Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 25 Dec 2003

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Jan 2004 01:34

Rangudu,

You are right, must be Gullible Hamid. I didn't read that bit. I said Beg because he has made an identical claim somewhere, and he also made the accusation that the Israelis had transferred warhead tech. Curious.

kgoan · Post by **kgoan** » 13 Jan 2004 01:51

JEM, R:

Keep in mind that Margolis has been a visiting "scholar" at Madam Mazaris P.I.S.S.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 13 Jan 2004 02:51

Must be doing hands on research on Pashtunasstan.

Bharat · Post by **Bharat** » 13 Jan 2004 02:54

Paging rgos [/b]
Can you please mail me at bharat_19@hotmail.com

Prof Raghu · Post by **Prof Raghu** » 13 Jan 2004 03:07

This is what I was referring to in my earlier post -- so it is not a trinity, but the atomic quadrilateral.

Originally posted by jrjrao:
TIME reports:

Inside The A-Bomb Bazaar
Evidence mounts that Pakistani scientists sold nuclear know-how to a triad of rogue nations
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040119-574887,00.html
Khan has long been suspected ... and his name even appeared in a 1990 letter from a Dubai middleman to Saddam Hussein offering to sell Iraq the scientist's nuclear know-how.

Roop · Post by **Roop** » 13 Jan 2004 03:53

Keep in mind that Margolis has been a visiting "scholar" at Madam Mazaris P.I.S.S.

That's right. All kidding aside, KG, I think Margolis' columns should be considered the Unofficial Voice of Pakistan. I don't know if he's paid for his efforts, or if it's just a labour of love, but he sure keeps at it.

Vaylan · Post by **Vaylan** » 13 Jan 2004 04:05

Mohan, I think Eric's reputation as a shill is well established. He shills for himself as well as for TSP. His self-shilling takes forms such as "I met with the top-most intelligence spook this afternoon over lunch" and "while I was running a covert operation smuggling Chinese guns for the Afghans against the Soviets..."
Maybe it takes all this shilling to impress the pukoids so that the lifafas keep coming...

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 13 Jan 2004 05:21

Originally posted by Vaylan:
Maybe it takes all this shilling to impress the pukoids so that the lifafas keep coming...

Given Margolis's history of acting as a mouthpiece for the Paki Government, this latest article is infact the clearest indication that the snake knows that it is in the process of being defanged.

jrjrao · Post by **jrjrao** » 13 Jan 2004 15:26

Pakistan's nuclear deals

By M.R. Srinivasan
(The writer is a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.)

http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/13/stories/2004011302301000.htm

Umrao · Post by **Umrao** » 13 Jan 2004 17:18

Originally posted by jrjrao:
Pakistan's nuclear deals

By M.R. Srinivasan
(The writer is a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.)

http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/13/stories/2004011302301000.htm

The article is a cat on the wall type.
Three fourth of the article is historical recount, the last one fourth a known Utopian prescription that TSP has to come clean and let us know what they did.

I wonder If Mr. Srinivasan seriously gave a thought on writing something which gives a different perspective or insights.

A C minus article, toeing the line of Ram, and took grat pains in not indict TSP.

arun · Post by **arun** » 13 Jan 2004 21:06

More on the story of the aborted attempt to smuggle Perkin Elmer "triggered spark gaps" to Pakistan. Nothing particularly earthshaking though :

US charges SA man over nukes.

Arrest at DIA illuminates nuke technology fears.

Israeli goes free on bail.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 13 Jan 2004 22:28

My letter to Defense News Magazine has been published.

Proliferation Appeasement

The editorial in the Jan. 5 issue, “Deadly Doubts,” chronicles American-led accomplishments in the field of nuclear nonproliferation last year, but it misses some important points.

Pakistan recently got caught transferring nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya, Iran and possibly even Saudi Arabia. Yet it seems to have gotten off with nary a slap on the wrist. There may be valid reasons to be discreet with Pakistan, but to keep giving it free passes in the face of one sordid revelation after another creates a bad example for would-be proliferators.

There are ways to send a clear public message to Pakistan without seriously jeopardizing the country. America could, for instance, impose sanctions on Pakistan under the many nonproliferation laws, such as the Glenn-Symington Act. President George W. Bush then can waive the sanctions on a yearly basis, making it publicly clear to Pakistan that any more nuclear shenanigans could result in aid being cut off. At the very least, this would prevent the Pakistanis from sticking to their current policy of bald-faced denial.

As things stand, there is no reason for Pakistan to cease its proliferation, since it has brought only more aid and more U.S. support. In addition, should Pakistan’s ruler be replaced, his successor could simply deny that there was any nonproliferation promise made to the United States at all.

This Bush administration’s ducking of Pakistan’s “in your face” nuclear commodity trading is clearly reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s administration’s infamous use of bureaucratic maneuvers to avoid making a “determination” of Chinese violations of the Missile Technology Control Regime, as well as the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which were otherwise clear to many. It looks like Washington is bipartisan when it comes to appeasement of proliferators.

Looking forward to 2004, the United States must keep in mind that curtailing nations like Libya, however salutary, without cutting down on the suppliers like Pakistan or China will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. After all, you can keep arresting drug users, but as long as the dealers keep pushing cheap contraband, the problem remains intact.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 14 Jan 2004 01:14

This report just hit the AP wires.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/newsdemocrat/7700909.htm

Pakistan May Have Supplied Nuclear Info

MATT KELLEY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's success in persuading Libya to reveal its weapons of mass destruction programs has created a new and potentially embarrassing problem: Pakistan - a vital U.S. ally in the war on terror - appears to have been a main supplier of nuclear know-how to Libya, and possibly to North Korea and Iran.

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

Officials say many of the names probably will be Pakistani. They say evidence points to Pakistani nuclear experts as the source of at least some technology Libya used in its nuclear weapons program. Similar reports have arisen about probable Pakistani assistance to Iran and North Korea, countries President Bush said comprised an "axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

"This ought to get front-and-center attention," said Henry Sokolski, a Pentagon arms control official in the first Bush administration.

The United States has given Pakistan evidence that its scientists were involved in the spread of nuclear weapons technology, Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week. Powell said he didn't have enough information to say whether Pakistan was a source for Libya's program.

While strongly denying government involvement, Pakistani authorities last month detained two top nuclear scientists and questioned the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Pakistani officials said they were acting on information from Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Pakistan presents a difficult diplomatic problem for Washington. Critics say the idea that a major ally is giving nuclear technology to three countries on Washington's list of terror exporters is an embarrassment to President Bush, who has argued his top priority is keeping weapons of mass destruction away from terrorists and rogue states. They want the Bush administration to lean harder on Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, to stop his country's clandestine nuclear activities.

Other experts say that if Washington pushes Musharraf too far, Pakistan could scale back its anti-terrorism help. In a worst-case scenario, Musharraf could fall, and Islamic extremists hostile to the United States could get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear technology.

"How do you stop Pakistan? No one has found a way," said David Albright, a former United Nations nuclear inspector. "We have this set of conflicting priorities. The United States is reluctant to crack down too hard."

At issue are high-speed centrifuges that can separate uranium into its highly enriched form to be used in nuclear bombs. Khan helped start Pakistan's program when he stole uranium centrifuge designs in the 1970s from Urenco, a European uranium processing consortium.

Among evidence pointing to Pakistan's proliferation is that centrifuges and centrifuge parts found in both Iran and Libya are similar to the Urenco designs, both U.S. officials and outside experts say. Pakistani scientists distributed a brochure several years ago offering to sell parts and plans for such centrifuges.

The United States last year sanctioned Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratory, its main nuclear weapons lab, for cooperating with North Korea on missile technology.

"It shows the countries who are outside the system cooperate with each other, and that's very important to recognize," said Lee Feinstein, a top State Department arms control official under former President Clinton.

Powell says he has raised the nuclear proliferation problem repeatedly with Musharraf.

"We know that there have been cases where individuals in Pakistan have worked in these areas, and we have called it to the attention of the Pakistanis in the past," Powell said last week. "And I'm very pleased now that President Musharraf is aggressively moving to investigate all of that."

Pakistan is a vital to President Bush's war on terror in part because it borders Afghanistan, and several top al-Qaida figures have been captured there. Many experts believe the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, is hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In the past, the U.S. government sanctioned Pakistan repeatedly for its nuclear weapons program, even before it went public with a 1998 nuclear test. President Bush lifted most of those sanctions shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks when Musharraf agreed to help fight al-Qaida.

American experts are skeptical of Pakistan's denial of government involvement in nuclear technology transfers.

"These activities were tightly held, state-run activities," said Sokolski, the first Bush administration official who now heads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington. "The idea that they would be shared with countries of this sort, without the knowledge of people senior in the government, strikes me as very unlikely."

If Musharraf's government was not involved in the transfers but its scientists were, Islamabad's control over its nuclear complex would be questionable. That raises the possibility of al-Qaida or other terrorists being able to get their hands on some of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, materials or technology. Pakistan already has questioned some of its nuclear scientists about links to al-Qaida and the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

In past years, Pakistan has asked for U.S. help with security at its nuclear sites, former Energy Department nuclear official Rose Gottemoeller said at a 2001 conference. She did not specify what Washington provided.

Vivek_A · Post by **Vivek_A** » 14 Jan 2004 02:10

Nuclear noose (tightening around TSP)

However, while evidence has turned up of private entrepreneurs from Germany and the Netherlands, among other countries, assisting in nuclear proliferation, it is the Pakistani state which is being smeared if any trails lead towards Pakistan. One probable reason is that a nuclear Pakistan does not fit the scheme of things developed under the NPT, to which Pakistan is not a signatory. Indeed, this refusal to sign a manifestly unfair agreement has preserved Pakistan from being in violation of international law, and thus prevented this being used a stick to beat it with, as has happened with Iran, North Korea and Libya.
Meanwhile, the USA has concluded an agreement with India on nuclear and space technology, offering it greater levels of cooperation, including in missile defence, which are seemingly part of their general post-Cold War cosying up. It has also entered into an agreement with China on proliferation, apparently aimed at keeping North Korea under check. However, Pakistan should be careful. These agreements may have as a secondary purpose the tightening of the noose around Pakistan. The US offer of an agreement similar to India’s to Pakistan needs to be examined carefully, lest it merely be the thin edge of a wedge of intrusive monitoring, aimed at its disarmament, while leaving Israel and India unchecked.

Vivek_A · Post by **Vivek_A** » 14 Jan 2004 05:31

Not sure if this was posted.

Is Pakistan Proliferating Nuke Technology?

This is a partial transcript from On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, January 6, 2004.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Our so-called ally Pakistan (search) is denying reports it gave Libya high-tech nuclear technology. The alleged deal took place after Pakistan pledged its cooperation in the war on terror after 9/11. Is Libya just the beginning?

Joining us from Berlin is Fox News Foreign Affairs Analyst Mansoor Ijaz. And in Washington is national security reporter Bill Gertz of The Washington Times.

Well, Mansoor, Pakistan denies giving this technology and denies giving it after promising to us that it would join us in our war on terror. Is Pakistan telling us the truth?

laxmibai · Post by **laxmibai** » 14 Jan 2004 11:20

Also posted on Pakistan News thread:

M. Ziauddin, Editor, Dawn on World Today, PTV Prime, 01/13/04 interviewed on phone from Karachi said that "Pakistani Army kept 24-hr watch on nuclear scientists. In waking hours, a brigadier constantly accompanied each of the top scientists, a officer of lesser rank accompanied each of the lower ranking staff. This was not only to keep watch on them, but also to prevent them from being kidnapped.

So the Pakistan govt. claims that 'selling of nuclear technology was the work of individuals' were totally false."

arun · Post by **arun** » 14 Jan 2004 13:22

An old piece by Seymour Hersh dating back to 1993 in the New Yorker.

Apparently resurrected by New Yorker in view of Pakistan’s current nuclear proliferation shenanigans, with the added blurb stating, “In this piece from 1993, Seymour M. Hersh takes a prescient look at Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation, and at Dr. Khan.”

Notwithstanding the blurb, this article has more to do with the (mythical?) Operation Brass Tacks “crisis” and allegations that the Reagan and Bush Snr Administrations covered up Pakistan’s nuclear weapon related acquisitions in the US and elsewhere.

On Nuclear Edge.

jrjrao · Post by **jrjrao** » 14 Jan 2004 15:44

Los Angeles Times today:

Scientists Suffer Nuclear Secrets' Fallout - A Pakistani researcher has been detained for six weeks amid suspicions the regime transferred technology to Iran. His family thinks the U.S. may be involved.

Living with a top scientist in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, members of Mohammed Farooq's family said they knew that military intelligence agents were watching and listening to them.

Farooq joined Pakistan's effort to build an atomic bomb 27 years ago and answered to the armed forces. The military intelligence agency keeps a close eye on those entrusted with such national secrets.

"People associated with the nuclear program fully understand the secrecy involved in it," Farooq's son Osman, 19, said in an interview. "They know before joining any nuclear-related organization that they will be constantly monitored, around the clock."

But they don't expect to disappear. About 10 p.m. on Dec. 1, days after news broke that Pakistani scientists may have passed bomb-making secrets to Iran, military intelligence agents led Farooq from his home. His family has not heard from him for six weeks.

Farooq's family and Pakistan's political opposition fear that the military is setting up the former chief of overseas procurement at the Khan Research Laboratories, or KRL, as a fall guy.

His wife, Kush Niaz, was allowed to visit him briefly the day after his arrest, when he was in the custody of military intelligence agents at an office of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency in Rawalpindi, a suburb of Islamabad. In a cryptic telephone call a day later, Farooq warned his family not to go to court for information about him. But his wife filed a petition this month, and a judge is expected to hear the case Thursday.

The Foreign Ministry said Dec. 23 that if any scientists transferred nuclear weapons secrets to Iran, they acted out of greed or ambition, and they broke the law. Farooq's family feels betrayed by the charge.

"It is impossible that he did what he has been accused of," said the scientist's nephew, Mahar Aamir Shahzad. "As an employee of KRL, he was monitored going from the bathroom to the dining room. How is it possible for him to supply any sensitive information?"

Pakistan's government awarded Farooq, 55, the country's highest civilian medal -- the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, or Star of Distinction -- for his nuclear weapons work. His relatives describe him as a humble patriot who traveled outside Pakistan only once, on a 10-day religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 1996 or 1997.

"My father is a very simple man," Osman said. "He doesn't even know how to use the Internet."

Pakistan's alleged nuclear proliferation dates back to the late 1980s, when former military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq ruled. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who succeeded Zia after he died in a 1988 plane crash, has so far not commented on the claims.

Her Pakistan People's Party is demanding that President Pervez Musharraf, who is also commander of the armed forces, allow parliament to investigate possible transfers of nuclear technology.

"Inquiries under Musharraf have lost their credibility," said Sen. Farhatullah Babar, the exiled Bhutto's spokesman in Pakistan. "The judiciary has been subverted. It should be an inquiry by parliament so that the scientists are not scapegoated."

Farooq's family fears authorities are torturing him or may have let U.S. agents take him out of the country for interrogation. So they are seeking a court order for information even though he warned them not to.

"In his last phone call, he asked us not to file a writ in any court of law, saying: 'It will harm me,' " the scientist's nephew said. "But we decided to file the writ because we don't know where he is."

Farooq is one of at least three scientists being questioned over alleged links with Iran.

U.S. officials have said they also suspect Pakistan might have supplied North Korea and Libya with blueprints for aluminum centrifuges of the type Pakistani scientists used to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs before they changed methods. Pakistan denies aiding the two countries, insisting that it always has maintained strict control over its nuclear program.

Foreign experts say the KRL facility at Kahuta, southeast of Islamabad, produces enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Pakistan first tested a nuclear bomb in 1998, soon after neighboring India conducted underground blasts. Farooq was in charge of the control room during the May 28 test.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered as a national hero for developing Pakistan's nuclear bomb, was also questioned during the recent investigation, but the scientist and the Foreign Ministry say he was not detained. The third scientist questioned last month was Yasin Chohan, another KRL director, who was allowed to return home in mid-December.

Days later, sources familiar with the investigation said Farooq was cooperating and had identified an Iranian based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as the main link between the Pakistani scientists and Iran.

His wife's petition, filed Jan. 7 in the Lahore High Court, asks the judge to order authorities to produce Farooq and list any charges against him. It says she "has a strong apprehension" that Pakistani officials may move him out of the country "under pressure and influence of the U.S. government and FBI, and are giving him torture without any reason but to obey the dictates of the U.S. (Bush) regime."

Bruce Kleiner, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, said Monday that he could not comment on a local legal matter. Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri said the scientists were being debriefed, not interrogated, to follow up on information provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Iranian government.

Pakistani authorities acted after receiving information pointing to "certain individuals [who] might have been motivated by personal ambition or greed," Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told reporters Dec. 23. Khan said Monday that unidentified scientists were still being debriefed in an internal investigation. "No foreign agency is involved. No foreign country is involved," he said.

"Allegations or speculation about torture is outlandish," said Khan, who also insisted that no Pakistani government agency or institution had been involved in nuclear proliferation.

Farooq's relatives say their first hint of trouble came Nov. 21, when they noticed two men in a black Honda parked in front of their house in Rawalpindi. The men sat there, silently watching, for eight days, until the family called the police. But Shahzad, the scientist's nephew, said police couldn't do anything because the officers inside the car ranked higher than them. Shahzad said that when he approached the men, they claimed to be there for the family's security and agreed to park at the end of the street.

Three days later, seven plainclothes agents pulled up in three cars to take Farooq away. The family's complaint identifies the agents' commander as Col. Ahmed Nisar.

When asked what the charges were against Farooq, Osman said, Nisar referred the family to The Times, which three days earlier had reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency was investigating possible links between nuclear programs in Pakistan and Iran. Two former Iranian diplomats also told The Times that Khan had made several trips to Iran starting in 1987 to help with its nuclear program and was rewarded with a villa on the Caspian Sea.

Farooq's family said he never earned more than a civil servant's salary.

"There is no truth in government allegations that the nuclear scientists have transferred nuclear secrets out of personal greed," Osman said. "We have just one house and one car -- no other properties at all."

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 15 Jan 2004 08:04

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040114-065537-2535r

Israeli faces Pakistan nuke export charges

By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Published 1/14/2004 8:55 PM

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- The District Court in Washington D.C. will hold a hearing -- probably next week -- to consider the case against an Israeli man charged with trying to illegally export nuclear technology to Pakistan.

Asher Karni, 50, was arrested in Denver, Colo., on Jan. 2 when he arrived for a skiing vacation. He is currently in the custody of U.S. Marshals in Colorado.

An affidavit from a U.S. federal agent says that Karni arranged the purchase and export to South Africa of 200 specially designed electrical switches from a company in Salem, Mass. He then re-exported the switches to Pakistan.

Because the switches, known as triggered spark gaps, can be used in the detonators of nuclear weapons, a license is required to export them to any country -- like Pakistan -- thought involved in making or trading weapons of mass destruction.

But because they also have a medical use in treating kidney stones, no license is required for their export to other nations such as South Africa.

The affidavit says the investigation started after an "anonymous source" in South Africa tipped off the Department of Commerce about Karni's plans -- including the fact that he would use a firm called Giza Technologies, based in Secaucus, N.J., as a middleman in the transaction.

The source would continue to provide investigators with detailed information about Karni's activities every step of the way -- even providing tracking and waybill numbers for shipments he was making.

Giza stated that the switches were going to a hospital in Soweto, South Africa, but the affidavit claims that even the very largest hospitals only ever have a use for a handful of the devices.

Moreover, when the switches -- which the U.S. supplier had rendered inoperable at the request of federal authorities -- arrived at his South African firm, the prosecution say, Karni immediately made plans to ship them with DHL via Dubai to an address in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The address is the office of a company called Pakland PME.

The company's Web site says it deals in high-tech electrical and electronic equipment, but court papers filed by the prosecutor say its chief executive officer, Humayan Khan, has "ties to the Pakistani military."

Karni told South African authorities that the consignee for the switches was a company called AJKMC Lithography Aid Society.

Triggered spark gaps have no application in lithographic printing, but they are used in machines called lithotripters, which are used to treat kidney stones.

The case may have diplomatic repercussions -- Pakistan is one the United States' most important allies in the war against terrorism, but has also been accused of assisting the nuclear programs of rogue states like North Korea, Iran and Libya.

"Pakistan has always acquired its nuclear technology on the sly," a former Pakistani official told United Press International on condition of anonymity. "There has to be deniability, especially now that we are allies of the United States. That's why they use these kinds of murky businessmen -- if it ever came out that our government was involved in trying to break U.S. laws like this, it would be very embarrassing all round."

"You'll hear an official denunciation from Islamabad within 24 hours now this has hit the U.S. media, just you wait. But no action will be taken against anyone."

The former official also pointed out that AJKMC is the initials of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Council -- the ruling party in the Pakistani part of the disputed territory of Kashmir. "They have all kinds of links with (Pakistani intelligence agency) the ISI," said the former official.

But a Pakistani diplomat, who also spoke on condition they not be named, dismissed the idea that Pakistan needed such technology. "As far as I know, our nuclear program is fairly self-sufficient at this point.

"Why would we need detonators unless we were building more bombs, which we're not?" Nook Nude admission?

The diplomat also poured scorn on the idea that such an "idiotic" scheme -- and one involving an Israeli to boot -- would have been used to acquire "strategically vital materials."

"Why send the stuff via DHL? Why via Dubai?" asked the diplomat. "If this really was for the country's nuclear weapons program there are hundreds of safer ways. They are more expensive, but you wouldn't worry about a few thousand dollars if it was really in our strategic interests."

Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney said investigations were continuing and declined to comment on any possible links between Pakland or Khan and the Pakistani government. He said the court would hold a hearing, "probably be next week," to consider the prosecution's appeal against a bail grant by a Denver judge. The appeal says that Karni -- an Israeli citizen who lives in South Africa -- has access to substantial funds and no family or ties in the United States, and therefore represents a serious flight risk.

Umrao · Post by **Umrao** » 15 Jan 2004 19:51

for the sake of reminding us to the real axis of evil.
***
G Parthasarthy
Pakistan's Nuclear and Missile Programme: The Multiple Dimensions

"It is our right to obtain nuclear technology. And when we acquire this technology, the Islamic World shall possess it with us." Thus spoke General Zia ul Haq in 1986, while describing the nuclear ambitions of his country. The pan-Islamic dimensions of Pakistan's policies were further clarified when General Zia told American scholar Selig Harrison in 1988: "We have earned the right to have a very friendly regime in Afghanistan. We took risks as a frontline State and won't permit it to be like before, with Indian and Soviet influence there and a claim on our territory. It will be a real Islamic State, part of a pan Islamic revival, that will one day win over the Muslims of the Soviet Union."
Pakistan's support for the Taleban, the Islamic dimensions of its nuclear policies and its support for extremist Islamic elements in Central Asia should therefore be seen as an integral part of its ambition to be a "frontline state" in promoting "militant Islam" across the globe.

There is a mistaken belief that Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme was a response to the Pokhran nuclear test of 1974. The decision to develop a nuclear weapons capability and acquire nuclear weapons was taken by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in January 1972. Bhutto felt that after the Bangladesh disaster, Pakistan would need these weapons to act as an "equaliser" to deal with India's conventional superiority and strategic depth.
This was confirmed by no less than Pakistan's able and articulate Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar just before the military takeover last October. Sattar and two other eminent Pakistanis then asserted that the decision taken in 1972 was primarily to "deter another Indian onslaught aimed at the territorial integrity of residual Pakistan."

One wishes that General Musharraf would take a leaf from the intellectual honesty of his foreign minister and stop shedding tears about why India's Pokhran test in 1974 forced Pakistan to go nuclear. Those who constantly assert in India that our tests in 1998 forced Pakistan to go nuclear would be well advised to remember that Pakistan's nuclear policies have their own rationale and dynamics. These flow from their perceptions on the need for a strategic "equaliser" to maintain "parity" with India and their belief that they do have a leading role to play in the "Islamic Ummah."

The most important strategic dimension of Pakistan's nuclear policies is the longstanding and internationally unprecedented ties that have developed with China on issues of nuclear and missile cooperation. There is now independently corroborated information that while a group of Chinese nuclear scientists visited Pakistan in October 1974, shortly after Pokhran I, it was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who secured China's agreement to provide all necessary assistance for Pakistan to acquire and develop nuclear weapons during his visit to China in April 1976.
By the early 1980s China provided Pakistan with the design of a 25 kiloton nuclear weapon and also sufficient highly enriched uranium to build around four to five bombs. In their paper in October last year, Sattar and his associates Aga Shahi and Zulfiqar Ali Khan have claimed that in 1984, Pakistan had warned India about the use of nuclear weapons if India attacked the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant. Since a number of independent assessments confirm that Pakistan's own enrichment progamme had not advanced sufficiently to produce adequate enriched uranium for a bomb in 1984, it is only logical to conclude that Pakistan was in fact threatening to use Chinese designed nuclear weapons made from highly enriched uranium supplied by China. It needs to be remembered that the then foreign minister of Pakistan, Sahibzada Yakub Khan, was present at China's Lop Nor test site when a 25 kiloton device was tested in May 1983.

There has been no let up in China's support to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme despite what is undoubtedly an improvement in the climate of our relations with China. While there has been substantial publicity given to the supply of 5,000 "ring magnets" for Pakistan's uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta by China, a far more ominous development has been China's decision to provide Pakistan with a 40 MW heavy water reactor at Khushab. This reactor will provide the plutonium and tritium for advanced compact warheads.
There is also good reason to believe that China looks the other way as heavy water supplied by it is diverted to this unsafeguarded reactor. Interestingly, while the Reagan administration chose to turn a blind eye to China's assistance to Pakistan's nuclear programme in the 1980s, the Clinton administration has waffled, obfuscated and covered up facts on this subject during its nearly eight years in office. It remains to be seen how a Bush or Gore administration will now address this issue.

Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in December 1988 certainly laid the basis for unfreezing relations with our northern neighbour. Subsequent high level visits and exchanges have enhanced confidence and cooperation and have reduced the possibilities of tensions along the borders.
China and India do share many common interests in forums like the WTO and on issues pertaining to the environment and economic development. But one cannot ignore the fact that almost coinciding with Rajiv Gandhi's visit, China decided to supply Pakistan with M-11 missiles to match the development of the "Prithvi" by India. It is estimated that China shipped around 30 M-11 missiles to the Sargodha Air Base near Lahore under the agreement concluded in 1988.

While the Pakistan Air Force can use its Chinese supplied A-5, French Mirage and American supplied F-16 aircraft to deliver nuclear weapons, China and Pakistan seem to have decided in the mid-1990s that Pakistan should possess medium range missiles if it is to reliably and accurately target Indian population centres in Northern India -- a task the M-11 with a limited range cannot accomplish. It is evidently with this aim that China is supplying M-9 missiles with a range of 800 km to Pakistan. Named "Shaheen I," these proven missile systems have been "flight tested" by Pakistan, with flight paths over crowded Pakistani population centres.
Further, following the flight-testing of the "Agni" missile, China has supplied Pakistan with the 2,000 km range M-18 missile called "Shaheen II" by Pakistan. China is collaborating in these efforts with the rising star in the Pakistan nuclear establishment, Dr Samar Mubarak Mand, who is a quiet and low key professional like his Indian counterparts. Dr Mand is now overshadowing the brash and publicity addicted Dr A Q Khan.

It is acknowledged in Pakistan that with the setting up of the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant based on designs stolen by him now completed, Dr A Q Khan has outlived his utility. Further, allegations of financial irregularities in the A Q Khan laboratories cannot be entirely overlooked by a military regime claiming commitment to the principle of "accountability".

It is now obvious that even as it seeks to lessen prospects for tensions in bilateral relations with us, China is determined to adopt a policy of strategic containment of India by its nuclear and missile collaboration with Pakistan and its growing influence in Myanmar to our East. It remains to be seen how we will meet this challenge.
We obviously need to reduce tensions and enhance cooperation and confidence in our relations with China. But there is also a need to look at what needs to be done to make it clear to China that pursuit of its current policies will not be without its own diplomatic and strategic costs.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/aug/30gp.htm

Umrao · Post by **Umrao** » 15 Jan 2004 19:53

NYT report highlights Chinese contribution to Pakistani bomb
Smuggled Chinese technology and contradictory shifts in US policy have helped Pakistan build its nuclear bomb, says the New York Times, quoting present and former US officials.

China, a staunch ally of Pakistan, provided blueprints for the bomb, as well as highly enriched uranium, tritium, scientists and key components for a nuclear weapons production complex, among other crucial tools. Without China's help, Pakistan's bomb would not exist, said Gary Milhollin, a leading expert on the spread of nuclear weapons.

Beginning in 1990, Pakistan is believed to have built between seven and 12 nuclear warheads -- based on the Chinese design, assisted by Chinese scientists and Chinese technology, the daily adds.

That technology included Chinese magnets for producing weapons-grade enriched uranium, a furnace for shaping the uranium into a nuclear bomb core, and high-tech diagnostic equipment for nuclear weapons tests, according to the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which tracks the spread of nuclear weapons and technology.

The United States provided Pakistani nuclear scientists with technical training from the 1950s into the 1970s. And it turned a blind eye to the nuclear weapons programme in the 1980s, because Pakistan was providing the crucial link in the Central Intelligence Agency's effort to smuggle billions of dollars of weapons to Afghan guerrillas attempting to drive out Soviet invaders.

''We have helped create the conditions that exist today for the big bomb,'' said Milt Bearden, who was a senior CIA officer in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989. ''Our marvellous sanctions forced their hand-forced them to go where they are today.''

Nicholas Platt, who was the US ambassador to Pakistan in 1991-92 and now serves as president of the Asia Society, said, ''Our own policy, which denied them a credible conventional capability, has in a way forced them to rely more on the nuclear deterrent.''

Pakistan's efforts to build the bomb began in the 1950s. Under the ''atoms for peace'' programme, the United States agreed to train Pakistani scientists in nuclear-reactor technology. Washington also provided Pakistan's first research reactor and fuel. The training continued until 1972.

India tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, and Pakistan greatly intensified its efforts in response. The programme was closely monitored by the US military, intelligence and law-enforcement services -- so closely that the then president Jimmy Carter cut off all military and economic aid to Pakistan in April 1979, citing US laws aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

That decision was reversed nine months later, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which lies on Pakistan's border.

Pakistan's military ruler, General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, agreed to smuggle weapons to the Afghans on behalf of the CIA. Suddenly Pakistan was the recipient of a six-year, $ 3.2 billion American aid package -- half cash, half high-tech weapons.

The daily quotes a secret State Department report saying that there was ''unambiguous evidence'' that Pakistan is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. It detailed how Pakistan had bought or stolen nuclear weapons technology around the world.

The report, based on information gathered by the CIA and recently declassified, also said flatly that ''China has provided assistance to Pakistan's programme to develop a nuclear weapons capability.''

The ''unambiguous evidence'' included Pakistan's secret blueprint for a nuclear bomb. That blueprint was made in China.

Pakistan had obtained the plans from the Chinese government in the early 1980s. The bomb was simple and efficient, based on highly enriched uranium, and it had been tested by the Chinese in 1966. US government physicists built a model of the bomb and reported that it was a virtually foolproof design. ''The United States approached the Pakistani government at the highest levels to communicate its extreme concern'' over the nuclear-weapons programme, the report said.

Bearden, the former CIA officer stationed in Pakistan, recalled, ''We went to them and said, 'Here is what your bomb looks like' -- even showed them a model, I believe.''

But indicated his belief that he had the blessings of then president Ronald Reagan and then CIA director William Casey to go ahead and build the bomb, according to two retired Pakistani military officials. The general clearly stated his intent in a 1986 interview. ''It is our right to obtain the technology,'' Zia said.

In 1985, Congress enacted a law requiring the president to certify that Pakistan was not building nuclear weapons and thus eligible for continuing military and economic aid. And every year from 1985 to 1990, Reagan and George Bush certified just that.

"Reagan and Bush said it ain't a bomb until they turn that last screw and paint b-o-m-b on the side,'' Bearden said.

Everything changed after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, when Pakistan was no longer needed as the key link in the CIA's arms pipeline to Afghan rebels. In 1990, the United States finally acknowledged that the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme existed -- and, under the law, cut off military aid.

UNI

Umrao · Post by **Umrao** » 15 Jan 2004 20:32

from OUTLOOK.
***
Bizarre Bazaar
N-weapons going cheap. Does Musharraf know?

SEEMA SIROHI

When sales brochures from Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) are found with dangerous middlemen in Libya and Iran, who trade in illegal nuclear technology, the tracks are difficult to cover. When second-hand Pakistani centrifuges are discovered by UN inspectors in Iran, the plot thickens. When Colonel Muamar Gadaffi's son reveals that Libya spent millions buying plans from Pakistani scientists to make a nuclear bomb, it is time to pull the alarm. In some ways, the Bush administration has done so, leaking like a sieve to the US media about the hair-raising state of affairs inside Pakistan's nuclear establishment.

In 2000, the government ran ads announcing export rules for N-gear.

US and European pressure forced Islamabad last month to question the father of the Pak bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and three of his associates. From the slew of reports, Pakistan seemed more like a nuclear cornershop than a country in control of its assets. The New York Times last week nailed Pakistan as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators. It quoted a senior US official as saying: "These guys are now three for three as supplier to the biggest proliferation problems we have", referring to Pakistan's nuclear links to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

The centrifuges found in Iran last year are a modified version of those built by Urenco, a European consortium where Khan worked in the 1970s. He stole the design and was later convicted by a Dutch court in absentia. According to David Albright, a former UN inspector, Pakistan made a number of machines before abandoning them for a sturdier model. The early models or Pak-1s were given to Iran in 1987, the nyt reported. Last week, it revealed that Pakistan was also the source for Libya making "major strides" in uranium enrichment.

Khan was publishing papers in the 1980s, boasting and advertising his skills. In 1991, his team even wrote about how to etch grooves on the centrifuge, a specially difficult skill. According to a report by the American Congressional Research Service, sales brochures from KRL soon followed and in 2000 the Pakistani government ran its own advertisement announcing export rules for nuclear gear. But US strategic interests in Pakistan prevented any overt censure.

The story is the same today. Private jitters felt by US officials are a sharp contrast to public affirmations of faith in Pakistan, a key ally. No one wants to jeopardise Musharraf's already precarious position—two close attempts on his life were enough to scare Washington. President George Bush, has never mentioned Pakistan's leaky nuclear set-up. When asked about Pakistani nuclear weapons, he said curtly, "Yes, they are secure."

US spokesmen blandly repeat Musharraf's assurances given after 9/11 to secretary of state Colin Powell about stopping all proliferation. "We are confident that Pakistan takes these issues very seriously and has taken robust steps to secure its sensitive materials," a state department spokesman told Outlook. But in 2002, spy satellites caught a Pakistani plane picking up missile parts in North Korea, believed to be in exchange for Pakistani nuclear technology. Last October, Italy intercepted centrifuge components going to Libya which were based on Pakistani designs.

Nuclear technology has continued to leak from Pakistan despite Musharraf's assurances. "Whether he is deliberately doing this or can't control the activity—either way it is a dangerous situation," says Stephen Cohen, a veteran South Asia analyst. "It is a sort of a hear-no-evil, see-no-evil policy. The Bush administration is caught in a dilemma. It can't sanction Pakistan but finds it hard to influence what goes on inside." Cohen o uvacha

The deal between North Korea and Pakistan has long been in the public realm. Now, revelations about the Pakistani hand in the nuclear programmes of Iran and Libya have shocked the US."I wonder whether the reported transactions with Iran began when Pakistan's former army chief Aslam Beg (1988-1991) was advocating a posture of 'strategic defiance' against the US and an alliance with Iran," says Michael Krepon, a nuclear expert. Question now is: can Musharraf put an end to it all?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Jan 2004 21:25

Umrao Jaan, Looks like a flood gate of info on TSP prolif. is coming out. Kindly correlate the timeline I posted a few pages ago to what is being said now. The US role is being minimized and TSP and China highlighted. If TSP has Chinese designs why does TSP need US made components? Spark gap switches etc.
Also if the Chinese design worked why did they have to give the TSP Pu weapons to test in May 1998? Dal me kuch kala hain.

Leonard · Post by **Leonard** » 16 Jan 2004 01:01

Ramanna:

<<<
Chinese design worked why did they have to give the TSP Pu weapons to test in May 1998? Dal me kuch kala hain.

>>

Reading about Paki Technical SkillSet from
AKumar's numerous Visit to Paki-Satan, it is best put in Sherlock Holmes Cliche

It's Elementary, Dr. Xerox-Khan's HEU Designs or Attempts were a Massive Failure

Nukes in 1984 were as GP put it:

By the early 1980s China provided Pakistan with the design of a 25 kiloton nuclear weapon and also sufficient highly enriched uranium to build around four to five bombs. In their paper in October last year, Sattar and his associates Aga Shahi and Zulfiqar Ali Khan have claimed that in 1984, Pakistan had warned India about the use of nuclear weapons if India attacked the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant. Since a number of independent assessments confirm that Pakistan's own enrichment progamme had not advanced sufficiently to produce adequate enriched uranium for a bomb in 1984, it is only logical to conclude that Pakistan was in fact threatening to use Chinese designed nuclear weapons made from highly enriched uranium supplied by China. It needs to be remembered that the then foreign minister of Pakistan, Sahibzada Yakub Khan, was present at China's Lop Nor test site when a 25 kiloton device was tested in May 1983.

In 1998, Pakis essentially TESTED Chinese PU tactical miniaturized NUKES designs stolen from the USA

This is the reason for the 2 Week Delay, because the HEU Nuke tests Failed (Speculating Shelf-Life) ...

a. God-Given Opportunity to Display NEW TOYS.

b. Chinese had signed TEST BAN TREATY, and needed
to validate new DESIGNS ....

c. H & D.

Remember, the North Korean Defector in Japan, in a famous OSSIE interview stated, that they [Chinese, NK & Pakis] had "Tested Nukes in Pakistan".

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 16 Jan 2004 01:12

GP's article quotes former Paki FM Abdus Sattar ackowledging that Pakis started their nuke project in 1972, well before Pokhran-I.

Do we have any source for this? Do we have any other quotes proving that the Pakis started their nuke program before us?

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 16 Jan 2004 01:29

Rangudu, there's plenty:

On the nuke program starting before our POK-1, you may recall a post I made regarding a scientists' conference Bhutto convened in January (I think 20th) 1972, weeks after the Bangladesh whipping.

I don't have a direct quote from Sattar atm, but about the nuke program starting before our nuke explosion, see pages 17-18 of Wiessman and Krosney's "Islamic Bomb". Also see page 24. Another book to read is "To Chagai and Beyond" by Dr. Savita Dutt. Most of the references are there.

Added later: Another source for the Multan conference is Owen Bennett Jones' 2003 book on Pakistan

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 16 Jan 2004 01:30

Thanks JEM.

Any online sources for that Bhutto "Islamic" conference in 1972?

Prateek · Post by **Prateek** » 16 Jan 2004 02:07

Originally posted by ramana:
.....If TSP has Chinese designs why does TSP need US made components? Spark gap switches etc.
Also if the Chinese design worked why did they have to give the TSP Pu weapons to test in May 1998? Dal me kuch kala hain.

Probably because China stole nuke tech from USA or US proliferated nuke technology to China. So the US components might just fit in perfectly for TSP.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 16 Jan 2004 02:27

More shaan for TSP.

Arrest ties (TS)Pakistan to nuke black market

The arrest this month of a businessman accused of smuggling nuclear bomb triggers to Pakistan is the latest sign that the important U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism remains a major player in the nuclear black market.

Asher Karni, 50, is accused of being the middleman for a Pakistani company's purchase of dozens of triggered spark gaps - electronic devices that can be used to trigger nuclear weapons. Agents arrested Karni on Jan. 2 at Denver International Airport.

If the devices were indeed headed for Pakistan's nuclear program, the most likely explanation would be that Pakistan was planning to construct more nuclear bombs. That could complicate Pakistan's relations with nuclear rival India.

The United States has restricted sales of nuclear and missile equipment to Pakistan for years because of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

Officials from the United States and other governments say Pakistan also was the likely source for at least some of the know-how and equipment for nuclear weapons programs in Libya, North Korea and Iran. Secretary of State Colin Powell said this month that American officials have presented evidence to Pakistan's leaders of Pakistani involvement in the spread of nuclear weapons technology.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Jan 2004 02:38

R, KS wrote in 2000
---------------------------
"Further, in a joint article, Securing Nuclear Peace in News International (Oct 5, 1999) Agha Shahi, Abdul Sattar and Air Chief Marshal Zulfikar Ali Khan inform that the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme was initiated in January, 1972 when President Bhutto took that decision in the conference of nuclear scientists in Multan. It was not intended to deter an Indian nuclear capability which did not exist at that time but was meant to deter an Indian conventional superiority. That was why Pakistan continued the programme vigorously even when Morarji Desai publicly renounced Indian nuclear ambitions in 1978. In 1980, the Pakistanis linked their quest for nuclear weapons with their designs on Kashmir. Professor Stephen Cohen recorded in a paper presented to the Asian Studies Conference in March 1980, the Pakistanis were of the view that their nuclear capability would ``neutralise an assumed Indian nuclear force''.
-----------
need to find that.
here is link to Samina Ahmed's work at Harvard stating the same.

http://www.nd.edu/~krocinst/ocpapers/op_18_2.pdf

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 16 Jan 2004 02:41

Thanks Ramana.

Unfortunately, I don't know that we can get old Paki papers anywhere, if they are not online

But the reference is good enough.

I'll try to look up the book that JEM mentioned.

Kuttan · Post by **Kuttan** » 16 Jan 2004 02:46

I think this thread (or its successor) should be named:

Pakistan's nuclear program - History

Did u see the description of Xerox Khan labs as "Nukes'R Us"?

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Jan 2004 03:06

Originally posted by muddur:

Originally posted by ramana:
.....If TSP has Chinese designs why does TSP need US made components? Spark gap switches etc.
Also if the Chinese design worked why did they have to give the TSP Pu weapons to test in May 1998? Dal me kuch kala hain.
Probably because China stole nuke tech from USA or US proliferated nuke technology to China. So the US components might just fit in perfectly for TSP.

This may be true and the only thing is that China may have been given the US nuke design.

Abhijit · Post by **Abhijit** » 16 Jan 2004 03:07

Another circumstantial evidence for N^3 saar's Nook Nood theory (which is becoming more practice than theory

). The case of the dog that did not bark or an Israel that did not get alarmed at the nukes r'us AQK enterprises.
Why didn't Israel do an osirak on khuta or send AQK to houristan ? Why simply because he was selling 'phatakas', nothing to do with new clear chemistry - only Sivakasi competition.

jarugn · Post by **jarugn** » 16 Jan 2004 03:19

South African Busted for attempt to provide Pakistan with Spark Gaps. France may be involved!

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nuclear-Smuggling-Pakistan.html

Karni heads Top-Cape Technology in Cape Town, South Africa, which trades in military and aviation electronic gear. Karni used an elaborate scheme to try to get around U.S. export restrictions to Pakistan, Commerce Department Special Agent James Brigham charged in a federal court affidavit.

An anonymous source in South Africa tipped off U.S. authorities and provided information, including detailed shipping information to allow tracking of the devices and copies of e-mails and other correspondence to and from Karni, the agent wrote.

Karni's contact in Pakistan asked Karni to try to buy 100 to 400 spark gaps, Brigham alleged in his affidavit. Karni worked to get the devices from an American manufacturer, PerkinElmer Optoelectronics of Salem, Mass.

A PerkinElmer representative in France wrote to Karni last summer that exporting spark gaps to Pakistan would require a U.S. license, Brigham wrote. Karni then contacted a company in New Jersey, which ordered 200 of the devices from PerkinElmer, the agent wrote.

At the request of federal agents, PerkinElmer disabled the 66 spark gaps in an initial shipment to the New Jersey company, Giza Technologies Inc. of Secaucus.

Here is what TSP is trying to buy.

http://optoelectronics.perkinelmer.com/catalog/Category.aspx?CategoryName=Spark+Gap

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 16 Jan 2004 03:25

Ramana,

I think part of the answer is the Pakistani duplication of programmes.

Bhutto accepted Khan's offer to set up a uranium enrichment plant shortly after he began efforts to acquire a reactor from the French for plutonium. Most medium sized powers by contrast picked one route and stuck to it. Perhaps like Iraq in the 1980s the Pakistanis felt so confidant in the availability of Islamic funds that time became more important than cost.

KRL and PAEC have been competitors from the start. It is also possible that the programmes have had their own secondary 'indigenous' tracks for the purposes of prestige, as well as a hedge against changes in the environment.

Something similar seems to have hapened with the Hatf-I and II which were developed with Chinese help, but abandoned when the M-9 and M-11 promised to be available sooner at less cost and greater effectiveness.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 16 Jan 2004 03:38

Can someone post the Federal Indictment on the Perkin-Elmer thing?

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 16 Jan 2004 03:46

Libya never got nuclear plans off ground - diplomats

Diplomats said Tripoli had set up a cascade of "tens" of uranium-enrichment centrifuges, but had run them using only inert gas and had never fed uranium hexafluoride gas into them as a real enrichment programme would require.

They also said Libya had acquired two types of centrifuges, along with the designs of the machines. One diplomat told Reuters that the designs for at least one of the centrifuge models were "very similar" to European-developed centrifuges that Iran is suspected of acquiring from Pakistan.

Diplomats told Reuters in November that the designs Iran used for its centrifuge enrichment were clearly developed from ones created by the Dutch unit of the Dutch-German-British consortium Urenco and which Pakistan acquired and developed.

Pakistani police have questioned the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who worked at Urenco in the 1970s, and several scientists working at his Khan Research Laboratories in connection with the possible sale of nuclear know-how and technology to Iran.

The diplomats have also told Reuters that it was likely Pakistani scientists helped not only Iran with enrichment technology, but also North Korea and Libya.

Leonard · Post by **Leonard** » 16 Jan 2004 04:15

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/edcoursesyllabi/pk-weapons.html

This Site has some interesting details about Xerox-Khans Efforts !!!

Kahuta
Khan Research Laboratories
A.Q. Khan Laboratories
Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL)

K.R.L
Kahuta is the site of the Khan Research Laboratories [KRL], Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory as well as an emerging center for long-rnage missile development. The primary Pakistani fissile-material production facility is located at Kahuta, employing gas centrifuge enrichment technology to produce Highly Enriched Uranium [HEU]. This facility is not under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, but according the the governemnt of Pakistan the facility is physically secure and safe.

Dr. A.Q. Khan is a German-educated metallurgist who until 1975 was employed at the URENCO uranium enrichment facility in Almelo, Netherlands. A year after India's 1974 nuclear test, Dr. Khan departed URENCO with blueprints for the uranium centrifuge, and information on URENCO's key suppliers. A.Q. Khan initially worked under Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), headed by Munir Ahmad Khan, for a short period. But the pair fell out, and in July 1976, Bhutto gave A.Q. Khan autonomous control of the uranium enrichment project, reporting directly to the prime minister's office, which arrangement has continued since. A.Q. Khan founded the Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL) on 31 July 1976, with the exclusive task of indigenous development of Uranium Enrichment Plant. Within the next five years the target was achieved. On 01 May 1981 ERL was renamed as Dr. A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). It was enrichment of Uranium in KRL that ultimately led to the successful detonation of Pakistan's first nuclear device on 28 May 1998.

Chinese assistance in the development of gas centrifuges at Kahuta was indicated by the presence of Chinese technicians at the facility in the early 1980s. The uranium enrichment facility began operating in 1984, but suffered serious start up problems. Kahuta began producing HEU in 1986, and Pakistan's fabrication of weapons may have begun soon thereafter, with the HEU hexafluoride being made into uranium metal which was machined into weapon pits. By the late 1980s Pakistan began advertising its nuclear potential by publishing technical articles on centrifuge design, including a 1987 article co-authored by A. Q. Khan on balancing sophisticated ultracentrifuge rotors.

Operating at full capacity, Kahuta is estimated to have the potential to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for as many as 3 to 6 weapons each year. But the gas centrifuge plant has been plagued by chronic delays. As of 1984 there were reportedly approximately 1,000 centrifuges operating at the facility. By 1991 about 3000 machines were thought to be operating with a production capacity of 30-50 kg U-235/year, enough for 2-3 implosion weapons a year.

In 1988 the US and Pakistan reached an informal understanding, which according to US officials went into effect in 1993, under which Pakistan agreed to freeze production of bomb-grade HEU indefinitely, and to refrain from enriching uranium to a level above 20% U-235. Prior to the 1998 nuclear tests, the US had reportedly obtained intelligence indicating that Pakistan had stopped production of bomb-grade uranium. However, following the tests A.Q. Khan claimed that Pakistan had never stopped making bomb-grade HEU during the 1980s and 1990s, and reportedly US officials said "we don't have enough information" to conclude that Pakistan was not making weapons-grade HEU. As of mid-1998 estimates of Pakistan's HEU inventory ranged between 100 and 500 kilograms. Assuming that Pakistan would need about 20 kilograms for a single weapon, Pakistan's stockpile might be estimated at between 5 and 25 weapons. In early 1996 it was reported that the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratory received 5,000 ring magnets, which can be used in gas centrifuges, from the China National Nuclear Corporation, a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation, a state-owned corporation. The US intelligence community believed the magnets were for special suspension bearings at the top of the centrifuge rotating cylinders. The shipment was made between late 1994 and mid-1995 and was reportedly worth $70,000. The ring magnets would allow Pakistan to effectively double its capacity to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons production. Pakistan has operated the plant only intermittently, and little information is publicly available concerning annual or total production of weapon-grade uranium at Kahuta.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 16 Jan 2004 15:29

Rangudu,

I've added another book, easily available, by Owen Bennett Jones in my earlier post. One trick: get the relevant pages on the Amazon viewer, if directly saveable, do so. If not, save page as PDF/JPG whichever possible, then crop and upload in "friendly location" and voila, you have your online source.