Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 31 March 2005
From that link:
Is there any basis for this equal-equal gift from the bright folks at Immigration and Customs?Today, federal authorities also announced the unsealing of a guilty plea of Asher Karni, 51, an Israeli national residing in Cape Town, South Africa, before his arrest in 2004, to a five-count Information charting him with conspiracy and export violations arising out of his unlawful exports to Pakistan and India of U.S. origin commodities that are controlled for nuclear non-proliferation reasons.
If I'm right, this Humayun A. Khan is none other than Humayun Akhtar Khan, the son of the late Gen. Akhtar Khan - the man who personally oversaw the victory of America over Russia in the cold war 
- late chief of ISI, who died with Zia. Effectively, he was the puppet-master of the Jihadi groups who fought the soviets, and of course, the handmaiden of the most radical ones of Hekmatyar and Sayyaf to some extent although the Saudis had the latter on a thicker string IIRC.
Full details of this Gen. Akhtar dude can be had in the Bear Trap and the Soldier, a hagiographic orgasm by his underling Brig. Mohammed Yousuf Khan - complete with a scene where the stalwart Gen. standing on the LoC stares across into Indian land and says, "if only my aunt had a dick, she'd be my uncle"....
So, if this is the same Humayun - who else will have that kind of close link with both ISI and the money trail? - there's a whole can of worms waiting to be opened; not for the Amrikis of course, for us ornery folk, through the media.
In fact, I seem to recall the son of Zia (Ijaz the politician) at some point in recent years complaining somewhere in one of the Paki newspapers about the wealth accumulated by Humayun...
Maybe it's not the same guy - just similar name/initial. I also recall Akhtar's son became a minister or something... so could be mistaken.
- late chief of ISI, who died with Zia. Effectively, he was the puppet-master of the Jihadi groups who fought the soviets, and of course, the handmaiden of the most radical ones of Hekmatyar and Sayyaf to some extent although the Saudis had the latter on a thicker string IIRC.Full details of this Gen. Akhtar dude can be had in the Bear Trap and the Soldier, a hagiographic orgasm by his underling Brig. Mohammed Yousuf Khan - complete with a scene where the stalwart Gen. standing on the LoC stares across into Indian land and says, "if only my aunt had a dick, she'd be my uncle"....
So, if this is the same Humayun - who else will have that kind of close link with both ISI and the money trail? - there's a whole can of worms waiting to be opened; not for the Amrikis of course, for us ornery folk, through the media.
In fact, I seem to recall the son of Zia (Ijaz the politician) at some point in recent years complaining somewhere in one of the Paki newspapers about the wealth accumulated by Humayun...
Maybe it's not the same guy - just similar name/initial. I also recall Akhtar's son became a minister or something... so could be mistaken.
Hi JEM,
He is variously announced as head of pepsico pak or as head of pepsi's pak-punjab franchise etc... lots and lots of daddy's money from what everyone says.
from all account's his father was not in the nuclear thing atleast not directly. Akhtar died as CJCSC sitting in the chair besides Zia ul Haq.
He is variously announced as head of pepsico pak or as head of pepsi's pak-punjab franchise etc... lots and lots of daddy's money from what everyone says.
from all account's his father was not in the nuclear thing atleast not directly. Akhtar died as CJCSC sitting in the chair besides Zia ul Haq.
NRDC Nuclear Notebook : North Korea's nuclear program, 2005
More recently, Pakistan has played a substantial role in the progress of North Korea's nuclear program. In the second half of the 1990s, Abdul Qadeer Khan, scientist and "father" of Pakistan's nuclear program, supplied uranium enrichment equipment and perhaps even warhead designs to North Korea, according to some news reports. Khan originally came to world attention for stealing centrifuge designs and equipment while working in the Netherlands in the 1970s. After returning to Pakistan, Khan used suppliers from around the world to build centrifuges capable of enriching uranium for Pakistan's bomb program. Those vendors and manufacturers became the foundation of an extensive and profitable black market run by Khan and others, which amassed hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Khan's network for years but did little to halt the traffic, so as not to compromise sources and methods or, later, jeopardize relations with Pakistan. Achieving short-term foreign policy goals took precedence over preventing widespread nuclear proliferation. [4]
Finally, in early 2004, Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf placed Khan under house arrest but pardoned him soon after. Neither the United States nor the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was permitted to interrogate him. On February 4, 2004, Khan admitted on national television that he was responsible for widespread nuclear proliferation. Later news reports described how Pakistani centrifuges were transferred to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missile technology. [5] In 2003, New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that U.S. intelligence agencies believed that Khan had made at least 13 trips to Pyongyang, the last in June 2002. [6]
If IAEA Chief says that Al Qaeda was trying to acquire nookilar weapons, what could be the source except TSP ?
Link
Nuclear scandal threatens alliance
By Anwar Iqbal
UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
Published April 12, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Pakistan is a close U.S. ally in the war against terror, but this alliance continues to be fragile and is often tested by events that embarrass both.
The indictment of a Pakistani businessman charged with illegally exporting nuclear-capable devices to his country has once again strained this alliance.
On Friday, a federal grand jury in Washington charged 47-year-old Pakistani businessman Humayun A. Khan with attempting to illegally export oscilloscopes and high-speed switches, equipment that have both medical and military use.
The most significant point in this indictment is the allegation that Khan contacted Israeli businessman Asher Karni in August 2002, and the two continued to try to bring the devices to Pakistan till Jan. 1, 2004.
The allegation implies that even after joining the U.S. camp after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pakistan tried to violate U.S. laws to enhance its nuclear program.
If proved, this allegation can have a major negative impact on Washington's relations with Islamabad that began to thaw in late 2001 after a decade of tensions and strains. And if the relations deteriorate again, it will not be the first time that Pakistan's nuclear program adversely affects its ties to the United States.
Pakistan was a key U.S. ally during the Afghan war, too, when from 1979 to 1989, it allowed U.S.-backed Afghan guerrillas to use its territory for attacking Soviet occupation forces in neighboring Afghanistan. It was also during this period that Pakistan sheltered more than 3 million Afghan refugees, many of whom are still living there, and allowed the CIA and other Western military and intelligence agencies to use its territory as a conduit for supplying weapons to the guerrillas.
Although the war brought lucrative U.S. financial assistance to Pakistan, the influx of such a large number of refugees was a constant strain on an already impoverished economy. The war also brought guns to Pakistani guerrilla groups who first used them against the Russians, then against the Indians in the disputed Kashmir region and are now using it against the Pakistani establishment.
The war also brought the drug culture to a region where heroin was not available before, and it affected Pakistan's already small middle class, which was the backbone of the Pakistani economy.
The United States apparently realized the sacrifices that Pakistan had made during the Afghan war and was willing to help it as well, but during this period Pakistan also was engaged in an activity that the Americans did not like. Realizing that the Americans could not have defeated the Russians in Afghanistan without their support, the Pakistanis secretly expedited their efforts to make a nuclear bomb.
Pakistan first decided to make an atomic bomb in 1974, years before the Russians entered Afghanistan. As in all bad and good things Pakistan does, the motivation came from its archrival India, which conducted a nuclear test in 1974. Soon after the Indian test, the then-Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto vowed to acquire a nuclear bomb even if the Pakistanis "have to eat grass" to do so.
Pakistanis, who blame India for separating the former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971, have never believed the Indian assurance that its nuclear program is not aimed at Pakistan. For them to have a nuclear weapon was "a question of life and death" as a former Pakistani President Ghulam Ishaq Khan often used to say, arguing that if Pakistan does not have a weapon to match, India would not hesitate to use its nuclear bomb against Islamabad.
This Pakistani thinking forced Islamabad to devote whatever resources it had on its nuclear program, and by 1989, when the Soviets left Afghanistan, Pakistan was only "the turn of a screw away" from making a nuclear bomb, as the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, used to say.
The U.S. administration always knew what the Pakistanis were up to and increased its efforts to dissuade Pakistan from going nuclear when the Russians left Afghanistan in 1989.
The Pakistanis ignored the U.S. advice, and in October 1990, the first Bush administration slapped sweeping sanctions on Pakistan on the grounds that Islamabad was secretly making a nuclear bomb.
The sanctions crippled the Pakistani economy, grounded the Pakistani air force, which almost entirely depended on U.S. weapon supplies, and also adversely affected the Pakistani army and the navy. But instead of giving up their nuclear program, the Pakistanis decided to overcome their weakness in conventional weapons by making a nuclear bomb.
Thus, when India tested its nuclear devices in May 1998, the Pakistanis were able to test their own devicesexactly 17 days later.
And it was no coincidence that Pakistan used the Afghan war to focus on its nuclear program or hid behind Indian nuclear tests to blunt international criticism of its own tests. Pakistanis have always believed that they were too weak a nation to pursue a nuclear policy on their own, and that's why they hid behind others to achieve their goals.
But things have changed after Sept. 11, 2001. After those terrorist attacks, the United States is no longer willing to allow any group of individuals to indulge in any illegal activity in the United States that can threaten American lives and interests, particularly if it involves weapons of mass destruction.
The indictment unsealed before a federal jury in Washington Friday makes it clear that the United States sees the activities of the Pakistani businessman not only as violating U.S. laws but also as a security threat and an act of terror.
If proven, the charges could not only send the businessman to jail for a long time but could also jeopardize Islamabad's relations with the United States.
The case could also prove a media disaster for Pakistan. Already several major U.S. newspapers are linking this to the network run by the disgraced Pakistani scientist, Khan, who confessed in February 2004 to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Some media reports are also claiming that this network is as large and as dangerous as the one unearthed last year and might have already supplied nuclear-capable equipment to several countries.
Karni, the Israeli businessman, reportedly told his interrogators that he had also supplied similar equipment to Indian government agencies dealing with nuclear and missile programs. He also confessed to supplying this equipment to other countries that were not identified in the indictment.
Aware of the negative repercussions of these reports, Pakistani officials have strongly rejected any link to the businessman and his activities.
A spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy in Washington said reports that Pakistan had tried to illegally buy nuclear devices from U.S. companies were "malicious and unfounded."
The government of Pakistan was not involved at any stage, in any capacity and in any way, directly or indirectly," said Pakistan's deputy chief of mission, Mohammed Sadiq. "Humayun Khan was not involved in procuring triggers or other equipment for Pakistan's nuclear program."
Sadiq said that while in Pakistan's case Karni only spoke of buying devices for a private businessman, in India he confessed to dealing with government agencies. "And yet no Indian individual or agency has been indicted or identified so far," said the Pakistani diplomat. "Other countries that Karni acknowledges dealing with are not even identified."
"If you look at the indictment, you will see that it's U.S. companies that are selling certain devices to an Israeli citizen. Pakistan is not involved either in buying or selling of this equipment," he said.
Such a strong reaction reflects Pakistan's fears of possible repercussions. For Pakistan, the indictment could not have come at a worse time.
Pakistan is about to buy the much-needed F-16 fighter jets from the United States, which could once again revive its almost crippled air force. Pakistanis also remember that it was the nuclear dispute that led to the cancellation of a similar deal with the United States in 1990. Pakistan had even paid for the 32 F-16s it was then buying. But the first Bush administration not only cancelled the deal but also stopped supplying spare parts for the F-16s Pakistan already had. The Clinton administration continued the sanctions.
Another scandal at this stage can once again lead to similar consequences.
Nothing to see here....move on..
Steps at Reactor in North Korea Worry the U.S.
WASHINGTON, April 17 - The suspected shutdown of a reactor at North Korea's main nuclear weapons complex has raised concern at the White House that the country could be preparing to make good on its recent threat to harvest a new load of nuclear fuel, potentially increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal.
While there is no way to know with any certainty why the reactor might have been shut down, it has been North Korea's main means of obtaining plutonium for weapons. The Central Intelligence Agency has told Congress it estimates that in the last two years the country turned a stockpile of spent fuel from the same reactor into enough bomb-grade material for more than six nuclear weapons.
Steps at Reactor in North Korea Worry the U.S.
WASHINGTON, April 17 - The suspected shutdown of a reactor at North Korea's main nuclear weapons complex has raised concern at the White House that the country could be preparing to make good on its recent threat to harvest a new load of nuclear fuel, potentially increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal.
While there is no way to know with any certainty why the reactor might have been shut down, it has been North Korea's main means of obtaining plutonium for weapons. The Central Intelligence Agency has told Congress it estimates that in the last two years the country turned a stockpile of spent fuel from the same reactor into enough bomb-grade material for more than six nuclear weapons.
UPI
April 21, 2005 Thursday
HEADLINE: Commentary: Pakistan's nuclear oddballs
BYLINE: ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE
April 21, 2005 Thursday
HEADLINE: Commentary: Pakistan's nuclear oddballs
BYLINE: ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE
Reports that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's head honcho in Iraq, has a nuclear device or a radiological weapon -- a so-called dirty bomb -- are hardly news. But in Washington, where institutional memories -- or any kind of memory -- are scarce commodities, old news is recycled daily as the scoop du jour.
As recently as last February CIA Director Porter J. Goss warned Congress such an attack could come at any time. So what do we know and how long have we known it? The record:
-- Three months before Sept. 11, 2001, two Pakistani nuclear scientists were in Kandahar, Afghanistan, conferring with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden. When United Press International broke the story, Pakistan said the scientists' three-week visit to Afghanistan had been to advise the Taliban government on "agricultural business."
-- On Oct. 23, 2001, at the request of the Bush administration, these two scientists were detained for questioning about their activities in Afghanistan. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the former director of a nuclear reactor, and his associate Chaudhry Abdul Majeed failed their polygraph tests.
-- Pakistan said they lacked the know-how to help al-Qaida develop nuclear weapons. But that was a given. What bin Laden sought was help in developing a dirty bomb -- nuclear materials wrapped in conventional high explosives. Bin Laden told them he had managed to obtain old Soviet fissile materials from Uzbekistan.
-- In his last message before the defeat of the Taliban regime in November 2001, Mullah Omar said nobody could begin to realize the devastation that would soon incinerate the United States. He was probably reflecting what his companion in crime bin Laden told him he had obtained from the nuclear Mutt-and-Jeff team from Pakistan.
-- Two other Pakistani nuclear scientists also traveled to Kabul the month before Operation Enduring Freedom. When news of this visit broke, the government said they were unavailable for questioning, as they were both in Myanmar on another "agricultural project."
-- All four scientists were known as al-Qaida and Taliban sympathizers. Mahmood even said, "The ideal form of government for Pakistan was Taliban," the regime that took Afghanistan back to the obscurantism of the Middle Ages.
-- In 1987 Mahmood published a 232-page essay titled, "Doomsday and Life after Death -- the Ultimate Fate of the Universe As Seen Through the Holy Koran." In another article in 1998, titled "Cosmology and Human Destiny," he wrote about the correlation of sunspot activity and the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, World War I and World War II. He was clearly ahead of his time and gave a new definition to the long gloomy view of history. Sample: "At the international level, terrorism will rule and in this scenario use of weapons of mass destruction cannot be ruled out. By 2002, millions may die through WMD, hunger, disease, street violence, terrorist attacks and suicides."
-- All four scientists had been close associates of Dr. A.Q. Khan, the nuclear black marketeer who made a fortune selling nuclear wherewithal to U.S. enemies -- North Korea, Iran and Libya. The "dirty" four presumably concluded it was then OK to add to the list two more U.S. enemies -- Taliban and al-Qaida.
-- Mahmood resigned from the Atomic Energy Commission in 1999 to protest what he perceived to be the government's willingness to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He then launched a campaign to denounce CTBT and advocated extensive production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium to assist other Islamic nations develop nuclear weapons. They would then know how to defend themselves against U.S. and Israeli heathen crusaders out to destroy Islam. Mahmood also made clear Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was the property of the whole Ummah (the global Muslim community). His public pronouncements had piqued U.S. ire, and Washington asked for his removal.
-- PAEC officials praised Mahmood publicly after his retirement to say that this former key player of Pakistan's nuclear buildup had made significant contributions to his country's reactor programs and uranium enrichment. With a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the United Kingdom in 1965, he rose to prominence after developing a technique in the 1970s to detect heavy-water leaks at a nuclear power reactor near Karachi.
-- After his forced resignation from PAEC, Mahmood and Majeed established Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, or "Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah," whose stated mission was "investment" in Afghanistan.
-- Found in Kabul's al-Qaida safe houses after the fall of the Taliban regime were drawings on how to marry the ingredients of a radiological bomb.
If anyone still believes the radioactive pair traveled to Afghanistan for an "ag" project, there is a bridge for sale -- over the Hindu Kush. Of course al-Qaida has a dirty-bomb capability. Sept. 11 also proved Osama's Terror Inc. thinks big. What else, in bin Laden's terrorist vision, could achieve what he has publicly stated he seeks, namely the same fate for the United States in Iraq as the Soviets met in Afghanistan. Rendering downtown Washington or the Pentagon and the Green Zone in Baghdad radioactive and uninhabitable with dirty bombs is a plausible and realistic scenario.
The news from one of Pakistan's neighbors was not reassuring. Iran, whose nuclear-weapons efforts were boosted by Khan's expensive ministrations over the past 18 years, will have a new president next July -- who could well be former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Some Iranian experts in the United States see him as the kind of moderate "we can do business with."
Perhaps Rafsanjani's latest pronouncement meets the criterion of "radical moderate":
"The teachings of Jesus do not exist in the Christian world today. Those who ignore the crimes America commits all over the world cannot serve as popes. It's true they opposed the war on Iraq, but then ignored what America does all over the world in the name of the war on terrorism, the way in which it plunders the resources of peoples in needy and backward countries, its aggression in international organizations, which belong to all of the world's peoples, and the inflammatory propaganda it uses to undermine other countries -- all of these certainly contradict the teachings of Jesus."
Israel's Ariel Sharon told President Bush on his last visit he was concerned that the expected U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2006 would raise tensions in the region that could lead to another Middle East war. Mossad's assessment is that Iran would either lead or play a major role in any future war against the Jewish state. Emboldened by nuclear weapons and medium-range missiles, goes the Israeli argument, as well as a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Iran could be tempted to lead its own coalition of the willing.
For the second time in five months, the authoritative Defense News reported, the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia operating an Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicle successfully penetrated Israel's vaunted air defenses and flew unmolested on April 11 over Western Galilee cities and settlements before returning safely to southern Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz called the embarrassing breach "a very grave incident. Configured as a bio warfare dispenser, the Hezbollah drone could have killed thousands of Israelis."
In December 2001, the New York Times reported that while US authorities were investigating Mahmood and Majid, they found some links between al-Qaeda and two other Pakistani nuclear scientists, Suleiman Asad and Muhammed Ali Mukhtar. Both Asad and Mukhtar had long experience at two of Pakistan's most secret nuclear-weapons-related installations. However, before US investigators could reach them, Pakistan sent the two scientists to Myanmar on an unspecified "research project".
Thanks Leonard. Myanmar Embassy report denying the presenc of the two absconders
Pakistan will never allow IAEA to inspect nuclear facilities: Musharraf
"That is tantamount to admitting that we cannot be trusted in our own house,"
Big front page story in the LA Times. Starring the Pakistani PhotoChor and his global humanitarian work, of course.
Vital Nuclear Parts Missing
Investigators worry that some components of a weapons factory ordered by Libya have fallen into the hands of another nation.
Vital Nuclear Parts Missing
Investigators worry that some components of a weapons factory ordered by Libya have fallen into the hands of another nation.
The nuclear sage of Pakistan
Farhatullah Babar
Six years ago on April 22 Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission for nearly two decades (1972 - 1991) died. He remained unsung but the events of the past few years have vindicated him, even though full vindication is yet to come.
Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto recalled him to Pakistan from the International Atomic Energy Agency where he worked for thirteen years and made him Chairman of the PAEC Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1972. If Bhutto was like Nehru in India in having a nuclear dream, Munir Khan was like Dr. Bhabha, who helped shape the political vision of Nehru for nearly two decades of his stewardship of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.
As Chairman PAEC Munir Khan created a team which gave Pakistan the mastery of complete nuclear fuel cycle, carried out cold nuclear tests in 1983, and built the tunnels in the Chaghai Mountains of Balochistan for tests 15 years later that were to formally declare to the world the country's nuclear status.
He conceived and planned the Kahuta plant, completed the necessary ground work for it, and built the production plant of uranium gas, the critical feed for Kahuta, through indigenous effort. The uranium production capability saved the nuclear programme when Canada unilaterally terminated supply of fuel for the Canadian built Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP).
He also laid the groundwork for the 300 MW nuclear power plant at Chashma. He also started the building of an indigenous power reactor, that was reported to be complete and operational after his death. Apart from strategic nuclear infrastructure he also built a dozen nuclear medical centres and several nuclear agricultural centres throughout the country.
He also set up training centres, which have since produced thousands of highly trained nuclear scientists and engineers, during the past quarter of a century, and made the nuclear programme self reliant -- one of his crowning achievements. The most noteworthy among such centres is the Centre for Nuclear Studies that made the nuclear programme self propelling and independent -- when he died Pakistan did not have to look elsewhere for trained manpower. The Centre has since become a full-fledged University producing hundreds of trained scientists annually in state of the art nuclear technologies.
Munir Khan shunned cheap popularity and believed that the advertising the Commission's achievements was not in national interest. The boos and jeers of detractors could not provoke him into flaunting his achievements. He too could have sought a shortcut to name, fame and fortune through self projection but he resisted the temptation.
As he wrote in a newspaper article in June 1994, no matter what you say about atomic energy, "you are bound to have front page converge almost effortlessly", but he refrained because, "somebody else will pay the bill while you will harvest public attention."
Newspaper headlines quoting political and scientific figures claiming that Pakistan had joined the rank of world nuclear powers irked him. He was opposed to nuclear rhetoric for personal ends and self-glorification. He distrusted those who brandished modest nuclear capability to create and sustain a feeling of invincibility.
He would often give the example of Israel that was a de facto nuclear weapon state with a delivery system but no scientist, general or politician had exploited it for personal or political gain. "No serving or retired government official in India has yet made a revelation about its nuclear capability and from who and how it acquired the nuclear capability. Why must we say, what we are doing?" he asked in another article.
He knew some in Pakistan were doing so. "The martial law government needed props and stilts to stand tall and legitimate. It decided to use Islam and newly acquired nuclear capability. Who could defeat the combination of faith and high technology? You had the best of the two worlds", he once wrote in a newspaper.
Munir Khan called it 'milking the nuclear cow' and "putting a political foot in the nuclear mouth". He cautioned political leaders thus: "Highly experienced public leaders are not expected to transgress certain limits beyond which national interests are compromised."
When deafening silence and ridicule greeted his pleas for sanity, Munir Khan warned, "Sometimes populist politics can damage the best interests of the country even though they may appear to advance the interests of individuals or parties in the short run", reminding us that the thoughtless advertisement of our nuclear capability in the past had resulted in the application of the Pressler amendment.
Arguing that the Pressler law had gravely undermined our economic development and defence preparedness he warned, "We can ill afford to invite similar embargoes again." This earned him the wrath of his powerful detractors who hounded him.
One bizarre incident showing how he was hounded revolves around the publication in the early 80's of a book "Islamic Bomb" by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions in a positive way of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A. Q. Khan.
It was in the bookstores for some time but just when cold nuclear tests had been conducted and Munir Khan was calling for nuclear restraint, army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists were surprised to receive free copies of the book by post. Why would a foreign publisher want to freely distribute the book in Pakistan?
It soon turned out that in the new edition all positive references to Munir Ahmad Khan had been deleted and replaced with derogatory comments. For instance a reference to Munir Khan as "a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland", in the original edition, read "Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, he would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan", in the revised edition. This is just one example. There were several other such references in the new edition, not found in the original version.
The publisher was flabbergasted, disowned the new edition which he said was fake and demanded an inquiry. The scandal was brought to the attention of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan as well. The President was aware of the Byzantine intrigues and it seems that he also knew who were behind it. But he did not order an inquiry.
Who published the fictitious version thus remains a mystery, like the mystery of the fire the Ojhri camp ammunition depot in Rawalpindi, 1988, or the mystery of the Mujahideen climbing the Kargil heights a decade later.
Eleven years ago on April 29, 1994 Munir Khan had cautioned, "We must understand that nuclear weapons are not a play thing to be banded publicly. They have to be treated with respect and responsibility." He then sounded a warning that seems prophetic, "While they can destroy the enemy, they can also invite self destruction."
By "bandying nuclear weapons as playthings" some of us claimed to destroy the enemy. The enemy is not destroyed, but by our irresponsibility in the nuclear bazaar, we have "invited self destruction". Truly Munir A. Khan was the nuclear sage of our time.
He also believed that the ultimate control of the nuclear programme and its command must rest in the hands of civilian institutions. He had studied the command and control structures of other countries and knew the dangers to national security when such controls slipped out of civilian hands. But a serpent of doubt always lurked in his heart.
When under the military rule of General Musharraf the control of the nuclear establishments finally slipped from the civilian to the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) and the demise of civilian control was formally sealed, I could not help feeling that the serpent had bit the soul.
On his sixth death anniversary, as I recall the hopes and fears of this nuclear sage, I also pray with trepidation that his warnings about the dangers resulting from the demise of civilian control do not prove half as true as his warning about "inviting self destruction".
There are times when one prays even for the sages to be proved wrong. I never imagined that on his death anniversary I would be secretly nurturing this prayer.
The writer, who belongs to the Pakistan People's Party, is a member of the Defence Committee of the Senate
Email: drkhshan@isb.comsats.net.pk
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2005- ... ped/o3.htm
Farhatullah Babar
Six years ago on April 22 Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission for nearly two decades (1972 - 1991) died. He remained unsung but the events of the past few years have vindicated him, even though full vindication is yet to come.
Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto recalled him to Pakistan from the International Atomic Energy Agency where he worked for thirteen years and made him Chairman of the PAEC Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1972. If Bhutto was like Nehru in India in having a nuclear dream, Munir Khan was like Dr. Bhabha, who helped shape the political vision of Nehru for nearly two decades of his stewardship of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.
As Chairman PAEC Munir Khan created a team which gave Pakistan the mastery of complete nuclear fuel cycle, carried out cold nuclear tests in 1983, and built the tunnels in the Chaghai Mountains of Balochistan for tests 15 years later that were to formally declare to the world the country's nuclear status.
He conceived and planned the Kahuta plant, completed the necessary ground work for it, and built the production plant of uranium gas, the critical feed for Kahuta, through indigenous effort. The uranium production capability saved the nuclear programme when Canada unilaterally terminated supply of fuel for the Canadian built Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP).
He also laid the groundwork for the 300 MW nuclear power plant at Chashma. He also started the building of an indigenous power reactor, that was reported to be complete and operational after his death. Apart from strategic nuclear infrastructure he also built a dozen nuclear medical centres and several nuclear agricultural centres throughout the country.
He also set up training centres, which have since produced thousands of highly trained nuclear scientists and engineers, during the past quarter of a century, and made the nuclear programme self reliant -- one of his crowning achievements. The most noteworthy among such centres is the Centre for Nuclear Studies that made the nuclear programme self propelling and independent -- when he died Pakistan did not have to look elsewhere for trained manpower. The Centre has since become a full-fledged University producing hundreds of trained scientists annually in state of the art nuclear technologies.
Munir Khan shunned cheap popularity and believed that the advertising the Commission's achievements was not in national interest. The boos and jeers of detractors could not provoke him into flaunting his achievements. He too could have sought a shortcut to name, fame and fortune through self projection but he resisted the temptation.
As he wrote in a newspaper article in June 1994, no matter what you say about atomic energy, "you are bound to have front page converge almost effortlessly", but he refrained because, "somebody else will pay the bill while you will harvest public attention."
Newspaper headlines quoting political and scientific figures claiming that Pakistan had joined the rank of world nuclear powers irked him. He was opposed to nuclear rhetoric for personal ends and self-glorification. He distrusted those who brandished modest nuclear capability to create and sustain a feeling of invincibility.
He would often give the example of Israel that was a de facto nuclear weapon state with a delivery system but no scientist, general or politician had exploited it for personal or political gain. "No serving or retired government official in India has yet made a revelation about its nuclear capability and from who and how it acquired the nuclear capability. Why must we say, what we are doing?" he asked in another article.
He knew some in Pakistan were doing so. "The martial law government needed props and stilts to stand tall and legitimate. It decided to use Islam and newly acquired nuclear capability. Who could defeat the combination of faith and high technology? You had the best of the two worlds", he once wrote in a newspaper.
Munir Khan called it 'milking the nuclear cow' and "putting a political foot in the nuclear mouth". He cautioned political leaders thus: "Highly experienced public leaders are not expected to transgress certain limits beyond which national interests are compromised."
When deafening silence and ridicule greeted his pleas for sanity, Munir Khan warned, "Sometimes populist politics can damage the best interests of the country even though they may appear to advance the interests of individuals or parties in the short run", reminding us that the thoughtless advertisement of our nuclear capability in the past had resulted in the application of the Pressler amendment.
Arguing that the Pressler law had gravely undermined our economic development and defence preparedness he warned, "We can ill afford to invite similar embargoes again." This earned him the wrath of his powerful detractors who hounded him.
One bizarre incident showing how he was hounded revolves around the publication in the early 80's of a book "Islamic Bomb" by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions in a positive way of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A. Q. Khan.
It was in the bookstores for some time but just when cold nuclear tests had been conducted and Munir Khan was calling for nuclear restraint, army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists were surprised to receive free copies of the book by post. Why would a foreign publisher want to freely distribute the book in Pakistan?
It soon turned out that in the new edition all positive references to Munir Ahmad Khan had been deleted and replaced with derogatory comments. For instance a reference to Munir Khan as "a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland", in the original edition, read "Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, he would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan", in the revised edition. This is just one example. There were several other such references in the new edition, not found in the original version.
The publisher was flabbergasted, disowned the new edition which he said was fake and demanded an inquiry. The scandal was brought to the attention of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan as well. The President was aware of the Byzantine intrigues and it seems that he also knew who were behind it. But he did not order an inquiry.
Who published the fictitious version thus remains a mystery, like the mystery of the fire the Ojhri camp ammunition depot in Rawalpindi, 1988, or the mystery of the Mujahideen climbing the Kargil heights a decade later.
Eleven years ago on April 29, 1994 Munir Khan had cautioned, "We must understand that nuclear weapons are not a play thing to be banded publicly. They have to be treated with respect and responsibility." He then sounded a warning that seems prophetic, "While they can destroy the enemy, they can also invite self destruction."
By "bandying nuclear weapons as playthings" some of us claimed to destroy the enemy. The enemy is not destroyed, but by our irresponsibility in the nuclear bazaar, we have "invited self destruction". Truly Munir A. Khan was the nuclear sage of our time.
He also believed that the ultimate control of the nuclear programme and its command must rest in the hands of civilian institutions. He had studied the command and control structures of other countries and knew the dangers to national security when such controls slipped out of civilian hands. But a serpent of doubt always lurked in his heart.
When under the military rule of General Musharraf the control of the nuclear establishments finally slipped from the civilian to the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) and the demise of civilian control was formally sealed, I could not help feeling that the serpent had bit the soul.
On his sixth death anniversary, as I recall the hopes and fears of this nuclear sage, I also pray with trepidation that his warnings about the dangers resulting from the demise of civilian control do not prove half as true as his warning about "inviting self destruction".
There are times when one prays even for the sages to be proved wrong. I never imagined that on his death anniversary I would be secretly nurturing this prayer.
The writer, who belongs to the Pakistan People's Party, is a member of the Defence Committee of the Senate
Email: drkhshan@isb.comsats.net.pk
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2005- ... ped/o3.htm
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm
USA Warns N Korea May Be Preparing Nuke Test
Fri Apr 22 2005 16:14:38 ET
The U.S. has quietly warned China that North Korea could be preparing for a nuclear-weapons test and asked the Chinese to urge Pyongyang to desist, according to a U.S. official.
In what the U.S. official characterized as an "emergency demarche," or diplomatic communication, delivered to Beijing Thursday, Washington said that, in light of recent North Korean words and actions, a test could be in the works.
The WALL STREET JOURNAL reported Friday evening: The demarche also says that the U.S. believes the North Korean nuclear program is advanced enough that a test could come with little or no warning.
Another official said the U.S. test fears also were being conveyed to South Korea and Japan, in addition to Beijing. Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is scheduled to visit all three countries next week.
In addition, the U.S. official said that spy satellites have observed heightened activity at missile sites as well as "at various suspect sites" in North Korea where it is believed underground tests could be carried out. But the official acknowledged that it is difficult to divine the true intent of that activity.
USA Warns N Korea May Be Preparing Nuke Test
Fri Apr 22 2005 16:14:38 ET
The U.S. has quietly warned China that North Korea could be preparing for a nuclear-weapons test and asked the Chinese to urge Pyongyang to desist, according to a U.S. official.
In what the U.S. official characterized as an "emergency demarche," or diplomatic communication, delivered to Beijing Thursday, Washington said that, in light of recent North Korean words and actions, a test could be in the works.
The WALL STREET JOURNAL reported Friday evening: The demarche also says that the U.S. believes the North Korean nuclear program is advanced enough that a test could come with little or no warning.
Another official said the U.S. test fears also were being conveyed to South Korea and Japan, in addition to Beijing. Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is scheduled to visit all three countries next week.
In addition, the U.S. official said that spy satellites have observed heightened activity at missile sites as well as "at various suspect sites" in North Korea where it is believed underground tests could be carried out. But the official acknowledged that it is difficult to divine the true intent of that activity.
I have been reading the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) report and the "Islamic Bomb" where there is extensive description of the plant equipment bought from West Germany by TSP.
The thing that strikes me is West Germany could not be oblivious of the end use of all that equipment that AQK was purchasing what with BND (Gen Gehlen founded) as their intelligence agency. And AQK's wife is German/Dutch.
What I am wondering is did West Germany hope to have the HEU production process proofed in TSP via AQK? And maybe be benefit from end products?
The thing that strikes me is West Germany could not be oblivious of the end use of all that equipment that AQK was purchasing what with BND (Gen Gehlen founded) as their intelligence agency. And AQK's wife is German/Dutch.
What I am wondering is did West Germany hope to have the HEU production process proofed in TSP via AQK? And maybe be benefit from end products?
It looks like a multinational effort to test various materials and parts from different sources with TSP being the lab for this experiment.ramana wrote:I have been reading the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) report and the "Islamic Bomb" where there is extensive description of the plant equipment bought from West Germany by TSP.
The thing that strikes me is West Germany could not be oblivious of the end use of all that equipment that AQK was purchasing what with BND (Gen Gehlen founded) as their intelligence agency. And AQK's wife is German/Dutch.
What I am wondering is did West Germany hope to have the HEU production process proofed in TSP via AQK? And maybe be benefit from end products?
All the major powers were aware of what was going on and usde the situation for their own needs.
Yes but the majority of the technology for HEU was German. Granted the centrifuges were URENCO an Anglo-Dutch-German conglomerate. But the precursors like uranium gassification plant etc were German. The UK supplied inverters to control speed of the centrifuges. I would like to probe the German question if I amy without everybody did it.
Who were the West German leaders of the 70-90 time frame?
What was their stance on this proliferation issue? Helping a non NPT state acquire NW is a violation of NPT.
Any pointers to Indian protests to West Germany etc.?
Note the NPT was put in effect o mainly curb West European spread of NW. India was collateral issue.
Who were the West German leaders of the 70-90 time frame?
What was their stance on this proliferation issue? Helping a non NPT state acquire NW is a violation of NPT.
Any pointers to Indian protests to West Germany etc.?
Note the NPT was put in effect o mainly curb West European spread of NW. India was collateral issue.
David Albright attacks AQ Khan
Heard it on NPR today. Terry Gross interviewing David Albright. He rips into AQ Khan and clearly states Paki Govt involvement with his affairs and that he was pardoned to protect High-ups. This is the first time I have heard this enunciated so clearly in US media.
http://www.twq.com/05spring/index.cfm?id=147
http://www.twq.com/05spring/index.cfm?id=147
There is a pdf of the full article on the site.The damage caused by this network led former CIA director George Tenet to reportedly describe Khan as being “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.”
From the pdf:
U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell recalled in December 2004 that he had called President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in early 2004, telling him, “We know so much about this that we’re going to go public with it, and within a few weeks, okay? And you needed to deal with this before you have to deal with it publicly.” According to Powell, “[T]he next thing we knew, A. Q. Khan had been put in custody.”17
U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell recalled in December 2004 that he had called President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in early 2004, telling him, “We know so much about this that we’re going to go public with it, and within a few weeks, okay? And you needed to deal with this before you have to deal with it publicly.” According to Powell, “[T]he next thing we knew, A. Q. Khan had been put in custody.”17
Nothing to see here....move on...I'm just spamming the thread...
U.S. Aide Sees Nuclear Arms Advance by North Korea
WASHINGTON, April 28 - The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday that American intelligence agencies believed North Korea had mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, an assessment that if correct, means the North could build weapons to threaten Japan and perhaps the western United States.
While Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, said in Senate testimony that North Korea had been judged to have the "capability" to put a nuclear weapon atop its missiles, he stopped well short of saying it had done so, or even that it had assembled warheads small enough for the purpose. Nor did he give evidence to back up his view during the public session of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Still, his assessment of North Korea's progress exceeded what officials have publicly declared before.
When asked by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York during a hearing on Thursday whether "North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device," Admiral Jacoby responded, "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes ma'am."
In 2003, the United States warned South Korea and Japan that satellite imagery had identified an advanced nuclear testing site in a remote corner of North Korea where equipment had been set up to test conventional explosives that could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.
Since then, American investigators have been pressing Pakistan for details about the kind of technology North Korea might have been given, perhaps in conjunction with visits to Pakistani nuclear sites. North Korea supplied Pakistan with many missiles it for its nuclear arsenal.
John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said American estimates of the range of the Taepo Dong 2 and other North Korean missiles had nearly doubled in recent years. The increases, he said, may reflect American intelligence agencies' improving understanding of the help the North Korea has received from Pakistan.
U.S. Aide Sees Nuclear Arms Advance by North Korea
WASHINGTON, April 28 - The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday that American intelligence agencies believed North Korea had mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, an assessment that if correct, means the North could build weapons to threaten Japan and perhaps the western United States.
While Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, said in Senate testimony that North Korea had been judged to have the "capability" to put a nuclear weapon atop its missiles, he stopped well short of saying it had done so, or even that it had assembled warheads small enough for the purpose. Nor did he give evidence to back up his view during the public session of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Still, his assessment of North Korea's progress exceeded what officials have publicly declared before.
When asked by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York during a hearing on Thursday whether "North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device," Admiral Jacoby responded, "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes ma'am."
In 2003, the United States warned South Korea and Japan that satellite imagery had identified an advanced nuclear testing site in a remote corner of North Korea where equipment had been set up to test conventional explosives that could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.
Since then, American investigators have been pressing Pakistan for details about the kind of technology North Korea might have been given, perhaps in conjunction with visits to Pakistani nuclear sites. North Korea supplied Pakistan with many missiles it for its nuclear arsenal.
John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said American estimates of the range of the Taepo Dong 2 and other North Korean missiles had nearly doubled in recent years. The increases, he said, may reflect American intelligence agencies' improving understanding of the help the North Korea has received from Pakistan.
A correction has been posted to the above story:
Link.
Correction: April 30, 2005, Saturday:
Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about a new assessment by the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency concerning North Korea's nuclear arms capacity misstated the circumstances under which officials discussed the size of North Korea's arsenal. The information was provided in interviews under the condition that the speaker not be named in articles. It was not provided "off the record" - that is, on an understanding that the reporter would not print the information.
In some editions, also because of an editing error, the article omitted the name of a defense analyst as well as the first part of his comment. It should have read:
"John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said American estimates of the range of the Taepo Dong 2 and other North Korean missiles had nearly doubled in recent years. The increases, he said, may reflect American intelligence agencies' improving understanding of the help North Korea has received from Pakistan, especially in designing warheads.
"Smaller, lighter warheads could enable the North's missiles to fly farther, he said. 'The range of the North Korean missiles keeps going up,' he said. 'I believe that's because of an evolving assessment of the extent to which they had access to Pakistani test data.' "
Ramana,
I'm not sure that it was a government abetted effort in West Germany. The 1970s were a period of rapid German economic expansion, as well as one of loosening trade restrictions across the board (including the natural gas pipeline from Siberia). Germany was the most prolific source of technology for Iraq's WMD programs in the 1980s (see UNSCOM reports), and most of these were arranged through the private sector.
As evidence of proliferation activities began to emerge, including multinational missile consortiums like the Egyptian-Argentine-Iraqi Condor project (set up by a private Swiss consulting firm run by former Nazi rocket scientists), the US and Europe began taking efforts to tighten export controls in general through national laws and multinational regimes (including MTCR and NSG). I haven't seen anything to suggest that Willi Brandt, Gerhard Schroeder, or Helmut Kohl were systematically trying to undermine the NPT. More likely, they were doing everything they could to facilitate trade and improve the German economy.
I'm not sure that it was a government abetted effort in West Germany. The 1970s were a period of rapid German economic expansion, as well as one of loosening trade restrictions across the board (including the natural gas pipeline from Siberia). Germany was the most prolific source of technology for Iraq's WMD programs in the 1980s (see UNSCOM reports), and most of these were arranged through the private sector.
As evidence of proliferation activities began to emerge, including multinational missile consortiums like the Egyptian-Argentine-Iraqi Condor project (set up by a private Swiss consulting firm run by former Nazi rocket scientists), the US and Europe began taking efforts to tighten export controls in general through national laws and multinational regimes (including MTCR and NSG). I haven't seen anything to suggest that Willi Brandt, Gerhard Schroeder, or Helmut Kohl were systematically trying to undermine the NPT. More likely, they were doing everything they could to facilitate trade and improve the German economy.
Tim,
There is a thin line between facilitating trade and facilitating proliferation. For example - look at the Clinton administration's policies wrt China. It is now crystal clear that the US at that time did everything in its power to ignore proliferation risks and on occasion deliberately refused to act even after clinching proof was shown.
There is a thin line between facilitating trade and facilitating proliferation. For example - look at the Clinton administration's policies wrt China. It is now crystal clear that the US at that time did everything in its power to ignore proliferation risks and on occasion deliberately refused to act even after clinching proof was shown.
I don't see how any of these technologies could have been smuggled out without full awareness of the concerned state agencies. Here is my understanding of the process in the U.S. ...
If an item is on a sensitive list, merely an enquiry for a quote raises alarm bells. One has to fill out a form describing one's intended use. Let's say that somehow AQK's buddies slipped through that first round ...
Following that, extensive paperwork is filled out regarding where will the equipment/materials be located, a list of people who will have access to it, the security arrangements to prevent theft etc etc etc ... bloody long!
Then one sits back and waits to get interviewed in person. You don't exactly get a third degree but the interviewer is the mother of all skeptics ...
If the sale does go through, there has to be quarterly inventory reports. Someone from commerce dept can descend upon you without any notice and conduct an on the spot inspection. If any item can not be immediately accounted for, your operation can be shut down and sealed off ...
Now, are the Germans stupid? I doubt it ... so, I would expect that they have similar systems in place ...
How in heck can someone take sensitive technologies to pakiland and keep it in the dark for a DECADE?
If an item is on a sensitive list, merely an enquiry for a quote raises alarm bells. One has to fill out a form describing one's intended use. Let's say that somehow AQK's buddies slipped through that first round ...
Following that, extensive paperwork is filled out regarding where will the equipment/materials be located, a list of people who will have access to it, the security arrangements to prevent theft etc etc etc ... bloody long!
Then one sits back and waits to get interviewed in person. You don't exactly get a third degree but the interviewer is the mother of all skeptics ...
If the sale does go through, there has to be quarterly inventory reports. Someone from commerce dept can descend upon you without any notice and conduct an on the spot inspection. If any item can not be immediately accounted for, your operation can be shut down and sealed off ...
Now, are the Germans stupid? I doubt it ... so, I would expect that they have similar systems in place ...
How in heck can someone take sensitive technologies to pakiland and keep it in the dark for a DECADE?
There is no question that the state agencies knew about a majority, if not all, of these transactions. From my reading of the situation, the motives tended to vary in degree but they were a combination of: cold war blinders (wrt Pakistan through the 1980s); inertia at the bureaucrat/politician interface (everywhere); the wink and nod approach (Germany, for reasons that are pretty complex IMHO and may have less to do with trade than with their history and the place they wish to see themselves in, in the future); the "if we don't sell, others will" syndrome; and, of course, there must have been the sheer cussedness of the private sector involved as well. But to suggest that the matter was one of facilitating trade is, well... best disagreed with politely.
The French were the ones who originally sold plutonium breeder reactors to Iraq and Pakistan around the same time in the early 1970s. After India tested the Americans used up most of their diplomatic capital with the French stopping the Pakistani deal. The Israelis took care of the other one. The scandal that emerged in the French press was not so much over corruption, but the fact that French CEA and government had secretly decided that nuclear proliferation was inevitable, so there was no point in abiding by the rules.
After the reactors the Germans sold things in a series of deals, rather than mega-projects. Germany sold technology for use in WMD projects not just to Pakistan, but to Libya and Iraq (which also eventually chose the centrifuge route) in particular as well as Syria, Iran, Brazil and India despite repeated US warnings on all of them, including dozens regarding Pakistan specifically.
The exports didnt stop until the scandal about the Rabta chemical agent plant in Libya in 1989-90, the the Gulf War and the findings of inspectors.
Apparantly the Germans calculated (correctly) that the main American priority in the bilateral relationship was that Bonn did not buckle under the huge protests against the deployment of US tactical nuclear missiles. This was from a German source. Apparantly the Economics Ministry (pushed in turn by the German Federation of Industry and the German Machine Builders' Association ) was the one pushing the sales, but the Chancellorship does not seems to have intervened. They seem to have been working on the French logic. In fact when Helmut Kohl was re-elected reducing export controls was actually one of his campaign pledges! I have not heard of any 'strategic' thinking behind the German sales.
Israel, towards whom the Germans have a very tortured conscience armed with this and more has managed to extract a substantial compensation from the Federal Republic for the Libyans, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians/Pakistanis, etc. The Germans have quietly underwritten much of the cost of the Israeli secure second strike in the form of the Dolphin submarines.
Most of AQ Khan's suppliers from Western Europe in the last decade seem to have been from Austria and Switzerland.
After the reactors the Germans sold things in a series of deals, rather than mega-projects. Germany sold technology for use in WMD projects not just to Pakistan, but to Libya and Iraq (which also eventually chose the centrifuge route) in particular as well as Syria, Iran, Brazil and India despite repeated US warnings on all of them, including dozens regarding Pakistan specifically.
The exports didnt stop until the scandal about the Rabta chemical agent plant in Libya in 1989-90, the the Gulf War and the findings of inspectors.
Apparantly the Germans calculated (correctly) that the main American priority in the bilateral relationship was that Bonn did not buckle under the huge protests against the deployment of US tactical nuclear missiles. This was from a German source. Apparantly the Economics Ministry (pushed in turn by the German Federation of Industry and the German Machine Builders' Association ) was the one pushing the sales, but the Chancellorship does not seems to have intervened. They seem to have been working on the French logic. In fact when Helmut Kohl was re-elected reducing export controls was actually one of his campaign pledges! I have not heard of any 'strategic' thinking behind the German sales.
Israel, towards whom the Germans have a very tortured conscience armed with this and more has managed to extract a substantial compensation from the Federal Republic for the Libyans, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians/Pakistanis, etc. The Germans have quietly underwritten much of the cost of the Israeli secure second strike in the form of the Dolphin submarines.
Most of AQ Khan's suppliers from Western Europe in the last decade seem to have been from Austria and Switzerland.
Johann wrote:
Is it true that the above was POV restricted only to the french? If I recall correctly, similar claims were made by people in the US later (in the 80s/90s) on too (Have heard it expressed as "we cannot stop the spread of knowledge, which makes it only matter of time before knowledge of nuclear technology spreads all around").
The French were prescient, it appears, or maybe it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.The scandal that emerged in the French press was not so much over corruption, but the fact that French CEA and government had secretly decided that nuclear proliferation was inevitable, so there was no point in abiding by the rules.
Is it true that the above was POV restricted only to the french? If I recall correctly, similar claims were made by people in the US later (in the 80s/90s) on too (Have heard it expressed as "we cannot stop the spread of knowledge, which makes it only matter of time before knowledge of nuclear technology spreads all around").
Alok N,
That may be the system in the US today, but it's also important to remember that the US has some of the strictest export control restrictions in the world (which date, in part, to the German-Iranian-Pakistan F086 deal, among other debacles). There's an enormous tugging and hauling that goes on in the US bureaucracy over a lot of stuff, where decisions are debated between those focused strictly on the technology (usually the bureaucrats) and those focused more on the policy ramifications. That creates the situation where, as Rangudu pointed out, technology flows that probably should have been restricted (according to code) were interpreted as less harmful for larger policy reasons. The whole F-16 debate represents this problem in a microcosm.
I'm not sure the Germans had such strict rules at the time - as Johann points out, they started to come under serious scrutiny because of Rabta and the Gulf War, which were quite embarrassing. I'm also not sure their policy decisions were as focused on geopolitical issues as they were on basic economic ones. The international trade system was incredibly leaky in the 1980s (it's better now, but not fixed by any stretch of the imagination - just ask AQ Khan
). Not only was Iraq getting WMD related stuff in vast quantities (primarily from Europe), but even the Soviets managed to crack the COCOM system briefly and gain access to submarine propeller technology from Japan and Norway.
Rye,
Those sentiments have been around since the early 1960s, when Pres. Kennedy made his famous remarks about proliferation - which was one of the major factors in creating the NPT. There are Americans who argue that, and some who further argue that nuclear deterrents on both sides of a conflict create stable environments that make war less likely, with the implication being that the inevitable nuclearization of any country with the GNP of Belgium might actually be a good thing. They're not in the majority of the US policymaking elites. And I certainly don't think anyone in policy circles in the US is trying to deliberately accelerate global nuclearization. I don't think anyone in West Germany was either - I think they just saw it as business.
JEM,
I'm not sure we're disagreeing as much as you think. You've listed several factors that I was trying to raise - blinders (which make trade more feasible), inertia (which is at least in part, perhaps, deliberate, in an effort to sustain or create new trade), the "if we don't sell others will" (which certainly has economic and trade ramifications), and the annoying problems of the private sector. In the end, I smell market forces and economic growth as an important component of a lot of these decisions (or deliberate non-decisions) - much more so than geopolitics, anyway.
That may be the system in the US today, but it's also important to remember that the US has some of the strictest export control restrictions in the world (which date, in part, to the German-Iranian-Pakistan F086 deal, among other debacles). There's an enormous tugging and hauling that goes on in the US bureaucracy over a lot of stuff, where decisions are debated between those focused strictly on the technology (usually the bureaucrats) and those focused more on the policy ramifications. That creates the situation where, as Rangudu pointed out, technology flows that probably should have been restricted (according to code) were interpreted as less harmful for larger policy reasons. The whole F-16 debate represents this problem in a microcosm.
I'm not sure the Germans had such strict rules at the time - as Johann points out, they started to come under serious scrutiny because of Rabta and the Gulf War, which were quite embarrassing. I'm also not sure their policy decisions were as focused on geopolitical issues as they were on basic economic ones. The international trade system was incredibly leaky in the 1980s (it's better now, but not fixed by any stretch of the imagination - just ask AQ Khan
). Not only was Iraq getting WMD related stuff in vast quantities (primarily from Europe), but even the Soviets managed to crack the COCOM system briefly and gain access to submarine propeller technology from Japan and Norway. Rye,
Those sentiments have been around since the early 1960s, when Pres. Kennedy made his famous remarks about proliferation - which was one of the major factors in creating the NPT. There are Americans who argue that, and some who further argue that nuclear deterrents on both sides of a conflict create stable environments that make war less likely, with the implication being that the inevitable nuclearization of any country with the GNP of Belgium might actually be a good thing. They're not in the majority of the US policymaking elites. And I certainly don't think anyone in policy circles in the US is trying to deliberately accelerate global nuclearization. I don't think anyone in West Germany was either - I think they just saw it as business.
JEM,
I'm not sure we're disagreeing as much as you think. You've listed several factors that I was trying to raise - blinders (which make trade more feasible), inertia (which is at least in part, perhaps, deliberate, in an effort to sustain or create new trade), the "if we don't sell others will" (which certainly has economic and trade ramifications), and the annoying problems of the private sector. In the end, I smell market forces and economic growth as an important component of a lot of these decisions (or deliberate non-decisions) - much more so than geopolitics, anyway.
Germany had some of the tightes export laws both before Rabta, and they introduced even stricter laws as a result (1989-1990). The problem is that enforcement did not start until the Gulf War, and then after the inspectors went in they became really serious.
Until that point however the German Ministry of Economics actually helped advise their companies on how to avoid tiggering regulations, or provided waivers. An Economics Ministry official said that U.S. communiques warning of planned nuclear exports to South Asia `usually land in my wastepaper basket.' No country in the West behaved towards Pakistan and others like the Germans.
Unlike AQ Khan however they werent actually offering enrichment facilities, or a bomb design. Unlike the Chinese I have no reason to think that the Germans wanted to see Pakistan or others with the bomb, but they were willing to sell the building blocks to anyone and everyone, and they were willing to go further when it came to chemical weapons. All for profit, and without discrimination. They have changed though. The Gulf War experience, and the nuclear insecurity in the former USSR. The direct effect on German security, and the Israeli accusation of contributing a possible second holocaust sobered them.
Until that point however the German Ministry of Economics actually helped advise their companies on how to avoid tiggering regulations, or provided waivers. An Economics Ministry official said that U.S. communiques warning of planned nuclear exports to South Asia `usually land in my wastepaper basket.' No country in the West behaved towards Pakistan and others like the Germans.
Unlike AQ Khan however they werent actually offering enrichment facilities, or a bomb design. Unlike the Chinese I have no reason to think that the Germans wanted to see Pakistan or others with the bomb, but they were willing to sell the building blocks to anyone and everyone, and they were willing to go further when it came to chemical weapons. All for profit, and without discrimination. They have changed though. The Gulf War experience, and the nuclear insecurity in the former USSR. The direct effect on German security, and the Israeli accusation of contributing a possible second holocaust sobered them.
Tim,
I don't think we are, except that the economic argument to me does not seem to hold much water. I look at it this way though I might be wrong to do so: a few hundred million dollars in equipment sold (or even a couple of billion) does not mean much to Germany/Austria/France/Switzerland now, and did not in the 1980s - certainly not to impact significantly on overall economic growth over any meaningful period of time. We can advance arguments about market development, etc., but in the nuclear field, it would again be a sticky position. Its a hard one to call. Guess we must make our own choices and see who turns out to be right. I think most would prefer to err on the side of caution on this one.
I don't think we are, except that the economic argument to me does not seem to hold much water. I look at it this way though I might be wrong to do so: a few hundred million dollars in equipment sold (or even a couple of billion) does not mean much to Germany/Austria/France/Switzerland now, and did not in the 1980s - certainly not to impact significantly on overall economic growth over any meaningful period of time. We can advance arguments about market development, etc., but in the nuclear field, it would again be a sticky position. Its a hard one to call. Guess we must make our own choices and see who turns out to be right. I think most would prefer to err on the side of caution on this one.