I wonder how things would have turned out different if Xerox Khan was selling nuclear weapons technology to Columbia, Venezuela and Mexico?
I don't think the US has understood the full implications of this yet and still sees it as unexpected consequence of blowback.
Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
True in a large sense, but assume that I am solving Trigonometry problems listed in the book(by S.L.Loney )and the book has answers and I am fairly good at Trignometry, then it is that much easier.Physically the M-11 was a much smaller missile than the DF-2. As K-Goan pointed out, transferring designs is not the same thing as transferring design expertise.
If you have drawings with tolerance specs material specs of a proven design, (and assume I have the CNC machine shop and required material) then you have given me design expertise.
But luckily by law of diminishing returns we cant linearly keep sizing the bum or rakit to make it to the moon.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Heh heh. This Paki logic, and this Paki version of "truth", is aptly fit for PakiDung:
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2004-daily/10-02-2004/oped/editorial.htm
So, Amrikees and British "passed on" nuke bum tech to "enable" their cold-war enemies, huh? Paki editorials lie 15,000 times in every single sentence.There is no need for Pakistan to carry a sense of guilt regarding the allegation of nuclear proliferation as whatever occurred could have happened to any other state.to the USSR</font> which enabled it to develop its first atomic weapons.[/b] Nuclear espionage is not a new crime and became universally common as nuclear technology progressed. It is only a matter of misfortune that it struck Pakistan through the agency of some scientists.
to the USSR</font> which enabled it to develop its first atomic weapons.[/b] Nuclear espionage is not a new crime and became universally common as nuclear technology progressed. It is only a matter of misfortune that it struck Pakistan through the agency of some scientists.
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2004-daily/10-02-2004/oped/editorial.htm
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Folks, would the Bush Administration have found it politically feasible even to leak the involvement of AQK, if the relations between India and Pakistan had been at Op. Parakram levels? Is it just a coincidence that this came out when the peace process had acquired some momentum? After all, to some extent, the Bush Administration is behind bot the peace process, and these revelations.
What I am asking is, did the U.S. encourage India to releave some pressure on Pakistan, precisely in order that they will then be able to apply more pressure on Musharraf, on things that matter to them.
What I am asking is, did the U.S. encourage India to releave some pressure on Pakistan, precisely in order that they will then be able to apply more pressure on Musharraf, on things that matter to them.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
They took advantage of the peace process to bringup the pressure before the election so that some gains can be achaived.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
As you pointed out there are limits. KRL almost certainly could not stuff a nuclear weapon design intended for an IRBM like DF-2 on to a tactical SSM.Originally posted by John Umrao:
True in a large sense, but assume that I am solving Trigonometry problems listed in the book(by S.L.Loney )and the book has answers and I am fairly good at Trignometry, then it is that much easier.Physically the M-11 was a much smaller missile than the DF-2. As K-Goan pointed out, transferring designs is not the same thing as transferring design expertise.
If you have drawings with tolerance specs material specs of a proven design, (and assume I have the CNC machine shop and required material) then you have given me design expertise.
But luckily by law of diminishing returns we cant linearly keep sizing the bum or rakit to make it to the moon.
On the other hand I find it much more plausible that KRL , perhaps working with others, could mate 'CHIC-4' with No-Dong/Ghauri. Any success would have offered many exciting opportunities for both the North Koreans and Pakistanis, and KRL in particular.
It is also plausible that PAEC has a more modern, more compact Plutonium design compatible with the NDC produced M-9/Hatf-III.
Did KRL until 9/11-related limitations represent the ready (and thus marketable), but unreliable Pakistani capability, to be used until the assembly line for the more reliable plutonium based deterrent from PAEC was ready?
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
>>I'm not quite sure I get that one.
Tim: if there is a deeper Pakistani strategy behind the proliferation, then the fact that they did not hand warheads designs to fit the N Korean missiles *seems* to imply that such warhead designs don't exist.
Furthermore, if the Pakistanis could have put out a warhead designed to fit a cheaply made n Korean missile, the degree of leverage this would have given them would have been astronomic. Leverage they would have used much earlier if they had it.
OTOH, Johann makes some good counterpoints to that argument. So at this stage, we're stuck in, as you say, "need more data" stage.
BTW, as an aside: Nukes are a special category. We talk about them so much it sometimes seems as if they're just another weapon system, i.e. we're in danger of internalising and "normalising" them to the extent that the media seems to miss the absolute degree of malice against the US that *must* have been involved for the Paks to do what they did.
Either that or we still haven't discerned the strategic game they were playing at. Or if elements of both are nvolved here. They've made a huge gamble that they've lost. But clearly they still have some cards to play.
What those "cards" are remains to be seen, although Sunil has put forward some arguments, that if correct, are really chilling.
Johann, I'd make 2 points:
1. Minor changes in the missile characteristics still lead to major levels of work in the warheads. A minute change in the physical geometry could easily nullify all the timing mechanisms to give them a very large and expensive dirty bomb, not a nuclear warhead. The precise charcteristics of missile delivered warheads in terms of understanding stress and vibrational characteristics do *not* leave much room for error.
Given that however, it is only an opinion which I can't, of course, back up with anything more than circumstantial evidence. So perhaps you might be correct. My view is that the odds are against it, but it is an unknown.
2. PAEC seems to be almost totally insulated from the current situation - this despite the guys arrested for contact with al-qaeda last year being from PAEC not KRL.
The issue there is that, broadly speaking, PAEC was the Chinese missile people, with KRL being the N Korean folk. I haven't seen anything to counter that specialisation yet.
Clearly there were two "paths" laid out, with the only common denominator being the chinese between them.
We need to wait for more data/leaks or whatever. I don't think the situation has played itself out yet, in *Pakistan*, although it may not cool off in the western media as the US election begins to hit it's stride and Iraq and Afghanistan keep being easeir alternative news sources.
Tim: if there is a deeper Pakistani strategy behind the proliferation, then the fact that they did not hand warheads designs to fit the N Korean missiles *seems* to imply that such warhead designs don't exist.
Furthermore, if the Pakistanis could have put out a warhead designed to fit a cheaply made n Korean missile, the degree of leverage this would have given them would have been astronomic. Leverage they would have used much earlier if they had it.
OTOH, Johann makes some good counterpoints to that argument. So at this stage, we're stuck in, as you say, "need more data" stage.
BTW, as an aside: Nukes are a special category. We talk about them so much it sometimes seems as if they're just another weapon system, i.e. we're in danger of internalising and "normalising" them to the extent that the media seems to miss the absolute degree of malice against the US that *must* have been involved for the Paks to do what they did.
Either that or we still haven't discerned the strategic game they were playing at. Or if elements of both are nvolved here. They've made a huge gamble that they've lost. But clearly they still have some cards to play.
What those "cards" are remains to be seen, although Sunil has put forward some arguments, that if correct, are really chilling.
Johann, I'd make 2 points:
1. Minor changes in the missile characteristics still lead to major levels of work in the warheads. A minute change in the physical geometry could easily nullify all the timing mechanisms to give them a very large and expensive dirty bomb, not a nuclear warhead. The precise charcteristics of missile delivered warheads in terms of understanding stress and vibrational characteristics do *not* leave much room for error.
Given that however, it is only an opinion which I can't, of course, back up with anything more than circumstantial evidence. So perhaps you might be correct. My view is that the odds are against it, but it is an unknown.
2. PAEC seems to be almost totally insulated from the current situation - this despite the guys arrested for contact with al-qaeda last year being from PAEC not KRL.
The issue there is that, broadly speaking, PAEC was the Chinese missile people, with KRL being the N Korean folk. I haven't seen anything to counter that specialisation yet.
Clearly there were two "paths" laid out, with the only common denominator being the chinese between them.
We need to wait for more data/leaks or whatever. I don't think the situation has played itself out yet, in *Pakistan*, although it may not cool off in the western media as the US election begins to hit it's stride and Iraq and Afghanistan keep being easeir alternative news sources.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Vivek,
You're right, of course. DPRK got HEU technology from Pakistan - but in the mid-to-late 1990s, with delivery taking place in the last couple of years. I was referring to their initial capability - acquired during the 1980s, after years of research and possibly outside help. My guess is that they probably had some kind of design for Pu in mind based on that technology. The report for the HEU gun-type device is from Libya, which was much more reliant on Pakistani technology for everything. I suspect, but can't prove, that North Korea was quite a bit ahead of that stage - recent reports from DPRK suggest that they're doing something with Pu again.
Johann,
Okay. I thought I'd seen something about test #4.
I'm not sure how sophisticated Pakistan's warhead technology design or modification capability is - some US documents hint at something significant. However, if the North Koreans, Iranians (who have access to ex-Soviet stuff - SS-4/5, according to some reports) and Pakistan cooperated, it might be enough to modify Chic-4. I just don't know - but Egypt, Iraq, and Argentina (with some West German help) were able to do some very dangerous things with the Condor/Vector project in the mid-80s.
Kgoan,
There's a part of me that looks at this more as a pariah network - like Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan in the 1970s, although mostly with conventional technology. That's my own bias (I do a lot of work on the arms trade, among other things), but it makes me wonder how much Pakistan is driving this bus, and how much it's just taking advantage of a free ride. Again, there's not enough data.
There's a substantial element in the US, however, that continues to look at North Korea as the primary problem here, and Pakistan is just emerging as a major danger. Selig Harrison is an interesting bird in this regard (and often ignored in DC), because he's calling for a hard line on Pakistan, and appeasement of NOrth Korea.
I'm not saying that's the right way to look at this problem - but it's certainly a powerful perspective in DC.
Gotta run - more tomorrow!
Tim
You're right, of course. DPRK got HEU technology from Pakistan - but in the mid-to-late 1990s, with delivery taking place in the last couple of years. I was referring to their initial capability - acquired during the 1980s, after years of research and possibly outside help. My guess is that they probably had some kind of design for Pu in mind based on that technology. The report for the HEU gun-type device is from Libya, which was much more reliant on Pakistani technology for everything. I suspect, but can't prove, that North Korea was quite a bit ahead of that stage - recent reports from DPRK suggest that they're doing something with Pu again.
Johann,
Okay. I thought I'd seen something about test #4.
I'm not sure how sophisticated Pakistan's warhead technology design or modification capability is - some US documents hint at something significant. However, if the North Koreans, Iranians (who have access to ex-Soviet stuff - SS-4/5, according to some reports) and Pakistan cooperated, it might be enough to modify Chic-4. I just don't know - but Egypt, Iraq, and Argentina (with some West German help) were able to do some very dangerous things with the Condor/Vector project in the mid-80s.
Kgoan,
There's a part of me that looks at this more as a pariah network - like Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan in the 1970s, although mostly with conventional technology. That's my own bias (I do a lot of work on the arms trade, among other things), but it makes me wonder how much Pakistan is driving this bus, and how much it's just taking advantage of a free ride. Again, there's not enough data.
There's a substantial element in the US, however, that continues to look at North Korea as the primary problem here, and Pakistan is just emerging as a major danger. Selig Harrison is an interesting bird in this regard (and often ignored in DC), because he's calling for a hard line on Pakistan, and appeasement of NOrth Korea.
I'm not saying that's the right way to look at this problem - but it's certainly a powerful perspective in DC.
Gotta run - more tomorrow!
Tim
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
IIRC Chic-4 was an extremely large device, and the DF-1 was a very large missile. I don't know if it is correct to say that Chic-4 could fit on a M-11 with minor modifications. The delivery mechanism for a Chic-4 device given to Pakistan was not the Hatf or the Shaheen, it was most probably a bullock cart.
The only reason I sense that the Pakistanis went in for cross-pollination of their nuclear programs with missile programs in other countries is because it helped them spread out the procurement cost of materials (which was high due to prevailing proscribed technology control regimes) and got a mini economy of sorts going. Also the Pakistanis would never be able to devote enough manpower to really get a massive program that developed everything indigenously so they went in for a market approach.
The key thing to note here is that Pakistanis had set their sights very high. They aimed to project Pakistan as a castle, a castle of Islam. Even the first Pakistani thinkers viewed the world through such a lens, and there they only saw adversaries in the US, UK and USSR. It stands to reason that their capabilities in the nuclear arena were also developed with this in mind.
People have to get over this notion that everything Pakistan does is somehow related to what India does. Pakistan as a nation has its own dreams and ambitions, it is best not to pretend that the Pakistani leadership is somehow caught in a reactive cycle vis-a-vis India. Yes they are obsessed with India - without India, the very word `Pakistan' has no meaning, but that does not mean Pakistan's leadership is strategically paralysed with respect to everything else.
The only reason I sense that the Pakistanis went in for cross-pollination of their nuclear programs with missile programs in other countries is because it helped them spread out the procurement cost of materials (which was high due to prevailing proscribed technology control regimes) and got a mini economy of sorts going. Also the Pakistanis would never be able to devote enough manpower to really get a massive program that developed everything indigenously so they went in for a market approach.
The key thing to note here is that Pakistanis had set their sights very high. They aimed to project Pakistan as a castle, a castle of Islam. Even the first Pakistani thinkers viewed the world through such a lens, and there they only saw adversaries in the US, UK and USSR. It stands to reason that their capabilities in the nuclear arena were also developed with this in mind.
People have to get over this notion that everything Pakistan does is somehow related to what India does. Pakistan as a nation has its own dreams and ambitions, it is best not to pretend that the Pakistani leadership is somehow caught in a reactive cycle vis-a-vis India. Yes they are obsessed with India - without India, the very word `Pakistan' has no meaning, but that does not mean Pakistan's leadership is strategically paralysed with respect to everything else.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Nuclear Monument Burnt in Karachi - Puki Observer
Looks like Unkil is trying to wipe out anything Nu(clear)
Looks like Unkil is trying to wipe out anything Nu(clear)
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Sunil>> Is coming to the point, It was never possible for Paki economy (or for that matter technology) to sustain a systematic homegrown Nuke or Misile program.
It was funded with Narco terror, smuggling and siphoning of the aid (of the poor Japanese){ serves them right, to ut a Paki bum right in their front yard via N Korea)}.
Basically the Pakis have assembled the sum of all fears (to hearten the admirers of Tom C) to black mail unkil& co.
********
Thats not a big deal to figure out, GIs are going to face the brunt of any war in Korea period.
It was funded with Narco terror, smuggling and siphoning of the aid (of the poor Japanese){ serves them right, to ut a Paki bum right in their front yard via N Korea)}.
Basically the Pakis have assembled the sum of all fears (to hearten the admirers of Tom C) to black mail unkil& co.
********
Dr. TimThere's a substantial element in the US, however, that continues to look at North Korea as the primary problem here, and Pakistan is just emerging as a major danger.
Thats not a big deal to figure out, GIs are going to face the brunt of any war in Korea period.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
HmmmmOriginally posted by Rangudu:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/ 02/09/pakistans_nuclear_loopholes/
Pakistan's nuclear loopholes
By Selig S. Harrison, 2/9/2004
Islamabad has enough enriched uranium stockpiled for 52 more nuclear weapons in addition to the 48 it already deploys.
..etc etc
In return for nuclear inspections, the United States should be prepared to offer Pakistan compelling new incentives, including access to the US textile market, which the White House promised when Musharraf signed on as a US ally after 9/11.
Stepped-up textile exports to the huge US market would be an economic bonanza for Pakistan.
Curiouser and curiouser: total 100 warheads worth of HEU - is that 2000 Kg?
How dooes that gel in with Sanjay's Armageddon factor calc? The Pakis appear to have enriched 100 Kg Uranium from less than 1% to over 90% every year for 20 years. That's a LOT of seriously efficient centrifuges. The KRL one's weren't good. So were they PAEC ones?
Secondly I think Selig Harrison is wrong about how the Pakis may do better if they get textile quotas. He hasn't figured out that ALL money - be it aid, heroin sales or proliferation have been sunk into private accounts or arms purchases. Somebody tell him - Uneven has actually figured this out.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
The DF2 is reported to have a 1,500 kg payload - suggesting that would be close to the wt of the nuke (perhaps 1250 kg or so).
M-11 is believed to have a 500 - 800 kg load.
www.fas.org
M-11 is believed to have a 500 - 800 kg load.
www.fas.org
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Musharaff suspected Khan's proliferation activities for three years - was waiting for evidence from the US.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/international/asia/10STAN.html?hp=&pagewanted=a ll&position=
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/international/asia/10STEX.html?pagewanted=print&position=
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/international/asia/10STAN.html?hp=&pagewanted=a ll&position=
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/international/asia/10STEX.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Some pisko-therapy for forum members:
In these seriously interesting times, I think WE would do well to get rid of our own equal-equal complexes vis a vis Pakistan.
Every time there is any hint that Paki nukes are more numerous or more sophisticated that Indian ones - we are up in arms.
How about stopping that? There are some advantages in stopping that "matching and exceeding Pakistan" thought process and detatching that from what India's REAL status may be in that regard. It suits us perfectly well to admit that the US/Russia/China?France?UK have more warheads. Why not Pakistan too? We are after all, the good guys ( wink wink )
I mean - just look around. Who are the people trying to destroy the world? Who trains terrosist to kill civilians and claims that God wanted that to happen?
Who proliferates nuclear weapons and technology?
Which nations are deep down in the list of screwed up bankrupt nations and are deperately amassing WMDs?
Not India. We are good. We are satyameva jayate. We stand for peace, panchsheel etc etc. We have a few dozen nukes for "research purposes" and our "legitimate needs". We are not spending sh1tloads on amassing nuclear warheads - we are squeaky clean.
< halo > INDIA < /halo> Peace Be Upon Her
In these seriously interesting times, I think WE would do well to get rid of our own equal-equal complexes vis a vis Pakistan.
Every time there is any hint that Paki nukes are more numerous or more sophisticated that Indian ones - we are up in arms.
How about stopping that? There are some advantages in stopping that "matching and exceeding Pakistan" thought process and detatching that from what India's REAL status may be in that regard. It suits us perfectly well to admit that the US/Russia/China?France?UK have more warheads. Why not Pakistan too? We are after all, the good guys ( wink wink )
I mean - just look around. Who are the people trying to destroy the world? Who trains terrosist to kill civilians and claims that God wanted that to happen?
Who proliferates nuclear weapons and technology?
Which nations are deep down in the list of screwed up bankrupt nations and are deperately amassing WMDs?
Not India. We are good. We are satyameva jayate. We stand for peace, panchsheel etc etc. We have a few dozen nukes for "research purposes" and our "legitimate needs". We are not spending sh1tloads on amassing nuclear warheads - we are squeaky clean.
< halo > INDIA < /halo> Peace Be Upon Her
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Pakistan now says that AQK did not get a complete pardon. IT appears that Powells phone conversation with Musharraf yesterday has had its desired effect. One might go so far as to say that the leaks regarding PALs, weapon design etc were all designed to pressure Musharraf further.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Just a couple of questions.
1. If Pakistan had really wanted to give nuclear technology to Muslim countries, why didn't it do so wholeheartedly, instead of being half-hearted and putting these countries through long development cycles?
(Doesnot sound like ideological committment from either Pakistan or AQ Khan. No need to point out that Pakis were not half-hearted about their ideological committment to jihad, they put their army, their government, their people, their mosques, their allies, their whole polity to service of the jihad)
2. When N.Korea had what Pakistanis very much wanted, namely ready-to-assemble missiles and green paint on the side, why did they merely set the N.Koreans, too, off on a nukes development cycle and not give them quick-to-assemble bums instead?
Reasons could be:
1. Pakistanis were leading their customers up the garden path as they had/have no nukes or workable bomb designs to sell.
2. Pakistanis were leading their customers up the garden path to stretch out the payments for as along as possible.
3. Pakistanis wanted it both ways - to be the saviors of the Muslim world by being the sole owners of nukes, AND by 'giving' nukes to other Muslim countries both.
1. If Pakistan had really wanted to give nuclear technology to Muslim countries, why didn't it do so wholeheartedly, instead of being half-hearted and putting these countries through long development cycles?
(Doesnot sound like ideological committment from either Pakistan or AQ Khan. No need to point out that Pakis were not half-hearted about their ideological committment to jihad, they put their army, their government, their people, their mosques, their allies, their whole polity to service of the jihad)
2. When N.Korea had what Pakistanis very much wanted, namely ready-to-assemble missiles and green paint on the side, why did they merely set the N.Koreans, too, off on a nukes development cycle and not give them quick-to-assemble bums instead?
Reasons could be:
1. Pakistanis were leading their customers up the garden path as they had/have no nukes or workable bomb designs to sell.
2. Pakistanis were leading their customers up the garden path to stretch out the payments for as along as possible.
3. Pakistanis wanted it both ways - to be the saviors of the Muslim world by being the sole owners of nukes, AND by 'giving' nukes to other Muslim countries both.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Pakistan's nuclear inquiry is a sham
http://www.iht.com/articles/128702.htm
http://www.iht.com/articles/128702.htm
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
U.S. Urges Pakistan Against Nuke Network
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040209_719.html
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Questions that I had for some time but never answered (never asked anybody actually):
1. Why did TSP conduct their underground nuclear test in the (Ras Koh) mountains and not on the plains? They don't have any shortage of wasteland/desert where they could have drilled shafts.
2. Has any other country conducted nuclear tests in the mountains till now?
3. How would they have hauled up equipment up the mountain for drilling the shafts? Or were the shafts at the base of the mountain?
4. Are the shafts likely to have been horizontal?
Also, do others find footage of the test strange? I have always felt that it seemed somehow unnatural, and watched it on BBC news again today. I can't place my finger on what is wrong, but something seems 'not right' about the footage of rocks rolling down the mountain slopes and dust clouds rising up. Yet, the seismographic evidence is for real, so the test did happen. Maybe I am imagining that something seems unnatural.
1. Why did TSP conduct their underground nuclear test in the (Ras Koh) mountains and not on the plains? They don't have any shortage of wasteland/desert where they could have drilled shafts.
2. Has any other country conducted nuclear tests in the mountains till now?
3. How would they have hauled up equipment up the mountain for drilling the shafts? Or were the shafts at the base of the mountain?
4. Are the shafts likely to have been horizontal?
Also, do others find footage of the test strange? I have always felt that it seemed somehow unnatural, and watched it on BBC news again today. I can't place my finger on what is wrong, but something seems 'not right' about the footage of rocks rolling down the mountain slopes and dust clouds rising up. Yet, the seismographic evidence is for real, so the test did happen. Maybe I am imagining that something seems unnatural.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Originally posted by Ananda:
What has the US received in the long-term? A fanatical Pakistan, which is the Charter Member and the CEO/COO of Global Jihad, Inc., whose founding principle is the clash of civilizations and whose number one priority is the destruction of the US. Millions of hate-filled jihadis who are very close to laying their hands on an operable nuclear device (if not already in possession of one). Nuclear bombs in the hands of North Korea and possibly other rogue states. At the very least, 911 should have opened the US' eyes, but the US keeps repeating the same blunders which got it to the present predicament, i.e., trusting Pakistan.
It is going to take decades, if ever, for the US to surmount the threats that Pakistan has created for the US. That's what happens when you play with fire, you get burned. Sleep with dogs and you get fleas. The US behavior is almost like the "parwaana" who knows he will ultimately get burned by the "shamaa," but cannot help going straight for the flame. Otherwise, known as death wish.
So, no, I don't see it being business as usual between the US and Pakistan for a long, long time, as you suggest. It is very doubtful whether Pakistan can ever be cleaned up - certainly not with this velvet glove treatment the US is offering presently. The disease has metastasized too far in Pakistan. Only shock treatment delivered externally has any chance of taming this diabolical state into a semi-civilized state fit to belong to the comity of nations. More likely, it will just implode from within.
You have articulated very well the Paki position. There is no doubt a constituency in the US also which believes that Pakistan has served as a useful ally of the US. However, these are short-term gains.Its not such a mystery if you really think about it. Pakistan has been extremely useful to the US for many decades. You dont discard such a useful ally. Just some examples:
Helping the US spy on the Soviets during the Cold War. Gary Power took off on his U2 from a base in Pakistan.
Serving as the middle man in the Nixon-Kissinger opening to China.
Keeping a Cold War adversary, India, contained.
Kicking the palestinians out of Jordan. General Zia ul-Haq was rewarded with the presidency of Pakistan for this service.
Playing an absolutely critical role in kicking the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
Helping the US in training and defending Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Helping contain the Ayatollahs of Iran.
Dutifully making a U-turn and helping the US defeat the Taliban.
Helping catch Al-Qaeda terrorists and turning them over to the US.
And who know what other services were rendered clandestinely.
And Pakistan's usefulness to the US is not over yet. All these fantasies of the 'condom' being discarded are naive and premature.
The war against terrorism isnt over yet and most of the battles will be fought in Pakistan. Even after Osama is history, a pliant Pakistan will still have a crucial role to play in American geo-political strategy: containing India and keeping it away from the immense wealth of the persian gulf, containing Iran, providing military service for the oil sheikdoms, helping keep the Indian Ocean an American lake....
The fact that Pakistan has become the epicenter of terrorism and nuclear proliferation is blowback, an unintended, unexpected consequence. For which the US probably blames the lax relations after the end of the Cold War. They seem to be confident that they will eventually clean up the mess with Mushharaf's help and it will be back to business as usual. Its not so hard to understand where America is coming from.
What has the US received in the long-term? A fanatical Pakistan, which is the Charter Member and the CEO/COO of Global Jihad, Inc., whose founding principle is the clash of civilizations and whose number one priority is the destruction of the US. Millions of hate-filled jihadis who are very close to laying their hands on an operable nuclear device (if not already in possession of one). Nuclear bombs in the hands of North Korea and possibly other rogue states. At the very least, 911 should have opened the US' eyes, but the US keeps repeating the same blunders which got it to the present predicament, i.e., trusting Pakistan.
It is going to take decades, if ever, for the US to surmount the threats that Pakistan has created for the US. That's what happens when you play with fire, you get burned. Sleep with dogs and you get fleas. The US behavior is almost like the "parwaana" who knows he will ultimately get burned by the "shamaa," but cannot help going straight for the flame. Otherwise, known as death wish.
So, no, I don't see it being business as usual between the US and Pakistan for a long, long time, as you suggest. It is very doubtful whether Pakistan can ever be cleaned up - certainly not with this velvet glove treatment the US is offering presently. The disease has metastasized too far in Pakistan. Only shock treatment delivered externally has any chance of taming this diabolical state into a semi-civilized state fit to belong to the comity of nations. More likely, it will just implode from within.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Just heard on the radio (NPR/BBC). North Korea has denied that it obtained nuclear weapons technology from Pakistan and has termed the whole thing as U.S. propoganda. 
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
The news of US "PAL"s on Packee nukes is interesting. For the ignorant - PAL stands for Paki-American Langoti - which is a technical description of American underwear on de-briefed nooknoodity.
One theoretical scenario is that the code to activate nukes will be with the USG and the USG will "misplace" them in the same place as the Chagai Pu samples. That is total noodity - sorry can't help stopping for a guffaw break here
Another scenario is that the activation codes are with a trusted Paki - like Musharraf.
Now that would make the situation ve-ery interesting indeed. It means that Pakistan has conditional access - that is, Pakistan can use nukes only if the US doesn't object, and can use them only via a US approved person - such as Musharraf -
'scuse me, got to catch my breath here - this is serious stuff.
Now India will has NFU in place. India will not use nukes first. Pakistan will have to use them, and if Pakistan can use them against India- it will use nukes with US PAL's on them - that is any use of Pak nukes against India wil have to be with tacit US approval.
Now for the fun and games.
Pakistan continues terrorism against India, funded by Heroin, and continues to send in fake curency etc. Eventually someting snaps and India readies for military action on Pakistan, knowing that Pakistan will get kicked without nukes, knowing that nuke US by Pakistan can come only with US complicity. India overruns part of Pakistan.
Then what? Will Pak-American briefs be removed to threaten India? Will India even bother about the threat - and assume that nook-nood never existed anyway and that we are willing to get hit and ready to hit back?
IOW PAL's are conditional nooknoodity, and from teh Indian viewpoint will have to be treated as not nooknoodity at all.
One theoretical scenario is that the code to activate nukes will be with the USG and the USG will "misplace" them in the same place as the Chagai Pu samples. That is total noodity
- sorry can't help stopping for a guffaw break hereAnother scenario is that the activation codes are with a trusted Paki - like Musharraf.
Now that would make the situation ve-ery interesting indeed. It means that Pakistan has conditional access - that is, Pakistan can use nukes only if the US doesn't object, and can use them only via a US approved person - such as Musharraf
- 'scuse me, got to catch my breath here - this is serious stuff.
Now India will has NFU in place. India will not use nukes first. Pakistan will have to use them, and if Pakistan can use them against India- it will use nukes with US PAL's on them - that is any use of Pak nukes against India wil have to be with tacit US approval.
Now for the fun and games.
Pakistan continues terrorism against India, funded by Heroin, and continues to send in fake curency etc. Eventually someting snaps and India readies for military action on Pakistan, knowing that Pakistan will get kicked without nukes, knowing that nuke US by Pakistan can come only with US complicity. India overruns part of Pakistan.
Then what? Will Pak-American briefs be removed to threaten India? Will India even bother about the threat - and assume that nook-nood never existed anyway and that we are willing to get hit and ready to hit back?
IOW PAL's are conditional nooknoodity, and from teh Indian viewpoint will have to be treated as not nooknoodity at all.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Hi,
The latest step in the tamasha has just begun. One can expect the Pakistanis to never disappoint:
Pakistani leader suspected moves by atomic expert.
Some excerpts:
"President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged for the first time on Monday that he had suspected for at least three years that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist was sharing nuclear technology with other countries, but argued that the United States had not given him convincing proof".
I must say that these chaps have considerable chutzpah. Commit a crime, then blame your accomplices and next blame your targets. Incredible ! And the US taking this nonsense like a good child being scolded by its teacher.
The latest step in the tamasha has just begun. One can expect the Pakistanis to never disappoint:
Pakistani leader suspected moves by atomic expert.
Some excerpts:
"President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged for the first time on Monday that he had suspected for at least three years that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist was sharing nuclear technology with other countries, but argued that the United States had not given him convincing proof".
I must say that these chaps have considerable chutzpah. Commit a crime, then blame your accomplices and next blame your targets. Incredible ! And the US taking this nonsense like a good child being scolded by its teacher.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Germans Allegedly Involved in Pakistan Nuclear Scandal
Explosive: "Lots of Europeans" helped to pass on nuclear secrets, Pakistan's Kasuri says
According to the Pakistani Foreign Minister, three Germans acted as middlemen in the illicit transfer of nuclear secrets during the 1980s and 1990s.
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1108768_1_A,00.html
Days after the "father of the Pakistani atomic bomb," Abdul Qadeer Khan, publicly confessed to handing over nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri confirmed that Germans were involved in the illicit activities.
"We have the German's names, and we have as much evidence against them as we have against Khan," Kasuri told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Three Germans had been implicated in "activities in the 1980s and 90s" Kasuri said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would have to communicate any information about them to Germany, he added. "That's not our thing."
At a security conference in Munich on Sunday, Kasuri said "lots of Europeans" had been involved. The IAEA and Iran had given Pakistan their names, he told the audience.
Pakistan: Armed, Dangerous and Unaccountable
K P S Gill
http://www.kashmirtelegraph.com/0204/lion.htm
The very suspicion of the presence of 'weapons of mass destruction' in Iraq plunged America into a premature war and increasingly ruinous engagement in Iraq; yet, incontrovertible evidence of proliferation by Pakistan only attracts an indulgent 'let bygones be bygones', and a reaffirmation of 'faith' in General Pervez Musharraf's 'leadership'. Has the American intelligence and South Asia policy community been 'embedded' in Pakistan for far too long to have retained a sufficient measure of objectivity? And could the succession of unwarranted indulgences towards Pakistan compromise stability in South Asia as well as America's own future security?
The past weeks' events in Pakistan will certainly go down as one of the most consummate political charades in recent history, and if they were not so dangerous, they would be farcical: within weeks of the cover being blown off Pakistan's nuclear proliferation activities in Libya (following similar disclosures, first with regard to North Korea, and then Iran; as well as unconfirmed reports of involvement in the relocation of Iraq's missing 'nuclear material' from Syria to Pakistan in October 2002), an 'investigation' was launched and completed; the 'sole culprit', A.Q. Khan, the 'father' of Pakistan's 'Islamic bomb', was identified, detained and 'interrogated'; he then appeared on national Television, abjectly pleading with a 'stern' Musharraf, after which he made a televised 'confession' of his wrongdoing, taking the full blame and implicitly exonerating his military masters; with fitting humility, he also 'apologised to the nation'; it would obviously be churlish, under the circumstances, not to let 'bygones be bygones', and worse than churlish to insist that investigations expose all the other culprits in the proliferation conspiracy - including (heaven forbid!) the country's present dictator; the Cabinet, consequently, recommends full clemency for the 'national hero'; and Musharraf, naturally bound by the collective will of the Cabinet, seals the amnesty. So, we are to believe, the entire criminal chapter of over a decade and a half of what CIA director George Tenet euphemistically describes as 'nuclear profiteering' by Pakistan, is closed.
All this is also immediately and unhesitatingly endorsed by the US Administration, which reiterates its faith in President Musharraf's 'stewardship' of his country. The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, also submissively echoes the American position, sympathising with Musharraf for "the very difficult situation that he has to deal with - he is dealing with a national hero."
On the sidelines of the grand sweep of this drama, A.Q. Khan had implicated Pervez Musharraf and three of his predecessor army chiefs - Jehangir Karamat, Abdul Waheed Kakkar and Mirza Aslam Beg - in the country's nuclear transgressions, and is also believed to have taken out an 'insurance policy' for himself by way of 'proof' that he sent out of the country with his daughter, to be released to the world in case a prosecution was launched against him.
In the meanwhile, Musharraf declares that his country "will never roll back its nuclear assets", nor would he accept any "independent investigation" by international agencies. He announces the test firing of the 1,240 kilometre-range Shaheen II missile 'within a month' to reiterate the country's commitment to its strategic nuclear missile programme, and simultaneously warns the national media against 'further speculation' on the military's role in peddling nuclear secrets, as such 'speculation' would be against the 'national interest.'
An 'anti-national' Press is not alone in its dissent from the orchestrated spectacle. In Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, warned that Khan's activities were "the tip of an iceberg" in the international nuclear black market. Former US Chief Weapons Inspector, David Kay also declared, "I can think of no one who deserves less to be pardoned."
It is useful to note here that Musharraf's strategy of response to the continuous succession of exposures on nuclear proliferation is identical to the strategy adopted with regard to Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism. First, complete denial; when this becomes unsustainable, denial of state sponsorship or involvement, and transfer of responsibility to non-state actors and institutions, or 'renegades', with token 'action' against some of these; eventually, where even this becomes unsustainable, some visible action in which some of these actors are 'sacrificed' to salvage his regime, with promises to the international community that past activities would be 'permanently wound down'. Core capacities, however, are never dismantled or destroyed.
If, within this context, Khan must be 'sacrificed' to maintain a minimally credible pretence that the Pakistani state and Army were not directly 'involved' in nuclear proliferation, so be it. In a few months, he will be restored to his 'normal' life, as happened earlier with the two Pakistani nuclear scientists (Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood and Chaudhri Abdul Majeed of the Ummah Tameer-e-Nau) who were in contact with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and were believed to have been trying to help him develop a 'dirty bomb'.
This strategy has generally been referred to as maintaining 'minimal credible deniability' while engaging in a multiplicity of illegal and perilous international adventures. Crucially, there are two sides to the 'credible deniability' coin: the pretence by Pakistan that it is innocent; and the acceptance of this pretence by the 'international community' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Generally, America and the West have ignored evidence of Pakistani involvement in terrorism and proliferation, either because their interests have not been threatened, or have sometimes been served, by such activities; or, especially in the post-9/11 period, because they feel that Pakistan's and Musharraf's 'stability' would be threatened by any sudden or harsh sanctions, and this is considered tactically unacceptable in the present context.
The fact is, Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation (as in its sponsorship of terrorism) has been an 'open secret' for a long time. Since the late 1980s, Pakistan has been 'marketing' nuclear technologies with little effort at secrecy - at one point through advertisements published in national newspapers, as well as through printed brochures that were widely circulated among potential clients by the AQ Khan Research Laboratories at Kahuta, and a copy of which was recently published by The New York Times. It is also well known that Pakistan had developed and projected its nuclear programme as an 'Islamic bomb' and had received enormous financial support from a number of Islamic countries, including Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia, on an implicit quid pro quo agreement that would have involved sharing of technologies with the 'Islamic world'. Pakistan's missiles-for-nuclear-technology deal with North Korea is also well known, and these transfers had been documented by intelligence agencies years before 9/11. Indeed, there is not a single security commentator who would not be aware that virtually every single missile 'developed' by Pakistan was, in fact, nothing more than a reassembled version of a North Korean 'knock down kit'. At least some of these various proliferation activities have demonstrably taken place under the Musharraf regime. To pretend or believe that any or all of this could be done without explicit state and military sanction is the most arrant nonsense. Yet, all this was deliberately ignored by America and by the West.
This naturally forces the disturbing questions: has America, or have American agencies, in fact, been complicit in at least some of these proliferation activities? And have successive US Administrations deliberately misled the American people? While the immediate and malevolent shadow of Pakistan's activities has fallen within the region, particularly on Afghanistan and India, it is the inescapable truth that the 'nuclear dagger' is aimed irrevocably at the heart of the world's 'sole superpower', and the leakage of these technologies to rogue states and terrorist non-state actors across the world constitutes the gravest threat to the US. Peripheral players as well as recipients of the proliferating technologies have been targeted with the full force of punitive American and international sanctions, yet the primary proliferator and central protagonist in the sponsorship of international Islamist terrorism escapes unscathed, again and again, irrespective of the enormity of its transgressions. Every US Administration in the recent past has downplayed Pakistan's role in international terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and the present Administration is no exception.
America's 'strategy' for stabilizing Pakistan - indeed, South Asia - appears to be based on a single premise: unqualified support to Musharraf, with a combination of rewards and pressures to urge him to restore control over the jehadi elements in his country. This exclusive reliance on a single individual is substantially based on Musharraf's deceptive persona, his 'westernised' ease of attire and intercourse, and his apparent servility under US pressure. Apart from the dangers of operating without viable alternatives, such an approach is also based on a poor understanding of the man. Musharraf is, evidently, opportunist par excellence; his present perceptions tie him closely to the most immediate US interests. But the current 'global war' is a war of ideologies. Musharraf's fundamental commitments, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan itself, are founded on an ideology in irreducible conflict with that of America. To fail to recognize this is to imperil all freedoms everywhere. To fail, equally, to recognize, behind the veneer of westernisation, the sheer absence of scruples and the ruthlessness of Musharraf's character is to create the circumstances for inevitable betrayal. This is the man who 'hijacked a country'; who betrayed his own elected prime minister; who has subverted democracy through a rigged national 'referendum' and a fraudulent election in which fringe Islamist extremist political formations were manoeuvred to the centre-stage of national electoral politics; who planned and executed the Kargil misadventure, which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear confrontation; who has directly supported terrorism, not only in India, but internationally, through the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine and its affiliates - openly before 9/11, and covertly and opportunistically since then; who led a campaign of pillage and slaughter in 1988 to crush an uprising in Gilgit in the Northern Areas of occupied Kashmir - a campaign that earned him the title, 'butcher of Baltistan'. He is a man, moreover, who constantly shifts stance, and who has blatantly misled and lied to the international community again and again, on matters of critical concern. To repose 'faith' in such a man is to succumb to a dangerous selective blindness.
From the very moment of its creation, Pakistan has been little more than an organized criminal enterprise masquerading as a nation-state. For years now, I have been arguing that Pakistan's nuclear capabilities will have to be shut down. Countries that cannot control their nuclear establishment and prevent illegal transfers of technology cannot escape the ambit of international controls. Countries that actively promote such illegal proliferation must draw upon themselves the harshest of international sanctions and inspection regimes. To fail in this course is to ignore the grave danger that such rogue states constitute, not only to peace, but to human survival itself.
Explosive: "Lots of Europeans" helped to pass on nuclear secrets, Pakistan's Kasuri says
According to the Pakistani Foreign Minister, three Germans acted as middlemen in the illicit transfer of nuclear secrets during the 1980s and 1990s.
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1108768_1_A,00.html
Days after the "father of the Pakistani atomic bomb," Abdul Qadeer Khan, publicly confessed to handing over nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri confirmed that Germans were involved in the illicit activities.
"We have the German's names, and we have as much evidence against them as we have against Khan," Kasuri told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Three Germans had been implicated in "activities in the 1980s and 90s" Kasuri said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would have to communicate any information about them to Germany, he added. "That's not our thing."
At a security conference in Munich on Sunday, Kasuri said "lots of Europeans" had been involved. The IAEA and Iran had given Pakistan their names, he told the audience.
Pakistan: Armed, Dangerous and Unaccountable
K P S Gill
http://www.kashmirtelegraph.com/0204/lion.htm
The very suspicion of the presence of 'weapons of mass destruction' in Iraq plunged America into a premature war and increasingly ruinous engagement in Iraq; yet, incontrovertible evidence of proliferation by Pakistan only attracts an indulgent 'let bygones be bygones', and a reaffirmation of 'faith' in General Pervez Musharraf's 'leadership'. Has the American intelligence and South Asia policy community been 'embedded' in Pakistan for far too long to have retained a sufficient measure of objectivity? And could the succession of unwarranted indulgences towards Pakistan compromise stability in South Asia as well as America's own future security?
The past weeks' events in Pakistan will certainly go down as one of the most consummate political charades in recent history, and if they were not so dangerous, they would be farcical: within weeks of the cover being blown off Pakistan's nuclear proliferation activities in Libya (following similar disclosures, first with regard to North Korea, and then Iran; as well as unconfirmed reports of involvement in the relocation of Iraq's missing 'nuclear material' from Syria to Pakistan in October 2002), an 'investigation' was launched and completed; the 'sole culprit', A.Q. Khan, the 'father' of Pakistan's 'Islamic bomb', was identified, detained and 'interrogated'; he then appeared on national Television, abjectly pleading with a 'stern' Musharraf, after which he made a televised 'confession' of his wrongdoing, taking the full blame and implicitly exonerating his military masters; with fitting humility, he also 'apologised to the nation'; it would obviously be churlish, under the circumstances, not to let 'bygones be bygones', and worse than churlish to insist that investigations expose all the other culprits in the proliferation conspiracy - including (heaven forbid!) the country's present dictator; the Cabinet, consequently, recommends full clemency for the 'national hero'; and Musharraf, naturally bound by the collective will of the Cabinet, seals the amnesty. So, we are to believe, the entire criminal chapter of over a decade and a half of what CIA director George Tenet euphemistically describes as 'nuclear profiteering' by Pakistan, is closed.
All this is also immediately and unhesitatingly endorsed by the US Administration, which reiterates its faith in President Musharraf's 'stewardship' of his country. The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, also submissively echoes the American position, sympathising with Musharraf for "the very difficult situation that he has to deal with - he is dealing with a national hero."
On the sidelines of the grand sweep of this drama, A.Q. Khan had implicated Pervez Musharraf and three of his predecessor army chiefs - Jehangir Karamat, Abdul Waheed Kakkar and Mirza Aslam Beg - in the country's nuclear transgressions, and is also believed to have taken out an 'insurance policy' for himself by way of 'proof' that he sent out of the country with his daughter, to be released to the world in case a prosecution was launched against him.
In the meanwhile, Musharraf declares that his country "will never roll back its nuclear assets", nor would he accept any "independent investigation" by international agencies. He announces the test firing of the 1,240 kilometre-range Shaheen II missile 'within a month' to reiterate the country's commitment to its strategic nuclear missile programme, and simultaneously warns the national media against 'further speculation' on the military's role in peddling nuclear secrets, as such 'speculation' would be against the 'national interest.'
An 'anti-national' Press is not alone in its dissent from the orchestrated spectacle. In Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, warned that Khan's activities were "the tip of an iceberg" in the international nuclear black market. Former US Chief Weapons Inspector, David Kay also declared, "I can think of no one who deserves less to be pardoned."
It is useful to note here that Musharraf's strategy of response to the continuous succession of exposures on nuclear proliferation is identical to the strategy adopted with regard to Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism. First, complete denial; when this becomes unsustainable, denial of state sponsorship or involvement, and transfer of responsibility to non-state actors and institutions, or 'renegades', with token 'action' against some of these; eventually, where even this becomes unsustainable, some visible action in which some of these actors are 'sacrificed' to salvage his regime, with promises to the international community that past activities would be 'permanently wound down'. Core capacities, however, are never dismantled or destroyed.
If, within this context, Khan must be 'sacrificed' to maintain a minimally credible pretence that the Pakistani state and Army were not directly 'involved' in nuclear proliferation, so be it. In a few months, he will be restored to his 'normal' life, as happened earlier with the two Pakistani nuclear scientists (Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood and Chaudhri Abdul Majeed of the Ummah Tameer-e-Nau) who were in contact with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and were believed to have been trying to help him develop a 'dirty bomb'.
This strategy has generally been referred to as maintaining 'minimal credible deniability' while engaging in a multiplicity of illegal and perilous international adventures. Crucially, there are two sides to the 'credible deniability' coin: the pretence by Pakistan that it is innocent; and the acceptance of this pretence by the 'international community' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Generally, America and the West have ignored evidence of Pakistani involvement in terrorism and proliferation, either because their interests have not been threatened, or have sometimes been served, by such activities; or, especially in the post-9/11 period, because they feel that Pakistan's and Musharraf's 'stability' would be threatened by any sudden or harsh sanctions, and this is considered tactically unacceptable in the present context.
The fact is, Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation (as in its sponsorship of terrorism) has been an 'open secret' for a long time. Since the late 1980s, Pakistan has been 'marketing' nuclear technologies with little effort at secrecy - at one point through advertisements published in national newspapers, as well as through printed brochures that were widely circulated among potential clients by the AQ Khan Research Laboratories at Kahuta, and a copy of which was recently published by The New York Times. It is also well known that Pakistan had developed and projected its nuclear programme as an 'Islamic bomb' and had received enormous financial support from a number of Islamic countries, including Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia, on an implicit quid pro quo agreement that would have involved sharing of technologies with the 'Islamic world'. Pakistan's missiles-for-nuclear-technology deal with North Korea is also well known, and these transfers had been documented by intelligence agencies years before 9/11. Indeed, there is not a single security commentator who would not be aware that virtually every single missile 'developed' by Pakistan was, in fact, nothing more than a reassembled version of a North Korean 'knock down kit'. At least some of these various proliferation activities have demonstrably taken place under the Musharraf regime. To pretend or believe that any or all of this could be done without explicit state and military sanction is the most arrant nonsense. Yet, all this was deliberately ignored by America and by the West.
This naturally forces the disturbing questions: has America, or have American agencies, in fact, been complicit in at least some of these proliferation activities? And have successive US Administrations deliberately misled the American people? While the immediate and malevolent shadow of Pakistan's activities has fallen within the region, particularly on Afghanistan and India, it is the inescapable truth that the 'nuclear dagger' is aimed irrevocably at the heart of the world's 'sole superpower', and the leakage of these technologies to rogue states and terrorist non-state actors across the world constitutes the gravest threat to the US. Peripheral players as well as recipients of the proliferating technologies have been targeted with the full force of punitive American and international sanctions, yet the primary proliferator and central protagonist in the sponsorship of international Islamist terrorism escapes unscathed, again and again, irrespective of the enormity of its transgressions. Every US Administration in the recent past has downplayed Pakistan's role in international terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and the present Administration is no exception.
America's 'strategy' for stabilizing Pakistan - indeed, South Asia - appears to be based on a single premise: unqualified support to Musharraf, with a combination of rewards and pressures to urge him to restore control over the jehadi elements in his country. This exclusive reliance on a single individual is substantially based on Musharraf's deceptive persona, his 'westernised' ease of attire and intercourse, and his apparent servility under US pressure. Apart from the dangers of operating without viable alternatives, such an approach is also based on a poor understanding of the man. Musharraf is, evidently, opportunist par excellence; his present perceptions tie him closely to the most immediate US interests. But the current 'global war' is a war of ideologies. Musharraf's fundamental commitments, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan itself, are founded on an ideology in irreducible conflict with that of America. To fail to recognize this is to imperil all freedoms everywhere. To fail, equally, to recognize, behind the veneer of westernisation, the sheer absence of scruples and the ruthlessness of Musharraf's character is to create the circumstances for inevitable betrayal. This is the man who 'hijacked a country'; who betrayed his own elected prime minister; who has subverted democracy through a rigged national 'referendum' and a fraudulent election in which fringe Islamist extremist political formations were manoeuvred to the centre-stage of national electoral politics; who planned and executed the Kargil misadventure, which brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear confrontation; who has directly supported terrorism, not only in India, but internationally, through the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine and its affiliates - openly before 9/11, and covertly and opportunistically since then; who led a campaign of pillage and slaughter in 1988 to crush an uprising in Gilgit in the Northern Areas of occupied Kashmir - a campaign that earned him the title, 'butcher of Baltistan'. He is a man, moreover, who constantly shifts stance, and who has blatantly misled and lied to the international community again and again, on matters of critical concern. To repose 'faith' in such a man is to succumb to a dangerous selective blindness.
From the very moment of its creation, Pakistan has been little more than an organized criminal enterprise masquerading as a nation-state. For years now, I have been arguing that Pakistan's nuclear capabilities will have to be shut down. Countries that cannot control their nuclear establishment and prevent illegal transfers of technology cannot escape the ambit of international controls. Countries that actively promote such illegal proliferation must draw upon themselves the harshest of international sanctions and inspection regimes. To fail in this course is to ignore the grave danger that such rogue states constitute, not only to peace, but to human survival itself.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Pakistan's Nuclear Ali Baba
By Jim Hoagland
Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A23
MUNICH -- "Nobody could touch him," says Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Pakistan's foreign minister. The regret in his voice is palpable. "Imagine an American government doing this to Charles Lindbergh, or Albert Einstein, at the height of his popularity. Dr. A.Q. Khan is that kind of national hero in Pakistan."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27180-2004Feb9.html
Abdul Qadeer Khan, an accomplished scientist, is also by his own account a thief of Ali Baba proportions. He became a national hero by stealing the designs of a European nuclear centrifuge system that enabled Pakistan to explode several nuclear devices in 1998. Khan's original nuclear larceny, as Kasuri says, "gave us strategic balance."
Now Khan stands accused by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, of single-handedly running a smuggling operation that traded nuclear wherewithal to Iran, Libya and North Korea for huge payoffs. In an hour-long conversation at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Kasuri provided a detailed description of the scientist's operations, Musharraf's tracking of and final confrontation with Khan, and the scientist's confession of wrongdoing.
The foreign minister's passionately delivered account was clearly designed to dispel the view that Khan is in fact performing one more service for Pakistan by taking the rap for a far-flung national operation. If that is the case, Khan would be more scapegoat than goat.
But Kasuri, a lawyer and human rights activist before becoming Musharraf's foreign minister 15 months ago, was eager to drive home a message that even we skeptics have to welcome:
"We are a responsible nuclear nation," he said, adding that Pakistan is ready to observe recognized international restrictions on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "We had to demonstrate to the Pakistani people and to the world that not even A.Q. Khan is above the law. The United States should take this into account and engage Pakistan more fully on nuclear and defense matters."
Musharraf immediately pardoned Khan after the scientist went on television Feb. 4, took "full responsibility" for the cascading disclosures of Pakistan's determined proliferation and tearfully asked for mercy. Kasuri asserted that Pakistani public opinion made it impossible for Musharraf to impose legal penalties on Khan and survive.
"Look, we knew we would be accused of knuckling under to the Americans," he said. "We are not doing that. The Pakistani people must understand that there will be no nuclear rollback. We have scheduled new missile tests to make that point. We are a declared nuclear power and the world must accept it. We are, however, taking steps to control our nuclear assets" more carefully and halt proliferation, Kasuri added.
Musharraf became suspicious of Khan in 2001 and eased him out of control of the country's nuclear laboratories, according to Kasuri. Up to that point, the government and the public seemed to accept Khan's lavish lifestyle and grandiose philanthropy as Pakistani corruption as usual, as he had access to unaudited public funds.
"But five months ago international leaders came to President Musharraf with new information that made us understand we had to take measures. We were devastated," said Kasuri, who declined to be more precise. Others pinpoint a voluminous CIA file on Pakistani proliferation as the source of the damning intelligence that U.S. officials passed to Musharraf.
Our talk then went like this: Why, then, did you wait so long to act? "This is very difficult for us." Does the timing have to do with the nearly successful assassination attempts on Musharraf by extremists with whom Khan and Pakistan's intelligence service are suspected of sympathizing? "No. That is utter nonsense."
But Kasuri acknowledged that the Pakistani cabinet recently asked Musharraf to move to the capital, Islamabad, rather than continue a daily 30-minute commute from Rawalpindi. Pakistani sources say three serious attacks on Musharraf's convoy have been mounted in recent weeks, only two of which have been publicized. Moreover, a European intelligence service has detected signs that some commanders in Pakistan's intelligence service are increasing their cooperation with Islamic extremist groups rather than following Musharraf. The president is engaged in a self-protective showdown with his enemies, this information suggests.
Kasuri's message was more diffuse but no less urgent: "There is a one-year window of opportunity" in an embryonic peace effort with India. "While Musharraf is both president and chief of staff" of the armed forces, "we will be able to speak with one voice, and breakthroughs can be made."
Musharraf's recent actions give new credibility to such appeals for U.S. support. But conditions should still be attached: An urgent one is to be sure that Pakistan has in fact learned everything about the networks of proliferation that have been centered there -- and is fully disclosing that information to the United States.
By Jim Hoagland
Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A23
MUNICH -- "Nobody could touch him," says Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Pakistan's foreign minister. The regret in his voice is palpable. "Imagine an American government doing this to Charles Lindbergh, or Albert Einstein, at the height of his popularity. Dr. A.Q. Khan is that kind of national hero in Pakistan."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27180-2004Feb9.html
Abdul Qadeer Khan, an accomplished scientist, is also by his own account a thief of Ali Baba proportions. He became a national hero by stealing the designs of a European nuclear centrifuge system that enabled Pakistan to explode several nuclear devices in 1998. Khan's original nuclear larceny, as Kasuri says, "gave us strategic balance."
Now Khan stands accused by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, of single-handedly running a smuggling operation that traded nuclear wherewithal to Iran, Libya and North Korea for huge payoffs. In an hour-long conversation at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Kasuri provided a detailed description of the scientist's operations, Musharraf's tracking of and final confrontation with Khan, and the scientist's confession of wrongdoing.
The foreign minister's passionately delivered account was clearly designed to dispel the view that Khan is in fact performing one more service for Pakistan by taking the rap for a far-flung national operation. If that is the case, Khan would be more scapegoat than goat.
But Kasuri, a lawyer and human rights activist before becoming Musharraf's foreign minister 15 months ago, was eager to drive home a message that even we skeptics have to welcome:
"We are a responsible nuclear nation," he said, adding that Pakistan is ready to observe recognized international restrictions on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "We had to demonstrate to the Pakistani people and to the world that not even A.Q. Khan is above the law. The United States should take this into account and engage Pakistan more fully on nuclear and defense matters."
Musharraf immediately pardoned Khan after the scientist went on television Feb. 4, took "full responsibility" for the cascading disclosures of Pakistan's determined proliferation and tearfully asked for mercy. Kasuri asserted that Pakistani public opinion made it impossible for Musharraf to impose legal penalties on Khan and survive.
"Look, we knew we would be accused of knuckling under to the Americans," he said. "We are not doing that. The Pakistani people must understand that there will be no nuclear rollback. We have scheduled new missile tests to make that point. We are a declared nuclear power and the world must accept it. We are, however, taking steps to control our nuclear assets" more carefully and halt proliferation, Kasuri added.
Musharraf became suspicious of Khan in 2001 and eased him out of control of the country's nuclear laboratories, according to Kasuri. Up to that point, the government and the public seemed to accept Khan's lavish lifestyle and grandiose philanthropy as Pakistani corruption as usual, as he had access to unaudited public funds.
"But five months ago international leaders came to President Musharraf with new information that made us understand we had to take measures. We were devastated," said Kasuri, who declined to be more precise. Others pinpoint a voluminous CIA file on Pakistani proliferation as the source of the damning intelligence that U.S. officials passed to Musharraf.
Our talk then went like this: Why, then, did you wait so long to act? "This is very difficult for us." Does the timing have to do with the nearly successful assassination attempts on Musharraf by extremists with whom Khan and Pakistan's intelligence service are suspected of sympathizing? "No. That is utter nonsense."
But Kasuri acknowledged that the Pakistani cabinet recently asked Musharraf to move to the capital, Islamabad, rather than continue a daily 30-minute commute from Rawalpindi. Pakistani sources say three serious attacks on Musharraf's convoy have been mounted in recent weeks, only two of which have been publicized. Moreover, a European intelligence service has detected signs that some commanders in Pakistan's intelligence service are increasing their cooperation with Islamic extremist groups rather than following Musharraf. The president is engaged in a self-protective showdown with his enemies, this information suggests.
Kasuri's message was more diffuse but no less urgent: "There is a one-year window of opportunity" in an embryonic peace effort with India. "While Musharraf is both president and chief of staff" of the armed forces, "we will be able to speak with one voice, and breakthroughs can be made."
Musharraf's recent actions give new credibility to such appeals for U.S. support. But conditions should still be attached: An urgent one is to be sure that Pakistan has in fact learned everything about the networks of proliferation that have been centered there -- and is fully disclosing that information to the United States.
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Manish Jain
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Now Shiv, that gives rise to another interesting possibility. Assuming Mushy has hidden a few nukes away and the rest are secured with PALs, if India is ever hit with the paki nukes, won't we think that it had US complicity? It is immaterial whether the PAL or non-PAL nukes hit us, the blame will be on US as well. What'll be our response then? Will the US accept that it was incompetent in securing the nukes?Originally posted by shiv:
The news of US "PAL"s on Packee nukes is interesting.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
<a href="http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.as ... 0">link</a>
I suspected Khan for three years: Musharraf
Tuesday February 10 2004 11:24 IST
NEW YORK: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged for the first time that he had suspected for at least three years that his country's top scientist was sharing nuclear technology with other countries, but argued the US had not given him convincing proof.
In an hour-long interview with the New York Times on Monday Musharraf shared blame for the delay with Washington saying it was not until October that American officials provided him with evidence of the activities of the scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"If they knew it earlier, they should have told us," Musharraf was quoted as saying. "Maybe a lot of things would not have happened."
Musharraf told the paper that he had seen signs that Khan was sharing nuclear technology, including 'illegal contacts, maybe suspicions of contacts', and 'suspicious movement' connected to Khan's laboratory.
Musharraf, however, said he was concerned that investigating Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for his role in developing its nuclear weapons, could provoke a political backlash.
"It was extremely sensitive," he was quoted as saying. "One couldn't outright start investigating as if he's any common criminal."
He attributed his protectiveness to Khan's national stature to political realities in Pakistan. "Since he had acquired a larger-than-life figure for himself, one had to pardon him to satisfy the public and I think it has gone extremely positively."
The NYT quoted a senior Bush administration official as acknowledging that Musharraf was not given highly specific information about Khan's activities until last fall but he noted the US conveyed more general warnings about Khan's activities starting in 2001.
Bush is expected to give today what one senior official at the White House described as a 'lengthy, detailed speech on what must change in the area of stopping proliferation'.
Musharraf told the paper that he forced Khan to retire from his post as head of a nuclear weapons lab in March 2001, to prevent him from transferring any more nuclear secrets.
That is the first time Musharraf has cited Khan's nuclear activities as the reason for his departure, the paper said.
"We nipped the proliferation in the bud, we stopped the proliferation," he said of Khan's removal. "That is the important part." :whine:
But, the paper said, the nuclear black market supplied by Khan continued to operate for two and a half years, until last fall, according to American officials.
That network is one of the largest and most successful efforts at evading non-proliferation controls, and is suspected of being the source of nuclear weapons developed in Iran, North Korea and Libya, investigators said.
Before the exposure of Khan's network late last fall, the paper noted Pakistani officials, including Musharraf, had long denied that Pakistan was the source of nuclear technology for any other country.
In repeated interviews, Musharraf never disclosed that he suspected that the country's leading nuclear scientist was spreading technology.
Musharraf's comments, the paper said, will only add to the debate over what is a murky episode. Some political and military analysts said Pakistan's earlier refusal to act against Khan and its effort now to bring the scandal to a hasty conclusion reflect at least tacit approval from the powerful army for his activities.
They suggest that Khan received a full pardon in exchange for publicly stating that he alone was responsible for the proliferation, the paper said.
Musharraf said after he had 'centralised oversight' of the nuclear programme in February 2000, he received reports from a scientist who had been 'sidelined' by Khan that raised concerns about 'some proliferation activity, some underhand proliferation going on'.
He also confirmed earlier reports that Pakistani agents had raided a cargo plane used by Khan in 2000, but had found nothing.
"We got some suspicious reports through the security agencies that there are some suspicions of some items to be loaded and taken somewhere in the plane," he said.
"We were very sure there was some activity likely," said Musharraf, who added that the scientist may have been tipped off. "But we didn't catch them red-handed."
Musharraf, who had said he would shield Khan from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog group, softened his position slightly yesterday, saying, "We need to think about it."
The military ruler has indicated that he is not eager for trials of six close aides to Khan in part because lengthy public trials would raise 'the same sensitive issue of Dr A Q Khan coming in again, getting invoked every time'.
He told the paper that despite his suspicions, he had no idea how extensive Khan's network was, nor how long it had been operating.
"We didn't know that this is so deep that it started somewhere in the late 80s," he said. "We didn't know that at all. And frankly again, the sensitivity of the issue, we tapped it and we just sidelined this one individual."
Even removing Khan from his post in 2001, Musharraf told the paper, required hours of deliberation over how best to proceed. Khan was removed as head of the laboratory but was made a special adviser to the government, a post he was stripped of last week.
The paper said Musharraf seemed ambivalent about whether Khan was victim or villain, patriot or traitor. "I don't know whether Dr A Q was using the underworld or the underworld was using A Q," he said.
Musharraf, the paper said, emphatically denied reports by American intelligence officials that Khan had struck a barter agreement with North Korea in which Pakistani nuclear technology was exchanged for North Korean ballistic missile technology.
He said Pakistani cargo planes spotted in North Korea in July 2002 were picking up surface-to-air missiles Pakistan had purchased at the height of tension with India.
Though the military ruler has previously said the government completed its investigation of the proliferation, he said yesterday that the government was 'still looking into the details' about what, beyond designs, had been transferred to North Korea.
But the paper said Musharraf seemed to have few answers about how Khan operated freely in a country where the nuclear arsenal is considered its greatest single asset.
He was quoted as saying in the interview that the brigadier general in charge of security for Khan's laboratory never reported anything. "He didn't, and frankly, he hasn't even now," the president said. "He in fact has said that yes, he regrets that he was inefficient, he couldn't unearth, he didn't know."
"He says he didn't know whatever was going on. And he swears by that even now. But, however, he is being investigated for at least inefficiency. He didn't know anything, being the security in charge."
I suspected Khan for three years: Musharraf
Tuesday February 10 2004 11:24 IST
NEW YORK: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged for the first time that he had suspected for at least three years that his country's top scientist was sharing nuclear technology with other countries, but argued the US had not given him convincing proof.
In an hour-long interview with the New York Times on Monday Musharraf shared blame for the delay with Washington saying it was not until October that American officials provided him with evidence of the activities of the scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"If they knew it earlier, they should have told us," Musharraf was quoted as saying. "Maybe a lot of things would not have happened."
Musharraf told the paper that he had seen signs that Khan was sharing nuclear technology, including 'illegal contacts, maybe suspicions of contacts', and 'suspicious movement' connected to Khan's laboratory.
Musharraf, however, said he was concerned that investigating Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for his role in developing its nuclear weapons, could provoke a political backlash.
"It was extremely sensitive," he was quoted as saying. "One couldn't outright start investigating as if he's any common criminal."
He attributed his protectiveness to Khan's national stature to political realities in Pakistan. "Since he had acquired a larger-than-life figure for himself, one had to pardon him to satisfy the public and I think it has gone extremely positively."
The NYT quoted a senior Bush administration official as acknowledging that Musharraf was not given highly specific information about Khan's activities until last fall but he noted the US conveyed more general warnings about Khan's activities starting in 2001.
Bush is expected to give today what one senior official at the White House described as a 'lengthy, detailed speech on what must change in the area of stopping proliferation'.
Musharraf told the paper that he forced Khan to retire from his post as head of a nuclear weapons lab in March 2001, to prevent him from transferring any more nuclear secrets.
That is the first time Musharraf has cited Khan's nuclear activities as the reason for his departure, the paper said.
"We nipped the proliferation in the bud, we stopped the proliferation," he said of Khan's removal. "That is the important part." :whine:
But, the paper said, the nuclear black market supplied by Khan continued to operate for two and a half years, until last fall, according to American officials.
That network is one of the largest and most successful efforts at evading non-proliferation controls, and is suspected of being the source of nuclear weapons developed in Iran, North Korea and Libya, investigators said.
Before the exposure of Khan's network late last fall, the paper noted Pakistani officials, including Musharraf, had long denied that Pakistan was the source of nuclear technology for any other country.
In repeated interviews, Musharraf never disclosed that he suspected that the country's leading nuclear scientist was spreading technology.
Musharraf's comments, the paper said, will only add to the debate over what is a murky episode. Some political and military analysts said Pakistan's earlier refusal to act against Khan and its effort now to bring the scandal to a hasty conclusion reflect at least tacit approval from the powerful army for his activities.
They suggest that Khan received a full pardon in exchange for publicly stating that he alone was responsible for the proliferation, the paper said.
Musharraf said after he had 'centralised oversight' of the nuclear programme in February 2000, he received reports from a scientist who had been 'sidelined' by Khan that raised concerns about 'some proliferation activity, some underhand proliferation going on'.
He also confirmed earlier reports that Pakistani agents had raided a cargo plane used by Khan in 2000, but had found nothing.
"We got some suspicious reports through the security agencies that there are some suspicions of some items to be loaded and taken somewhere in the plane," he said.
"We were very sure there was some activity likely," said Musharraf, who added that the scientist may have been tipped off. "But we didn't catch them red-handed."
Musharraf, who had said he would shield Khan from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog group, softened his position slightly yesterday, saying, "We need to think about it."
The military ruler has indicated that he is not eager for trials of six close aides to Khan in part because lengthy public trials would raise 'the same sensitive issue of Dr A Q Khan coming in again, getting invoked every time'.
He told the paper that despite his suspicions, he had no idea how extensive Khan's network was, nor how long it had been operating.
"We didn't know that this is so deep that it started somewhere in the late 80s," he said. "We didn't know that at all. And frankly again, the sensitivity of the issue, we tapped it and we just sidelined this one individual."
Even removing Khan from his post in 2001, Musharraf told the paper, required hours of deliberation over how best to proceed. Khan was removed as head of the laboratory but was made a special adviser to the government, a post he was stripped of last week.
The paper said Musharraf seemed ambivalent about whether Khan was victim or villain, patriot or traitor. "I don't know whether Dr A Q was using the underworld or the underworld was using A Q," he said.
Musharraf, the paper said, emphatically denied reports by American intelligence officials that Khan had struck a barter agreement with North Korea in which Pakistani nuclear technology was exchanged for North Korean ballistic missile technology.
He said Pakistani cargo planes spotted in North Korea in July 2002 were picking up surface-to-air missiles Pakistan had purchased at the height of tension with India.
Though the military ruler has previously said the government completed its investigation of the proliferation, he said yesterday that the government was 'still looking into the details' about what, beyond designs, had been transferred to North Korea.
But the paper said Musharraf seemed to have few answers about how Khan operated freely in a country where the nuclear arsenal is considered its greatest single asset.
He was quoted as saying in the interview that the brigadier general in charge of security for Khan's laboratory never reported anything. "He didn't, and frankly, he hasn't even now," the president said. "He in fact has said that yes, he regrets that he was inefficient, he couldn't unearth, he didn't know."
"He says he didn't know whatever was going on. And he swears by that even now. But, however, he is being investigated for at least inefficiency. He didn't know anything, being the security in charge."
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1075982414724
Powell takes stern line on Pakistan
By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: February 10 2004 4:03 | Last Updated: February 10 2004 4:03
Colin Powell, US secretary of state, said he had told General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader, that the country’s nuclear proliferation network had to be completely eradicated.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, said last week that he had shared secrets with other countries. Senior western officials said his contacts included Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Powell takes stern line on Pakistan
By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: February 10 2004 4:03 | Last Updated: February 10 2004 4:03
Colin Powell, US secretary of state, said he had told General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader, that the country’s nuclear proliferation network had to be completely eradicated.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, said last week that he had shared secrets with other countries. Senior western officials said his contacts included Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Again the equal-equal CRAP ??? The Paki source ...
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en53347&F_catID=&f_type=source
Headline: Indian scientist also involved in proliferation -- Detail Story
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en53347&F_catID=&f_type=source
Headline: Indian scientist also involved in proliferation -- Detail Story
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
I think they are refering to this news
http://dailymailnews.com/200311/07/news/111.html
Indo-Iran nuke cooperation confirmed
This news came out around same time when debriefing started.
Source of this rumor is Pakistan.
http://dailymailnews.com/200311/07/news/111.html
Indo-Iran nuke cooperation confirmed
This news came out around same time when debriefing started.
Source of this rumor is Pakistan.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Nuclear policy breakdown in Pakistan
by Ejaz Haider of TFT.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/10_02_04_b.asp
by Ejaz Haider of TFT.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/10_02_04_b.asp
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Hoagland>> Pakistan's Nuclear Ali Baba
Er... Ali Baba was the good guy, not the thief!
Er... Ali Baba was the good guy, not the thief!
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Yea, he is. Just like people think Frankenstein is the monster.Originally posted by Nandu:
Hoagland>> Pakistan's Nuclear Ali Baba
Er... Ali Baba was the good guy, not the thief!
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
If this hasn't already been posted.
<img src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/st ... 040206.gif" alt="" />
<img src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/st ... 040206.gif" alt="" />
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Suryavir
And Dr Tim Hoyt says..despite the sugar-coated pronouncements that official Washington makes about Musharraf's support, there is no question now that most in the media and the security industry are very seriously worried about Pakistan. Pakistan is the world's number one problem is not just the view of ("biased") Indians anymore. The events of 911 and continuing todate with the revelations of Paki proliferation are finally revealing to the world what the Paks are all about, that this is not merely an hyperactive India imagination.
Guess there is not much to add on this.....There's a substantial element in the US, however, that continues to look at North Korea as the primary problem here, and Pakistan is just emerging as a major danger. Selig Harrison is an interesting bird in this regard (and often ignored in DC), because he's calling for a hard line on Pakistan, and appeasement of NOrth Korea.
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Raj Malhotra
- BRFite
- Posts: 997
- Joined: 26 Jun 2000 11:31
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Funny why Saudis seemed to so clean and goody goody. Libyans can buy it for US$ 50million what about SArabia which has dolled out US$ 5Billion in aid to pakis.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
Leak to whom?Originally posted by Nandu:
Folks, would the Bush Administration have found it politically feasible even to leak the involvement of AQK, if the relations between India and Pakistan had been at Op. Parakram levels? Is it just a coincidence that this came out when the peace process had acquired some momentum? After all, to some extent, the Bush Administration is behind bot the peace process, and these revelations..
There is an unspoken assumption that the US knew what India did not know. I think that much of the intel the US gets - especially humint about Pakistan comes from India - which has an unparallelled presence in Pakland.
Why do I detect a continuous undercurrent of the feeling in many fourm posts across many threads and many people that suggests a model of relationships between the US, India and Pakistan like that of Teacher (US), good boy (India) and naughty boy (Pakistan). In this model the teacher is all knowing and can do anything to anyone, while good boy has to take permission from teacher for any action. Naughty boy does things depending on teacher's mood.
The problem with this model is that it discounts any possibility of good boy india having any independent action whatcoever to compromise or assist teacher in anay way. And that holds true for naughty boy Pakistan as well.
It may be argued that there is some truth to this model - but it is also the exact same model of the world that I heard from my "elders" who taught me as a child how India and Indians were at the bottom of the heap and would need instructions and permission from gora/bada aadmi - as had been the case in their lifetimes and in the lifetimes of their elders.
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
and ordered him to expedite the proliferation ( is the missing part in the aboveOriginally posted by muddur:
<a href="http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.as ... 0">link</a>
I suspected Khan for three years: Musharraf
Tuesday February 10 2004 11:24 IST
Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 07 Feb 2004
"Musharaf Blames US for proliferation"
Indian Express.
"If the US had known Abdul Copy right had been proliferating they should have told us sooner to stop this"
***
Musharraf shifts blame to US for N-leak
Press Trust of India
Washington, February 10: The US has asked Pakistan to "pull up by its roots" the secret network of nuclear sales run by its top scientist A.Q. Khan even as President Pervez Musharraf blamed Washington for not providing evidence of the scientist's activities on time.
"If they knew it earlier, they should have told us," Musharraf said in an interview to 'New York Times' published today, adding "maybe a lot of things would not have happened."
******
Mushy to Uncle
her Latest album is "Its All relative"
Indian Express.
"If the US had known Abdul Copy right had been proliferating they should have told us sooner to stop this"
***
Musharraf shifts blame to US for N-leak
Press Trust of India
Washington, February 10: The US has asked Pakistan to "pull up by its roots" the secret network of nuclear sales run by its top scientist A.Q. Khan even as President Pervez Musharraf blamed Washington for not providing evidence of the scientist's activities on time.
"If they knew it earlier, they should have told us," Musharraf said in an interview to 'New York Times' published today, adding "maybe a lot of things would not have happened."
******
Mushy to Uncle
Song by Pam Tillis (country singer)I've got to raise some commotion
Before you show me some real emotion
I'll shake the sugar tree
Til I feel your love fallin' all around me
You've got to tend to what you planted
And if you take my love for granted baby
I'll shake the sugar tree
her Latest album is "Its All relative"