2004, 09:29 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>Unfortunately, a substantial number of players in that network are still walking around free people</b>."
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Are there more links say from other Western sources on this - i.e., Paki nuke black-marketeers still walking around free?

Need it for a good cause please <!--emo&:eager--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/lmaosmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lmaosmiley.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<b>Outside View: Bin Laden's real message</b>

<b>OBL'S TAPE: ONE MORE SPIN IN US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN?</b> -by B.Raman<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Has Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment had a hand in the production of the latest message, calculating, rightly or wrongly, that this would redound to the benefit of Bush? They are very nervous over the prospects of a Kerry victory.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

NY Times story: C.I.A. Says Pakistanis Gave Iran Nuclear Aid
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In a recent closed-door speech to a private group, George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, <b>described Mr. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, as being </b>"<b>at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden</b>" because of his role in providing nuclear technology to other countries. A tape recording of the speech was obtained by The New York Times.
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[Guest]

<b>Iran-EU nuclear talks break off, say diplomats</b>
VIENNA (AFP) - Informal Iran-EU talks to rescue an agreement on a promised Iranian freeze of key nuclear fuel-making activities broke off Saturday, opening the door to possible UN sanctions against Tehran, diplomats said.
“We have no progress. It is up to the Iranians now to ponder what they will do,” a European diplomat close to the talks told AFP. “They have a very serious decision to make.”
“If there is not soon a verification of full suspension (of uranium enrichment by Iran), then we’ll be in a different ballgame from then on,” he added.
Diplomats said this could mean that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors would fail to pass a resolution based on the suspension when it resumes meeting in Vienna Monday.
The suspension was intended to show Iran’s good faith in the face of US accusations that Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
...............

[ramana]

US goes back to the nuclear source- Asia Times

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->US goes back to the nuclear source
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - With the US government insisting that Iran has been secretly working on the development of nuclear weapons, and being frustrated that the United Nations' watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency is "too soft" on Tehran, a new investigation is under way in Pakistan to find evidence of that country assisting Iran's program.
In November the US Central Intelligence Agency reported that the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, was instrumental in selling advanced uranium-enrichment centrifuges to Iran, and that he was likely to have sold it an actual nuclear-weapon design, along with nuclear-fuel material.

The disgraced Khan is currently under house arrest in Pakistan. <b>Asia Times Online sources say that an investigation has begun in Pakistan to track the remnants of Khan's network and previous activities. </b>
Although Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has denied the fact, Pakistan has agreed to indirect US investigations into Khan and his former network. In terms of an agreement between Islamabad and Washington, the US has supplied a questionnaire to Pakistan for Khan, after which his answers will be returned to US authorities. In the light of the answers, the US will send investigators to Pakistan for ground checks at its nuclear plants, laboratories or any other facilities.

An exclusive investigation carried out by Asia Times Online suggests that the investigations will center on the following:

<b>A key member of Khan's network, Sri Lankan Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, who is currently a resident in Malaysia.
An unofficial facility where nuclear components might have been handled.
The financial network supporting Khan's activities. </b>

Initial reports have already revealed a facility in Karachi where some of the smuggled nuclear components might have been developed or stored. This is said to be People's Steel Mills Mangopir, from where a local businessmen transhipped the "consignments". The company still operates.

Payment matters were dealt with from the United Arab Emirates by a Dubai-based company owned by a top Pakistani businessmen who deals in gold.

Although investigations in fact started in June last year, when in a surprise and unprecedented move then finance minister and now Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited the restricted areas of Pakistan's Kahota Research Labs (see Musharraf cooks up an American banquet , June 18, '03), the latest investigations will focus on specific areas and targets that the US and Pakistani governments have already agreed upon in principle.

An official report on a US State Department website quotes a senior Bush administration official as saying that Khan is a "traitor to Pakistan". The report, on Washington File, quotes Musharraf as telling US President George W Bush that he believed it was "absolutely in Pakistan's interest" to uncover the remaining elements of the so-called Khan network of nuclear proliferators.

The author, Stephen Kaufman, is Washington File's White House correspondent. He bases his report on a briefing with an unnamed senior Bush administration official. "Asked about the nuclear proliferation network run by Pakistani scientist A Q Khan, the official said Mr Bush was grateful to Mr Musharraf for his 'decisive move' to roll up the network, especially since the move against Khan was initially unpopular among the Pakistani public," the report said.

He quotes the official as telling him that Pakistanis "have come to recognize that A Q Khan was a traitor to Pakistan and a threat to Pakistan's interests, and have supported President Musharraf's efforts to crack down on the A Q Khan network and work with us".

"As a result, a good volume of information was provided that helped the US and other international authorities dismantle the network," the report said. "It allowed us to roll up some pretty significant proliferation networks that we would never have known about," the official told the Washington File.

But the official said that "more work remains to be done" and Musharraf feels it is "absolutely in Pakistan's interest" to continue to uncover any remaining elements of the network.

<b>Already there are reports of a Pakistan-Saudi Arabia nexus on nuclear projects, and observers in Pakistan fear that if Tahir is handed over to the US, a new Pandora's box could be opened, after which Pakistan would come off in a bad light, though any action against Islamabad is unlikely as long as Pakistan remains in a strategic alliance with the US in the "war on terror". </b>
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[Guest]

TIME / Sunday, Feb. 06, 2005
The Man Who Sold the Bomb
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>How Pakistan's A.Q. Khan outwitted Western intelligence to build a global nuclear-smuggling ring that made the world a more dangerous place</i>
By BILL POWELL AND TIM MCGIRK/ISLAMABAD

Not long ago, Abdul Qadeer Khan used to walk into a wooded park across the street from his mansion in Pakistan's capital city and feed the monkeys who lived there. That was when he was a national hero and a multimillionaire, owner of a fleet of vintage cars and properties from Dubai to Timbuktu. But Khan, 68, no longer crosses the street to feed the monkeys. These days he is almost never seen outside. His house, which lies just over a grassy hillside from Islamabad's King Faisal Mosque, is modern, squat and dark, its facade concealed behind a vine-covered wall. To the casual observer, the house provides just one clue to its owner's sinister profession. At the end of his driveway sits a large jasmine bush, trimmed into an odd but unmistakable shape: that of a mushroom cloud.

When President George W. Bush identified the main threats to global security in his State of the Union address last week, the name A.Q. Khan was not on the list. In some respects, that's not surprising.

Khan is under house arrest, his every move monitored by Pakistani government agents. He is said to be in failing health, and will probably live out his days a recluse. And yet one year after Khan appeared on Pakistani television and confessed to selling some of that country's most prized secrets, the world is only beginning to uncover the extent of his treachery—and comprehend how one man did more to destabilize the planet than did many of the world's worst regimes.

For more than a decade, Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, masterminded a vast, clandestine and hugely profitable enterprise whose mission boiled down to this: selling to a rogues' gallery of nations the technology and equipment to make nuclear weapons. Among Khan's customers were Iran and North Korea—two countries identified by Bush as members of the "axis of evil," whose nuclear ambitions present the U.S. with two of its biggest foreign policy quandaries.

At a moment when the international community is focused on a potential showdown with Iran, a TIME investigation has revealed that Khan's network played a bigger role in helping Tehran and Pyongyang than had been previously disclosed. U.S. intelligence officials believe Khan sold North Korea much of the material needed to build a bomb, including high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium and the equipment required to manufacture more of them. Officials are worried—but have not yet seen proof—that Khan gave those countries rudimentary but effective designs for nuclear warheads. Officials in Washington and at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna say they suspect that Iran may have bought the same set of goods—centrifuges and possibly weapons designs—from Khan in the mid-1990s. Although the IAEA says so far it has not found definitive proof that Iran has a weapons program, its investigators told TIME that Tehran has privately confirmed at least 13 meetings from 1994 to 1999 with representatives of Khan's network.

Who else did business with this merchant of menace? The list of suspected nuclear clients is dizzying. Investigators believe that as head of Pakistan's main nuclear-research laboratory, Khan traveled the world for more than a decade, visiting countries in Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. According to a source in Pakistan's Defense Ministry, U.S. officials are investigating whether Khan's network might have sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. The U.S. has submitted questions to Khan asking whether North Korea and Iran sold such equipment to third parties.

The ultimate fear: that one of Khan's clients may pass along nuclear technology and expertise to terrorist groups. Although the U.S. does not have concrete evidence that Khan did business with al-Qaeda, there is reason to suspect such a link exists. A few members of Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment, which worked closely with Khan in his role as the government's top nuclear scientist, are known to sympathize with Osama bin Laden. The more investigators have learned about the reach of Khan's network, the more alarmed they have become. Says a U.S. official involved with analyzing Iran's nuclear program: "You're dealing with a supplier who didn't appear to have any qualms."

Despite the U.S.'s obvious interest in uncovering the scope of the nuclear bazaar, neither the Administration nor the IAEA has been allowed to interrogate Khan directly. Knowledgeable sources tell TIME that at a meeting at the White House in December, Bush told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that he believed Khan had not fessed up to all his nefarious transactions. Musharraf agreed but refused to allow non-Pakistanis to quiz Khan.

So who is Abdul Qadeer Khan, and what kind of threat does his illicit enterprise still pose? When you piece together the details of Khan's career, his business dealings and the covert operation that brought him down, what emerges is a portrait of a brainy engineer who devoted his life to the pursuit and proliferation of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Born to humble beginnings, he became a globe-trotting magnate who relished the luxury that fame and savvy brought him. But colleagues say he was also driven by a devout faith and a burning belief that Muslim possession of nuclear weapons would help return Islam to greatness. Just how far Khan was able to spread that vision is a question, says a former U.S. intelligence official, "that still keeps a lot of us up nights."

Khan was born in 1936, in Bhopal, India, 11 years before the founding of Pakistan. His youth was shaped by the communal violence that plagued India after the end of colonization. He has told his biographer of witnessing the massacre of Muslims by Hindus that followed the partition of the old British colony in 1947. By the time he immigrated to Pakistan in 1952, Khan had developed an interest in science and a loathing for India.

In 1953, Khan enrolled in Karachi's D.J. Science College. But he soon uprooted again, moving to Europe and earning degrees in electrical engineering and metallurgy. After finishing his studies, he threw himself into the burgeoning field of nuclear science in the Netherlands. With oil prices soaring, interest in harnessing nuclear power for civilian energy was high. In 1975, Khan took a job at the Dutch branch of a European nuclear-research consortium, Urenco, which specialized in uranium enrichment. Khan soon recognized that the centrifuges Urenco had developed to enrich uranium for civilian use were powerful enough to produce the fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon.

When he returned home in 1976, he displayed his talent for enterprise. He brought with him the Dutch woman who would become his wife—and extremely sensitive centrifuge designs, which the Dutch say he had stolen from his nuclear employer. In the context of Pakistan's rivalry with India, Khan's perfidy was considered an extreme form of patriotism. Since India had a nuclear program, Pakistan needed one too. Soon Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed Khan to run Pakistan's nuclear-research program, with the goal of developing a weapon as soon as possible. "Pakistan's choice was either to reinvent the wheel or buy it," says Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group in Islamabad. Khan decided to buy it.

There are two basic paths to producing bomb-grade material. One involves reprocessing the plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel, a path taken by North Korea in the 1980s. But that method requires first building a nuclear reactor, a costly and cumbersome endeavor.

Khan's experience in Europe steered him toward the cheaper option.

Working the contacts he had made in Europe, he set out to acquire the rotational machines, known as centrifuges, that enrich uranium into bomb-grade material. Pakistan's bomb program took years to mature, but in 1998, on the back of Khan's labors, the country detonated five underground nuclear bombs. At a time of high tensions with India over the disputed region of Kashmir, the event turned Khan into a national hero. His glowering, wavy-haired portrait was hand-painted on the backs of trucks and buses all over the country. He was twice awarded Pakistan's highest civilian honor, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz medal.

Celebrated in textbooks, he was probably Pakistan's most famous man.

But Khan had a secret life. In hindsight, there were some obvious tip-offs. Although still a civil servant in a poor country, he owned dozens of properties in Pakistan and Dubai and invested in a Timbuktu hotel, which he named after his wife. He donated $30 million to various Pakistani charities and had enough money left over to buy his staff members cars and pay for the university education of their children. He had an ego to match his newfound fortune: after paying to restore the tomb of Sultan Shahabuddin Ghauri, an Afghan who conquered Delhi, Khan put up a portrait of himself next to the sultan's.

Friends noticed another transformation in Khan. He became more religious after the successful nuclear tests in 1998. A Libyan source familiar with Khan's transactions with the Libyan government says Khan claimed he was selling nuclear technology to bolster the standing of Muslims. "We Muslims have to be strong and equal to any other country, and therefore I want to help some countries be strong," the source recalls Khan saying. Ex-colleagues told TIME that following the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, he railed against the West and its operations against the Muslim community. After the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan for its nuclear test, Khan became convinced that the U.S. was bent on destroying Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, its main weapon against India's far mightier army.

Whether motivated by greed or ideology or both, Khan decided to go into business for himself, even as he oversaw Pakistan's nuclear development. Khan offered a one-stop shop for regimes interested in producing nuclear weapons. He offered centrifuges—known as P-1, for Pakistan, and later P-2, a more sophisticated version—as well as machines that make centrifuges (critical to Khan's customers because hundreds or thousands of them are needed to make highly enriched uranium in quantities sufficient for a weapon). Utilizing a variety of contacts in Europe, Asia and Africa, Khan built a network of factories and salesmen that covered the globe. There was even a slick advertising brochure promoting the group's wares.

In the early 1990s, Khan began meeting with representatives from an assortment of outlaw regimes. A former Energy Minister in Islamabad says Iranian officials approached Pakistan's army chief in 1991, offering "around $8 billion" for access to Khan's technology. The offer was rebuffed but, IAEA officials say, three years later Khan did establish contact with the Iranians. A key member of the network has told investigators that Iran bought centrifuges from Khan. The IAEA reports that the Khan network also provided Iran with blueprints to manufacture more P-1 and P-2 centrifuges. The Iranians say they wanted the centrifuges for civilian purposes, a claim the U.S. doubts. Either way, says a U.S. official, "Khan was vital" to the progress of Iran's nuclear program.

By 1995, with Khan's Iran connection established, another global pariah, Libya, sought him out. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had tried in the late 1980s to build his own nuclear program by importing German technology and engineers, but the effort failed. To make its bombs, Libya wanted to enrich uranium rather than produce plutonium in a reactor because, says the official, "with a reactor, you cannot hide anything." Khan's system was a perfect fit, and as the commercial relationship was launched, Khan's underlings whetted Gaddafi's appetite with an unexpected gift. Khan gave the Libyans a stack of technical instructions for how to build a nuclear warhead. The material was wrapped in the kind of plastic sheeting used by dry cleaners. Khan never told the Libyans that it was a plan for a bomb, saying only "Here is some information that will be useful for you in the future."

Gaddafi soon upped the ante. In 1997, Khan's Libyan contacts told him they wanted P-1 and P-2 centrifuges and the equipment to build hundreds more. The deal was worth $100 million. To fill the order, Khan turned to old contacts in Western Europe and South Africa, in some instances using the same people he had done business with in the 1980s. Among the shadowy middlemen involved over the years were South African Johan Meyer and German- South African Gerhard Wisser, who allegedly helped set up a processing facility that could be shipped whole to Libya. Khan's crew tapped furnacemakers in Italy, lathemakers in Spain, and Swiss middlemen who helped design parts for construction in Southeast Asia.

The network began sending Libya crateloads of equipment, routing the ships through Europe and the Persian Gulf city of Dubai before they reached their destination in Tripoli. It was an audacious enterprise, given that Western spies were on the hunt for illicit trading in weapons of mass destruction. But as far as Khan knew, his pursuers were still in the dark.

Khan's base of operations became Dubai, with its easy transit connections by air and its balmy beachfront climate. Dealmaking was suitably informal. A key member of Khan's network told investigators that Iranian contacts once dropped off in Khan's apartment two suitcases containing $3 million in cash as a payment. From 1999 on, Khan traveled to Dubai 41 times, the Pakistani government says. Khan also kept a penthouse on posh al-Maktoum Road. When arranging a shipment, he would set up in Dubai dozens of shell companies consisting of nothing more than "a fax machine and an empty office," says a former colleague. As soon as the deal was done, he shut the companies down.

For meetings with his underlings and potential customers, Khan favored other exotic locales: Istanbul and Casablanca. Pakistani sources say Khan used Dubai gold dealers to launder smuggling profits. At the height of his power, Khan was worth as much as $400 million.

Khan's right-hand man, what an intelligence official calls the managing director of his operation, was Buhary Sayed Abu Tahir, 44, a Sri Lankan whom Khan first met in Dubai in the mid-'90s. Tahir idolized Khan, mimicking him in sometimes expensive ways. In homage to the boss's vintage fleet, Tahir tooled around Dubai in a luxury car. To Khan, Tahir became indispensable. He divided his time between Kuala Lumpur (his wife is Malaysian) and Dubai. Through his connections in Malaysia, Tahir arranged for centrifuge components to be manufactured at a publicly traded company called Scomi Precision Engineering. Back in Dubai, he set up a cutout company called SMB Computers, which was a front for Khan's proliferation business.

Ultimately, components manufactured at Scomi were sold via SMB to Libya as "used machinery"—part of the $100 million contract with Gaddafi's government.

Meanwhile, Khan expanded. He made contact with the North Korean government as early as 1993, according to Pakistani investigators. In the late 1990s he began shipping centrifuges and the means to make them—"the whole package," as a U.S. intelligence official put it—in bulk to Pyongyang, sometimes aboard Pakistani military cargo planes.

Pakistani officials say Khan has testified that the North Koreans were so appreciative that in 1999 they took him on a private tour of their nuclear facilities during his visit to Pyongyang. U.S. and IAEA investigators believe that Khan also traveled to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and to such African countries as Sudan, Ivory Coast and Niger.

The purpose of those trips remains unclear, but intelligence officials have hunches: Saudi Arabia and Egypt are believed to be in the market for nuclear technology, and many African countries are rich in raw uranium ore.

As he hopscotched across the globe, Khan had little reason to believe that Western intelligence agencies were catching on to his activities. But unbeknownst to him, they apparently had found a mole in the operation who could lead straight to the boss.

When several Italian Coast-Guard cutters set out from the industrial port city of Taranto on that country's southeastern coast on Oct. 4, 2003, they had specific orders: to detain and board a German-flagged cargo ship called the BBC China, then heading for Libya. The seizure had, in fact, been arranged jointly by the CIA and MI6, the overseas arm of British intelligence. When the agents boarded the BBC China, what they found was anything but routine: five large containers, each carefully packed with precision machine tools, tubes and other bombmaking equipment. The containers amounted to part of a uranium-enrichment facility manufactured in Malaysia by Tahir's Scomi operation.

The CIA had been tracking Khan since the late 1990s. "We were inside his residence, inside his facilities, inside his rooms," former CIA Director George Tenet told an audience last year. A Libyan source told TIME that the Libyan government believes that the mole may have been Tahir, Khan's trusted aide. "[The U.S.] made a compromise with him," the source says. "He will be safe. They won't touch him, but he had to cooperate." The source has told TIME that when the CIA finally confronted Tripoli in late 2003 about its nuclear ambitions, the officers played a tape of a 1997 Casablanca meeting that was attended by only Khan, Tahir and two representatives of the Libyan government.

The source believes that Tahir was wearing a concealed microphone during that meeting.

Tahir was arrested in Kuala Lumpur in May 2004 and held under a Malaysian law allowing for the indefinite detention of individuals posing a security threat. He has provided a wealth of information to local investigators about the specifics of Khan's dealings, particularly with Iran and Libya. The IAEA said last week that the Malaysian government agreed for the first time to make Tahir available to IAEA investigators—the next best thing to being able to talk to Khan himself.

Two days after the boarding of the BBC China off the waters of Taranto, then U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage arrived in Islamabad and confronted Musharraf, demanding that the Pakistanis shut down Khan's network. "If I ever perspired," Musharraf said later, "it was then." But Pakistani sources close to Khan say Musharraf backed away from arresting the scientist out of fear that Khan would finger senior members of the Pakistani military and security services as having been complicit in nuclear trafficking.

"Everyone got a cut," says a Khan acquaintance, referring to high-ranking military officers connected with the nuclear program.

Khan's last public appearance came on Feb. 4, 2004, when he appeared on national television and confessed to running the smuggling ring.

The next day, to the outrage of many in Washington, Musharraf pardoned him.

The quest to get more information out of Khan has been slow. At the White House meeting in December, Musharraf told Bush that it was impossible to know whether Khan has divulged all he knows, since he tends to talk only when confronted with evidence. If the U.S. has specific questions for Khan, Musharraf said, his men would follow it up. "I will investigate," Musharraf assured Bush. The Administration gave Pakistan a new dossier of queries for Khan, and a knowledgeable official says Pakistan has since questioned Khan and reported back to Washington.

But many questions remain unresolved, including whether Khan sold blueprints for building a nuclear warhead to Iran, as he did with Libya. If true, such a finding would allow the U.S. to ratchet up its charges that Tehran's nuclear research has a military purpose. What's more, sources close to Khan Research Laboratories in Islamabad tell TIME that even though its head has been removed, Khan's illicit network of suppliers and middlemen is still out there. "Nothing has changed," one of Khan's former aides says. "The hardware is still available, and the network hasn't stopped." A recent probe of Khan's lab found that 16 cylinders of uranium hexafluoride gas, a critical ingredient for uranium enrichment, are missing, sources close to the lab say. And a Pakistani official says some in Islamabad are vexed that the Swiss and German governments, among others, have failed to arrest individuals implicated by Khan's testimony.

The man with the answers passes his days in Islamabad, his once peripatetic lifestyle now confined to the interior of his villa. A close friend says Khan's health is poor, and he is given to bouts of depression. Although the man may fade into obscurity, the world is only beginning to reckon with his legacy. <b>It's still a seller's market in the nuclear bazaar. And now there's room at the top.</b>

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[acharya]

Pakistan rejects scientist claim
AQ Khan Pakistani nuclear scientist
Khan confessed last year to leaking nuclear secrets
Pakistan has dismissed a magazine article that said the US was probing whether disgraced scientist AQ Khan sold nuclear secrets to Arab nations.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Time magazine's claims were "distorted" and "baseless".

The magazine quoted Pakistani defence sources as saying the US was probing sales to Saudi Arabia and others.

Pakistan pardoned Dr Khan after he admitted illegally transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.


There is nothing in [the case of] Saudi Arabia that may be attributed to Pakistan
Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed

Breaking Khan's network

But the scientist, still regarded as a hero by many in Pakistan as the father of the nation's nuclear programme, has been under virtual house arrest since his pardon early last year.

The Time magazine report also said Dr Khan's role in helping Iran and North Korea was greater than originally thought.

The article said: "US intelligence officials believe Khan sold North Korea much of the material needed to build a bomb, including high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium and the equipment required to manufacture more of them."

'Biggest proliferator'

Mr Ahmed said Time had made "distortions in its story".

Supporters of Mr AQ Khan prior to his confession
Khan is still regarded as a hero by many in Pakistan

"There is nothing in [the case of] Saudi Arabia that may be attributed to Pakistan," he said.

However, he did not rule out that Dr Khan's network may have been more extensive than believed.

"We don't know of any other country that he gave nuclear technology to. But if there is another country, we will investigate. If there are any questions [for Khan] we will ask them."

Mr Ahmed also rejected a claim in Time that cylinders used for uranium enrichment had gone missing from the Khan Research Laboratories facility.

"All those items are listed and all are there," he said.

The US has given questions to Pakistan to ask Dr Khan but has not been allowed to interrogate him.

Mr Ahmed again insisted the scientist "will not be handed over to anyone".

The US has called Dr Khan the "biggest proliferator" of nuclear technology.

Dr Khan held the post of scientific adviser since retiring as head of the country's top nuclear facility in 2001 but was sacked after his confession.

[acharya]

US allies fret at hard line of 'nuclear hawks'
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: February 4 2005 21:14 | Last updated: February 4 2005 21:14

US nuclearHow far the second Bush administration can take its charm offensive in rebuilding its traditional alliances is already being put to the test by newly promoted “nuclear hawks” committed to a hardline approach on arms control and non-proliferation.

Tensions are emerging between the US and its allies over what non-nuclear nations see as a lack of sincerity by the superpower towards nuclear disarmament, even as it pushes for a tightening of the international nuclear regime and a tougher response to the ambitions of North Korea and Iran.

Senior diplomats are concerned that a review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a conference held every five years and due to reconvene in New York in May, will produce no outcome.

The “nuclear hawks” or “bomb lovers” as one former official described them include Jack Crouch, named this week as deputy national security adviser; Robert Joseph, expected to be named soon as undersecretary for arms control; and John Rood, who replaces Mr Joseph in the White House as special adviser.

The hawks--supported by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary--are known for their scepticism towards arms control agreements, their commitment to missile defence and development of new nuclear weapons, such as “bunker busters”, and an appreciation of covert operations.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in 2001, Mr Crouch was questioned about his support for nuclear testing and his 1995 recommendation for attacks on North Korea's nuclear complexes should agreements fail.

Discussions over the NPT review agenda are stalled, in part because of the US refusal to reaffirm the “13 steps” adopted at the 2000 conference. Those steps included a broad commitment to undertake nuclear disarmament and not to resume testing.

“Times change. Debate moves on. The debate will be relevant to conditions that prevail today, not in 2000,” Stephen Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control, told a panel discussion organised by the independent Arms Control Association this week.

Roberto Abdenur, Brazil's ambassador to Washington, was visibly upset. Reflecting the sentiment of countries that have renounced development of nuclear weapons, he warned that the NPT review conference, to be chaired by Brazil, could fail. “If a nuclear power says the 13 steps belong in the past, what confidence do we non-nuclear developing states have in the NPT?” he said. “Let's be careful about this.”

Failure at the review conference to produce a consensus has happened before. It would by no mean spell an end to the NPT. But diplomats say it would weaken the main pillar of non-proliferation at a critical moment.

The US administration insists the NPT remains the cornerstone of global arms control and non-proliferation efforts. Under the bilateral 2002 Moscow Treaty, the US will reduce (but not destroy) its operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 about one-third of the level in 2002 in the next seven years. Since 1989, the US says it has cut by nearly 90 per cent the number of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

The hawks were instrumental, while George W. Bush was campaigning for office in 2000, in drawing up a review of US nuclear strategy, adopted in 2002 that foresaw an expanded role for nuclear weapons.

Washington affirms it will not resume nuclear testing, even though it refuses to become a party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Despite these declarations, Joseph Cirincione, head of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment, is among analysts and former officials concerned that the review conference is heading for a “train wreck”.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>We had nuclear capability in 1988 itself: Bhutto</b>Washington, March 4, 2005|08:47 IST    
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said that Pakistan had a nuclear capability when she came into office in 1988,<b> but claimed that the government did not assemble the nuclear components then.</b>
<i>[It means China gave them]</i>

"When I became Prime Minister, I was told we had not put together the bomb. We had the components of the bomb," she told the Voice of America (VOA).

<b>"And although we had the components of a nuclear weapon, we took the conscious decision not to put together a nuclear weapon", she added.</b>

She also said that coordinated international efforts were needed to eliminate terrorism, adding democracies must be established as an alternative to counter terror.

Bhutto, said "freedom and democracy" were the enemies of terrorists, especially Al-Qaeda, and pointed to the danger from the organisation.

"It is a fact that the elements of Al-Qaeda can regroup as the Taliban did after 2001 and start attacking inside Afghanistan," she said in a programme on Wednesday.

The former Prime Minster also said that Pakistan could play a role between Iran and the United States.[<i>They are already playing]</i>

"Pakistan is close to both the United States and Iran; it can informally play a role in clearing the misunderstandings and avert the war, as President Bush himself said that no decision has been made for war."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Pakistan: Disgraced <!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Scientist Gave Iran Centrifuges
(Yahoo headlines..not mine <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> )

[Guest]

<b>Pakistan reviving nuclear black market: Experts</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pakistan has developed new illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear weapons programme, despite efforts by the UN atomic watchdog to shut down all illegal procurement avenues, diplomats and nuclear experts said.

Western diplomats familiar with an investigation of the nuclear black market by the UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said this news was disturbing.

While Pakistan appeared to be shopping for its own needs, the existence of some nuclear black market channels meant there were still ways for rogue states or terrorist groups to acquire technology that could be used in atomic weapons, they said.

"General procurement efforts (by Pakistan) are going on. It is a determined effort," a diplomat from a member of the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"This was discussed at an NSG meeting in Vienna last week," he said, adding that those involved in the discussion agreed to try to keep the issue secret to avoid upsetting Pakistan.

Nuclear experts said these channels involved new middlemen who had not played a role in earlier deals which came to light last year.

<b>"These are not the same people. They're new, which is worrying," said one Western diplomat.</b>

Pakistan is subject to sanctions against its atomic arms programme as it has not signed the 1968 global nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Is Iran on nuclear threshold? </b>
Kanchan Gupta
When Abdul Qader Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, was exposed as a rogue scientist who indulged in black market nuclear proliferation by selling technology and components to despotic regimes across the world from North Korea to Libya, few realised the true dimension of his deeds and their implications.

The revelation and subsequent public shaming of AQ Khan's black-marketing of nuclear know-how came in February 2004. A year later, the huge jigsaw puzzle that is the legacy of his hawking bomb-making blueprints and equipment continues to remain unsolved with many crucial bits and pieces still missing.

<b>Some of the missing pieces have now been found in Iran, which is in the eye of a raging storm over its covert nuclear programme whose real purpose is doubted by both the US and the European Union.</b> The IAEA is in the midst of verifying Iranian claims that its programme is meant for peaceful purposes and not for creating a nuclear arsenal.

Not surprisingly, like the proverbial Jack-in-the-box, Khan's name has popped up in the ongoing controversy over Iran's uranium enrichment programme. It was first put out by the US Administration that Khan had provided the Iranians with crucial centrifuges that are required for producing weapons grade uranium.

Later, in a surprise public admission of Khan's guilt, the Pakistani Government, in a not-so-nuanced statement, said he had indeed supplied the Iranians with used centrifuges. Pakistan's admission of guilt was followed by a statement out of the IAEA headquarters in Geneva, saying its experts had been given access to used centrifuges at Pakistani facilities for "comparative analysis" purposes.

These amazing disclosures, which indicate that Khan is going to give the world sleepless nights for months and years to come as further evidence of nuclear proliferation under his tutelage surfaces, have left strategic analysts looking for answers to two key questions.

<b>First, why did Pakistan - only Islamabad claims and Washington concurs that neither the Pakistani Army nor the Pakistani Government were aware of Khan's dangerous deeds - agree to provide Iran with critical weapons related know-how and components?</b> If Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, Pakistan would have every reason to be worried more than any other country in the neighbourhood.

<b>Second, why has Pakistan made a public admission of Khan providing centrifuges to Iran and, related to that, why is Islamabad offering an inspection of its used centrifuges by IAEA experts?</b>

In response to the first question, some experts have pointed out that Pakistani Army generals, who could not but have been complicit partners in the black-marketing of nuclear technology, blueprints and components - Khan often travelled by special military aircraft to North Korea, Libya and Iran - may be good tacticians, but are awfully poor strategists.

At some stage, it may have made good sense, and therefore amounted to good tactics, to pass on nuclear technology to the Iranians for cheap oil and other benefits whose beneficiaries were Khan and his friends in the Pakistani Army. But they did not have the foresight to think ahead as to how they would deal with a nuclear Iran.

Of course, there are others who believe that Pakistan, by passing on nuclear know-how to Iran, was cocking a snook at America; it was an expression of defiance. Hence, the careful selection of countries that were to receive nuclear largesse from it: North Korea, Iran and Libya, each one a declared "enemy" of America.

The Pakistanis guessed, and correctly so, that in the end the USA would mollycoddle a defiant Pakistan, rather than punish it - <b>Washington's gift of F-16s </b>is a fraction of the rewards planned for Islamabad.<b> By making Khan the fall guy, Pakistan's men in khaki have escaped opprobrium;</b> on the contrary, they have been handsomely rewarded by a strangely <b>grateful American Administration which has pledged $ 640 million in aid during the coming fiscal.</b>

It is in the elaborate charade staged by the Pakistani establishment to proclaim its innocence that we can locate the answer to the second question. Pakistan's Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed's public admission of Khan's nefarious role in Iran's nuclear programme can be viewed as an outraged innocent denouncing the guilty. And it has been received as such in Washington.

As for offering used Pakistani centrifuges for IAEA inspection, it is more than likely that it is yet another elaborate ploy to get Iran off the hook. If the genetic imprint of the substance on the used centrifuges at Pakistani facilities matches those found on the centrifuges being used in Iran, then the Iranians can claim that it is a carry over from the original site where they were used before being handed over by Khan.

It is unlikely, though, that the Bush Administration will give up on Iran so easily. While nobody in the second Bush Administration is spoiling for a fight, at least not yet, if the EU were to fail in its diplomatic efforts in taming Iran's nuclear ambitions, then US-sponsored harsh UN sanctions are a very real possibility.

European Union diplomats have been engaged in intense negotiations with the Iranian Government and are trying to work out a mutually acceptable declaration that would tie Tehran down to a non-weapons nuclear programme. A draft was circulated at the last round of discussions that concluded in end-February, but it did not meet Iranian approval.

The Iranian Government has reiterated its willingness to resolve the dispute, which is fast gathering a momentum of its own and may spin out of Tehran's control, through discussions and expressed the hope that its talks with the EU will yield positive result.

The EU, too, is keen to deliver a peaceful resolution; that would underscore Europe's emphasis on skillful diplomacy as opposed to America's coercive sabre-rattling. However, if negotiations were to fail in the face of Iranian stubbornness, the EU would have no other option but to accede to punitive action by the US.

There are other implications of Iran's alleged covert nuclear programme, too, that are gradually surfacing.

The Bush Administration has made it abundantly clear that it does not favour India going ahead with the pipeline project to access Iranian natural gas. It has conveyed its reservations and wants the project put on hold for the time being, if not scrapped entirely.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue with her interlocutors during her visit to New Delhi last month. Later, she said at a joint press conference: "I think our views concerning Iran are very well known by this time and we have communicated to the Indian government our concerns about the gas pipeline between Iran and India through our ambassador."

It is believed that the US wants India to put its plans on hold for six months. During the interregnum, it has been politely conveyed by the US, <b>India can look into other options, for instance procuring gas from Turkmenistan instead Iran</b>. Clearly, the Bush Administration want to send across a message to Iran as well as use this opportunity to promote American business interests which have a stake in Turkmenistan gas sales.

Informed sources claim that according to American intelligence estimates, <b>if Iran is indeed feverishly pursuing a covert nuclear weapons programme, as is being alleged, it will conduct tests within six months</b>. While Iranian scientists piece together the components and produce sufficient enriched fuel, Iranian diplomats will keep their European interlocutors engaged in drawn-out negotiations, thus staving off punitive action till the tests are conducted.

If what is being claimed is even partly true, we have interesting times ahead of us
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>Chinese Aid to Pakistani Nuclear Program</b>
<i>Declassified Documents Show That, For Over Fifteen Years,
Beijing Rebuffed U.S. Queries on Chinese Aid to Pakistani Nuclear Program</i>

[Guest]

VIEW: F-16s and Pakistani military strategy —Ahmad Faruqui

It is unclear who will pay for the purchase of 100, let alone 200 F-16s. At $60 million a copy, a 100-aircraft shopping basket would run up a price tag of $6 billion. This rises to $12 billion for 200 aircraft. The mid-point of this range represents about 10 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product and is clearly beyond Pakistan’s financial reach

The debate continues to rage on whether a poor nation like Pakistan, where a third of the population lives in extreme poverty and more than half is illiterate, should be spending billions of dollars on sophisticated multi-role fighters like the F-16. This is a very important issue and the debate should continue not only in the media but also in universities and think tanks and ultimately in the National Assembly. The point that national security depends as much on softer factors such as social, economic and political development as on harder military factors cannot be over-emphasised.

However, there is another question that needs to be debated in parallel. It has to do with the role of F-16s in Pakistan’s military strategy. There are three main views on this subject.

The first school of thought opines that the weapon will be used in a purely defensive role, to deter an Indian invasion. Should the IAF intrude into Pakistani airspace, the F-16s would be used to intercept and destroy the invading aircraft. Lesser aircraft in the PAF inventory, such as Mirages and F-7s, would be used in a ground attack role to take out units of the Indian army.

The second school holds that the weapon will be used in a purely offensive role to carry out a nuclear air strike deep inside India. Presumably, such an air strike would be launched only if India has invaded Pakistan, cut off its main north-south communication arteries and destroyed the bulk of Pakistan’s armoured and artillery units. The purpose of the nuclear strike would be to prevent a final surrender.

A third school believes that the weapon would be used in both roles. But the numbers being provided to the PAF are clearly insufficient for undertaking both roles with a reasonable probability of success.

As with anything else related to the F-16 deal, there is controversy about the number of aircraft that would be provided to Pakistan. Initial press reports suggested 25. However, others have argued that there is no limit to the number. One source suggests that the number is 100, another 200.

It is unclear who will pay for the purchase of 100, let alone 200 F-16s. At $60 million a copy, a 100-aircraft shopping basket would run up a price tag of $6 billion. This rises to $12 billion for 200 aircraft. The mid-point of this range represents about 10 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product and is clearly beyond Pakistan’s financial reach, even if the economy continues to grow at the Shaukat Aziz projection of 8 percent a year. Phantasmagoric numbers should not underpin Pakistan’s strategic calculations.

A more reasonable shopping basket might be 40-50 aircraft, which when added to the 32 in the current inventory, would be sufficient to equip six squadrons.

The other question is when would the aircraft be delivered. It takes years to build an F-16. Late 2008 would be the earliest time of delivery if new planes are supplied. If more than 25 aircraft are ordered, final shipments may run into 2009-11.

The controversy not withstanding, what is the best military use of the F-16s? The answer depends on what is Pakistan’s military objective vis à vis India.

In IAF, the PAF faces one of the best-equipped air forces in Asia. It outnumbers the PAF by 6:1 in frontline aircraft and is likely to keep at least a 5:1 edge in the years to come. Aircraft in the IAF inventory include the first-rate SU-30 and MiG-29 multi-role fighters that can easily take on the F-16, especially if they are equipped with beyond-visual-range missiles. In addition, India has one of the best air defences in Asia. The Indian army is much better equipped than the Pakistani army and double the size. The disparity in forces is even more pronounced when we compare the two navies.

The PAF would be foolhardy to assume that its F-16s can penetrate Indian airspace at will. The F-16s would be detected at take-off and face a very high risk of being shot down within seconds of entering India.

Also, very sophisticated avionics are needed to deliver nuclear warheads by F-16 aircraft. It is unlikely that the US will provide such capability to Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan may be able to “bootstrap” such capability through other means. But this carries the risk of equipment malfunction. Finally, there is the worst scenario – the possibility that the F-16s would be destroyed on the ground in a pre-emptive air strike by India.

It may be in recognition of these difficulties that the war planners in Islamabad embarked on a ballistic missile development programme years ago. The solid-fuel Shaheen I and II missiles are capable of delivering nuclear warheads almost anywhere in India. Those, rather than the F-16s, would be the preferred weapons in a doomsday scenario. However, like any other scenario, this has its risks. For Pakistan, the risk would be destruction of the missiles and/or their launchers.

War games at numerous institutions suggest that Pakistan’s armed forces are not in a position to hold off a full-scale Indian invasion. The IAF enjoys air superiority over the PAF and Indian air defences are much better than Pakistan’s. This military imbalance cannot be overcome with bravado alone.

Should the IAF be prepared to sacrifice its own aircraft, it can destroy the PAF within a couple of days. Without air cover, the army is expected to fold in seven days. Gwadar may save the Pakistani Navy from being bottled up in the Karachi harbour, as happened in Karachi in 1971. However, it cannot save Pakistan from losing the ground battle.

Thus, the most valuable use of the F-16s is a purely defensive one, to ward off an Indian invasion by making it prohibitively costly to India. A nuclear war is a journey from which few come home. It is so much better to embark on a journey of peace and friendship. Perhaps the bus journey from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad will transform the relationship between India and Pakistan to the point that war ceases to be an option for settling disputes.

[Naresh]

<img src='http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/17_4_2005_sabir.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<b><span style='color:red'>PAKISTAN ENRICHMENT PROGRAM</span></b>

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<b>Iran fears attack soon, US preparing</b>

23 May 2005: Fearing a US attack within weeks, Iran has begun a desperate search for a “dirty” atomic bomb in North Korea and Africa, even while US secretary of state Condoleezaa Rice has told officials and representatives in Asia that diplomacy is at an end and force has to be used against that country.

During his last meeting with foreign minister Natwar Singh, his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharazzi, said Iran would need India’s assistance during the war, and to Natwar’s query, “Where is the war?” he replied that it was coming within weeks, not months.

Separately, this was confirmed by Rice when she visited India, when she spoke of “instability coming to Asia”, but which would lead to stability, and officials said she was clearly referring to Iran, where hardliners are increasingly coming to power.

The US has also been put on guard by Iran’s decision to convert a third of its foreign exchange reserves, about $40 billion, into Euros, to escape American sanctions, and intelligence agencies say some of the funds could be routed to buy a “dirty” bomb untraceably. http://www.indiareacts.com/nati2.asp?recno=3312

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pakistan secretly procured equipment following 1998 sanctions
M R Klasra
After the nuclear-related economic sanctions of 1998, Pakistan got into agreements with foreign firms to procure equipment for the army
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
report before the Public Accounts Committee reveals that the government made secret arrangements, in the wake of sanctions following the May 1998 nuclear tests, to procure various types of equipment for the army by contracting private firms in Germany, Korea and the United States.

While the particular report before PAC relates to the procurement of radio/wireless equipment, sources tell TFT that similar arrangements were made by Pakistan to acquire parts and sub-systems for other military hardware also.

Interestingly, PAC has come into the picture after the Auditor-General of Pakistan’s office found some discrepancy in the accounts of National Radio Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC). The discrepancy related to the penalty clause in the three separate contracts which stipulated that NRTC could penalise foreign firms if they delayed the delivery of equipment. The NRTC is situated in Haripur in the NWFP and supplies signals equipment to the army. It is also the concern that procures signals/communication equipment for the army from foreign firms and researches and develops indigenous capability for the army.

The AG’s office found that in all three cases, NRTC had failed to invoke the penalty clause. This fact came to light when the Auditor-General of Pakistan, sent a team of auditors to examine the annual accounts of the corporation for the year 2000-2001. The AGP noted that under the terms and conditions of the contract agreements, the penalty for late supplies was set at the rate of 2 percent of the delayed store value of each month. However, accounts showed that NRTC had failed to recover the penalty amount from the three suppliers: MS Bohwa Trading Corporation Korea (Rs 0.375 million), MS Deutsche Elno Germany (Rs 0.766 million) and MS E.com USA ($10,923).

This irregularity was brought to the notice of concerned departments in July 2001 and also reported to the ministry of science and technology in December 2001. The NRTC initially relied on technical responses to fob off the AGP. For instance, in one case the NRTC said that it could still impose the penalty at the time of final payment which comes to 10 percent of the total agreement. At one point it also said that it could legally waive off the penalty and so on.

None of these replies, however, satisfied the AGP’s office which argued that the contract agreements with the foreign firms included a clause for late supplies to ensure timely payment and satisfactory delivery of orders. Under this clause, suppliers are bound to deliver within the stipulated time period or pay a penalty. Therefore, NRTC has violated its own agreements with these firms and not penalised them for defaulting.

The back and forth between the AGP and NRTC led to the issue being placed before PAC. It was at this point that NRTC came up with the real reasons for not extracting the penalty from the foreign firms. Pakistan was looking for spares, and other parts and sub-systems for various equipments in the wake of sanctions and was not really in a position to penalise firms that were prepared to deliver even if belatedly. In this case, the firms were contracted to supply parts for AN/PRC-77, a tactical wireless equipment that comes in both manpack and vehicular configurations. The NRTC was forced to contract these firms after the US government turned down a request from Islamabad to supply the US-manufactured wireless sets to NRTC.

According to official documents sent to the PAC by the NRTC, the corporation placed an order (No. FP-1531/98, dated April 16, 1998) with Ms SONETRONIC Inc USA, the sole proprietor of US military specification radio equipment. With economic sanctions in place, the US firm refused to supply the equipment, forcing NRTC to explore other options. Hence, the NRTC got into a deal with Ms Bohwa Trading Corporation, Korea and placed an order (No. FP1531/98-II, dated July 7, 1998) for equipment worth US$ 73970. A Letter of Credit (No. 56197, dated September 10, 1998, to be expired on November 30, 1998) was opened in the firm’s favour.

NRTC officials have also told PAC that it was trying to procure components for AN/PRC-77 on behalf of the army which had placed an order with it (NRTC) for the equipment. According to NRTC, AN/PRC-77 is used by the army and paramilitary troops. However, its components are in short supply and NRTC’s only option was to cut a deal with MS E.Com USA, the only firm that actually held the needed equipment in store. Hence, it placed an order with the firm. After the shipment was delayed, NRTC decided that penalising the only available source of equipment was neither in the interest of the corporation nor the country.

It seems that PAC has accepted NRTC’s explanation and set the issue aside. Talking to TFT, Brig Javed Malik, DG-NRTC, also confirmed that the issue had been laid to rest. He said that NRTC had stopped manufacturing PRC-786. He would not say much but hinted that the army was now into more secure communication equipment.

Another interesting issue relates to procurement of AN/PRC-77 itself. It is a short-range, two-way voice communication set with a range of 6 to 12 km. While it was an improvement on the earlier version, AN/PRC-25, it has since largely been replaced by PRC-786, originally US equipment under a different nomenclature, which the army got NRTC to manufacture and which sources say has a much longer range than AN/PRC-77.

However, precisely for its short range, AN/PRC-77 is less prone to jamming and interception as opposed to PRC-786 which has a much-longer range. “It [AN/PRC-77] can be jammed and intercepted but the jammer or interceptor will have to get within its range to do so. It is good equipment at the infantry battalion level,” said a communications expert<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
John O. Edwards, NewsMax.com

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.

In the magazine’s December edition, the former commander of the military’s Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form of government.

Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that “the worst thing that could happen” is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.

If that happens, Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”

Franks then offered “in a practical sense” what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.

“It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.”

Franks didn’t speculate about how soon such an event might take place.

Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent.

But Franks’ scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government.

The usually camera-shy Franks retired from U.S. Central Command, known in Pentagon lingo as CentCom, in August 2003, after serving nearly four decades in the Army.

Franks earned three Purple Hearts for combat wounds and three Bronze Stars for valor. Known as a “soldier’s general,” Franks made his mark as a top commander during the U.S.’s successful Operation Desert Storm, which liberated Kuwait in 1991. He was in charge of CentCom when Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda attacked the United States on Sept. 11.

Franks said that within hours of the attacks, he was given orders to prepare to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan and to capture bin Laden.

Franks offered his assessment on a number of topics to Cigar Aficionado, including: