Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

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arun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 10248
Joined: 28 Nov 2002 12:31

Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

X Posting Anmols post in the TSP thread in full:

Some of the letters have been removed so, I am posting the complete article and letters that haven't yet been removed..

EXCLUSIVE: New A.Q. Khan Documents Suggest Pakistan Spread Nuclear Weapon Technology
By Micah Morrison

Published September 16, 2011 | FoxNews.com

Documents obtained by Fox News suggest that for decades Pakistan spread nuclear weapon technology around the globe in exchange for cash, political influence and help with its own atomic bomb program. Among those on the other side of the deals: China, Iran, North Korea and Libya.

The charges are contained in two documents written by A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear arms trafficker long thought to be the mastermind behind an elaborate global supply and procurement network: a thirteen-page confession to government authorities and a dramatic letter hastily written to his wife as an international manhunt tightened around him.

In a Fox News exclusive, never-before-seen Khan photographs and documents will be featured in an upcoming special: "Fox News Reporting: Iran's Nuclear Secrets," airing Sept. 18 at 9 p.m. ET. The documents include the thirteen-page confession, the letter to his wife, and a Pakistani intelligence service report on Khan. The exclusive photographs show the Khans in a variety of intimate settings, including under house arrest. Fox News is also releasing the documents and photographs over the Internet today.

The extent of official Pakistan government involvement with Khan is a matter of intense and at times acrimonious debate among counter-proliferation experts. Was Khan a master criminal operating outside the system—or was he part of the system?

The documents obtained by Fox News are A.Q. Khan’s version of events. They should be carefully weighed against other available evidence. But with U.S.-Pakistan relations severely strained by the killing of Usama bin Laden and the imminent draw-down of U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan, the question of nuclear-armed Islamabad spreading weapons of mass destruction takes on a new urgency.

At one time, Khan feared his own government might kill him.

“Darling,” he writes to his wife in December 2003, “if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough stand.” He warns her, “they might try to get rid of me to cover up all the things (dirty) they got done by me in connection with Iran, Libya & N. Korea.”

A scientist and strong-willed bureaucrat known as “the father of the Islamic bomb,” Khan was a popular figure in Pakistan.

But prodded by the United States over mounting evidence of smuggled nuclear shipments to Libya, Pakistan began tightening the noose around Khan in 2003.

In early 2004, the ISI, Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, brought Khan in for questioning. Khan’s written confession is a result of those sessions.In February 2004, Khan appeared on Pakistan television and offered a brief confession. The next day, President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan and sentenced him to house arrest. In recent years, the terms of Khan’s house arrest have been modified, but he remains under tight government control.

In his televised confession, Khan put the blame on himself, saying that “proliferation activities…over the last two decades” were “inevitably initiated at my behest.”

The documents, revealed in full here for the first time, suggest a different story.

On China, Khan writes in the letter to his wife: “We had cooperation with China for 15 years. We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong. We sent 135 C-130 plane loads of machines, inverters, valves, flow meters, pressure gauges.” From China, Pakistan received “drawings of nuclear weapons” and fifty kilos of “enriched uranium”—a key component for a nuclear bomb.

On North Korea: “Gen. Jehangir Karamat took $3 million through me from the N. Koreans and asked me to give them some drawing and machines” related to uranium enrichment. General Karamat was Pakistan’s Army Chief of Staff from 1996 to 1998 and ambassador to the United States from 2004 to 2006.

In an email to Fox News, General Karamat of Pakistan said “I categorically deny this baseless allegation.” The claim that he accepted money from Khan, he wrote, is “preposterous, false and a malicious fabrication.”
Read General Jehangir Karamat’s letter to Fox News here.
The following is a letter from General Jenhangir Karamat to Fox News.

Dear Ms Browne,

Thank you for reaching out to me prior to your planned broadcast and website postings. I am sure that a prestigious news organization like the Fox News will satisfy themselves about the authenticity and credibility of sources, documents, letters, statements etc because many of these have been in circulation and have been changing hands for years even as new fabricated ones keep cropping up. There are obviously many motivations for this activity.

None of the information that you have asked me to comment upon is new. It has all been published before in different formats and pertains to events almost fifteen years ago. The entire proliferation episode actually spans a much longer period with more than one country involved. The total episode was the subject of an exhaustive and thorough investigation before it was formally closed. The allegations and information surfacing now have to be seen in this overall context as regards their timing and motivation as well as coincidence with other currently ongoing situations----these aspects will inevitably be discussed.

Having retired in 1998 I was not privy to the details of the proliferation episode and the final investigation report. I can only comment on the specific issues that concern me and are supposedly from ‘statements made during investigations’.

The allegation that I accepted any payment from Dr Khan for letting him pass on material to North Korea is preposterous, false and a malicious fabrication. In fact if such an allegation has been made then it fully implicates Dr Khan in ‘one on one’ dealing with another country including receiving money. Where that money subsequently went (if it was paid) is speculation and no one persons word can be accepted especially if that person was actually involved in such matters over a prolonged period. I doubt that Dr Khan would put himself in such a position because it in no way clears him—it actually implicates him. I categorically deny this baseless allegation because I never asked Dr Khan to pass on to the North Koreans ‘drawings and machines’ related to uranium enrichment.

As CGS I was not in a position to demand anything from Dr AQ Khan. He was neither my subordinate nor could I delay or sanction payments to him or anyone else. I had nothing to do with the payments or the program. I am also sure that a person of Dr Khan’s standing would not get into the business of carting around money in brief cases like a bagman. If any illegal demands were being made then those could, and should have been reported to my superiors because the CGS was never in the loop on matters pertaining to the nuclear program.

I am not aware of the dealings between ‘Kang’ and Dr Khan or anyone else. I have no knowledge of the details of the North Korean program that are given in your note. I do know that as COAS I did not personally control any enrichment program and that GHQ never made payments of any sort to anyone. All contact was through designated staff and GHQ had nothing to do with contractual payments. There were never any ‘secret funds’. All contracts were between governments with laid down channels for payment—these could not be violated or circumvented. No contract with North Korea was signed during my tenure as COAS. Any material given or received outside the ongoing contracts by the person in charge of those materials was illegal. There was no reason for anyone to make any payment to me at Army House or anywhere else—no such payments were ever made because no transfer of material was ever authorized by me.

The comments about the status of the North Korean program and the details given are something that I do not know about and therefore cannot comment upon. All this has been written about before and if you so desire I can try and locate that article and forward it to you. This probably pertains to a much later period 1999-2003 possibly so the question of anyone asking me for permission to transfer material does not arise. This never happened. I am not sure who is being indicated when it is said that ‘since they were working in the plant with P-2 machines’ but if it implies North Koreans then their presence was completely illegal and unauthorized. I would seriously question such an assertion.

Finally let me say that as a rule I do not get into correspondence or discussion over such issues because no country would want its responsible people to publicly debate sensitive matters. I have given you my views frankly and I hope you will use this material judiciously.
With best wishes and regards
Jehangir Karamat
Fox News did not receive a response to emails to North Korean authorities requesting comment on Khan’s claims.

On supplying Iran with nuclear material, Khan writes that he gave “a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians,” as well as “the names and addresses of suppliers.” He writes that he was directed to do so by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s defense adviser, General Imtiaz Ali, “probably with the blessing of BB.” General Imtiaz died in 2003.

In a note on the letter’s margin, Khan says the documents and parts were delivered to Iran by a Bhutto family confidant.

“Must have got money for it ($1 million).”

On Libya—the immediate source of his 2004 downfall—Khan is evasive. “If the Libyans have any papers/drawings bearing our name or signatures,” he writes in the confession, “they must have obtained them from Farooq [a Sri Lankan working with Khan], Tahir or our old suppliers.” But the game was up. Khan’s associate, Tahir, was in custody in Malaysia. The CIA had been closely tracking the Libyan supply operation.

Khan declined Fox News requests for an interview.

In the letter to his wife, Khan is desperate; in the confession, defiant. “Without my knowledge and experience, Pakistan could never—repeat never—have become a nuclear power. It was only because of my initiative, knowledge and achievements that our nation can walk straight and tall today!”

His dealings with other countries, he says, were largely a matter of Pakistani foreign policy. “I have done nothing against the interests of Pakistan and whatever I did could not have resulted in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It was primarily meant to keep up our friendship with those countries that had been helping Pakistan from time to time.”

Pakistan officials did not respond to Fox News requests to discuss Khan’s claims.

Fox obtained the documents from Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. While some of the contents of the Khan documents have been reported by other news organizations, they have never been released to the public. Until now.
Fox News also obtained from Henderson a Pakistan government report based on the questioning of Khan and others by the ISI. Sources tell Fox News that the ISI report was circulated to Western intelligence agencies after Pakistan refused to produce Khan for questioning

The report says nothing about China or North Korea.
“Fox News Reporting: Iran’s Nuclear Secrets” is the result of an 18-month international investigation into Iran’s nuclear program.

The special will offer new details on Saddam Hussein’s obsession with Iran, including an interview with his FBI interrogator; exclusive photos of A.Q. Khan; analysis of the Khan documents; new satellite photos; and details of China’s role in alleged proliferation activities.

(BACKUP)Read the Fox News exchange with the Government of Iran.

(BACKUP)Read the Fox News exchange with the Government of China.
arun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 10248
Joined: 28 Nov 2002 12:31

Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

X Posting yet another post by Anmol on the topic from the TSP thread in full:
anmol wrote:Some links are back up..
A.Q. Khan's Thirteen-Page Confession

Published September 15, 2011 | FoxNews.com

The following is the thirteen-page confession of A.Q. Khan.

I was in Belgium in December 1971 and had just submitted by Ph.D. thesis when I saw the most painful and humiliating scenes of the surrender of the Pakistan Army in Dacca. To see our officers and jawans with crosses on their backs and their heads shaven being herded like cattle by Indian soldiers being kicked and hit with sticks was such a traumatic scene that I would never forget it my whole life long.

In May 1974 I was working as a Senior Scientist at FDO in Amsterdam and had specialized in uranium enrichment technology, the most advanced and the most complicated technology that the Dutch, the Germans and the British had perfected after spending billions of dollars over a 20 year period. Even today it is the best technology for enriching uranium.

On 18th May, 1974 the Indians exploded their first nuclear weapon. Appreciating the immediate dangers posed to Pakistan’s security and very existence, I offered my services to the Prime Minister, Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. On 20th December 1974 I paid a short visit and explained the whole process to the Prime Minister and told him that I could give Pakistan nuclear capability. After explaining the process to Munir Ahmed Khan, Chairman PAEC, we went back to Holland. On 21st December 1975 we again came on holiday. I went to see the progress of the work done in one year, which turned out to be almost nil. I explained this to the Prime Minister, who asked me to stay back and send my resignation to FDO. It was a tough decision for me and my family but we decided to stay so I could serve my beloved Pakistan. I was appointed Advisor to PAEC in June 1976. For six months I had worked without being paid and under miserable and disgusting conditions. I was later paid Rs. 3,000 per month.

Working under PAEC proved to be impossible, hence the Prime Minister detached the Project from PAEC and made it independent under a Board of Coordination with Mr. A.G.M. Kazi (Chairman), Mr. Agha Shahi (Secretary General Foreign Affairs) and Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan (Secretary General Defence ) as members. We were to work directly under the Prime Minister.

One should not forget that I had brought with me technology, experience and personal notes worth billions of dollars. Without my knowledge and experience, Pakistan could never - repeat never - have become a nuclear power. It was only because of my initiative, knowledge and achievements that our nation can walk straight and tall today!

How I organized the work, set up the facilities and organized a most efficient network of companies to import materials and equipment is part of our history. I personally supervised each and every aspect of the Project and prepared the drawings and specifications to give to the suppliers. I trained hundreds of scientists and engineers who were initially totally ignorant of this high technology. The speed of the work and our achievements surprised our worst enemies and adversaries and the West stood helplessly by to see a Third World nation, unable even to produce bicycle chains or sewing needles, mastering the most advanced nuclear technology in the shortest possible span of time.

Our mastery of this most advanced and invaluable technology enabled us to sign a historic contract for a giant plant in China. Because of my assistance to the Chinese, they in turn helped Munir Ahmed Khan in various projects that had been stagnating for years (i.e. UF6, Reprocessing, Conversion, Production Reactor etc.).

By 1984 we had conducted successful cold tests and had manufactured all components for 30 nuclear devices. Upon my personal request, the Chinese Minister for Nuclear Technology had gifted us Kg 50 of weapon-grade enriched uranium, enough for 2 weapons. This gift clearly illustrates the importance the Chinese attached to the enrichment technology they received from me. I had asked for this to neutralize Indian nuclear blackmail and the imminent security threat to our country.

Work was progressing very fast and I worked 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to get the job done against all odds, against all embargoes and despite the non-availability of trained manpower or expertise.

In August 1988 President Gen. Ziaul Haq died in a tragic air crash. Elections were held and Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister. Gen. Imtiaz, former M.S. to Mr. Bhutto, became Advisor on Defence to the Prime Minister and took over the supervision of the nuclear programme.

In 1985 the revolution in Iran took place and there were many in Pakistan who sympathized with the revolution and change of dress code. Kahuta had a large number of Shias working there. One senior officer, Hanif Khalil, was even reported to have contacted the Iranian Ambassador, Mr. Mousavi, but, apprehensive of overzealousness and leakage to favour Iran, I warned him to be more cautious and carefull.

In 1989 or 1990 COAS, Gen. Aslam Beg, promised to give the Iranians a few weapons and technology in lieu of 10 years of our defence budget. The Iranian Army Chief, Shamkani, flew to Islamabad in his own plane to pick up the weapons and papers. Admiral Sirohey as Chairman JCSC had a hard time trying to get out of this commitment, in which he succeeded. Later there was a lot of pressure by the COAS on Gen. Imtiaz and P.M. Benazir Bhutto to honour his commitment. Under pressure, Gen. Imtiaz asked Dr. Hashmi (I was out of station) to give some centrifuge parts and drawings etc. to the Iranians. He (Hashmi) asked him to wait until my return. When I got back, Gen. Imtiaz advised me to get components of two old (P-1) discarded machines and pack them into boxes together with 2 sets of drawings prepared by the late Mr. Khokhar. These drawings on their own were not sufficiently detailed to enable mastery of this difficult technology. The components and drawings were handed over to the late Dr. M.Z. Niazi for further disposal. As you know, Dr. Niazi was a confidante of Benazir Bhutto and Gen. Imtiaz.

It was some time in 1994 or 1995 that Dr. Niazi requested me to see a few Iranian scientists passing through Karachi from China on their way to Dubai and then on to Teheran. I met them in our guesthouse in Karachi for about half an hour. I did not know any of them and they didn’t give any names. They said that they could not make any progress with their programme and asked whether it would be possible for me to visit them or to send a team for a few weeks. I flatly told them that it was not possible to have that kind of contact. They then asked a few simple questions and I advised them to study the available scientific literature, which contained all the information they were asking for. They seemed to be ignorant of the basic knowledge available in publications.

During Gen. Zia’s rule, Benazir, her family, Gen. Imtiaz and Dr. Niazi were financially supported by Col. Gaddafi. It was reliably reported that Col. Gaddafi had given $ 200 million to the late Mr. Z.A. Bhutto to launch our nuclear programme. This was confirmed by Mr. Khalid Hassan, Press Secretary to Mr. Bhutto, in the mischievous BBC film “Project 706 - The Islamic Bomb”. I believe that one set of the drawings and components given by me was given to the Iranians and the other to the Libyans.

Dr. Z.K. Niazi used to travel between Dubai, Tripoli and London and in Dubai he became friendly with Farooq of Sri Lanka through a British common friend named Peter. He probably brought a Libyan in contact with Farooq and asked him to arrange a meeting during one of my trips to Turkey.

Once when we went to Istanbul (I donot know the date) to have discussions with Dr. Heilingbrunner, Lerch and Ruegg, Farooq (Sri Lanka) told me that a friend of Dr. Niazi’s would like to see me in the nearby Sheraton Hotel. We were staying at Hotel Dilson, Taksim Square. I met the gentleman, a plump darkish person who introduced himself as Magid or Mageed. He said that they wanted to start some R & D programme in the enrichment field and had been given assurances of Pakistan Government assistance. I said they lacked the trained manpower and infra-structure. He said that they could still start learning and do some laboratory experiments. I gave him a brief idea of how complex and difficult the whole technology was. After about half an hour we left and he said he would contact Farooq (Sri Lanka) whenever necessary. He was not a technical person.

We did not hear from them for years and then during one of our trips to Turkey to meet our Turkish and Swiss suppliers, Tahir (nephew of Farooq) said that his uncle had phoned to say that a gentleman from Libya was there to see us. I met this gentleman with Tahir. He was of medium stature, average weight and a bit bald. He introduced himself as an Engineer and the name I understood was Mahfooz (you mentioned it as Matooq). He said he was now planning to start the programme as nothing had been done so far and he wanted to start on a small laboratory scale. I told him the plant needed a lot of space and many workshops and manpower. He said that they could go underground, to which I replied that it was not possible for such a big plant with all the facilities to go underground. Since he was planning on a small scale, he thought they might set up a farm of camels or goats and put one or two small sheds in between to put up the laboratory and start training the people in various technologies (vacuum, welding process, computer etc.). I suggested they first send enough people abroad for degrees/training and then start the research programme. He seemed to like that idea. We met for about half an hour at the most. We did not meet again for a long time. After 4 or 5 years, while in Dubai, Tahir invited us to dinner in his flat and the whole Matooq family (9 or 10 people) was there too. He said that they were now starting the work and that he was in touch with foreign suppliers. These had agreed to supply components, equipment etc. through Dubai and other countries. I just listened, being sure in my mind that there was not a committed approach and that they would not be able to achieve much. What they needed was commitment and trained manpower, neither of which they had. I met this same gentleman at dinner at Tahir’s place once or twice more over a period of 4 to 5 years. On those occasions he never discussed any technical matters or asked any questions. I only heard him discuss payment problems to suppliers with Tahir. Tahir once mentioned that Matooq was always taking away quite a bit of money for his personal use. There was always a young man named Karim with him. The last time I met him was in Casablanca for half an hour at tea when we were going to Timbuktu. Tahir said he had asked to see him there as the suppliers were making his life difficult. Tahir asked him to send some money as quickly as possible as the suppliers were pressing him very hard and chasing him. Matooq neither gave me any detail of his work nor asked any questions. I was aware that Tahir was assisting him with the placing of orders according to the supplier’s quotations. It was business between user and supplier. The suppliers had all the drawings that we had originally given them as well as their own modified drawings and were, thus, in a position to supply the requested or suggested products, make their own suggestions and/or submit quotations. Even when we met the last time, I was sure that the Libyans were unable to run any machine properly, not to talk of enrichment. Since I never visited their country or saw any film of their facilities, I did not know anything about their programme. I had heard that they had not even erected a single shed to do some preliminary work.

Western suppliers were supplying components etc. and one factory in Malaysia, owned by the son of the Malaysian Prime Minister, Ahmad Badawi, was producing milk/oil tankers, liquid petroleum tankers etc. A Swiss Engineer had put up some machines in this factory to manufacture some components. The components intercepted on the ship near Italy were reportedly manufactured there. Pakistan or KRL had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

At one time Tahir asked if he could hire some retired/nearly retired engineers for his factory. Farooq (KRL) was quite unhappy at being demoted and was interested in a good job. Mr. Nasimuddin was nearing LPR and wanted to find a job abroad as his children were studying in the U.S.A. I asked them to send their C.V.s to Malaysia. Mr. Nasimuddin paid a visit there but did not like the place and preferred a government job in the Middle East. Farooq showed some interest, but then preferred to stay back as he was hoping that Mr. Azmat would retire and that he would again be promoted to the post of D.G. That was the end of their interest in Malaysia.

If the Libyans have any papers/drawings bearing our name or signatures etc, they must have obtained them either from Farooq (Sri Lanka), Tahir or our old suppliers, as the two first-mentioned had them in Dubai for our use.

I have heard that Tahir is being interrogated by the Malysian, American and British authorities and is telling all sorts of stories to save himself. He must be saying the things that the interrogators want to hear from him, even though they may be incorrect.

I did not ask anybody in KRL to send any gas to Libya and it is impossible to get 2 tons of gas out of Kahuta without this discrepancy being found out or caught. Our material balance sheet is foolproof. If one believes in the disappearance of this quantity of gas, one could also accept the possibility of the disappearance of Kg 200 or 300 weapon-grade material, which is also impossible.

The suggestion that I ever asked for a Libyan passport is both ludicrous and preposterous. I lived in Europe for 15 years and could have got nationality of Germany, Holland or Belgium, but I was proud to keep my Pakistani passport. H.H. Prince Mamdouh bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, brother of King Fahd, offered us (Gen. Chowhan, Dr. Nazeer and me) Saudi passports during one of our visists to the Islamic Development Bank meetings in Jeddah, but I very politely refused. H.H. Gen. Shaikh Mohammad bin Zayed, Chief of the U.A.E. Armed Forces and Deputy Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, offered me U.A.E. nationality many times together with a luxurious villa, which I also politely refused. I discarded all these lucrative and attractive offers and preferred to work and live in Pakistan.

Iran

The Iranians went on their own to buy, process or manufacture components and equipment. We did not hear from them for years. Some 10 odd years ago Tahir asked for some P-1 components from Farooq (KRL). I don’t remember the exact details. As you mentioned, some small components (200 sets) were collected from our old, discarded stock or a few may have been manufactured and sent by Farooq (KRL) to Tahir, who then probably passed them on to some Iranians. There were no casings, bases, feed systems, scoops etc. Without this system the machine is useless and hence the components were of little value in the overall project. Furthermore, the components were old, mostly rejected due to being out-of-tolerances. They could, at the most, be useful for assembling a few machines but it would not have been possible to make them run to the desired speed. You have to be extremely competent and expert to assemble, balance and run these machines to full speed (63,000 rpm). I allowed it as it was earlier sanctioned by Gen. Imtiaz and the Government and it would keep the Iranians happy and our friendship with them in tact. That the Iranians failed to achieve any progress in 15 years, shows the complexities and extreme technical expertise required to master this technology.

It is most unfortunate that, having been betrayed by their own opposition nationals (Mujahideen Khalq Group) and having failed in their effort to achieve any progress, the Iranians have reportedly pointed their finger at us and are now putting us into trouble. They say that they have not given any names or sources from Pakistan. This was emphatically assured and conveyed to me through Izaz Jaffery by ex-Ambassador Agha Siraj Mousavi himself.

The spirit behind giving some assistance to Iran or Libya was to maintain friendly relations between them and us. At no time did I seriously believe that they were capable of mastering this technology as they didn’t have the required infra-structure, the trained manpower or the technical know-how.
North Korea

After approval from the Prime Minister and the COAS, a contract was signed with the North Koreans for a Km 1500 surface-to-surface guided missile. A delegation led by me and including Gen. Mian Mushtaq, DGCD, Admiral Sohail Ahmed Khan, Col. Qazi, Dr. Mirza, Nasim Khan and others visited North Korea for about 5 days. Later their team came here and the deal was finalized with the participation of the then DGCD, Gen. Ziauddin, Dr. Samar Mubarakmand and Chairman Suparco, Mr. Sikander. The Korean team was officially allowed to stay at Kahuta once the products started coming. This was some time in 1993-4. They had to work in the shops and instruct our engineers and technicians in the making of the components. Most of their work was in the two machine shops that were also producing and assembling centrifuges and centrifuge sub-assemblies. They became interested in the technology and some engineers spent a lot of time with Khokhar in his shop where rotor tubes, bellows, etc. were being made and there was a test-bed of P-2. Khokhar was making the liquid fuel rocket engine and needed the Koreans the whole day on a daily basis. During the course of their stay it is quite possible that he explained some details of centrifuge machines to them.

Some time in 1996, when the missile project was in full swing, some payments from the GHQ to the Koreans were pending. Somebody from GHQ advised Gen Kang, the Korean representative, to pay some money to Gen. Ziauddin to get the money released. Gen. Kang gave him a suitcase containing $ 0.5 million. Gen. Ziauddin informed Gen. Waheed, COAS, and they returned the money to Kang. Gen. J. Karamat, CGS, came to know of this and phoned me after a few days saying that I should arrange with Gen. Kang to pay this money to him for some secret army funds. He would then sanction the payment of their outstanding charges. He phoned me a few times to expedite the matter. I talked to Gen. Kang and he gave me the $ 0.5 million in cash, which I personally delivered to Gen. J. Karamat. In the meantime Gen. Karamat became COAS and said to me that he needed more money for the same secret funds and that I should talk to Gen. Kang. Gen. Kang came back to me after a few days and said that his boss was willing to give a further $ 2.5 million, provided we helped them with the enrichment technology. They already had a production reactor and were producing plutonium. They had also manufactured a few weapons as, according to Gen. Kang’s boss, they had received Kg 200 plutonium and weapon designs from the Russians in the mid-fifties after the Korean War. They had shown Dr. Mirza and me the perfect nuclear weapon, technologically more advanced than ours. They wanted this technology only for fuel for the power reactors as it cost only 1/10 of that of the diffusion process and required only low capital investment. They were not interested in weapon-grade production of material and did not ask any questions or for drawings for specially designed cascades for weapon-grade material. I informed Gen. J. Karamat; he agreed and gave me a go-ahead. I asked my people to prepare 20 outdated P-1 machines and gave them. Since they were working in the plant and were familiar with the P-2 machines, they asked for 4 of these too. I discussed the matter with the COAS and obtained his approval. After that I personally gave the remaining $ 2.5 million to Gen. Karamat in cash at the Army House to make up the whole amount. The senior engineers at Kahuta were responsible for the Korean’s movements and work. People at the plant were mixing with them every day and taking them around or discussing things with them. I was hardly there. I used to go to Kahuta for 3 or 4 hours to do administrative work and mostly spent the time in my office or with Brig. Behram who was making a launcher, which was our priority at the time. The Koreans took the machines in their own plane with which they were bringing missile parts for us. Security Staff was always present to check incoming and outgoing cargo. Even Dr. Mirza and Nasim Khan made some control panels and software packages and gave them. The Koreans had brought some UF6 gas for analysis, which we tested and found that it was not pure enough. They requested a few Kg of depleted gas for comparison purposes, which we gave them. Technically and monetarily it had no value. One could buy such a sample from abroad. One flowmeter was given to them as a sample. A flowmeter is an ordinary instrument in a UF6 plant. It is banned for Pakistan but available in the open market in Europe. They, in return, taught us how to make Krytrons (fast switches), which were banned items and are needed in nuclear weapons detonation. This was very valuable to us.

After having been here for years, the COAS (Gen. Pervez Musharraf) desired that we should send the Koreans back immediately. They left within 3 days. After that we had no more contact with them.

I left KRL on 31.3.2001 and that was that.

As far as the destroying of any papers or gate passes is concerned, I only advised people not to keep any papers or records that could implicate Pakistan with transfer of technology or equipment to North Korea at any later stage. At that time there were various lobbies against Pakistan and I feared that these papers could, if falling into wrong hands, be used to implicate Pakistan. It was only meant as a precautionary measure.

I have done nothing against the interests of Pakistan and whatever I did could not have resulted in proliferation of nuclear weapons. It was primarily meant to keep up our friendship with those countries that had been helping Pakistan from time to time.

I would like to reiterate that I never - repeat never - ever put foot on Iranian or Libyan soil.

Dr. A.Q. Khan

In early 1989 Gen. Aslam Beg asked me if I could help the Iranians in enrichment technology so that they could also achieve nuclear capability. He was convinced that, if Iran had this capability, it would work as a shield between Pakistan on the one side and the U.S.A. and other Western countries on the other side and that these countries would then not be able to undertake any mischievous or adventurous action against Pakistan. I agreed in principle, but told him I could only do so with a go-ahead from the Government. When Gen. Imtiaz told me to do the needful, I did so as I knew he must have obtained clearance from the Prime Minister.

So also was the case with Libya. Dr. Zafar Niazi told me that it had been cleared by the Prime Minister, upon which I took the necessary action.
A Letter Written by A.Q. Kahn to His Wife


Published September 15, 2011 | FoxNews.com

The following is a letter from A.Q. Kahn to his wife.



Editor’s notes:
1) This is a transcription of a handwritten 2003 letter from A.Q. Khan to his wife.
2) Material in brackets [ ] are clarifications by editor.
3) Deleted: address, phone number & email for journalist Simon Henderson, referenced in original.10/12/2003 [10 December 2003]



Darling,



If the government plays any mischief with me take a tough stand:



(1)You know we had cooperation with China for 15 years. We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (km250 south-west of Xian). We sent 135 C-130 plane loads of machines, inverters, valves, flow meters, pressure gauges. Our teams stayed there for weeks to help and their teams stayed here for weeks at a time. Late minister Liu We, V. M. [vice minister] Li Chew, Vice Minister Jiang Shengjie used to visit us.



(2)The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us kg50 enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).
Chinese helped PAEC [Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the rival organisation to the Khan Research Laboratories] in setting up UF6 plant, production reactor for plutonium and reprocessing plant.



[Page 2]



(3) Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir Bhutto] & Gen [Aslam] Beg , Gen Imtiaz asked Hashmi [a former colleague of AQK] & me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians. We had no direct contact and we never sent anybody or received anybody. The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians.



[Note in margin] Gave these things through Dr Niazi [Bhutto family dentist and confidant, now dead]. Must have got money for it ($1 million).



(4) Gen Jehangir Karamat [still alive, chief of army staff 1996-8, sent by Musharraf as ambassador to U.S. 2004-2006] took $3 million through me from the N Koreans and asked me to give them some drawings and machines.



(5) We sold [conventional] weapons to Libya, Sudan & Malaysia. And sent [conventional] weapons to Bosnia. [Khan’s KRL plant also made anti-tank missiles and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.]



(6) There is proof of all this stashed somewhere safely which will be given to public and press.



[Page 3]



Use Major Islam or Hashmi [former colleagues of A Q Khan] and get S M Zafar [lawyer of AQK] to take up these matters in court/public.
Get in touch with Simon Henderson
[Address, phone numbers, email deleted]
And give him all the details.



Ask Henk [Slebos, part of Khan’s purchasing network in the Netherlands] to get a guy from Telegraaf and give him all the details.



Tell them the ******** first used us and now playing dirty games with us.



Love you
Khantje [diminutive name used between Khan and his wife]



Get out quickly to Dubai with Tanya [grand-daughter who lives with them] for a while or leave Tanya with Ayesha [daughter who lives in Islamabad].



[Page 4]



I believe they want to make me a scapegoat as Mr Wajid Shamsul Hassan (former HC [high commissioner] in London) had warned in an article (with Major Islam).



They might try to get rid of me to cover up all the things (dirty) they got done by me in connection with Iran, Libya & N. Korea.



This is just to forewarn you.



A Q Khan



Dr A Q Khan
NI & Bar, HI
arun
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis writing at the Arms Control Wonk website on the disclosure made by Fox News:

AQ Khan Documents
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

And yet more again by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis writing at the Arms Control Wonk website on the disclosure made by Fox News:

Where Are The Rest of Khan’s Docs?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

Pakistan used illegal means to acquire nukes: admits the ISI
Pakistan, which used every "legal and illegal" means to go nuclear, shared its secret atomic technology and equipment with countries like Iran and Libya, says an ISI report, based on disgraced scientist A Q Khan's questioning, which was circulated among western intelligence agencies.

"It is most unfortunate that these things (transfer of nuclear technology) happened due to the peculiar nature of the circumstances and loose arrangements in those early days and because of the personal obligations of previous governments to these countries," says the undated ISI report obtained and released by the Fox News on Sunday.

The ISI report, Fox News said, was based on the questioning of A Q Khan and others by the Pakistani spy agency.

The report was circulated to western intelligence agencies after Pakistan refused to produce Khan for questioning, the news channel said.

However, the report has no reference to North Korea, which the western countries say was also a recipient of the clandestine nuclear technology from Pakistan.

In the report, the ISI also conceded that Pakistan used every legal and illegal means to obtain nuclear technology and establish the plant to make atomic weapons in the country.

"When the (atomic research) organisation was set up in mid 1976, a free hand was given to the project director to acquire each and everything through any means," it said.

"There was a direct and imminent threat to Pakistan's security and existence in the wake of the dismemberment of the country in 1971 and after the Indian nuclear test in 1974," it said.

Gen Ziaul Haq, the then Pakistan President, had openly proclaimed that "beg, borrow or steal" was the policy of the day in the light of the imposition of stringent embargoes and restrictions on any nuclear-related materials and equipment to Pakistan, the ISI said.

Pakistan, being an under-developed country with no industrial infrastructure, had to buy each and every bit of material and piece of equipment surreptitiously from abroad in the open market and had to establish a network of cover companies within the country and outside to by-pass embargoes and import all the necessary items, it said.

Such companies were operating in Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Singapore, UK, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland etc, the ISI report said.

Since no industrial infrastructure was available within the country, production drawing of all the components of the centrifuge machines were sent to England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland etc for the placing of orders for thousands of components and equipment required in order to expedite the work, which was a race against time, it said.

"Dubai, having no customs formalities or restrictions and no financial impediments, was made the main operating centre. All the foreign suppliers (Dutch, British, French, Turkish, Belgian, Swiss, German etc) were regularly coming to Dubai to discuss offers and orders.

"A company named Ben Belilah Enterprises (BBE), owned by an Arab police officer, was introduced by A Salam, a British national," it said.

"BBE had a Sri Lankan Manager named Farooq. Salam and Farooq, both being Tamils, were good friends. Due to the frequent meetings between our experts and the foreign suppliers, sets of almost all the drawings were kept in Dubai in a flat that had been rented especially for this purpose so they wouldn't have to be carried to and fro all the time," the report said.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by svinayak »

http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=ma ... 4&u_id=144

An “evil” axis of nuclear proliferation has been sculpted very carefully by germinating an anti-India seed, the likes of which still have not been seen by the international community. We need to take notice of it and work multilaterally to prevent further strengthening of this evil axis of nuclear proliferation. These nations have proliferated nuclear weapons both horizontally and vertically even as they have been members (and otherwise) of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Each member of this axis has very beautifully and skillfully deployed the art of deception to camouflage their internationally illicit nuclear proliferation activities. Barring one, almost all the members of this evil axis had originally signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

This evil axis of nuclear proliferation can best be described by the newly coined acronym: CHI.P.NOK.I.S.S. It stands for CHIna, Pakistan, NOrth Korea, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The fountainhead of the group is the Peoples' Republic of China that stealthily proliferated nuclear weapons technology before it finally joined the NPT in 1992. It gifted Pakistan 50 kilogrammes of heavily enriched uranium, gave 10 tonnes of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3 per cent), provided it with nuclear weapons designs and let them use the Chinese nuclear testing site Lon Nor for a nuclear test before 1990. China also assisted the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in setting up UF6 plant, production reactor for plutonium and reprocessing plant. Some of these facts have recently been acknowledged by the now reviled Pakistani scientist Dr A Q Khan in a letter to his Dutch wife Henny. After having signed and acceded to the NPT rather late in the game, the non-proliferation track record of China has hardly come up to international measure. Saudi Arabia too has been funding Pakistan's nuclear programme for the last three decades and will pay Pakistan further in hard cash for extended deterrence. It also has the ability to pay cash on the spot for ready-made nuclear weapons ordered from Pakistan.

The story does not end here. China initially proliferated to Pakistan, and then through it proliferated to other countries such as North Korea and Libya. Libya came clean to the IAEA in the last decade to prevent US intervention. Documents turned in by the Libyan government to the IAEA included Chinese nuclear weapons designs. Syria received nuclear designs from North Korea and a secret Syrian nuclear reactor under construction was bombed by Israel in 2007 without any response from Syria.

Unfortunately, the international community made a scapegoat out of AQ Khan, putting all blame of proliferation on him, but condoned the role played by China and Pakistan. In the letter to his wife, Dr A Q Khan clearly states: “You know we had cooperation with China for 15 years. We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong. We sent 135 C-130 planeloads of machines, inverters, valves, flow-meters, pressure gauges. Our teams stayed there for weeks to help and their teams stayed here for weeks at a time. Late minister Liu We, VM Li Chew, vice minister Jiang Shengjie used to visit us.”

The nuclear proliferation activities of this evil axis have not stopped even now. At this critical juncture, any further leakage of nuclear weapons or nuclear materials from the CHIPNOKISS into hands of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups must be prevented at any cost. This fascinating saga of deception has been painstakingly chronicled in three recent books, i.e. “Deception” by Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott-Clark, “The Inheritance” by David Sanger and “Peddling Peril” by David Albright. For sake of brevity we would refer the readers to these three thoroughly researched books on this dreadful story of ongoing deception.

We currently witness that Iran and North Korea are continuing to defy world opinion with uncommon belligerence owing to the protective extended umbrella provided by China. North Korea is preparing for more nuclear tests. Iran too, is angling for its first nuclear test having amassed enough heavy enriched uranium. Iran has indulged in a game of diplomacy and obfuscation since early 2003 when it engaged in the quartet talks with Europeans as a delaying tactic. As the patron state of the CHIPNOKISS, China has overzealously guarded its minions whenever they had run-ins with the international community.

Unfortunately, the PRC has usurped its position as a member of N5 of the NPT and the P5 of UNSC to deflect serious and effective action against the other members while portraying a facade of diplomacy. The six-party talks were a Chinese game-plan to frustrate the efforts by international community to contain the North Korean nuclear proliferation problem. The results were entirely opposite. Similarly, the four-plus one formula (Germany, France, UK and UN) to deal with Iran floundered because of covert support and encouragement by the PRC of the Ayatollah-cracy in Iran. While maintaining a diplomatic charade, the PRC has enabled all these rogue nations in subverting the international non-proliferation regimes presenting fait accompli to the entire world.

Of course, now that the PRC is talking about giving a civil nuclear energy deal to Pakistan, analogous to the US-India civil nuclear energy agreement. While China tried to stop this in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), it was eventually forced to support the US-India nuclear energy agreement under US pressure in the NSG. It would be utterly ludicrous and unreasonable for China to expect reciprocity from the US in the NSG. Both China and Pakistan are vertical and horizontal proliferators of both nuclear and missile technologies to rogue regimes. It is just another instance of an abrasive resurgent China using one of its "all-weather supplicant states" to make a larger point on the world stage about its present power and the universal appeasement that follows its deliberate provocations. Therefore, containment and partial denuclearisation, and not appeasement should be the strategic response of the Obama administration.

This axis of nuclear proliferation is likely to integrate Myanmar into its essential core. Myanmar is learning fast lessons from North Korea and is eyeing nuclear weapons as deterrence against any possible international intervention. Both North Korea and China are helping Myanmar to develop a secret nuclear programme. The other candidate countries for addition to this axis of evil would be Bangladesh and Sudan. Bangladesh is trying to get nuclear reactors from both Russia and China. While it is unable to exploit its natural hydrocarbon resources completely, and is unwilling to sell them to India, it does not have any dire need for nuclear energy in near future. Just like Iran, it is deceptively posturing for the civil nuclear energy façade in order to develop the nuclear weapons capability. If international community continues to let this axis grow unhindered, the world would witness nuclear blackmail as the diplomatic currency for all times to come. The civilized world would not be able to deal with the terrorism, drug-wars and criminality because of the threats of retaliation by nuclear weapons from non-state actors.

A fresh start must be made by the international community led by the IAEA in denuclearising North Korea and Pakistan. Without defanging these two unstable and dangerous nuclear nations, no further progress would be made in preventing future nuclear proliferation. Pakistan has already propounded the theory of neo-nuclear apartheid. As seductive it may be to the liberal European nations of the international community, the ground realities require internationally supervised denuclearisation of Pakistan despite Chinese and Pakistani objections. Nuclear disarmament must start with Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. Once that is achieved, continued economic pressure on Iran will prevent it from crossing the threshold. Iran must be prevented, at any cost, from crossing the nuclear Lakshman Rekha. Another unstable, theocratic Muslim country with nuclear weapons in our extended neighbourhood is not in India's long-term geo-political interests. Certainly, India must prevent herself from being sandwiched between a nuclear Pakistan and a nuclear Bangladesh.

India has always advocated total, universal, time-bound and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons. It is not too late for the international community to adopt and implement the Rajiv Gandhi plan of 1988. Pragmatically speaking, total zero is very far away and remains a distant fuzzy dream.

Dr Adityanjee is President, the Council for Strategic Affairs, New Delhi

(The views expressed in the article are that of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the centre for land warfare studies).

http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=ma ... 4&u_id=144
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by devesh »

http://www.rediff.com/news/special/is-p ... 111004.htm

Is Pakistan helping the Saudis with a nuclear deterrent?
For long, Saudi Arabia has been one of the two foreign hands (the other being the United States) rocking the cradle of Pakistani politics, brokering truce among warring political leaders, providing asylum to those exiled by the military establishment and lavishing funds on a state strapped for cash. But there seems to be a role reversal now keeping in view some recent international media reports about a possible nuclear cooperation between Islamabad [ Images ] and Riyadh.

While highlighting the alleged Pakistan-Saudi nuclear collaboration, the international media has recently reported that worried by Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Riyadh is trying to strike a secret deal with Pakistan to buy readymade nuclear weapons instead of going through the lengthy process of developing its own.

These reports have appeared at a time when the Pakistan army [ Images ] and the royal Saudi land forces are holding a three week-long joint exercise -- Al-Samsaam-IV-2011 -- near the Jhelum district of Punjab [ Images ].

The Pakistan-Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation was first reported on September 8 (external link) by haaretz.com, an Israeli Web site, followed by another report on September 15 by an American news agency, United Press International.

The haaretz.com report said that concerned by rapid progress being made by Iran towards fulfilling its nuclear ambitions, Saudi Arabia is mulling a secret nuclear cooperation with Pakistan to counter Tehran's military designs in the region.

The report said, although Riyadh has a memorandum of cooperation with the United States over building nuclear reactors for generating electricity, the Saudi royal family is divided over the issue with some heavyweights favouring a secret programme for military uses with Islamabad's help.

Being a Sunni-dominated Muslim-majority State, Pakistan has sought to develop close bilateral ties with Saudi Arabia, the largest country on the Arabian peninsula and home to the two holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina. Both the Islamic countries had faced common enemies in the past successfully and are confronted with yet another common enemy even today -- Al Qaeda [ Images ].

Close geographical proximity, historic trade relations, religious affinity and complementary nature of economic needs have created a strong bondage of trust between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

As early as 1969, the Pakistan air force flew the aircraft of the royal Saudi air force to help fend off an invasion from South Yemen. In the 1970s and 1980s, about 15,000 Pakistani soldiers were stationed in Saudi Arabia to protect the country's oil fields. Against the backdrop of the recent uprisings in the Middle East and the Arab world which led to the ouster of several autocratic rulers of the Muslim world, Pakistan had played a key role in the region by supporting Saudi Arabia to preempt a possible revolt against the Saudi kingdom.

Besides placing two army divisions on standby to help Riyadh should any trouble break out, the Pakistan government helped the Saudi kingdom with the recruitment of thousands of ex-Pakistani military personnel for Bahrain's national guard.

Resultantly, Islamabad has received more financial aid from the Saudis than any other country outside the Arab world. Those in Riyadh who favour the preparation of a nuclear programme for military uses in cooperation with Pakistan include Saudi Defence Minister Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, and its former intelligence chief, Turki Bin Faisal.

Hence, while progressing towards this end several Pakistani nuclear scientists recently visited Saudi Arabia to meet, among others, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the head of the Saudi national security council and former ambassador to the United States. Prince Bandar is considered among those in the Saudi royal family who are encouraging the nuclear connection with Pakistan to put his country on a secret path to becoming nuclear.

According to the UPI report, Saudi Arabia is beefing up its military links with Pakistan to counter Iran's expansionist plans which includes acquiring atomic arms from the only Muslim nuclear power or its pledge of nuclear cover.

'Pakistan has become a front-line State for Sunni Islam and is being positioned by its leaders, particularly in the powerful military and intelligence establishments, as a bulwark against Shia Iran and its proxies. Increasingly, Pakistan is rushing to the defence of Saudi Arabia, with whom it has a long had discreet security links,' the UPI report said.

The UPI report added that the concerns about Saudi plans to buy readymade nuclear weapons were raised in June 1994. A Saudi defector, Mohammed Abdalla al-Khilewi, the No 2 official in the Saudi mission to the United Nations in New York, claimed Riyadh had paid up to $5 billion to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein [ Images ] to build it a nuclear weapon.

Al-Khilewi is a former Saudi Arabian diplomat noted for his brazen May 1994 defection in which he issued a declaration on the Saudi embassy letterhead proclaiming King Fahd to be despotic and calling for a redistribution of the country's wealth and power.

An expert in nuclear proliferation, al-Khilewi had produced 13,000 documents to support his claim that Saudi Arabia was engaged in a secret 20-year effort to acquire nuclear weapons, first with Iraq, which Riyadh backed in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and then with Pakistan.

His documents showed that Riyadh helped bankroll Pakistan's clandestine nuclear project and signed a pact that in the event Saudi Arabia was attacked with nuclear weapons, Islamabad would immediately respond against the aggressor with its own nuclear arms.

Well-informed diplomatic circles in Islamabad believe the recent media reports about a possible nuclear cooperation between Riyadh and Islamabad are credible. According to them, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have developed extensive defence and strategic ties to an extent that Riyadh is now secretly working on an alleged nuclear programme with the help of Pakistani experts.

The nuclear partnership between Riyadh and Islamabad is reportedly aimed at providing the kingdom with a nuclear deterrent on short notice if and when needed.

Determined not to fall behind in the Middle East nuclear race, Saudi Arabia has allegedly arranged to make available two Pakistani nuclear bombs or guided missile warheads which are most probably held in Pakistan's nuclear air base at Kamra in the northern district of Attock in Punjab province.

In fact, the fresh reports about the Pakistan-Saudi nuclear deal were prompted by the International Atomic Energy Agency's recent disclosure that Iran has begun to install the centrifuges in its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

'The transfer of centrifuges at Natanz (which is the only Iranian enrichment facility in central Iran) to Fordoo is underway, with all necessary safety measures,' said the head of Iran's nuclear weapons programme, Fereydoun Abbassi Davani, in an interview to Iranian television August 22.

The announcement was described as provocation by the United States which is much concerned at the acceleration of uranium enrichment by Tehran. The West's prime area of concern remains the production by Iran of highly enriched uranium to 20 percent, with a technique closer to Tehran's ability to produce enough enriched uranium (over 90 percent) to make a nuclear weapon.

The 2009 revelation by Western intelligence agencies about the secret construction of the Fordoo uranium enrichment plant in violation of UN resolutions had caused a serious crisis between Iran and the international community which eventually led to a strengthening of economic sanctions and Western policies against Iran in July 2010.

In fact, Saudi Arabia is not known to have a nuclear weapons programme. From an official and public standpoint, Saudi Arabia has been an opponent of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is a member of the coalition of countries demanding a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. However, over the years, there have been media reports of Saudi intent to purchase a nuclear weapon from an outside source.

In 2003, a leaked strategy paper laid out three possible options for the Saudi government: To acquire a nuclear deterrent, to ally with and become protected by an existing nuclear nation, or to try to reach agreement on having a nuclear-free Middle East.

International apprehensions that Saudi Arabia would seek to acquire nuclear weapons rose periodically over the last decade. Saudi Arabia's geopolitical situation gives it strong reasons to consider acquiring nuclear weapons: The current volatile security environment in the Middle East; the growing number of States (particularly Iran and Israel) with weapons of mass destruction in the region; and the Iranian ambition to dominate the region.

International concerns about Saudi nuclear ambitions intensified in 2003 in the wake of revelations about Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr A Q Khan's proliferation activities. The IAEA investigations showed that A Q Khan sold or offered nuclear weapons technology to Saudia and several Middle Eastern states, including Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

The unearthing of the blackmarket nuclear technology network increased international suspicions that Dr Khan had developed ties with Riyadh, which has the capability to pay for all kinds of nuclear-related services. Even before the revelations about Dr Khan's activities, concerns about Pak-Saudi nuclear cooperation persisted, largely due to strengthened cooperation between the two Islamic countries.

In particular, frequent high-level visits of Saudi and Pakistani officials over the past several years raised serious questions about the possibility of clandestine Pakistan-Saudi nuclear cooperation.

In May 1999, a Saudi Arabian team, headed by Defence Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, visited Pakistan's highly restricted uranium enrichment and missile assembly factory.

The Saudi prince toured the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant and an adjacent factory with then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif [ Images ] where the Ghauri missile was being assembled and was briefed by Dr Khan.

A few months later, Khan traveled to Saudi Arabia [in November 1999] ostensibly to attend a symposium on 'Information Sources on the Islamic World'. The same month, Dr Saleh al-Athel, president, King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology, visited Pakistan to work out details for cooperation in the fields of engineering, electronics and computer science.

In 2003, President General Pervez Musharraf [ Images ] paid a visit to Saudi Arabia, and former Pakistani prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali visited the kingdom twice. But the US had warned Pakistan for the first time in December 2003 against providing nuclear assistance to Riyadh.

International concerns over Pak-Saudi nuclear assistance intensified after the October 2003 visit of Saudi Arabia's then de facto ruler Crown Prince, now King, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to Pakistan.

During that visit, American intelligence circles alleged, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had concluded a clandestine agreement on nuclear cooperation that was meant to provide the Saudis with nuclear-weapons technology in exchange for cheap oil.

However, in 2005, the United Stated claimed to have acquired fresh evidence, suggesting that a broader government-to-government Pakistan-Saudi atomic collaboration is still on. Subsequent news reports in American media said that a chartered Saudi C-130 Hercules plane made scores of trips between Dhahran military base and several Pakistani cities, including Lahore [ Images ] and Karachi, between October 2003 and October 2004, and thereafter, considerable contacts were reported between Pakistani and Saudi Arabian nuclear scientists.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, under the cover of Haj, several Pakistani scientists visited Riyadh, and remained missing from their designated hotels for 15 to 20 days.

The intimacy between Islamabad and Riyadh has been exceptional and it is not without significance that the first foreign tour of Musharraf, who ousted Sharif in October 1999, was to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Sharif himself, his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif and their families took asylum in Saudi Arabia after a secret exile deal between Musharraf and Sharif, in which Riyadh had played a key role.

According to US intelligence findings, as reported by international media, during Nawaz Sharif's second prime ministerial tenure, Saudi Arabia had been involved in funding Islamabad's missile and nuclear program purchases from China, as a result of which Pakistan became a nuclear weapon-producing and proliferating State.

For decades, the Western media and their intelligence agencies have linked Pakistan's dishonoured nuclear scientist Dr Khan and the ISI, to nuclear-technology transfers, and it was hard to credit the idea that the successive governments Dr Khan served had been oblivious of these activities.

In the post-9/11 era, analysts continue to express fears about the possibility of extremist Islamic groups like Al Qaeda gaining access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons or fissile or radioactive materials.

Under these conditions, Islamabad's pursuing any clandestine nuclear deal with Riyadh can only aggravate such risks and international concerns.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

Excerpt from SPIEGEL interview of Olli Heinonen, formerly a 27 year veteran with the IAEA where he retired as a Deputy Director heading the Department of Safeguards and presently a Senior Fellow with Harvard’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs:
SPIEGEL: North Korea has benefitted from the black market of terror. Without Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb and later a dealer in atomic know-how and nuclear materials, Pyongyang probably would never have gotten this far.

Heinonen: And not only North Korea. Neither would Iran and Libya.

SPIEGEL: Have you ever met Khan? Were you at least able to question him after his arrest in Islamabad in 2004?

Heinonen: I followed his trail for years, and met several of his confidantes. But I never got to speak to him. Nevertheless, he answered some of my questions in writing through secret channels.

SPIEGEL: From his house arrest he now insists he had nothing to do with passing on nuclear secrets or having made lucrative private deals. Do you believe him?

Heinonen: It brings tears to my eyes. Of course Khan was the worst black marketeer and made millions from it. Even so, it's quite possible that others -- for instance Pakistani generals or leading secret-service officials -- profited even more than Khan did. It's more than likely that his country's political authorities were often aware of his dealings.

SPIEGEL
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

arun wrote:Excerpt from SPIEGEL interview of Olli Heinonen, formerly a 27 year veteran with the IAEA where he retired as a Deputy Director heading the Department of Safeguards and presently a Senior Fellow with Harvard’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs:
Heinonen: Of course Khan was the worst black marketeer and made millions from it. Even so, it's quite possible that others -- for instance Pakistani generals or leading secret-service officials -- profited even more than Khan did. It's more than likely that his country's political authorities were often aware of his dealings.

SPIEGEL
It is much more than that. It was a state policy. It is unfair to simply brand AQ Khan as a blackmarketeer. He might have done that. Did not Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg explain it away as mere ‘gold dust’ and ‘not gold’ itself and was a ‘fringe benefit’ for his services ?

But, the proliferation (inward) started from ZAB's direct involvement and then graduated to outward proliferation as well. The political masters were not simply 'aware' of these, as Mr. Heineonen claims, but were also willing accomplices (as when Ms. BB visited Pyongyong). The PA might have kept the politicians away from nukes, but wherever they wanted their help, they were used. Ms. BB is a perfect example.

The simple fact is that the Pakistani State, its armed forces and its citizens would not stop at anything. They are brazen, they are audacious, they are liers, they are law-breakers, they are violators of international order and convention, they are terrorists, they are devious and they are double-crossers, all rolled into one.

The US was complicit in these wheelings and dealings until recently.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by atma »

X- post from International Nuke dhaga

AP Exclusive: New signs of Syria-Pakistan nuke tie:
U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that could make nuclear arms.

The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan's laboratories following Pakistan's successful nuclear test in 1998.


http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-sign ... 13337.html
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by ramana »

Wanst a Syrian facility bombed by unknown states some time ago?

Paging ShyamD.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by shyamd »

^^ Yes sir. bombed by Israel - Deir El Zor or somethng like that.. Syria and Libya are one, they worked very closely together on strategic issues.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by ramana »

SSridhar, Was the TSP proliferation a way to generate funds for their terrorist projects? I mean were the funds channeled to LeT and other vipers?
Even if not directly maybe the funds from proliferation, helped release other funds for the vipers?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

ramana wrote:SSridhar, Was the TSP proliferation a way to generate funds for their terrorist projects? I mean were the funds channeled to LeT and other vipers?
Even if not directly maybe the funds from proliferation, helped release other funds for the vipers?
Ramana, I doubt if funds from proliferation went to terror outfits. Those outfits had their own independent sources anyway and were not particularly short of funds at any point of time. None of these deals happened at a personal, private level as Pakistan has been trying to portray to the rest of the world. They took place with the involvement of the military and the political government of the day. In some instances, there would have been a quid-pro-quo, like missiles, Krytron switches from NoKo or Uranium Hexafluoride from PRC etc. In other cases,there should have been two kinds of funds involved in these deals, one to the coffers of the government of Pakistan and the other to the corrupt scientists, Generals and political leaders. When asked about AQK profiting enormously from the deals, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg explained it away as mere ‘gold dust’ and ‘not gold’ itself and was ‘fringe benefit’. He did not see any illegality in this and displayed the characteristic 'entitlement syndrome' of the PA officers. Gen. Beg forcefully recommended selling nuclear technology to Iran and therefore some 'gold dust' also stuck to his clothes.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

X-post from TSP thread
Prem wrote:http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ap ... 14172.html
New signs of Syria-Pakistan nuke tie
Not surprising. In c. 2004, reports appeared of Khan and some associates having visited Syria in the late 1990s and later having held clandestine meetings with Syrian nuclear officials in Iran. Later it was also claimed that there was evidence that the Khan network sold and delivered components for an unspecified number of Pakistani-designed P1 centrifuges to Syria. In c. 2006, an annual report to the US Congress on arms proliferation, known as the 721 Report, stated that Pakistani investigators have confirmed reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Khan network “offered nuclear technology and hardware to Syria.” .Then, there is a 2007 interview by Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad to the Austrian daily Die Presse where he said that in c. 2001, ". . . someone brought us a letter from a certain Khan. We did not know if the letter was genuine or a forgery by Israel to lure us into a trap. In any case, we rejected (the approach). We were not interested in having nuclear weapons or a nuclear reactor. We never met Khan" (which should be taken with a lot of salt).
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

X Posted from the TSP thread.
jrjrao wrote:A very long, very engaging read. Has details about what the US has planned, apparently, to denuke Terroristan.

The Ally From Hell
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG and MARC AMBINDER
The Atlantic, latest issue
Excerpt:
instead of moving nuclear material in armored, well-defended convoys, the [Pakistani government] prefers to move material by subterfuge, in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic…according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, the Pakistanis have begun using this low-security method to transfer not merely the “de-mated” component nuclear parts but “mated” nuclear weapons. Western nuclear experts have feared that Pakistan is building small, “tactical” nuclear weapons for quick deployment on the battlefield. In fact, not only is Pakistan building these devices, it is also now moving them over roads.

What this means, in essence, is this: In a country that is home to the harshest variants of Muslim fundamentalism, and to the headquarters of the organizations that espouse these extremist ideologies…nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities are transported in delivery vans on congested and dangerous roads. And Pakistani and American sources say that since the raid on Abbottabad, the Pakistanis have provoked anxiety inside the Pentagon by increasing the pace of these movements. In other words, the Pakistani government is willing to make its nuclear weapons more vulnerable to theft by jihadists simply to hide them from the United States, the country that funds much of its military budget.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

X Posted from the TSP thread.

Proliferation attempt by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan blocked by Australia:
Powers enforced to deal with insecure Pakistan

by: Sean Parnell
From:The Australian
November 14, 201112:00AM

DEFENCE Minister Stephen Smith has blocked another shipment to Pakistan, in a sign Australia's intelligence analysts regard the country as an increasing threat to global security.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act gives Mr Smith the power to block exports not prohibited under any trade laws or sanctions if there are concerns the goods will be misused.

The powers were used only twice in their first decade of operation, but have been used every few months since late 2009. They were first used to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions before tougher trade sanctions came into force and now, it appears, as a means of dealing with Pakistan's lingering domestic security issues.

Mr Smith blocked a shipment of industrial equipment to Pakistan earlier this year and three weeks ago blocked a shipment of scientific equipment. Another shipment of scientific equipment from a different company was also blocked last year. ……………………………..

The Australian
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by Gerard »

Report: 3 Swiss to avoid trial in nuclear case
The Federal Prosecutors Office in Bern was quoted as saying it plans to use a shortened procedure to require a penalty but no trial if the nation’s top criminal court doesn’t object and the men plead guilty, the Zurich weekly newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

^Massive effort by the US & Swiss authorities to ensure their sordid saga in equipping Pakistan with nuclear weapons is not spilled in the open.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by ramana »

Lots of ref material ON TSP proliferation in this site:

http://www.pogo.org/investigations/gove ... arlow.html
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

Gerard wrote:Report: 3 Swiss to avoid trial in nuclear case
The Federal Prosecutors Office in Bern was quoted as saying it plans to use a shortened procedure to require a penalty but no trial if the nation’s top criminal court doesn’t object and the men plead guilty, the Zurich weekly newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported.

SSridhar wrote:^Massive effort by the US & Swiss authorities to ensure their sordid saga in equipping Pakistan with nuclear weapons is not spilled in the open.
“Swiss authorities announced a decision to enter into a plea bargain with the notorious Tinner family members, who have been in jail over nuclear smuggling charges in the illicit network of disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan …………………..”:

Switzerland may free nuclear smugglers
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

Plea bargain is the notorious escape routes for the likes of Tinners, DCH . . .
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

Claim that A.Q. Khan proliferated centrifuge technology to India:

AQ Khan gave nuclear tech to India: US arms expert

The referenced article by Joshua Pollack in Playboy of all places:

The Secret Treachery of A.Q.Khan
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by Hiten »

if anybody is attending this talk, do post your impressions & gist of the talk

The A.Q. Khan Network and its Fourth Customer

http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/01/23 ... tomer/8vsx


Stop Enabling Pakistan's Dangerous Dysfunction
As the United States begins to look to the end of its heavy fighting role in Afghanistan, it needs to confront the more important question of Pakistan’s future. The United States has been a major player there for sixty years; if Pakistan is dangerously dysfunctional, Washington helped enable it to get this way. Because withdrawal from Afghanistan means that the United States will be less dependent on Pakistani supply lines into that country, this is a rare opportunity to reconsider and dramatically revise American policies and practices in this strategically important country of almost 200 million.

The United States has frequently cited its interests in Pakistan: securing Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal; preventing war between it and India; counterterrorism; inducing Pakistan’s cooperation in stabilizing Afghanistan; and fostering development and democratization in what will soon be the world’s most populous Muslim-majority state. But overwhelmingly, these interests all boil down to one: the security of Pakistanis. If Pakistanis are more justly governed, more educated, more employed, and therefore more able to define and pursue a constructive national identity and interest, they will expunge terrorists to secure themselves. The United States will be better off as a result. Getting from here to there may be impossible, but it certainly will not happen if the United States continues to treat Pakistan as it has until now: as the means to pursue U.S. security interests outside the country.

For decades that posture has had the unintended but undeniable effect of empowering Pakistan’s grossly oversized and hyperactive military and intelligence services at the expense of the country’s civil society and progress toward effective governance. Washington’s collusion with the Pakistani security establishment has amounted to enablement—the indulgence and augmentation of a friend’s self-destructive outlook and actions. To stop doing harm, the United States would first have to give up the illusion that it can change the Pakistani military’s mindset, and stop offering money to do so. It would have to pause and then redesign a large aid program so hamstrung by anti-corruption and security measures that it antagonizes recipients and seems designed to fail. It would mean removing barriers to Pakistani imports into the United States, and, not least, undertaking determined efforts to correct the impression that Pakistani interests and lives mean less to the United States than Indian interests and lives.
But then again, the end beneficiaries would again be pak-mil, the biggest business house that they have set up. In your bid to do different, you'll end up doing more of the same
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by ramana »

I would like any references to TSP proliferation to KSA.

KSA bought missiles from PRC in mid 80s. The payloads were not flowers or blessings aka duas.

These missiles were repalced after end of life in the late 90s-2000 decade.

The only source could be TSP as they got the CHIC 4 design from PRC. And AQK was passing the design around with his laundry bags to all and sundry.


Rangudu et al can you dig up any concrete details?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by gakakkad »

http://www.asianage.com/international/i ... -study-033


India-Pak nuclear clash may trigger global starvation: Study
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by Amber G. »

Reagan era envoy found Pakistan 'lied' on nukes
Memos that are scheduled to be released on Thursday reveal that Pakistan was lying about its nuclear program in the 1980s, and was in fact seeking nuclear weapons. The US halted assistance to Pakistan in 1990 after concluding that the country was developing nuclear weapons.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

From the above,
The emissary, veteran US diplomat and translator Vernon Walters, said that Zia was "extraordinarily courteous, relaxed" and explained that he had no knowledge of nuclear weapons development but would check with his subordinates.

"Either he really does not know or is the most superb and patriotic liar I have ever met," Walters wrote to the State Department.
All for a good Muslim cause, which Islam allows as Zia would later explain in another context to the Americans.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

In an interview to Jang / The News, Abdul Qadeer Khan admits that that he proliferated nuclear weapon related technology on the instruction of the then Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto:
“At least 800 people are used to supervise the process. The-then prime minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto summoned me and named the two countries which were to be assisted and issued clear directions in this regard,” Khan said.

“I was not independent but was bound to abide by the orders of the prime minister, hence I did take this step in compliance with her order. The prime minister would have certainly known about the role and cooperation of the two countries, mentioned by her, in our national interest,” he explained.
Read it all:

I transferred N-technology to two countries on Benazir’s orders: AQ Khan
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by Gagan »

Pakistan's Nuclear / Missile Storage Site Hyderabad
This site is one of the oldest that Pakistan has built with Chinese help.
The garrison is located within a large compound next to the Cadet Training College at Petaro, north-west of Hyderabad.
Image
*Right click on the images and open in a new tab for larger images*
Pakistan stores its Missiles along with the TELARs in these Underground bunkers. These can be literally driven out and be fired.
Image
Historical image of the same site as the one above. This shows the underground bunkers under construction. The underground garages are 8-9 m wide and 25-28 m long and can fit one TELAR with its missile
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There appears to be a heavy level of protection along with very thick concrete and blast proof doors.
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Similar underground bunkers are seen at Khuzdar.
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Other Tunnels being built in the vicinity of Khuzdar.
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Weather these are for mining or for storage of missiles / nuclear related material is unknown.

Babur missile test launch site in Sonmiani

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PINSTECH, Nilore
PINSTECH is located nust north-east of Rawalpindi, and is the site of Pakistan's nuclear test reactors, and a plutonium reprocessing plant.
There are 4 reactors as follows:

PARR-I Reactor-Utilize Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU)
PARR-II Reactor-Utilize High-Enriched Uranium (HEU)
PARR-III Reactor-Utilize the Plutonium reprocessing (PR).
Charged Particle Accelerator- a nuclear particle accelerator.

This is the newly built third plutonium reprocessing reactor.
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Pakistan is enlarging its plutonium based nuclear infrastructure very rapidly. It has more than doubled the new labs reprocessing plant. There are going to be 4 plutonium producing reactors at Khusab in total.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

X-post from TSP thread
Nuke Dimension to Pakistan Policies - G.Parthasarathy, BusinessLine
Excerpts
Pakistan today has the fastest growing nuclear weapons programme in the world, and the third largest nuclear arsenal.

It is not, however, any Pakistani General who has displayed the ability to explain why and how all this is happening. This responsibility has been left to Pakistan’s most savvy and hardnosed lady journalist turned diplomat, Maleeha Lodi, known for her close links with the Pakistan military establishment.

Drawing attention to why Pakistan is rejecting international calls for concluding a “Fissile Material Cut off Treaty” (FMCT), she avers that Pakistan has been concerned by India’s conventional and strategic military build-up.

Predictably, she refers to the India-US Nuclear Deal and the subsequent waiver of sanctions by the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group on India, as contributing to Pakistan’s accelerated development of nuclear weapons.

In the course of her rationalisation of Pakistan’s feverish quest for new nuclear weapons, Maleeha Lodi explains that after having recently acquired plutonium capabilities, Pakistan can now miniaturise its nuclear weapons, which was not possible earlier, with heavier enriched uranium warheads.

Over the past one-and-a-half decades, China has obligingly provided Pakistan with unsafeguarded plutonium reactors and reprocessing facilities. She avers that Pakistan is committed to developing a “full spectrum deterrence”, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

India’s forbearance

India’s nuclear doctrine makes it clear that while India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, it will respond with nuclear weapons if there is a nuclear attack on “Indian territory, or on Indian forces anywhere”. Pakistani military officials evidently believe that India would not resort to the use of nuclear weapons if its forces are attacked with tactical nuclear weapons.

George Perkovich, an American non-proliferation analyst, recently noted: “Thus far the people of South Asia have been spared the potential consequences of deterrence instability because Indian leaders have not retaliated violently to terrorist attacks on iconic targets. India’s “neo-Gandhian” forbearance was counter to the prescriptions of deterrence and cannot be expected to persist as new leaders emerge in Delhi”.

While Pakistan has not formally enunciated a nuclear doctrine, the long-time head of the Strategic Planning Division of its Nuclear Command Authority, Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai, told a team of physicists from Italy’s Landau Network in 2002 that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were “aimed solely at India”.

Kidwai added that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if India conquers a large part of Pakistan’s territory, or destroys a large part of Pakistan’s land and air forces. Kidwai also held out the possibility of use of nuclear weapons if India tries to “economically strangle” Pakistan, or pushes it to political destabilisation.

This elucidation, by the man who has been the de facto custodian of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal for over a decade and a POW in India in 1971-73, was a precise formulation of Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds. Since India has no intention of wasting resources in a prolonged conflict with Pakistan or by seizing its populated centres, Pakistan should be left in no doubt that even a “neo-Gandhian” Indian leadership would not sit by idly, in the event of a repeat of the 26/11 style terrorist attack.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by Vayutuvan »

Nightwatch from last week on A. Q. Khan. He is standing for elections in Pakistan. As expected a lot of breast-beating about his being anti-US etc. and clearly bringing out the lack of US leverage on Pakistan.
NightWatch For the night of 28 November 2012 wrote: Pakistan: The father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has registered a new political party to contest for the first time general elections expected next year. Pakistanis regard Khan as a hero for building the Muslim world's first atomic bomb.

Comment: Khan is a front-runner for the most anti-US scientist since World War II. He sold or traded his nuclear secrets only to countries that were enemies of the US during the time he was active.

He was not a renegade or a nationalist, as the international press suggests and many senior analysts argued. He was an agent of the Pakistan government in spreading nuclear weapons technology and science to North Korea and Libya and possibly other states hostile to the United States.

Although he is eligible for investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, in Pakistan, eventually he could become president or at least a member of the National Assembly. His defiance of the US and UN resolutions against nuclear weapons proliferation has made him popular in Pakistan.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by Prem »

Chinese State Firm Pleads Guilty In U.S. Over Pakistan Nuclear Exports
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014325236
A Chinese state-owned company has pleaded guilty in the United States and been fined $3 million for conspiring to violate U.S. nuclear export restrictions on Pakistan.
The China Nuclear Industry Huaxing Construction company was charged with supplying U.S.-manufactured high-temperature coatings to a Pakistani nuclear power plant, using a distributor in China to evade U.S. regulations. The firm pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington on December 3. U.S. authorities have imposed a $2 million criminal fine on the company.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

Israeli mole in US stole info on Pakistan Nuclear Facilities - Nirupama Subramanian, The Hindu
Well before the 1998 Chaghai tests, the Pakistani lab, which produced the plutonium for its nuclear weapons, was one of the targets of an Israeli espionage effort that led to the arrest and conviction of Jonathan Pollard.

Along with the thousands of documents he passed on to his handlers, Pollard, who was Israel’s mole in the U.S. Navy’s Anti-Terrorist Alert between 1984 and 1985 also gave them information about Pakistan’s plutonium reprocessing facility near Islamabad.

This new detail is contained in The Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case: A Damage Assessment, October 30, 1987 prepared by the CIA, and declassified for the second time on December 13.

A heavily redacted version of the report was first declassified in 2006. The latest version fills some of the blanks and was released as a result of appeals by the National Security Archive, a non-profit organisation working to reduce secrecy in U.S. government.

It is available at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/%20NSAEBB/%20NSAEBB407/

Pollard, who — according to a testimony by then Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger — delivered to the Israelis documents that could fill a 6’x6’x10’ space, was detected and arrested in the U.S. in 1985, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The assessment report contains a confession by Pollard and reveals new details on the subjects on which he was asked by his Israeli handlers to provide intelligence, “in descending order of priority”:

“Arab (and Pakistani) nuclear intelligence; Arab exotic weaponry, including chemical and weapons; Soviet aircraft; Soviet air defenses; Soviet air-to-air missiles and air-to-surface missiles; and Arab order-of-battle, deployments, readiness.”

In the 17 months that Pollard worked for Israel, he was initially paid $ 1,500 a month; the amount was later increased to $ 2,500.

In a still heavily whited-out section titled “Implications of Compromises —What Israel Gained from Pollard’s Espionage,” the document reveals on Page 58 that “Pollard’s stolen material, from the Israeli perspective, provided significant benefits [redacted] …. Page 59, [redacted] Pollard’s deliveries concerning PLO headquarters near Tunis, Tunisian and Libyan air defenses, and Pakistan’s plutonium reprocessing facility near Islamabad.”

It is known that Israel used the information provided by Pollard for its October 1985 attack on the PLO headquarters in Tunis.

The reference to Pakistan is most likely about the Pakistan Institute of Science & Technology’s New Labs near Rawalpindi, where there has been a plutonium reprocessing facility since the 1980s. In 2009, New Labs was in the news again when a U.S think tank, using satellite imagery, said it had added another plutonium separation plant at the same site.
So, the US has ensured that portions regarding the Pakistanis are still under wraps.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by SSridhar »

Is TSP buying US Nuclear Components from China ? - Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu
When a country is expanding its nuclear arsenal as fast as Pakistan is, neither matters of legality in the procurement process for nuclear components nor geopolitical complexities are likely to hinder weapons development.

This may well be the conclusion reached in the stunning case of Qiang Hu, a Chinese national who was formally charged by the state prosecutor in Massachusetts on one count of “conspiracy for violating U.S. export controls by allegedly selling thousands of pressure transducers to unnamed customers through his position of sales manager at MKS Instruments Shanghai Ltd. in China.”

Among the list of nations that use pressure transducers to measure the gas pressure inside centrifuge cascades in nuclear plants is Pakistan. Others allegedly include Iran and possibly North Korea but Pakistan, according to experts at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security is among those nations that “use a considerable quantity of the equipment in their centrifuge plants and have regularly sought them through surreptitious means as used in this alleged scheme.”

That Islamabad was a likely final customer of Hu’s deceptions cannot be ruled out. According to a report published by ISIS on this case “Hu and his co-conspirators allegedly arranged their unlawful export to unauthorised Chinese end-users or to other, unnamed country end-users.”

The report’s authors, David Albright and Andrea Stricker, said to The Hindu that while recent case studies or evidence of Pakistani procurements of pressure transducers may not be available, Pakistan “are likely procuring them, assuming they don't have enough in their centrifuge plants or haven't made them themselves.”

With the general assumption here that illicit procurement of components is quite a common practice experts are now urging that the U.S. ought to designate China a “Destination of Diversion Concern,” an action that would then require companies there to apply for special licenses to import controlled or sensitive U.S. goods on account of the high risk that they may be diverted to rogue nuclear powers.

Nuclear screws may indeed be tightened on China in the second Obama term as the Hu case also suggested acute embarrassment on the part of U.S. law enforcement agencies. The Federal Bureau Investigation’s complaint in the matter, for example, cited “deception” that Hu and his co-conspirators resorted to, in order to procure export licenses.

The complaint argues that they used two primary means of deception to export the pressure transducers. First, “the conspirators used licenses issued to legitimate MKS business customers to export the pressure transducers to China and then caused the parts to be delivered to other end-users who were not themselves named on the export licenses or authorized to receive the parts,” the FBI said, adding that the conspirators then “obtained export licenses in the name of a front company and then used these fraudulently obtained licenses to export the parts to China, where they were delivered to the actual end-users.”

However MKS Instruments itself was not a target of the government’s investigation into these matters, the FBI noted, adding that Hu remained in custody faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, to be followed by up to three years of supervised release, and a $1 million fine.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by ramana »

The real question should be how did PRC get US nuke components!

Sort of confirms that they got enabled with CHIC-4.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by shiv »

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/u- ... 324678.ece
U. S. nuclear component may have reached Pak via China
Narayan Lakshman
Among the list of nations that use pressure transducers to measure the gas pressure inside centrifuge cascades in nuclear plants is Pakistan. The list reportedly includes Iran and possibly North Korea, but Pakistan, according to experts at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, is among those nations that “use a considerable quantity of the equipment in their centrifuge plants and have regularly sought them through surreptitious means as used in this alleged scheme.”

That Islamabad was a likely final customer of Mr. Hu’s deceptions cannot be ruled out. According to a report published by ISIS on this case, “Hu and his co-conspirators allegedly arranged their unlawful export to unauthorised Chinese end-users or to other, unnamed country end-users”.

The report’s authors, David Albright and Andrea Stricker, told The Hindu that while recent case studies or evidence of Pakistani procurements of pressure transducers may not be available, Pakistan is “likely procuring them, assuming they don’t have enough in their centrifuge plants or haven’t made them themselves.”
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by ramana »

The PRC ha AQK centrifuges transferred to them. The pzr transducers are from US to equip the CHinese gas centrifuges and the TSP centrifuges.

The original export tp PRC shows Dupliceety's hand in enabling proliferation.

Chindu as usual covers up US hand by quoting the usual NPAs!
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation

Post by arun »

The world reaps the fruits of yet another dubious “export” by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Article in the UK’s Telegraph following nuclear weapon test carried out by North Korea traces the roots of the North Korean weapon to the nuclear weapon related proliferation carried out by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan:

AQ Khan, the godfather of North Korea's bomb
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