Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

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Tim
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Tim »

Shiv,

I wouldn't go so far as to claim that only the US broke the story - but IIRC the North Korean HEU plant broke in the American press in the summer or fall of 2002, and the reports stated that US intelligence had picked up on the new project in roughly November 2001. Some of those reports (again, my recollection may be faulty) stated that the initial reports had come from Pakistan. According to recent reports, Powell raised the HEU/AQ Khan issue with Musharraf in June 2002, and the US raised the North Korean HEU program with the DPRK in October 2002 when Kelly visited Pyongyang.

I always thought the fact that it took a year to confront North Korea was evidence of a) total confusion on North Korea policy within the administration (which I still think is accurate) and b) something to do with the Pakistan connection (which is obviously even more important than I thought at the time the reports came out).

Anyone who's interested in a detailed but now slightly dated account of the NOrth Korea crisis through early 2003 can find it in Naval War College Review - the article was by Jonathan Pollack, and it came out last year. He didn't really focus on the Pakistan connection, but it is a good timeline of US policy initiatives to North Korea on the HEU issue (and a fairly damning portrayal of administration policy or lack thereof).

Tim
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by putnanja »

Originally posted by TSJones:
Shiv:

Those "news items" are not vetted and are of doubtful provenance.
so they were only rumors till US confirmed it? And only US has an intelligence agency worth its salt? Of course, it is easy to forget that there are other countries who are watching the paki activities like a hawk, and didn't need 9/11 to wake up and smell the coffee!!
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by TSJones »


? Of course, it is easy to forget that there are other countries who are watching the paki activities like a hawk, and didn't need 9/11 to wake up and smell the coffee!!


Well then, they should've broke the story like the US did. Am I the only sub-genius here?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by putnanja »

Originally posted by TSJones:

? Of course, it is easy to forget that there are other countries who are watching the paki activities like a hawk, and didn't need 9/11 to wake up and smell the coffee!!


Well then, they should've broke the story like the US did. Am I the only sub-genius here?
As per your own statement "Those "news items" are not vetted and are of doubtful provenance." . US vetts it only when it wants to!! Just look at the Chinese proliferation incident for examples!! US still officially denies that any proliferation took place. Of course, if tomorrow relations with China was to sour suddenly, you can expect US to "be the first to break news of chinese proliferation"!!!
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rye »

If a tree falls in a forest and no sub-genius is around, did the tree still fall, even if non sub geniuses knew all about it?? Apparently not.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by TSJones »

If everybody is on the train when it leaves the station to point A, and all the genius test takers are just getting to the train station from point B, who got left behind?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by James Bund »

Philosophy?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

Ah So! The Intelligence of Intelligence Agencies is measured in "Who Broke The Story First?"

One learns something new every day from sub-geniuses.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by John_Doe »

Folks,

Please remember the only the USA publishes truth and only truth. USA media never misses anything in the world and always tells the truth. Look at all the WMDs that the Iraqis were fuelling up and ready to launch at the West. Thank God they got invaded and the WMDs captured before those Iraqis could use them on us. Just remember US media is great and rest of the world's media knows nothing. If you need further proof about US media, see if you can catch yesterday's Dateline NBC's on a rerun over the weekend.

Also USA's intelligence agencies are omnipotent. Look at how they got inside info from India's nuclear tests (which didn't heppen till WSJ and LA Times reported it). CIA must also get credit for locating those stocks of WMDs in Iraq and preventing 911 in the first place. US intelligence is so great!

So lets just worship TSJ's words of wisdom and Tim's gems of truth. After all they are Americans and American's know everthing about everything. We Indians know nothing about anything and our intelligence is non-existant. So don't worry, have a curry and listen to our American friends - they have India's best interest at heart
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by TSJones:
If everybody is on the train when it leaves the station to point A, and all the genius test takers are just getting to the train station from point B, who got left behind?
too many unknowns ... is the goal to reach point A, point B, or the train station?

Confucious say true genius don't jump on trains unless he know where the tree gonna fall.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Sunil »

Shiv,

The new world order thread spoke about the emergence of many new nuclear powers at least some of whom had been fathered by Mr. Yenpeetee himself - this is something Mr. Yenpeetee wanted to hide and so there was good reason for Mr. Yenpeetee to feel really concerned.

I am more concerned about the flux that will have to occur before the `new world order' takes shape. A very plausible consequence at this time may be that every country on the earth could be the target of a Pakistani Jihadi Delivered Atomic Munition. This could be irrespective of whether it actually has (or does not have) any problems with Pakistan.

Right now the Pakistani elite are under the impression that they have a `get out of jail free' card on nuclear issues from the US. A trade-off is being made:

"Give the US bin laden and you can keep playing with your nukes."

The people at the State Dept live under the impression that somehow the threat of `asking the Pakistanis for bin laden' is going to cause sufficient discomfort to the Pakistanis that they will be deterred from doing nasty things like proliferating nukes.

Most of the state dept. people seem to have failed to grasp that the Pakistanis actually *like* taking it up the a**. Any amount of harassment that the Pakistanis encounter on account of the US `asking for Bin Laden', is going to be given right back to the US via the `save Musharraf' line. The more the US asks of Pakistan - the more it will have to invest in keeping Musharraf alive and all the while the Pakistanis are selling nukes all over the place.
What is worse is that if a jihadi detonates a nuke somewhere the Americans will be the ones bending over to save Pakistan's a*se.

For Indians esp. after Parakram and the BBC Wargame, this is not terribly surprising. Heck we Indians are used to the notion that the US will step in on the side of Pakistan in a conflict with India - even if it is a nuclear conflict - but is the rest of the world?

TSJ,

The words that are currently running through my mind are

"... consistently failed to accurately estimate and relay the threat posed by Pakistan in every field and thus gravely compromised national security."

Guess whose epitaph that is going to go on.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

epitaph too long. How about:

"Hanged for gross dereliction of duty in ignoring and then lying about the real threats to the United States".
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rudra »

the dog n pony show drags on

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4467755/
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

Pakistan Army doing what they do best (from article posted above)
..in Waziristan, Pakistani security forces arrested several women married to foreign fighters, hoping for a lead on bin Laden. Similarly, they have destroyed the houses of tribesmen ...
:roll:
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by jarugn »

PAKISTAN KNEW - UN

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040307/D815MI0O0.html

AP: Pakistan Knew of Nuclear Black Market

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - U.N. investigators are increasingly certain Pakistan government leaders knew the country's top atomic scientist was supplying other nations with nuclear technology and designs, particularly North Korea, diplomats told The Associated Press.

While rogue nations were the main customers of the nuclear black market, sales of enriched uranium and warhead drawings have fed international fears that terrorists also could have bought weapons technology or material, the diplomats said.

The investigation has widened beyond Iran, Libya and North Korea - the identified customers of the network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan - they said, speaking on condition of anonymity in a series of interviews.

The diplomats' assessment comes about half way through the probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency and western intelligence services into the Khan network, whose tentacles extended from Pakistan to Dubai, Malaysia, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands and beyond with potential ties to Syria, Turkey and Spain.

Investigators told AP they expect to complete the probe by June, eight months after U.S. officials confronted the Pakistani government with suspicions about Khan, setting into motion events that led the father of Islamabad's nuclear program to confess last month.

Despite denials by the Pakistani government, investigators now are certain that some, if not all, of the country's decision makers were aware of Khan's dealings, especially with North Korea, which apparently helped Islamabad build missiles in exchange for aid with its nuclear arms program, said one diplomat.

"In all cases except Pakistan, we are sure there was no government involvement," he said. "In Pakistan, it's hard to believe all this happened under their noses and nobody knew about it."

The diplomats didn't say which parts of the Pakistani government might have known of Khan's black market activity - military, political or both.

Andrew Koch, of Jane's Defense Weekly, said he ran into evidence that senior military officers knew of Khan's sideline four years ago when he attended a military technology exhibition in Karachi. There, the booth of A.Q. Khan's Research Laboratories, complete with pamphlets offering uranium enrichment equipment, shared space with displays of electronics, anti-tank missiles and other items sold by the government defense industry, he said.

"I picked up the (Khan) brochures and I inquired whether everything inside was for sale and was told, 'yes, of course, it all had government approval and was available for sale and export,'" he said from Washington.

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has insisted his government was not involved.

"The Pakistani government has never and will never proliferate," he told a meeting of world leaders in January in Davos, Switzerland, pledging to prosecute all "anti-state" elements found culpable.

But his pardon of Khan led to speculation the scientist agreed to keep silent on any government involvement in exchange for avoiding punishment.

Much of what was sold were expensive and high-tech uranium enrichment centrifuge components to Libya - which has confessed to trying to build weapons of mass destruction - and Iran, which denies such ambitions and says its enrichment plans are not for warheads but nuclear power.

Such equipment would be useless to terrorists lacking the space and expertise needed to set up thousands of centrifuges in series and repeatedly recycle isotopes until they were weapons grade. The tens of millions of dollars needed to buy the equipment might also be a deterrent.

But the diplomats identified two recent discoveries - traces of highly enriched uranium apparently of Russian origin found in Iran, and drawings of a nuclear warhead surrendered by Libya - as representing a potential fast track for terrorists looking to build a weapon.

The uranium apparently was sold by individuals in the black market and not by the Russian government and carried a signature typical of enrichment in the former Soviet Union, the diplomats said. While short of the 90 percent weapons level, it was enriched enough to make it suitable for a warhead with much less equipment and effort than needed to enrich natural uranium.

"We're talking a couple of dozen centrifuges, as compared to about 1,000," said one diplomat.

The engineers' drawings of a nuclear weapon, now under IAEA seal in the United States, were of Chinese origin. The texts accompanying them were in both Chinese and English, some handwritten. China is widely assumed to have supplied much of the clandestine nuclear technology that Khan used to establish Pakistan as a nuclear power in 1998.

With such high-tech drawings and about 50 pounds of highly enriched uranium, nuclear experts associated with terrorist groups could make a crude warhead, said one diplomat.

"The simplest way to go about it is to get ready-made nuclear material and weapons design, and - from what's been found in Iran and Libya - both seem to be available on the market," said another.

Investigators cannot say whether other countries - or groups - have the drawings.

Al-Qaida has shown an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

The U.S. federal indictment of Osama bin Laden charges that as far back as 1992 the al-Qaida leader "and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons."

Bin Laden, in a November 2001 interview with a Pakistani journalist, boasted of having hidden such components "as a deterrent." And in 1998, a Russian nuclear weapons design expert was investigated for allegedly working with the Taliban allies of bin Laden.

Another question is whether the Khan network supplied states other than Iran, Libya and North Korea. Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman of the Vienna-based IAEA, said answering that was the agency's "No. 1 priority."

A possible suspect is Syria, which denies nuclear weapons ambitions. U.S. officials are divided on whether Syria constitutes a nuclear threat, with Undersecretary of State John Bolton at odds with senior intelligence officials who insist there's no clear evidence implicating the country, diplomats told AP.

Several teams of Syrian experts spent time at Ranstad Mineral, a Swedish plant that extracted uranium for enrichment between 1997 and 2002. The IAEA confirmed sponsoring some visits, as part of Syria's small-scale peaceful nuclear program. But Bengt Lillja, owner of the plant, said the Syrians paid several visits later on their own - and still later, Sweden's nuclear watchdog agency ordered the plant shut down because of unspecified irregularities in the extraction process.

Experts suspect more covert manufacturing operations will be discovered beyond the centrifuge parts plants identified in Malaysia.

A factory in Turkey is being scrutinized, one diplomat familiar with the investigation said, but declined to go into details beyond suggesting the plant might also be making missile components.

David Albright, a former Iraq nuclear weapons inspector who runs the Institute for Science and International Security, also pointed to Turkey, saying, "We know some components (to Libya) came out of there."

A diplomat said a company in Spain also was under investigation.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by James Bund »

It might be easier for the IAEA to list countries that weren't ivolved.

This story is just developing lads. But no one has an axe large enough to grind to let out WHY DID THE US NOT DO ANYTHING WHEN THEY KNEW?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by TSJones »


This story is just developing lads. But no one has an axe large enough to grind to let out WHY DID THE US NOT DO ANYTHING WHEN THEY KNEW?


I don't know, why doesn't India do anything when it knows? You are talking governments here. They have their own priorities and resources that they must manage. Everything in life isn't a conspiracy. Sh*t happens. Things change. There are periods of incompetance and then periods of focused attention. According you guys, either we are the most incompetent nation in the world are we are in control of everything. Which is it? Name your conspiracy.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by kgoan »

>>either we are the most incompetent nation in the world (or) we are in control of everything. Which is it?

Both. Which is what scares the spit outta us.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rangudu »

Guys,

Below is my article on TSP's nuke proliferation and the role of the foggies in covering it up.

Sleeping with the Nuclear Snake
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Sunder »

Originally posted by TSJones:

I don't know, why doesn't India do anything when it knows? You are talking governments here. They have their own priorities and resources that they must manage. Everything in life isn't a conspiracy. Sh*t happens. Things change. There are periods of incompetance and then periods of focused attention. According you guys, either we are the most incompetent nation in the world are we are in control of everything. Which is it? Name your conspiracy.
While you are quite correct in stating that every country - US inclusive - acts only in it's own interests, we have a bigger picture here in the name of 'War on terror' that started atleast with a consensus with a multi-national coalition.

When the US (with the blessings and support) of other countries spearheaded Operation Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom, it was an unwritten assumtion that ANY and ALL cause of terrorism would be taken into consideration and dealt with effectively.

The question here is not about control or incompetence, but of credibility in the long run for the US. If there is double-standards shown when dealing with Iraq (where the dictator had the capability to have intentions to make WMD), and with Pakistan (where more-than-compelling evidence shows that the Nuclear transfers were not unknown to the army.) the US chooses to ignore it in the face of media speculations.

It's not just for India to choose between control or incompetence, but for the US citizens and the rest of the world too to wait and watch where and how the game ends. If it does.

US has no good reason to display dubious standards and YET profess it's in control of the war on terror. It's perhaps time for the US to pick a stance.. Dubious, or Just.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by AJay »

Originally posted by Rangudu:
Sleeping with the Nuclear Snake
A nice and concise article. Congrats and keep up the good work.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by Sunder:

US has no good reason to display dubious standards and YET profess it's in control of the war on terror. It's perhaps time for the US to pick a stance.. Dubious, or Just.
I see every reason for the US to employ dubious standards, especially when dealing with dubious allies such as Pakistan. One size doesn't fit all and standards have to change dynamically. The real question is why nations around the world are silent? weakness or dependency on US trade?

Regarding the business of "professing that it's in control of WoT", no politician will ever claim otherwise ...

on another note, scanning some of the posts here, I get the impression that some folks may be wishing for a JDAM to go boom, just so they can say "told ya so" :eek:
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

Maybe its time for the Imperial Court of Dubyastan to declare its own position:
Are Bush and his State Department With US or Against US?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Vivek_A »

Fox news is reporting that IAEA officials are pretty sure that the TSP government knew about Xerox Khan proliferation technology.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

Interesting thing about that report is that they take pains to exonerate "all other nations" from where proliferation occurred, saying that in each of those cases, the government was NOT aware.

BUT.. for TSP, special treatment. :D

So who are these "other countries", etc.?

Also, if the IAEA is going to nail TSP government, does that mean that Osama has been captured?

My guess is that this is the latest spin, as in:

"yes, yes, Pakistan government knew about it. It was all Nawaz Sharif's fault. When the Frontlyin' Al-Lie came to know about it, he was shocked, shocked!!! at the corruption, so he took over the government" (.. to get his fair share..)

So lets not fall overboard, endorsing the IAEA. They are no less crooked than Tubelightabad.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

Request to experts here:

Circa 1999 (or maybe 1998) there was an article in India Today or Frontline or Outlook where Pakistani Generals were discussed.

Gen. Satish Nambiar was quoted there as describing Mush and other Pakgenerals based on his experience of being classmates with them in some course in Australia.

I remember that the thrust of the article was how Mush etc. are the "new generation" of Pakis - unfettered by the British (Sandhurst) "traditions", and with no love for the Americans either.

Can anyone pls find that article? Need it of course in a good and noble and entirely altruistic cause. :D
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rye »

Originally posted by narayanan:
So lets not fall overboard, endorsing the IAEA. They are no less crooked than Tubelightabad.
Amen to that.

This is like a age old hustle in Bus Stands in India for a long time, and it goes like this.

Crook 1 tries to pick victim's pocket and messes up, and normally crook 2 would not have much to do, but crook 1 is spotted and and angry crowd wants a piece of crook 1. Crook 2 and crook 3 enter in and severly abuse crook 1, and assure the rest of the crowd that crook 1 will meet his fate in the hands of the justice system and sock him a couple more. After assuring the crowd that crook 1 will meet his fate, they haul him into an auto rickshaw on to the "police station".
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by shiv »

Originally posted by Mani T.:
I get the impression that some folks may be wishing for a JDAM to go boom, just so they can say "told ya so" :eek:
With the prospect of a real JDAM going off being so serious, I just wonder if everything is being done to make sure that these people's wishes (if indeed that is their wish) do not come true.

I keep getting the mental picture of a patient in a hospital bed saying, "Doctor please help. Blood is flowing out of my veins into the intravenous fluid tubing rather than the other way round. Urine is flowing back from the drainage bag into my body"

But the doctor says "Hmmm .. I'm not worried about all that. Just look at those fingernails. Nurse - please have those fingernails trimmed. And Oh my - these sheets - are they crumpled. Please change them" etc.

For DECADES nuclear technology has been leaking and everyone has known about it. Sometimes I wonder why the heck the US has suddenly decided to bring the subject out into the open after decades of ignoring it.

What has changed now? Is there credible evidence suddenly available that a JDAM is closer to reality than 1999 or 2000 - years in which all this proliferation activity was well known.

If a JDAM had occured in the US in 1999 or 2000 Intel agencies in India would have said "I told ya so" - but the US public would have fried the US intel agencies balls for their failure. If a JDAM occurs now the ONLY difference will be that the US intel agencies will get away saying that they have done their duty - and that they are so sorry.about the devastation. In 2004 as opposed to 1999 - the a$ses of the US intel agencies will be covered if a JDAM does occur.

Just look at 9-11 itself. The US went about life totally detatched from reality. When box cutters and stuff could never ever have got into airliners in India or Israel or a whole lot of other nations - the US was totally blind. US intel agencies never warned their people or their airlines.

There are a LOT of things that happen in Pakistan that India would be able to tell the US about - but the US chooses to go its own way. Well that is fine. Even in the absence of a JDAM the US is paying a price that it need not pay.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

Rye, :D

There is another implication of the Mush Shuffle that is beginning to really chill me.

Remember the Urdu version of the Mushspeeh, circa Sep. 15, 2001? Where he quoted from Quranic lessons on how to align with the Enemy until the weapons were good and ready and opportunity presented itself?

Just think of the sheer gall it took to be transferring nukes to Libya while the Americans were all over Karachi and Jacobabad.

Also, I now hold that the military point of transferring parts and materials to several countries was to gain "plausible deniability" when the "SlumBad Bum" goes off in some American city or other suitable target.

Suddenly the old question: "Why did they go ahead with the 9/11 attack, knowing that it would mean the end of their networks? What comeback had they planned?" starts bothering me again.

The answer may be: "Because the SlumBad Bum aka JDAM was ready for use." :eek:

I sure hope they DID take my advice and nook-nood TSP thoroughly in 2002. If not, well, it may be time to send an e-mail to the GOTUS reminding them of the wisdom in the Atlanta Fishwrap, "vent" section:
Life's Lesson No 401: NEVER eat sleeping tablets and laxatives on the same night
Demand for "Pepto-Bismol" must be going up in DupleeCity. Or maybe, real estate values in the Florida Keys are going up?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by payani »

US gave uranium to 43 nations - Times of India

The U.S. has given weapons-grade uranium to 43 countries including Pakistan since the 1950s under the Atoms for Peace programme and is making little effort to get them back, a government department reported.

The Department of Energy said in a report that among the countries which have refused to return the material are Pakistan , Iran, Israel, Mexico, Jamaica and South Africa.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by shiv:
With the prospect of a real JDAM going off being so serious, I just wonder if everything is being done to make sure that these people's wishes (if indeed that is their wish) do not come true.
unless there is some super secret strategy underfoot, it is quite clear that oil politics have taken precedence over JDAM politics ...

however, knowing the american people, I am not sure which of the two will make them more pi**ed off -- hike in gas prices or JDAM in DC :)
For DECADES nuclear technology has been leaking and everyone has known about it. Sometimes I wonder why the heck the US has suddenly decided to bring the subject out into the open after decades of ignoring it.

What has changed now?
I suspect that what has changed is that after having taken care of oil issues (not really taken care of but gotten a start on it), GOTUS has turned its attention to real problems like Iran, NK and Pakistan.

as they say in Texas, "awl binness" comes first :)
If a JDAM had occured in the US in 1999 or 2000 Intel agencies in India would have said "I told ya so" - but the US public would have fried the US intel agencies balls for their failure.
come now ... is this the same "US public" that believes that Saddam was behind 9/11?
Just look at 9-11 itself. The US went about life totally detatched from reality. When box cutters and stuff could never ever have got into airliners in India or Israel or a whole lot of other nations - the US was totally blind. US intel agencies never warned their people or their airlines.
completely agreed.
[There are a LOT of things that happen in Pakistan that India would be able to tell the US about - but the US chooses to go its own way. Well that is fine. Even in the absence of a JDAM the US is paying a price that it need not pay.
it all depends on what you mean by "price" ... gas is still under $2/gallon :)
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Vivek_A »

This non-proliferation jihadi rat has some good ideas..

Kerry worried about Pakistan’s proliferation conduct

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential front-runner Senator John Kerry, if elected, will move decisively on the issue of nuclear proliferation, no less than on the question of terrorism.

Going by what he has said on record on these two subjects so far, there is little reason to assume that he would be “more understanding” of Pakistan’s “compulsions” as some people argue.

Sen Kerry said during a debate on National Public Radio in January that Pakistan had “misled the United States and the world with respect to its proliferation responsibilities for years” and he was “convinced we can be tougher with Pakistan.”

In the same programme he said when asked about terrorism, “We should have taken the initiative long ago, recognising the Islamic realities in Pakistan to have worked with India to create a nuclear oversight capacity so that if there were an assassination or there were an overthrow, we know that the nuclear weapons can’t fall in the hands of terrorists.

Sen. Kerry’s belief that in any overview of Pakistan’s proliferation behaviour, India should be co-opted would be totally unacceptable to Pakistan or the people of Pakistan, :rotfl: a point the Senator does not appear to be sensitive to.


On another occasion during the campaign, Sen Kerry said, “There have been two attempts on the life of President Musharraf.

The spectre of an Islamic radical state with nuclear weapons is unacceptable for the world, and that is what is at risk in Pakistan today.” Pakistan, he repeated, had “frankly, misled the United States and the world” about its proliferation responsibilities for a long time.

He recalled, “I remember meeting in Washington with President Zia and he lied to my face about what they were doing with respect to nuclear weapons. And that’s when we put sanctions in place on Pakistan as a consequence.”

Sen. Kerry believes that Osama bin Laden is somewhere in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, asserting, “We know he’s up there. We have not pushed hard enough. And I think there are combinations of initiatives we could take with India that would also help us resolve the tensions in that area.”
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Leonard »

An older article

The Real WMD Threat: Pakistan

by Maria Tomchick

George Bush's solution to the Iraq intelligence scandal--a new "bipartisan" investigative panel, whose members, appointed by Bush, are neocons and Democratic pro-war hawks--will probably be a whitewash, but the panel is serving a useful purpose for the Bush administration: it's distracting the media and the public from hearing the details about the worst case in modern history of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has, in recent weeks, uncovered the shocking revelation that Pakistan, the US' long-time ally, has sold nuclear technology and equipment to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, has been quick to blame the head scientist in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, as a lone agent selling information for personal gain. But the truth is far more disturbing.

Pakistan's trade in secret weapons technology has been going on since at least the 1980s. Pakistani and British newspapers have listed some of the details, including former Prime Minister Benazir Butto's trip to North Korea in 1994, where she traded nuclear weapons blueprints for medium-range missile technology at the request of the Pakistani army chief of staff. WMD experts and Pakistani political analysts say that the Pakistani military, which has effectively run the country since independence, has always kept tight control over the facilities where Dr. Khan worked and would've had knowledge of his activities, if not actually signed off on them. News has leaked that nuclear centrifuges were shipped to Libya on Pakistani military cargo planes.

Dr. Khan, for his part, confessed last week that three consecutive chiefs of staff of the Pakistani army were involved in approving the trade in nuclear weapons technology with North Korea. This includes Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's current president. In a move to silence Khan, Musharraf asked him to sign a confession--under duress, according to Khan's family and opposition politicians--and then Musharraf pardoned Khan from prosecution. A trial would bring out the dirty details and expose the full extent of Pakistani government and military complicity in arming its trading partners in violation of international treaties.

Has George Bush called for the removal of Gen. Musharraf from power in Pakistan? Has he called him a grave and impending threat to international security? Of course not. Musharraf is perceived as the only bastion against a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement in Pakistan. As a secular government, albeit one with an atrocious human rights record, Pakistan is deemed a valuable ally in fighting the resurgent Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, in spite of the Pakistani military's history of having fostered the Taliban, and current suspicions that it could be doing more to clamp down on them now. The Pakistani military's bloody record in suppressing the Kashmiri separatist movement argues for a capability that it hasn't shown regarding Taliban recruiters who now have free run of Pakistani border towns and villages.

None of this serves as an adequate excuse for allowing Pakistan to sell proscribed and highly dangerous technology. The Reagan administration knew that Pakistan was building a nuclear weapon in the early 1980s, as a secret State Department briefing memo date June 23, 1983, can attest. The Clinton administration slapped sanctions on Pakistan when it tested its first nuclear bomb in May 1998, and US intelligence analysts have known for some time that Pakistan's medium-range missiles are based on North Korean technology. As recently as late 2002 and early 2003, US officials confronted Pakistan with evidence that North Korean nuclear technology was based on Pakistani designs.

But instead of declaring a war against the real purveyor of WMD, the Bush administration lifted sanctions against Pakistan in 2002, in the hopes of using Pakistan as a base to stage the war against Afghanistan. The Bush administration then went on to give the Pakistani government millions in US taxpayer funds: $375 million in 2003, and the current budget for the 2004-5 fiscal year would increase that amount to a staggering $700 million.

To reward a nation that's done more than any other to arm Bush's "Axis of Evil" highlights the enormous hypocrisy of George W. Bush's entire foreign policy and makes a complete lie of Bush's program of preemptive war. It reveals that the Bush administration could care less about WMD and international security. The new panel Bush has appointed should not examine US intelligence services--they've been doing their job quite adequately in regards to Pakistan, the real WMD threat--but the Bush administration's terrible mismanagement and misuse of the United States' whole foreign policy apparatus.

Sources for this article: "Musharraf knew I was selling secrets, says nuclear scientist," James Astill, The Guardian, 2/4/04, http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4850959-103595,00.html

"Musharraf named in Nuclear Probe," John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, Washington Post, 2/3/04, p. A13, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6884-2004Feb2?language=printer

"Dr. Qadeer 'forced' to give statement," The Dawn (Pakistan), 2/6/04, http://www.dawn.com/2004/02/06/nat9.htm

"Pakistan's Nuclear Crimes," WP, 2/5/04, p. A20, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14272-2004Feb4?language=printer

"Pakistan Caught in a Web of Evidence," Douglas Frantz, Paul Watson, and Mubashir Zaidi, Los Angeles Times," 2/3/04

"ARD planning to launch remove-Musharraf drive," The Dawn, 2/6/04, http://www.dawn.com/2004/02/06/nat2.htm

"After the apology," The Dawn, 2/6/04, http://www.dawn.com/2004/02/06/ed.htm

"$700 million US funding likely," The Dawn, 2/5/04, http://www.dawn.com/2004/02/05/top12.htm

"Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers," David Rohde, New York Times, 2/3/04

"UN nuclear watchdog to persist in inquiry despite Pakistani refusals," Agence France Presse, 2/6/04.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Alok Niranjan »

From that Hindu editorial:
For years, Washington has been building up visions of a "dirty nuclear bomb" falling into the hands of terrorists. Leading lights of the Bush administration such as the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, have spoken of the dangers of proliferation from non-state actors.
I have a question for experts ... what is the assessed danger from a "dirty bomb" as opposed to a conventional bomb of the same magnitude?

The blast would be identical ... so is the concern about residual radioactivity?

[my assumption is that there is no fission in a "dirty bomb", but simply dispersal of the radioactive material.]

Most isotopes are *very* long-lived ... so what's the real problem?
Alok Niranjan
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by muddur:
US gave weapons-grade uranium to Pakistan
The news item does not say how much Uranium was given to each country ... if the mass was sub-critical, its no biggie [unless they all collaborate to put it together into one big JDAM :) ]
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by AnantD »

Posted by TSJ:
"I don't know, why doesn't India do anything when it knows?"
TSJ, youv'e got to be in a dream world if you think India could go in and take care of business wrt TSP without our State Department having a case of serious heartburn. After all, according to Colin Powell, they have assets there. They were last heard threating TSP that if it didn't cooperate, they would India have its way with TSP. Instead, India has signed a treaty with TSP that neither would attack its Nuclear facilities in a case of war! So now its upto the US and its real allies, India resigned itself to killing rats in J&K and nothing more many years ago. During the Kargil war, Vajpai called Clinton (who was in Geneva) telling him that if our Key ally didn't back down, he would have to open up another front to squeeze TSP. Its very clear that its the US thats to blame for protecting TSP and bringing it to where it is today. Whats keeping the US from telling Pakistan to get lost and mind its own business wrt Jammu and Kashmir, or better still return the part of Kashmir it has annexxed to India, yet it insists its disputed territory. The problem is that India dosen't trust the US when it comes to anything that involves TSP, period.

Posted by Mani T.
"The real question is why nations around the world are silent? weakness or dependency on US trade?"
Some of both. The biggest loser in the failure on the WOT will be the US first, then Israel and then India. So most nations are leaving it upto the US to take care of its binness. They are cooperating only to the point that it is useful to them vis-a-vis the US. India and Israel can't join in openly, so they are busy cooperting with one another, and with the US to some degree.

Posted by N3:
"I remember that the thrust of the article was how Mush etc. are the "new generation" of Pakis - unfettered by the British (Sandhurst) "traditions", and with no love for the Americans either."

I think Gen Nambiar read Mush wrong in Australia. Mush will put on an act based on whatever is in "the national (i.e. RAPE) interest. The Jehadi mentality was the going think pre 9/11 so that was appropriate at the time. In reality, his brother is a physiscian here in Chicago and his son is studying (still?)
in Boston. He works on the principle that the squeaky wheel gets greased first!
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Arun_S »

The Korean Spy's Murder Covered Up by Pakistan's Nuclear Bosses
ISLAMABAD: Ten days after Pakistan tested its first atomic bomb in 1998, the wife of a major North Korean arms dealer was shot to death near the heavily guarded home here of the nuclear program's leader, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Kim was part of a 20-member delegation of North Korean engineers and scientists whom Khan had invited to witness Pakistan's first underground nuclear tests on May 28, 1998, and to learn how to enrich uranium for a North Korean bomb, the Pakistani officials said.

There has long been speculation that Kim was killed by her own government because she was suspected of spying for the United States or another Western power. Officials in both Pakistan and rival India, whose intelligence services closely monitor Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs, backed that version of events.

A Pakistani official said his country's intelligence agents suspected that the United States was using Kim as a mole inside the North Korean delegation, but that her actions were uncovered by Pakistani and North Korean agents.

An Indian official who is familiar with his government's assessment of the killing said bluntly: "She was in fact killed by the North Koreans on the grounds that she was in touch with certain Western diplomats."

A Pakistani intelligence source said Kim and the rest of the North Korean delegation was staying in a guest house in the compound of Khan's home when Kim was killed. Even after reports the next year revealed she was probably killed on purpose, few Pakistani officials would talk about it. They said a neighbor's cook accidentally killed the North Korean woman when he fired a shotgun borrowed from a guard. Another account at the time claimed that one of Khan's neighbors accidentally killed Kim when his gun fired as he was cleaning it in the garage.

A coroner was not allowed to carry out an autopsy on Kim's body, and authorities told local police not to open a file on her death.

Khan told The Times in a 1999 interview that Pakistani intelligence services told him that Kim's death was an accident. "You Americans always try to put the blame on us," he said.

Three days after she was shot, Kim's body was spirited out of Pakistan on a chartered Pakistani cargo plane, a source said. The plane, a U.S.-built C-130 military transport, was the same one that Khan recently told investigators he had used to ship plans and equipment for making a nuclear bomb, according to the official, who is familiar with Khan's signed 12-page confession.

The plane carried Kim's body back to North Korea along with P-1 and P-2 centrifuges, used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material, according to the source .
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by shiv »

Originally posted by Mani T.:
what is the assessed danger from a "dirty bomb" as opposed to a conventional bomb of the same magnitude?

The blast would be identical ... so is the concern about residual radioactivity?

[my assumption is that there is no fission in a "dirty bomb", but simply dispersal of the radioactive material.]

Most isotopes are *very* long-lived ... so what's the real problem?
It is the long lived residual radioactivity from the dispersed material that everyone seems to be getting worked up about.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by jrjrao »

Folks, this dude bears watching. Like Nasim Zehra, he has deep access into Amrikee academic and other circles. And here, he is circling the wagons and defending the MushTush, while sitting as a "visiting professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California."
<hr>
Financial Times (London, England)
March 8, 2004 Monday
HEADLINE: The nuclear policy that backfired
BYLINE: By FEROZ KHAN
Pakistan's nuclear story starts across the border in 1974, when India detonated its first nuclear device. Pakistan responded by funnelling state resources towards matching India's nuclear ambitions. But India's test had awakened the west to the dangers of proliferation. Almost immediately, the US corralled nuclear suppliers into a cartel designed to restrict nuclear information and material under a stringent controls regime. It also tied aid to non-proliferation benchmarks.

Faced with such obstacles, the Pakistani government decided to sidestep the international regime with a two-pronged strategy. First, it would give autonomy and unlimited state resources to a young scientist who had proved he could deliver the goods: Abdul Qadeer Khan. It would seek nuclear technology clandestinely, using an opaque policy designed to provide "plausible deniability". At the same time, diplomatic efforts would aim to provide the government with international room to manoeuvre. After conducting its first six nuclear tests in May 1998, responding to five conducted by India, Pakistan faced US sanctions and international condemnation.

Undaunted, Pakistan's policymakers launched their nuclear acquisition drive with a crucial - but misguided - assumption. They believed that patriotic scientists would not succumb to personal aggrandisement on their way round global nuclear black markets.

In early 1994, I established a cell within the general headquarters of Pakistan's military to examine the impact of non-proliferation trends on our nuclear programme. The unit subsequently became the Directorate of Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs, with a brief to engage in diplomacy while advising the government on proliferation concerns. Scientists and officers were made aware of Pakistan's obligations and everyone - including Mr Khan - pledged never to engage in activity that could harm the state. To avoid supply-control regimes such as the Nuclear Supplier Group, Mr Khan and his scientists had to tap into - and expand - an international black market for nuclear secrets and materials. As a result, they often associated with shady businessmen and financiers. Operating with unlimited resources and scant control, Mr Khan's group was corrupted and turned the proliferation network on its head. As well as acquiring components, it began selling nuclear information and technologies.

From late 1998, US officials and analysts began warning my office and Pakistan's Foreign Office of Mr Khan's clandestine proliferation activities. But their complaints were vague. We were often told that more detail could not be provided, purportedly because of the need to protect sources.

But some believed such warnings were motivated by the west's desire to block Pakistan's nuclear programme. Mr Khan continued to provide results and his secret network remained untouched.

Western observers cannot believe that Pakistani authorities were not complicit in the clandestine transfers. The state's concern was about developing nuclear weapons and not letting its operations become a free-for-all. Such clandestine transfers clearly did not - and could not - benefit Pakistan. Any implication of the government risked international isolation. There was also no strategic sense in the government in transferring nuclear know-how to neighbouring Iran. Transfers to North Korea made even less sense, :roll: because they would have certainly provoked the wrath of the US, Japan and China. Equally irrational were transfers to Libya, which had little to offer Pakistan. :roll: By the mid-1990s, Pakistan had already procured missiles superior to North Korea's Nodongs. Why transfer its nuclear "crown jewels" for something of secondary strategic importance? No Pakistani leader would have approved such transfers. :roll: :roll:

Whether Pakistan's formidable internal security agencies were unable or unwilling to stop the exchanges, international suspicion is understandable. But it must be remembered that all agencies had been hobbled by the sweeping autonomy given to the scientists. And who would dare try to besmirch Mr Khan? There were no external checks on Mr Khan until after General Pervez Musharraf took power in late 1999 and set up the powerful National Command Authority to oversee nuclear weapons policy. He subsequently removed Mr Khan as head of nuclear programmes and named him presidential scientific adviser in 2001.

Many have wondered why Gen Musharraf pardoned Mr Khan. But Mr Khan remains a national hero. He also knows much about Pakistan's security structure and nuclear plans and still has much to tell. His pardon was conditional on continued co-operation in unravelling the clandestine network he helped build. Placing his head on a pole for having delayed the process of non-proliferation would achieve little.

Yet Mr Khan's secret nuclear network spreads into Europe and Asia and we have not seen action at the supplier end. Pakistan has paid a high price for procuring a nuclear deterrent against international will. :whine: But there is no comparable action or pressure being applied to other states that signed up to the non-proliferation treaty. Here are the double standards that have characterised the nuclear proliferation regime since the beginning. The world needs assurance of new safeguards against another, bigger nuclear black market - not just in Pakistan but all along the trail of hidden supplies.
The writer was director of arms control and disarmament affairs in the strategic plans division of Pakistan's military. He is now visiting professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California
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