Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 October 2004

Locked
Roop
BRFite
Posts: 670
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by Roop »

ramana wrote:Or is to prevent access to uncle?
It is the opposite: to prevent Uncle's access to them. No doubt he would like to have his Culinary Institute "debrief" them.
Arun_S
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2800
Joined: 14 Jun 2000 11:31
Location: KhyberDurra

Post by Arun_S »

Anyone read this book or has access to this book?


Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and Islamic Bomb
(English Edition)


This book deals with the life of Pakistan's father of islamic Bomb and his achievements during the pre-nuclear blast period. It is a fascinating story of a miracle. The government of Pakistan promptly proscribed the book (as well as its Urdu version), seized the printing press of Mr. Malik and jailed him for "divulging too much and putting the security of the country in jeopardy".



Price : English Edition 25 US Dollars
kgoan
BRFite
Posts: 264
Joined: 30 Jul 2001 11:31

Post by kgoan »

Cross posting from Ramana's post on p3 of the geopoiltical thread.

Another little indicator that Paks been defanged. This time from the CIA itself. See the last paragraph.
India, China emerging as new global players, US position will erode, conclude CIA planners
BOB DROGIN

WASHINGTON, JANUARY 14: India and China will increasingly flex powerful political and economic muscles as major new global players by 2020, an in-house CIA think tank has said, likening the rise of the two countries to the emergence of the United States as a world power, a century ago.

The two nuclear-armed Asian giants one a vibrant democracy, the other a one-party state will transform the geopolitical landscape because of their robust economic growth, expanding military capabilities and large populations, the National Intelligence Council predicted.

The rise of these new powers is a virtual certainty, the Council said in report titled Mapping the Global Future. Partly as a result, the Council expects the world economy to be about 80 per cent larger than in 2000, and per capita income 50 per cent higher.

The bad news: The United States will see its relative power position eroded and the world will face a more pervasive sense of insecurity from terrorism, the spread of unconventional weapons and political upheaval that could reverse recent democratic gains in parts of Central and Southeast Asia.

Weak governments, lagging economies, religious extremism and youth bulges will align to create a perfect storm for internal conflict in some areas, the authors warned. Our greatest concern is that terrorists might acquire biological agents, or less likely, a nuclear device, either of which could cause mass casualties.

The 120-page report is intended to help the White House and other policymakers prepare for probable challenges by tracing how key trends may develop and influence world events over the next 15 years. It's designed to stimulate thought, Robert L Hutchings, chairman of the Council, said during a news briefing at the CIA Headquarters.

Although few of the forecasts come as surprises, Hutchings said the authors sought to challenge conventional thinking. Linear analysis will get you a much-changed caterpillar, he said, but it won't get you a butterfly. For that you need a leap of imagination. We hope this...will help us make that leap.

The report, the third in a project launched in the mid-1990s, is based on the thinking and comments of more than 1,000 US and foreign experts who participated in more than 30 conferences and workshops over the last year. The text and a computer simulation of possible scenarios are available online at www.cia.gov/nic.

The US will retain enormous advantages and will continue to play a pivotal role in economic, political and military affairs, the report concludes. But Washington may be increasingly confronted with managing fast-shifting international relations and alignments. Washington probably will face dramatically altered alliances and relations with Europe and Asia, for example, with the European Union increasingly supplanting NATO on the world stage. The United Nations and international financial institutions risk sliding into obsolescence unless they adjust to the changes in the global system, the authors wrote.

While no single power looks within striking distance of rivalling US military power by 2020, more countries will be in a position to make the United States pay a heavy price for any military action they oppose, they said.

But unlike in the past, the likelihood that a local conflict could escalate into a total war or nuclear exchange is lower than at any time in the past century. Key to the future, the Council found, is the international flow of information, capital, goods and services. Those ever-expanding transfers will become so powerful and so irreversible, driven especially by the expanding middle class in Asia, such globalisation will substantially shape all the other major trends in the world of 2020,’’ the authors said. LAT-WP
From: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story ... t_id=62752
Arun_S
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2800
Joined: 14 Jun 2000 11:31
Location: KhyberDurra

Post by Arun_S »

Some new article on WMD in Indian sub-continent, Xerox-Kan Bazar, Shitty-Bitty etc

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/ ... _2023.html
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2i3.html
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2i4.html
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2i5.html
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2i6.html {Khan's Nuclear Network}
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2i7.html {How to Buy a Gas Centrifuge on the Black Market}
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2i8.html {A.Q. Khan, the DPRK, and Nuclear Proliferation}

http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2l.html {shitty bitty}
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f2l2.html {Shitty bitty - U.S. Action}
Rangudu
BRFite
Posts: 1751
Joined: 03 Mar 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Post by Rangudu »

Looks like the Bushies have cut another shady deal with Mushy. TSP helps with Iran in return for another blind eye to A.X.Khan.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jh ... yID=655096
U.S. conducting secret Iran missions -report

Sun Jan 16, 2005 06:35 PM GMT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reports.
The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.

Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

The White House said Iran is a concern and a threat that needs to be taken seriously. But it disputed the report by Hersh, who last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"We obviously have a concern about Iran. The whole world has a concern about Iran," Dan Bartlett, a top aide to President George W. Bush, told CNN's "Late Edition."

Of The New Yorker report, he said: "I think it's riddled with inaccuracies, and I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact."

Bartlett said the administration "will continue to work through the diplomatic initiatives" to convince Iran -- which Bush once called part of an "axis of evil" -- not to pursue nuclear weapons.

"No president, at any juncture in history, has ever taken military options off the table," Bartlett added. "But what President Bush has shown is that he believes we can emphasize the diplomatic initiatives that are underway right now."

COMMANDO TASK FORCE

Bush has warned Iran in recent weeks against meddling in Iraqi elections.

The former intelligence official told Hersh that an American commando task force in South Asia is working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists who had dealt with their Iranian counterparts.

The New Yorker reports that this task force, aided by information from Pakistan, has been penetrating into eastern Iran in a hunt for underground nuclear-weapons installations.

In exchange for this cooperation, the official told Hersh, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has received assurances that his government will not have to turn over Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to face questioning about his role in selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Hersh reported that Bush has already "signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia."

Defining these as military rather than intelligence operations, Hersh reported, will enable the Bush administration to evade legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert activities overseas.
Rangudu
BRFite
Posts: 1751
Joined: 03 Mar 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Post by Rangudu »

X-post

Here's the actual piece by Hersh
Some of the missions involve extraordinary coöperation. For example, the former high-level intelligence official told me that an American commando task force has been set up in South Asia and is now working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had dealt with Iranian counterparts. (In 2003, the I.A.E.A. disclosed that Iran had been secretly receiving nuclear technology from Pakistan for more than a decade, and had withheld that information from inspectors.) The American task force, aided by the information from Pakistan, has been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations. The task-force members, or their locally recruited agents, secreted remote detection devices—known as sniffers—capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs.

Getting such evidence is a pressing concern for the Bush Administration. The former high-level intelligence official told me, “They don’t want to make any W.M.D. intelligence mistakes, as in Iraq. The Republicans can’t have two of those. There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.” The official added that the government of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, has won a high price for its coöperation—American assurance that Pakistan will not have to hand over A. Q. Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, to the I.A.E.A. or to any other international authorities for questioning. For two decades, Khan has been linked to a vast consortium of nuclear-black-market activities. Last year, Musharraf professed to be shocked when Khan, in the face of overwhelming evidence, “confessed” to his activities. A few days later, Musharraf pardoned him, and so far he has refused to allow the I.A.E.A. or American intelligence to interview him. Khan is now said to be living under house arrest in a villa in Islamabad. “It’s a deal—a trade-off,” the former high-level intelligence official explained. “‘Tell us what you know about Iran and we will let your A. Q. Khan guys go.’ It’s the neoconservatives’ version of short-term gain at long-term cost. They want to prove that Bush is the anti-terrorism guy who can handle Iran and the nuclear threat, against the long-term goal of eliminating the black market for nuclear proliferation.”

The agreement comes at a time when Musharraf, according to a former high-level Pakistani diplomat, has authorized the expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons arsenal. “Pakistan still needs parts and supplies, and needs to buy them in the clandestine market,” the former diplomat said. “The U.S. has done nothing to stop it.”
Priyank
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 69
Joined: 22 Jan 2002 12:31

Post by Priyank »

Rangudu,

From the Hersh article that you linked above:
Chubin added that Iran could also renounce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “It’s better to have them cheating within the system,” he said. “Otherwise, as victims, Iran will walk away from the treaty and inspections while the rest of the world watches the N.P.T. unravel before their eyes.”
It reinforces KK's assertion that the NPT is somewhat of a holy cow among the NPA crowd and that they are increasingly unable or unwilling to recognize and accept its failures, and that they will go perform all kinds of logical contortions in order to justify its existence. It smacks of cognitive dissonance as well as the unique H&D phenomenon.
Vivek_A
BRFite
Posts: 593
Joined: 17 Nov 2003 12:31
Location: USA

Post by Vivek_A »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4182365.stm
US rebuts 'Iran covert op' claim

The Pentagon has hit back at claims by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that US commandos have been carrying out covert operations inside Iran.

A spokesman said Hersh's New Yorker magazine article was based on rumour, innuendo and conspiracy theories.

But correspondents say he did not clearly deny that US troops have been on the ground in Iran.

Hersh insists that for six months US forces there had been identifying military targets for future strikes.

Frankly, this story smell of BS, even by Hersh's low standards..

If there were such a mission, it would most likely be top secret i.e. revealing the details of such a mission would be treason.

The whole "mission" sound too James Bondesque...US super commandos going into Iran for a mission..straight out of hollywood. From most of what i've read about intelligence gathering, it's unlikely that you'd have James Bonds running around Iran risking capture....
jrjrao
BRFite
Posts: 872
Joined: 01 Jul 2001 11:31

Post by jrjrao »

Condi candidly confirms.

That Terroristan is nuke nude. That Paknuts are bust.

US has plan to prevent Pak's nukes falling in wrong hands:Rice
http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=274393
Asserting that the US is "very aware" of the danger of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of radical Islamists, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice has revealed that Washington has a contingency plan to prevent this from happening.

Asked whether the US has devised any "fail safe" method to ensure that if something were to happen to Musharraf the Pakistani nuclear weapons would not fall into the hands of a radical Islamic state, Rice said "we are prepared to try to deal with it. I would prefer not to talks about this particular issue in open session".

Pressed on the issue by former Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, she said "we are very aware of the problem. In fact, we have had some discussions on it. I prefer not to (discuss it in open session)."
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

By and large this thread captures the macrolevel- big science proliferation by TSP to the rogue regimes- NK, KSA, Iran, Libya, Egypt(?). It also captures to a minor extent the small science type of proliferation to jihadis and non-state level actors.

There was a movie on HBO on 1/24 called "Dirty War" produced by BBC. It at a level provides what the UK police know about such links. Its a must see. However the focus is still on law enforcement. TSP while producing the bulk of the know how is considered an ally in the war on terror.
Arun_S
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2800
Joined: 14 Jun 2000 11:31
Location: KhyberDurra

Post by Arun_S »

Janes 09 December 2004
Pakistan nuclear probe in peril
An international investigation into the nuclear black market run by the renegade 'father' of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, is in danger of grinding to a halt because the governments of various countries implicated in the clandestine trade are reluctant to co-operate.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been struggling to piece together the network that was behind the world's most dangerous case of nuclear proliferation following the exposure of Khan's operation in December 2003 when Libya - one of the professor's key customers - came clean on its nuclear arms programme. However, despite IAEA efforts, only a handful of people have so far been arrested: in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and South Africa.

UN investigators believe that many others remain at large in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a vital hub for Khan's illicit operation - as well as in Britain, France, Spain and Malaysia.
Vivek_A
BRFite
Posts: 593
Joined: 17 Nov 2003 12:31
Location: USA

Post by Vivek_A »

N.Korea Has Bought Complete Nuclear Bomb - Report

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington.

Seoul Shinmun quoted the source as saying the United States was checking the intelligence.

The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying.

North Korea is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight.

U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon said after a visit to the North this month that its second-ranked leader had told his delegation that it possessed nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has declared that a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, sealed under a 1994 agreement with the United States, had been restarted. Spent nuclear fuel from that reactor could be converted to weapons-grade material.

North Korea has never officially declared that it possessed atomic weapons, speaking instead of its "nuclear deterrent."
A Sharma
BRFite
Posts: 1206
Joined: 20 May 2003 11:31

Post by A Sharma »

Tim
BRFite
Posts: 136
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: USA

Post by Tim »

From today:

New York Times
February 2, 2005
Pg. 1

Tests Said To Tie Deal On Uranium To North Korea

By David E. Sanger and William J. Broad

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 - Scientific tests have led American intelligence agencies and government scientists to conclude with near certainty that North Korea sold processed uranium to Libya, bolstering earlier indications that the reclusive state exported sensitive fuel for atomic weapons, according to officials with access to the intelligence.

The determination, which has circulated among senior government officials in recent weeks, has touched off a hunt to determine if North Korea has also sold uranium to other countries, including Iran and Syria. So far, there is no evidence that such additional transactions took place.

Nonetheless, the conclusion about Libya, which is contained in a classified briefing that has been described to The New York Times, could alter Washington's debate about the assessment of the North Korean nuclear threat. In the past, some administration officials have argued that there is time to find a diplomatic solution because there was no evidence that the government of Kim Jung Il was spreading its atomic technology abroad.

Nine months ago, international inspectors came up with the first evidence that the North may have provided Libya with nearly two tons of uranium hexaflouride, the material that can be fed into nuclear centrifuges and enriched into bomb fuel. Libya surrendered its huge cask of the highly toxic material to the United States when it dismantled its nuclear program last year.

Now, intelligence officials say, extensive testing conducted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee over the last several months has concluded that the material did not originate in Pakistan or other suspect countries, and one official said that "with a certainty of 90 percent or better, this stuff's from North Korea."

It is unclear if there are any dissenting views in the government, though some outside experts have accused the administration of overstating intelligence on North Korea. Officials cautioned that the analysis of the uranium had been hampered by the fact that the United States has no sample of known North Korean uranium for comparison with the Libya material. The study was done by eliminating other possible sources of uranium, a result that is less certain than the nuclear equivalent of matching DNA samples.

One recently retired Pentagon official who has long experience dealing with North Korea said the new finding was "huge, because it changes the whole equation with the North."

"It suggests we don't have time to sit around and wait for the outcome of negotiations," he said. "It's a scary conclusion because you don't know who else they may have sold to."

President Bush is expected to mention North Korea in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night. In that speech three years ago, he identified the country as part of an "Axis of Evil," along with Iran and Iraq. Two weeks ago Condoleezza Rice, in her confirmation hearings for secretary of state, included North Korea in a list of six "outposts of tyranny," but a senior administration official said Mr. Bush was not planning to use that phrase in his speech.

On Tuesday, in an interview with Reuters and Agence France-Presse, Ms. Rice said of North Korea, "We made a very good proposal at the last round of six-party talks and it's on the table for the taking."

"The idea that somehow the United States is hostilely going to attack North Korea couldn't be more far fetched," she said. A spokesman for the National Security Council, Frederick Jones, declined to comment Tuesday night on the report of the new North Korea findings, citing "intelligence concerns."

Questions of how to deal with North Korea - through engagement and dialogue or through sanctions and pressure to crack its government - have divided the Bush administration since its first days. Vice President Dick Cheney has led the hawkish faction, declaring that "time is not on our side." While some of the officials interviewed about the most recent North Korean evidence have been involved in that policy debate, others have not been, and have either examined the scientific evidence or received intelligence briefings about its conclusions.

Some findings have been shared with American allies and with the Chinese, who have long been dubious that North Korea has an active uranium program under way. There is also some skepticism in the United States: Selig Harrison, a North Korea scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, has questioned the evidence that the North is secretly pursuing uranium weapons to complement the small arsenal it is believed to have produced out of plutonium. He wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs recently that the Bush administration has relied "on sketchy data" and "a worst-case assessment" of the North's capabilities.

The government's most recent intelligence reports, however, strongly suggest North Korea has begun turning raw uranium, which the country mines, into uranium hexaflouride, a modestly complex process.

"This pushes along our understanding of the North Korean program," said Leonard S. Specter, the deputy director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute in California. "It means the North Koreans have built a facility to process uranium. And it raises the disturbing prospect that they've now made enough of it to feel comfortable selling some."

Nuclear intelligence experts said the new clues that implicate North Korea as Libya's supplier involve the fingerprints of uranium isotopes, or different forms of the element. Federal analysts, they said, took samples of the Libyan uranium and compared its isotope fingerprint with those of uranium samples from other countries and, by process of elimination, concluded that the uranium had come from North Korea.

Uranium has three main isotopes. The most prevalent is U-238, which accounts for a vast majority of natural uranium. U-235 is rare, but it is prized because it easily splits to produce the bursts of atomic energy that power reactors and nuclear warheads.

To trace the Libyan uranium, the government sleuths focused on an even rarer isotope, U-234. They did so because it turns out that concentrations of that isotope vary widely among uranium deposits and mines around the world.

"The science is pretty clear," said a senior federal intelligence official knowledgeable of the secret North Korea finding.

The U-234 content "fluctuates over a wide range," the Russian scientists reported.

A nuclear scientist who consults for federal intelligence agencies but was unaware of the North Korean finding said analysts could use such U-234 information to track the origin of a uranium sample, much as detectives match fingerprints from a crime scene to archives.

He said the analysts could examine the U-234 concentrations in the Libyan sample and compare it with samples from deposits from around the world. Since Western intelligence agencies have no known samples of North Korean uranium, he added, the analysis would proceed by the process of elimination.

Therefore, the strength of the North Korea conclusion would grow in proportion to the number of samples the scientists had from around the world. It is unknown how many samples exist from various uranium deposits or how many samples the federal analysts scrutinized for signs of similarity.

A second nuclear scientist who consults for the federal government on North Korea said he suspected that Pakistani scientists had helped the North ot only to make uranium centrifuges but also to build a plant that transformed raw uranium from the country's mines into uranium hexafluoride, the form that centrifuges can enrich.

He said he didn't think North Korea "did it by itself" ' in making the uranium plant. Another former official suggested that the components for the plant might have been purchased elsewhere, perhaps from Japan or Europe.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

So AQKand TSP is being let off the hook. Wow what will uncle do for his MUNNA!
AJay
BRFite
Posts: 107
Joined: 09 Mar 2003 12:31
Location: USA

Post by AJay »

ramana wrote:So AQKand TSP is being let off the hook. Wow what will uncle do for his MUNNA!
That's a very astute observation.
NYT Article posted by TIM wrote: He said the analysts could examine the U-234 concentrations in the Libyan sample and compare it with samples from deposits from around the world. Since Western intelligence agencies have no known samples of North Korean uranium, he added, the analysis would proceed by the process of elimination.

Therefore, the strength of the North Korea conclusion would grow in proportion to the number of samples the scientists had from around the world. It is unknown how many samples exist from various uranium deposits or how many samples the federal analysts scrutinized for signs of similarity.
This does not eliminate the possibility that the Uranium could have come from some Chinese deposits whose samples are not in US possession. This Uranium could have made its way to N. Korea via Pakistan's A.Q. Khan's network.
Johann
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2075
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by Johann »

ramana wrote:So AQKand TSP is being let off the hook. Wow what will uncle do for his MUNNA!
Actually it is more damning. If true, AQ Khan network has not just proliferated, it has enabled and encouraged another proliferator by helping these countries clandestinely establish fuel cycles and brokering third party deals between them.

The North Korean connection does actually make sense - given Pakistan's limited uranium deposits, I had wondered how they could afford to part with the 1.75t of UF6 listed in the IAEA report on Libya.

North Korea on the other hand has been reported to have a more favorable geology and a number of operational mines. Given that Iran has deposits perhaps even more limited than Pakistan, North Korea would also be a very attractive source.
Sarma
BRFite
Posts: 147
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: College Station, TX, USA

Post by Sarma »

Very interesting comments above, triggered off by ramana's insights. There have been reports recently that suggest China got AQK's stolen (and probably improvised later) P-2 centrifuge technology and in return, gave him the bomb design and the manuals.

It looks like China also gave him UF6, in addition to the above.
SaiK
BRF Oldie
Posts: 36424
Joined: 29 Oct 2003 12:31
Location: NowHere

Post by SaiK »

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holn ... 021614.htm
US think tanks, makes a case for supplying N-capable F-16s to Pakistan.
Tim
BRFite
Posts: 136
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: USA

Post by Tim »

Johann,

That was my read on it as well. It also is an indication of how well the DPRK uranium cycle may be working, which has implications for the DPRK nuclear stockpile.

Tim
Sarma
BRFite
Posts: 147
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: College Station, TX, USA

Post by Sarma »

Something that I observed a bit later. Johann, when you refer to AQK's network in the above post, are you resorting to the same obfuscation that the State Department and the GoP routinely dish out. It is the Pakistani state that has proliferated, knowingly and willingly. AQK is but a small pawn in the game. Bringing him up again and again as the key behind the whole proliferation episode is intellectual dishonesty.
Umrao
BRFite
Posts: 547
Joined: 30 May 2001 11:31

Post by Umrao »

Well said Sarma,
this is where the Derek underwood quality spin comes into place,

But it hurts when pointed out. :D
Umrao
BRFite
Posts: 547
Joined: 30 May 2001 11:31

Post by Umrao »

This is how the world works according to Uncles methodoligies.

China Proliferates To TSP ( everything hushed up even though world sees the blatant proliferation,
as the supplier and its cleint are near and dear to uncle geo politically)

TSP proliferates to NK

NK proliferates to TSP

Together they enhance their capability and threaten and act against uncles interests yet TSP is Munna N. Korea is Axis of evil)

N Korea and TSP proliferate to Iran,

Iran becomes imminent danger, while both TSP and N Korea are off the hook and Indian scientists are sanctioned)

SO If you wish to proliferate, insist on you clinet to proliferate so that the original proliferator is off the hook and may even become strategic partner!!

ANd now here are some experts who wanted India to be penalized more than TSP for conductiong 1998 tests.


Ha some logic and rationality... :D



"The Road to Nuclear disarmament/ Proliferation starts in Bejing windsdown Islamabad, pongyang and ends in Riyadh."

Spinster 1998
SSridhar
Forum Moderator
Posts: 25087
Joined: 05 May 2001 11:31
Location: Chennai

Post by SSridhar »

Umrao Jan,
China Proliferates To TSP
TSP also proliferates to China
Sarma
BRFite
Posts: 147
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: College Station, TX, USA

Post by Sarma »

We should refer to this rogue group of countries as the crescent of proliferation or the axis of proliferation.
svinayak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14223
Joined: 09 Feb 1999 12:31

Post by svinayak »

Umrao wrote:This is how the world works according to Uncles methodoligies.

China Proliferates To TSP ( everything hushed up even though world sees the blatant proliferation,
as the supplier and its cleint are near and dear to uncle geo politically)

TSP proliferates to NK

NK proliferates to TSP

Together they enhance their capability and threaten and act against uncles interests yet TSP is Munna N. Korea is Axis of evil)

N Korea and TSP proliferate to Iran,

Iran becomes imminent danger, while both TSP and N Korea are off the hook and Indian scientists are sanctioned)

SO If you wish to proliferate, insist on you clinet to proliferate so that the original proliferator is off the hook and may even become strategic partner!!

ANd now here are some experts who wanted India to be penalized more than TSP for conductiong 1998 tests.


Ha some logic and rationality... :D



"The Road to Nuclear disarmament/ Proliferation starts in Bejing windsdown Islamabad, pongyang and ends in Riyadh."

Spinster 1998
You have missed one chain.

Unkil proliferates to China
Umrao
BRFite
Posts: 547
Joined: 30 May 2001 11:31

Post by Umrao »

here is spread sheet that will clear up all spin.

col 1 col2 col3 etc

column 1(origin country name)
column2( receiving country name)
column3 ( type of proliferation)
column 4 ( rewards )
column 5 (penalties)
column 6 (Date of first public exposure)
Column 7 (Unkils reaction then)
Column 8 (unkils reaction now).


COntrast this to Unkils pressure on Russia

To stop sale of Cryo vessel to India

To stop Nuclear reactors

Unlce himeself

Sanctions India

Wouldnt declare TSP as a terror state
Restrains India from taking action against TSP
Issues travel warning to hurt economy
Impound our software FBW
Expels scientists from Labs

Declare Indian scientists as rougue Scientists for helping Iran ...

much much more.

Read also the current issue of time to understand how TSP spies operate in US and how FBI knows it all.

Also revisit Van ho Lee case to see how WD desidns were stolen and How TSP was intermediary in the whole thing.
Johann
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2075
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by Johann »

Sarma wrote:Something that I observed a bit later. Johann, when you refer to AQK's network in the above post, are you resorting to the same obfuscation that the State Department and the GoP routinely dish out. It is the Pakistani state that has proliferated, knowingly and willingly. AQK is but a small pawn in the game. Bringing him up again and again as the key behind the whole proliferation episode is intellectual dishonesty.
No, I dont think so. Calling Abu Nidal or Carlos international terrorists with international networks in no way minimises the fact that they had state sponsors.

There's no doubt that Khan operated with the approval of his government at the time, but looking the transnational list of known fixers, suppliers and clients, and clients who become suppliers 'network' is the only appropriate shorthand I can think of. All Pakistani out-proliferation that is known of passed through this network

To call Khan a 'pawn' is as silly as arguing that the Pakistani government had no knowledge of his activities.He was willingly supported with Pakistani national resources in his proliferation, but what is known does suggest that it was his initiative and contacts that help build the network, first import-oriented, and later export right from his time at URENCO, and he jealously maintained personal control of it. He kept a lot of things locked up in his head to make sure he was irreplaceable to the rest of the Pakistani establishment.

Its also clear that he was intensely driven by a desire for prestige and money, but also by a desire for revenge against the West which he felt had slighted him. I dont know if there was a 'strategy' behind the sales - Khan seems to have approached every potential client. The Pakistani leadership seems to have been just as excited about having an extremely valuable commodity to trade - it isnt clear that they had any 'strategy' either to direct Khan. In that sense both Pakistan and North Korea have something in common-marginal and reckless states willing to sell anything to anyone, while in the PRC's case where I think its clear that the bulk of the transfers were the result of strategic decisions. The most forward thinking Pakistan and North Korea did it seems was to demand to be bought off when they were caught, or they might do something *really* rash.

I dont think any single general in Pakistan conferred his enormous power on him - the national and remunerative value of technology trading, banking and diplomatic network that he personally held the key to made him something special in that country, an untouchable. More than anyone else he reminds me of Wouter Basson in South Africa who was responsible for their CBW programme. If you look at his case you will find remarkable parallels.
Johann
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2075
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by Johann »

There is evidence that the PRC has helped North Korea with missile technology - but I'm not sure about the nuclear angle.

The Chinese have been producing enriched uranium since the early 1960s with a gas diffusion plant.

If they had set up one for the North Koreans, I dont see why the DPRK would need centrifuges as well. Yet the North was willing to trade missiles and missile technology, their most valuable commodity for them.

Deception does not seem like the answer - if reports of such a plant came to light the DPRK would claim, as it always does that a) such a plant does not exist, and b) in extremis that it was heroically designed and built in the country, another brilliant exmple of juche despite imperialist plots. Inspecting undeclared North Korean facilities would be impossible.
jrjrao
BRFite
Posts: 872
Joined: 01 Jul 2001 11:31

Post by jrjrao »

US: Pakistan Still Keeping Nuclear Secrets
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-02-02-voa60.cfm
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker tells VOA that..."They continue to pursue the investigation into the activities of A.Q. Khan,” he added. “It is very important that they do so because we don't think that all the answers are in yet. The government of Pakistan has undertaken that they will fully share anything that they learn with us. And I think that it is very important that they keep at this."

But he adds that the full extent of the illegal sales have yet to be determined.
Rangudu
BRFite
Posts: 1751
Joined: 03 Mar 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Post by Rangudu »

:D :rotfl: :lol:

Ramana, Jumrao,

Looks like you guys were on the mark. Uncle has taken an old piece of news, covered up MuNNAbhai and then pointed it all to DPRK so that sabers can be rattled again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... ge=printer
Nuclear Evidence Could Point To Pakistan

By Glenn Kessler and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 3, 2005; Page A18


The Bush administration's claim this week that North Korea appears to have been the supplier of converted uranium to Libya is based on evidence that could just as easily point to Pakistan, a key U.S. ally, as the source, according to analysts and officials familiar with the data.

Two senior staff members on the National Security Council have toured China, Japan and South Korea in recent days to brief top officials that U.S. scientific tests strongly suggest North Korea provided Libya with uranium hexafloride gas, which can be processed into material for a nuclear weapon. Their trip came as U.S. officials are trying to build a united front with key allies if, as expected, North Korea soon agrees to restart six-nation talks on its nuclear programs.

China and South Korea, in particular, have been skeptical of administration assertions that North Korea has a clandestine uranium-enrichment program. Michael J. Green, the NSC's senior director for Asian affairs, brought a handwritten message from President Bush for South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, according to reports in Seoul.

The questions raised yesterday about the administration's evidence are significant in light of the controversy over the administration's allegations -- later disproved -- that Iraq had illicit weapons. Several experts said the administration needed to be careful in making its case to allies, given the resulting skepticism.

The administration's case is based on tests conducted on equipment and on hexafloride gas, known as UF6, surrendered by Libya after it agreed to give up its illicit weapons programs. The New York Times reported yesterday that scientists focused on North Korea as a source through a process of elimination by examining isotope fingerprints and ruling out other countries. The Washington Post reported yesterday on another potential link: a canister obtained from Libya that contained the gas apparently had traces of plutonium produced at Yongbyon, where North Korea has its nuclear facilities.

But the International Atomic Energy Agency, which conducted tests on the materials, has not reached the same finding and believes that the evidence is inconclusive.

Several experts said the process of elimination cited by the Times still left open the possibility of other sources for the uranium -- and did not show that it was converted to UF6 in North Korea. The experts see problems as well with the plutonium test cited by The Post.

IAEA tests on the same container -- using samples taken at the same time the United States took samples last spring -- did not indicate the presence of plutonium, and the United States has not shared the results of its plutonium tests with the international agency. Moreover, the suspect container originated from Pakistan, officials said yesterday. The presence of plutonium indicates that it was in North Korea but there is no way to know the origin of the contents of the cylinder, investigators said. So either way, TSP is involved, either as a source or as a conduit. Calling MuNNA... :evil:

Indeed, the IAEA, which has been investigating the nuclear smuggling network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, has collected a mountain of conflicting information pointing to both Pakistan and North Korea as Libya's source of uranium.

"In order to come to this conclusion, you need a sample from North Korea and no one has a uranium sample from North Korea," said one official investigating the network and Libya's former programs. "The Pakistanis won't allow any samples of their UF6, either," said the official, who discussed the investigation on the condition of anonymity.

North Korea has natural uranium, but there is no direct evidence that it can convert the material to UF6, a gas state that prepares the uranium for enrichment. Although North Korea is suspected of trying to assemble an enrichment program, U.S. intelligence analysts have differed over when it would be operational. Experts said it would be surprising if North Korea had built a conversion facility.

Libya put out an order in 2003 for 20 tons of UF6 in the hopes of beginning research and development on uranium enrichment. But it had received only 1.6 tons from the Khan network, delivered in the metal cylinder, when its program was exposed in 2003.

The IAEA and U.S. intelligence launched investigations into the network and were told by Pakistan that North Korea was the source of the uranium shipment. But Khan's Malaysian-based partner, B.S. Tahir, told U.S. intelligence Pakistan was the source.

Even if North Korea made the uranium gas, some investigators believe it is unlikely that Pyongyang intended to sell it to Libya. They believe North Korea would have sold the material to Pakistan, which then sold it to Libya. Another theory is that North Korea sold raw uranium to Pakistan, which converted it to UF6 and sold it to Libya.

"We can't exclude the possibility that the UF6 was made in Pakistan," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

But Albright did not discount the possibility that North Korea may have been the source. "That has been a theory since last spring," he said. "What amazes me is why this is coming out again now, and the timing has to make one suspicious that the information is being used to pressure allies to take a tougher line with North Korea."
Shalav
BRFite
Posts: 589
Joined: 17 Jul 2000 11:31

Post by Shalav »

Another step towards admiting nook-noodity
NRC MEETING WITH PAKISTAN NUCLEAR REGULATORY AUTHORITY


A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission delegation led by Mr. Ashok Thadani met with the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) for three days of technical discussions at the PNRA headquarters in Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb. 1-3.

Discussions provided the Pakistani Authorities with a comprehensive overview of the NRC's regulatory approach to several civilian nuclear reactor safety technical issues, and gave the NRC staff a better appreciation of the technical work being performed in Pakistan on similar issues. This is the first visit by an NRC technical team to Pakistan.
Rajput
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 69
Joined: 18 Dec 2004 06:42
Location: Milky Way

Post by Rajput »

Ashok Thadani sounds like a Sindhi name... I wonder what the Pakis will say about that?
AJay
BRFite
Posts: 107
Joined: 09 Mar 2003 12:31
Location: USA

Post by AJay »

Rajput wrote:Ashok Thadani sounds like a Sindhi name... I wonder what the Pakis will say about that?
That he should recuse himself from the commission - a fat chance of that happening, of course. US is not WB.
Leonard
BRFite
Posts: 224
Joined: 15 Nov 2000 12:31

Post by Leonard »

Dishonest Abdul

The Pioneer Edit Desk

One of Pakistan's national heroes, and reputedly the father of its military nuclear programme, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, is again in the news for something he should not have done. According to the latest issue of the Time magazine, United States' officials are investigating whether he sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, and that investigations have revealed that his network has played a bigger role than hitherto known in helping Iran and North Korea to obtain nuclear technology. Not just that, according to the magazine, the list of Khan's suspected nuclear clients was "dizzying." The report is clearly not without credible basis.

While describing it as "baseless", even Pakistan's Information Minister had to concede on Monday the possibility that Khan had supplied nuclear technology to more countries than initially thought. In fact, investigators of the United States, as well as those of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), believe that he had visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt and African countries like Sudan, Niger and Ivory Coast. Given Khan's sinister record, these could not have been for sightseeing. Clearly, there was more to these than meets the eye-a point clearly underlined by Time magazine report which states that while Saudi Arabia and Egypt are said to be looking for nuclear technology, many African States are rich in raw uranium ore.

It is, therefore, essential to unearth the entire ramifications of Dr Khan's network and the full list of the countries and people to whom he has sold nuclear technology. Unfortunately, Pakistan is not permitting American and IAEA investigators to question him. Since Dr Khan could not have operated his worldwide network without the knowledge and support of Pakistan's Government, Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, and nuclear establishment, its action naturally gives rise to the suspicion that his was not a one-man misadventure and that there were others involved whom it seeks to protect.

Also, given Pakistan's duplicitous policy of taking enough action against Al Qaeda elements to keep the US happy and simultaneously keeping not only its campaign of cross-border terrorism against India alive and the infrastructure for it intact, the question arises whether it is still engaged in clandestine transfer of military technology to other countries and, worse, terrorist groups.

The seriousness of the matter can hardly be overemphasised. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are alive and well and are known to have been looking around for technology to make nuclear devices that can be used for terrorist strikes. Sections in Pakistan's Army and the ISI are known to have had close links with both. How can one be sure that the same does not hold true of elements within Pakistan's nuclear establishment and plans are not afoot to sell nuclear secrets to the world's most wanted terrorist? What is needed is a thorough and transparent probe into Pakistan's nuclear establishment and the process must begin with a comprehensive questioning of Dr Khan.

Dishonest Abdul
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

Now that the Iraq elections are over the US is slowly raising the curtain on Munna's antics vis a vis KSA. That is the significance of the TIME magazine report. It looks like a death by thousand cuts for MUNNA. I think the following:
- TSP was driven by ummah idelogy and establishing the third caliphate.
- AQK was driven by the ummah ideology in his proliferation period.
- His deal with NoKo was a barter for delivery vehicles. China sent him to NoKo to avoid MTCR sanctions.
- The proliferation to the jihadi terrorists is the next shoe.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

From intelonline.net
Pak-Saudi N-link alive

9 January 2005: While Pakistan has denied a Time magazine report that its disgraced nuclear scientist, A.Q.Khan, was proliferating to Saudi Arabia, there is new surfacing evidence that suggests a broader government-to-government Pak-Saudi atomic collaboration, and this could be continuing.

Top diplomatic sources said that chartered Saudi C-130 Hercules transporters made scores of trips between the Dhahran military base and several Pakistani cities, including Lahore and Karachi, between October 2003-October 2004, and thereafter, considerable contacts were reported between Pakistani and Saudi nuclear scientists.

Between October 2004-January 2005, under cover of Haj, several Pakistani scientists visited Riyadh, and they were missing from their designated hotels for periods of between fifteen to twenty days, but overall, sources said, the Saudis and Pakistanis became selective in their contacts.

After Khan’s first admission of proliferating to Iran, Libya and North Korea in January 2004, Saudi Arabia intriguingly pulled out more that eighty-five ambassador-rank and senior diplomats from its missions around the world, but mainly in Europe and Asia, and sources said this was meant to plug any likely leak of the Pak-Saudi nuclear link.

But sources insisted that the link was alive, and continuing, despite American investigations, and hinted at wider Pakistan government involvement in the proliferation than merely Khan’s nuclear blackmarket.
I think those 85 diplomats were part of the buying network. Bet that they were from Germany, Netherlands and Malaysia.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Post by ramana »

I think it would be useful to collate all the info about TSP and jihadi terrorists links on nukes in one place. Maybe we can see something new. i would like the links between Bashiruddin and ALQ - the shoe bomber and his shoe device.
Leonard
BRFite
Posts: 224
Joined: 15 Nov 2000 12:31

Post by Leonard »

A Very Apt Cartoon Still Depicting Reality ...

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/feb2005-dail ... artoon.htm
Umrao
BRFite
Posts: 547
Joined: 30 May 2001 11:31

Post by Umrao »

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050214/map/


The Man Who Sold the Bomb


How Pakistan's A.Q. Khan outwitted Western intelligence to build a global nuclear-smuggling ring that made the world a more dangerous place

By BILL POWELL AND TIM MCGIRK/ISLAMABAD




Posted Sunday, February 6, 2005
Not long ago, Abdul Qadeer Khan used to walk into a wooded park across the street from his mansion in Pakistan's capital city and feed the monkeys who lived there. That was when he was a national hero and a multimillionaire, owner of a fleet of vintage cars and properties from Dubai to Timbuktu. But Khan, 68, no longer crosses the street to feed the monkeys. These days he is almost never seen outside. His house, which lies just over a grassy hillside from Islamabad's King Faisal Mosque, is modern, squat and dark, its facade concealed behind a vine-covered wall. To the casual observer, the house provides just one clue to its owner's sinister profession. At the end of his driveway sits a large jasmine bush, trimmed into an odd but unmistakable shape: that of a mushroom cloud.

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

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

************
The Other Nuke Nightmare


The ultimate worst case scenario, al-Qaeda detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city

By MASSIMO CALABRESI




Posted Sunday, February 6, 2005
Among U.S. counterterrorism officials, it is the ultimate nightmare scenario: al-Qaeda detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city. Osama bin Laden says it is a religious duty to obtain a bomb, and most experts believe that if al-Qaeda were to succeed, the group wouldn't hesitate to use it. Though building even a crude nuclear weapon is time consuming, the wide availability of raw material and scientific expertise means that it is plausible for terrorists someday to get their hands on one. "The simplest nuclear bomb," says Ivan Oelrich, director of the security project at the Federation of American Scientists, "is very simple indeed."

The biggest hurdle is getting the material that causes the nuclear explosion. For a basic nuclear weapon, terrorists would need about 100 lbs. of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium (HEU).

Fortunately, manufacturing HEU is extremely difficult. Refining it requires vast industrial facilities, top-flight engineers and the kinds of resources available to a government but not to rogue terrorist groups. Unfortunately, many states have already done the hard work, creating 1,800 tons of HEU that is housed at research facilities, weapons depots and other storage sites in as many as 24 countries, according to William Potter, director of nonproliferation studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Of greatest concern is the more than 300 tons of HEU in the former Soviet Union. Some of the material may have already gone missing: since 1991, there have been seven attempted thefts reported of small amounts of bomb-grade material and more than 700 reported thefts of unrefined nuclear material. In Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 1998, Russian intelligence uncovered a plot by employees at a nuclear facility in the region to smuggle out 40 lbs. of HEU for sale on the black market.

With sufficient fissile material in hand, a trained engineer could build a crude device without too much difficulty. The most basic design is that of the Hiroshima bomb, which fired two pieces of HEU at each other from opposite ends of an artillery tube. The bomb could be assembled at a basic machine shop and would fit in the back of a truck. If smuggled into the U.S. and detonated in a major metropolitan area, such a weapon could kill hundreds of thousands.

Not everyone believes the danger is imminent. Last August, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov dismissed concerns about the security of Russian HEU as "just a myth." However big the threat, critics say President Bush has yet to tackle it head-on.

"The Bush Administration has failed to declare war on nuclear terrorism," says nuclear expert Graham Allison, a former Clinton official. The Bush Administration is expected to earmark about $400 million this year for securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. Over the past two and a half years, international teams of nuclear experts have retrieved more than 230 lbs. of bomb-grade uranium from such countries as Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Romania, Libya and the Czech Republic. But at its current pace, Allison charges, the effort to secure all Russian nuclear weapons and fissile material will not be complete until 2020. Critics of the Administration say the U.S. should pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to get more aggressive about securing nuclear material in his country. "We're in a race between cooperation and catastrophe," says former Senator Sam Nunn, who helped create the 13-year-old U.S.-Russian program to destroy Russia's surplus HEU before it falls into the wrong hands.

The world may not have much time. In the months before Sept. 11, bin Laden and associates met in Afghanistan with a Pakistani nuclear scientist, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud. At one meeting, according to an account made public by the White House, a bin Laden associate indicated he had nuclear material and wanted to know how to use it to make a weapon. Mahmoud provided information about nuclear-weapons programs, the White House said. In an interview with the Associated Press, Mahmoud's son said his father had rebuffed bin Laden. The bad news is that he is surely still trying.

****
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050214/photoessay/
[/img]
Locked