Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

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Rangudu
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rangudu »

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040312-090425-5045r
No pressure on Pakistan to give up nukes

By Anwar Iqbal

Published 3/12/2004 9:38 AM

WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- No world power, including the United States, ever asked Pakistan to give up its nuclear option, not even after the current nuclear scandal, foreign policy experts told United Press International.

The experts, while reviewing the issues that might be discussed when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Islamabad next week, said even during the visit there will be no pressure on Pakistan to roll back or cap its nuclear or missile programs.

They said the United States understands that Pakistan has its nuclear option because of India, which started the nuclear race in the Subcontinent. Until Pakistan's relations with India improve to an extent where it no longer feels threatened by its larger neighbor, Pakistan will retain its nuclear assets, the experts said.

"There never was any pressure on Pakistan to give up its nuclear program. It's the political opposition in Pakistan that thought so," said Michael Krepon, founding president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington. "I don't foresee Pakistan giving up the nuclear option. It's not going to happen. What Pakistan must do is to control its nuclear materials, its equipment. No country has a worse record on this than Pakistan."

He was referring to the discovery last month that Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan was running a network of nuclear proliferators who sold nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

"If a country acquires the nuclear option, it has an obligation to be able to be responsible for that capability. Pakistan has not demonstrated that, and that's what world capitals are saying to Pakistan," said Krepon.

Robert Oakley, a former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism who also has served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, said world powers, including the United States were "very pleased with what Pakistan is doing to control the damage" :roll: done by the network of nuclear proliferators. The question of Pakistan giving up its nuclear program was never raised, he added.

Pramit Mitra, a scholar with the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, said the United States was not asking Pakistan to give up the nuclear option because "they know that Pakistan will never do it. If you can work with Pakistan, why derail the cart?" he asked.

William Milam, another former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, says that despite the proliferation, the United States is not going to re-impose nuclear related sanctions on Pakistan that were removed after Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism in 2001.

"A whole range of sanctions, we could re-apply, we are not about to do that," said Milam. "And it is not just because we want their support in the war against terrorism. Our relationship with Pakistan is much wider. We want India-Pakistan talks to move forward. Pakistan is a big country and an important Muslim country. We should have had a steadier relationship ... and I think this administration is trying to do that," Milam said.

"In Pakistan, Powell is most likely to focus on the fallout of the nuclear network," said Hussain Huqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, Washington. "He may personally ask President Musharraf to share in its entirety the intelligence that has been gained from the debriefing of Khan."

Mitra believes that "in closed door talks with Gen. Musharraf, Powell may express a lot of concern about Khan and how worried the U.S. administration is." He said that the two sides may also discuss a possible deal for getting Pakistan's cooperation in the hunt for Osama bin Laden in return for U.S. help to Islamabad in overcoming the nuclear scandal.

Oakley believes that besides the nuclear issue, Powell will also focus on cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism. "The U.S. administration wants to see Afghanistan developing into stability rather than terrorism," he said.

Other issues likely to be discussed include Kashmir, relations between India and Pakistan, and U.S. cooperation in countering terrorism inside Pakistan, said Oakley. "They all interact. It's not just one issue or another." :roll: :roll:

Mitra disagreed with Powell, who says that the Bush administration has endorsed the pardon for Khan in exchange for the information he could provide about his network. "What possibly can they do now? Whatever they could give to Iran, Libya and North Korea, they have. They are not going to do it again."
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by SSridhar »

from the B.Raman article quoted above,
Largely Indigenous with some Chinese inputs: Mainly the HATF-1 (100 kms and 500 Kgs) and HATF-2 (300 Kms and 500 Kgs). These two were developed by the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO)
Isn't the Hatf-II (aka Abdali), the Chinese M-9 ?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Nandu »

>>Until Pakistan's relations with India improve to an extent where it no longer feels threatened by its larger neighbor, Pakistan will retain its nuclear assets, the experts said.

i.e. Pakis have an incentive to keep the pot boiling with India.

Well... bring it on!
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by putnanja »

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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rye »

Originally posted by Nandu:

i.e. Pakis have an incentive to keep the pot boiling with India.
minor nit: pakis have an incentive to keep the pot boiling with India, until India hands over to pakistan what it wants, ie., (1) kashmir (2) denuclearisation of India (3) stop to the "arms race", etc., etc. . After that, apparently, we can fully trust the pakis to let go of their nuke program.

Now, do the stupid pakis truly believe that anyone really gives a snot about what they really want?
Of course they do.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Prateek »

Originally posted by jrjrao:
Hahahahahah! Genius Amrikees.

Now, it is India that better "improve its export controls" to "crack down on the global nuclear black market". This is so that if India improves its act, then future PhotoChor-Khan-Networks can then be prevented from doing bad and nasty.

U.S. links technology growth to export controls
Very consistent policy is being followed by the USA!

OBL or Pakistani (and or KSA) trained Jihadis attacks USA on 911. Result : US attacks Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now Pakistan or AQKhan proliferates nuclear weapons. The US behavious is consistent. They are asking every other nation like Malaysia, Turkey, India etc ... to strengthen or improve export control systems.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

OTOH, this is what kgoan calls the "Monkey Trap". As long as Unkil and the Middle Kingdom keep encouraging them, Pakistan will be unable to turn away from the destructive path of allowing themselves to be ruled by genocidal megalomaniacs and psychopaths.

Another 2 years, if that, and the "Special Forces Operations" will be focused on the REAL jungle areas such as Faisalabad, LaHore and Karachi. Daily bombings. From 30,000 feet, I mean.

Yippee!!! :D
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by SaiK »

>>the REAL jungle areas such as Faisalabad, LaHore and Karachi.
:lol:

but, mullahs will call it genocide!!
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

S.K."Genocide" is what the Pakis did to the people of Kashmir, West Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan and East Bengal - and later wht Mush& Co did to the people in Gilgit and Afghanistan. What I am referring to is properly defined as "Pest-e-sha'eed". (u have to pronounce that smoothly, like in la Francaise, as "pe-sti-side". )

Copyrighted BRinsult. :D
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

The Emperor's excuses for walking around buck nekkid: its about the Iraq fiasco, but is equally applicable to the Nukes from Pakistan to Terrorists (NPT)and China Transfers Bombs to Terrorists (CTBT) fiasco)

www.reuters.com

US Senator: Report on Iraq Intelligence 'Damning'

Updated 6:33 PM ET March 12, 2004

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report about prewar intelligence on Iraq will be "tough and damning" and spread the blame around, a senior Republican senator said on Friday.

"It will be damning of some of the intelligence. I think it's going to be highly critical, it will be critical of a lot of different programs and people," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, third-ranking in the Senate Republican leadership.

The blame spreads over Democratic and Republican administrations, intelligence agencies and Congress, he said. "Nobody is without blame."

.... Kennedy, who has taken a high-profile role in the presidential campaign of fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, in last week's speech accused Republican President Bush of exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq for political gain.

"That charge, if more than just over-the-top bluster, would be close to "an allegation of treason -- suggesting that the president deliberately put our young men and women in harm's way for no purpose other than politics," Kyl said.
(er... he said it, not I... but I do agree..)
"Such a charge would not only sap the morale of the troops who are fighting even now, it would undercut our entire position on the war on terror generally and in Iraq specifically," Kyl said.
Ditto. On the money. And NOW come Kyl's gyrations and contortions.
Kyl, a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said congressional oversight of spy agencies was "not very good" because lawmakers serve on several committees and have limited staff so cannot devote full attention to one issue.

"You would literally have to spend all of your time on this to really be able to know what kind of questions to ask, and because you don't have personal staff you get fed the questions," Kyl said.

"I mean it is not a good oversight set up, it is not calculated to really provide oversight, and I suspect that the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, like it that way a whole lot," he said.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by John_Doe »

If you will notice that legally, 9-11 was not considered an act of war due to the non provable presence of a government behind the act. So 9-11 was covered by the insurance companies. No act of war clause considered.
So what you are saying is that GOTUS lied about Al Qaida or are you saying they lied about the Taliban support to Al Qaida?

Despite being a deadbeat bunch of tribals, the Taliban were the defacto Governement of Afghanistan. Did they or did they not support the perpetrators of 9-11?

If there is no proof of a government supporting 9-11 then did we oust the Taliban based on lies. Just like we did to the Hussain regime in Iraq?

In any case in the event of a terror attack in the USA, America should discuss their differences with the attackers and give in to their demands just like they have been asking India to do for decades now.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by TSJones »

Don't be moronic. What you must prove in court for insurance case law is far different than what the defense of the home land requires. It is widely known that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were a mutual support group. And, by formal definition no act of war was ever declared between the US and the Taliban. We just told them what we wanted or or else we were going to pound their stinking rotten selves into the ground. And that's just what happened. And, in fact the insurance companies paid up for 9-11 to the policy holders. Are you going to lie about how wonderful you think the Taliban was? When did you develop this problem?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by John_Doe »

Originally posted by TSJones:
Don't be moronic.
Sorry to intrude on your turf.

What you must prove in court for insurance case law is far different than what the defense of the home land requires.
Why? Aren't the stakes greater in "defense of the home land"?
It is widely known that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were a mutual support group.
Show me the proof. If we go to war, the people have a right to see the evidence that justifies putting our kids in danger and slaughtering untold numbers of Afghans. Last time I checked, we are a democratic epublic and not Bush's private fiefdom.

And, by formal definition no act of war was ever declared between the US and the Taliban.
Do you think the Taliban will go on TV and say "We declare war on America?". Now who is being moronic? If the actions on 9-11 were not tantamount to a declaration of war then what is?

We just told them what we wanted or or else we were going to pound their stinking rotten selves into the ground. And that's just what happened.
sounds like a mugging. "Give me what I want or I'll shoot you". Why didn't the US get what it wanted through the established mechanisms of international law? Why weren't all options excerised first? The US went beserk after 9-11 and as a result the whole world is more insecure. I am glad the Taliban are gone but the ends do not justify the means in this case. If we stopped being hypocritical for a moment, and the executive put the safety of this nation before their wallets, we would have taken out Saudi, Pakistan and Afghanistan. With those three gone terrorism would have died a quick death. just what is the US interest in perpetuating the regimes in these countries and by extension helping terror to prosper?

And, in fact the insurance companies paid up for 9-11 to the policy holders.
Thats what they are paid to do! I am sick to death of insurance companies who collect handsome premiums year after year and then moan when they have to pay out. And then excessively restrict circumstances under which they will pay out. Insurance is becoming extortion, if its not already there.

Are you going to lie about how wonderful you think the Taliban was? When did you develop this problem?
Look pal, I don't think the taliban were anything but scum of the Earth. You made a point about proof of government backing of the 9-11 attacks. However we went to war on the basis of having this evidence so why was it not made public?

Perhaps there is no proof and this administration found it convinient to use 9-11 to move ahead with other agendas? Or perhaps the proof is withheld by GOTUS to protect their insurance company friends? Crony capitalism?

In any case there is a clear contradiction which you have so far failed to explain away.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by TSJones »

Look, this is getting so far out in left field that it is off topic, so this is my last message about this.

If 9-11 was the result of act of war, in general the insurance companies would not have to pay. Nobody in their right minds issues property and casualty policies to include an act of war. Comprende? So in some ways, and this is really stretching the scenario, Bush screwed the insurance companies by not declaring war. If he had declared war, then the INsurance companies would have had some basis for denial. But there are many, many, other factors involved such as the 50 states' individual insurance commissioners.

All I wanted to point out originally to triple n was that just because the insurance companies are now adding exclusions for nuclear attacks does not mean that they are necessarily imminent. What it means is that it *is* possible to be attacked with nuclear weapons and not be a formal act of war. It could be an act of terrorism. So the insurance companies are adjusting their policies accordingly.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by jarugn »

U.S. Widens View of Pakistan Link to Korean Arms

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/international/asia/14KORE.html?hp=&pagewanted=a ll&position=

U.S. Widens View of Pakistan Link to Korean Arms
By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: March 14, 2004

WASHINGTON, March 13 — A new classified intelligence report presented to the White House last week detailed for the first time the extent to which Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories provided North Korea with all the equipment and technology it needed to produce uranium-based nuclear weapons, according to American and Asian officials who have been briefed on its conclusions.

The assessment, by the Central Intelligence Agency, confirms the Bush administration's fears about the accelerated nature of North Korea's secret uranium weapons program, which some intelligence officials believe could produce a weapon as early as sometime next year. The assessment is based in part on Pakistan's accounts of its interrogations of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the developer of Pakistan's bomb, who was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf in January.

The report concluded that North Korea probably received a package very similar to the kind the Khan network sold to Libya — including nuclear fuel, centrifuges and one or more warhead designs — for more than $60 million.

A senior American official described it as "the complete package," from raw uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges to enrich it into nuclear fuel, which could be more easily hidden from inspectors than were North Korea's older sites to produce plutonium bombs.

In the report, Mr. Khan's transactions with North Korea are traced to the early 1990's, when Benazir Bhutto was the Pakistani prime minister, and the clandestine relationship between the two countries is portrayed as rapidly accelerating between 1998 and 2002. At the time, North Korea was desperate to come up with an alternative way to build a nuclear bomb because its main plutonium facilities were "frozen" under an agreement struck with the Clinton administration in 1994. North Korea abandoned that agreement late in 2002.

But the new assessment leaves two critical issues unresolved as the Bush administration attempts to use a mix of incentives and threats to disarm North Korea, so far with little success.

American intelligence agencies still cannot locate the site or sites of any North Korean uranium enrichment facilities, meaning that if the six-party negotiations over the North's nuclear program fail, it would be virtually impossible to try to attack the facilities, which can be hidden in tunnels or inside a mountain.

American intelligence has also been unable to pinpoint exactly when the new facilities would become big enough to produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon. It takes several thousand centrifuges to efficiently produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon, but North Korea may only be assembling a few hundred a year.

"The best guess is still in the next year or two, but it is a guess," said one senior official with access to the new intelligence report. "That does not leave much time to find this thing and shut it down."

China has told the Bush administration that it believes North Korea is much farther away from creating a uranium bomb, and Chinese officials have dismissed the American concerns with references to mistakes made by American intelligence agencies in assessing Iraq's nuclear program and Saddam Hussein's reputed program to produce biological and chemical weapons.

But North Korea is a very different case. It developed its plutonium program in plain view of American satellites; it is believed to already possess two or more nuclear weapons; and it has bragged about its efforts to produce more.

The C.I.A.'s conclusions about North Korea's uranium were presented to senior White House officials, including the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in a series of briefings on March 4 and 5. That followed an inconclusive second round of negotiations with North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia that produced agreements to hold more meetings but no commitment by North Korea to disarm its nuclear program.

It is unclear whether President Bush, who has been deeply involved setting the strategy concerning North Korea but rarely discusses the issue in public, has yet personally received the new assessment.

The new assessment is based partly on interviews that Pakistani officials have held with Mr. Khan and his associates from the Khan Research Laboratory. But so far, American officials have had no direct access to the Pakistani scientist, who is regarded as a hero in the country.

"What we are getting is second-hand accounts, which means the Pakistanis may be editing it," said one senior American diplomat.

The United States, in turn, is declining to reveal some details of its new assessment to some of its closest allies, including Japan, which has asked Pakistan to give it a separate set of briefings about Mr. Khan's confession.

The unusual American reluctance to share its full intelligence findings has led several senior Asian officials, in interviews in recent weeks, to speculate that the assessment is particularly sensitive because the lengthy timeline of transfers it describes inevitably leads to the conclusion that the Pakistani military was a major partner with Mr. Khan.

The evidence suggests that North Korean scientists worked at the Khan Laboratories in the late 1990's, ostensibly on missile technology, and that several of the critical shipments to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, took place on Pakistani military cargo planes.

According to two officials with access to the intelligence at the time of those transfers, American spy satellites repeatedly took photographs of Pakistani cargo planes on the tarmac at an airfield in Pyongyang. At the time, many officials believed the cargo planes were picking up parts for North Korean missiles; it was unclear whether they were also unloading material intended for North Korea.

But even then, one of the officials said, "we suspected there was a quid pro quo, and there was a lot of speculation on the nuclear side. But there was no evidence."

"It makes no sense that the deal with North Korea was exclusively a private transaction," said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms control group in Washington.

The issue is particularly sensitive for Mr. Bush and Mr. Musharraf. Despite the mounting evidence, the White House has decided not to challenge Mr. Musharraf's contention that the Pakistani military was never involved in nuclear transfers to North Korea, and that he was never personally aware of them.

Although Mr. Bush has vowed to pursue and prosecute those who spread nuclear weapons technology, the administration did not criticize Mr. Musharraf when he decided to pardon Mr. Khan, who ran what now appears to be one of the largest nuclear proliferation networks in the past half-century.

Administration officials concede, when speaking off the record, that their decision was rooted in pragmatism: Mr. Musharraf's assistance was critical in the search for Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush decided, they said, that the search for the Qaeda leader must take priority over pressing Pakistan to hand over Mr. Khan and even over investigating the role of the Pakistani military.

The classified report is largely a history of the Khan Laboratories' dealings with North Korea, a relationship that dates back to the early 1990's. Many of those early dealings concerned importing North Korean missile technology to Pakistan, which needed long-range missiles that could reach virtually all parts of India. That Pakistani goal has now been reached, partly because of North Korea's help.

The report also detailed how Mr. Khan, who was already selling nuclear components to Iran, converted the relationship to one of two-way trade. By the late 1990's, he was sending raw uranium hexaflouride to North Korea directly from the Khan laboratory. North Korea also obtained parts for manufacturing its centrifuges, intelligence officials said, from some of the same factories and middle-men that supplied Libya.

"It largely confirms our suspicions," one senior administration official said of the new assessment.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Prateek »

U.S. Widens View of Pakistan Link to Korean Arms
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/international/asia/14KORE.html

ASHINGTON, March 13 — A new classified intelligence report presented to the White House last week detailed for the first time the extent to which Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories provided North Korea with all the equipment and technology it needed to produce uranium-based nuclear weapons, according to American and Asian officials who have been briefed on its conclusions.

The assessment, by the Central Intelligence Agency, confirms the Bush administration's fears about the accelerated nature of North Korea's secret uranium weapons program, which some intelligence officials believe could produce a weapon as early as sometime next year. The assessment is based in part on Pakistan's accounts of its interrogations of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the developer of Pakistan's bomb, who was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf in January.

The report concluded that North Korea probably received a package very similar to the kind the Khan network sold to Libya — including nuclear fuel, centrifuges and one or more warhead designs — for more than $60 million.

A senior American official described it as "the complete package," from raw uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges to enrich it into nuclear fuel, which could be more easily hidden from inspectors than were North Korea's older sites to produce plutonium bombs.

In the report, Mr. Khan's transactions with North Korea are traced to the early 1990's, when Benazir Bhutto was the Pakistani prime minister, and the clandestine relationship between the two countries is portrayed as rapidly accelerating between 1998 and 2002. At the time, North Korea was desperate to come up with an alternative way to build a nuclear bomb because its main plutonium facilities were "frozen" under an agreement struck with the Clinton administration in 1994. North Korea abandoned that agreement late in 2002.

But the new assessment leaves two critical issues unresolved as the Bush administration attempts to use a mix of incentives and threats to disarm North Korea, so far with little success.

American intelligence agencies still cannot locate the site or sites of any North Korean uranium enrichment facilities, meaning that if the six-party negotiations over the North's nuclear program fail, it would be virtually impossible to try to attack the facilities, which can be hidden in tunnels or inside a mountain.

American intelligence has also been unable to pinpoint exactly when the new facilities would become big enough to produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon. It takes several thousand centrifuges to efficiently produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon, but North Korea may only be assembling a few hundred a year.

"The best guess is still in the next year or two, but it is a guess," said one senior official with access to the new intelligence report. "That does not leave much time to find this thing and shut it down."

China has told the Bush administration that it believes North Korea is much farther away from creating a uranium bomb, and Chinese officials have dismissed the American concerns with references to mistakes made by American intelligence agencies in assessing Iraq's nuclear program and Saddam Hussein's reputed program to produce biological and chemical weapons.

But North Korea is a very different case. It developed its plutonium program in plain view of American satellites; it is believed to already possess two or more nuclear weapons; and it has bragged about its efforts to produce more.

The C.I.A.'s conclusions about North Korea's uranium were presented to senior White House officials, including the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in a series of briefings on March 4 and 5. That followed an inconclusive second round of negotiations with North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia that produced agreements to hold more meetings but no commitment by North Korea to disarm its nuclear program.

It is unclear whether President Bush, who has been deeply involved setting the strategy concerning North Korea but rarely discusses the issue in public, has yet personally received the new assessment.

The new assessment is based partly on interviews that Pakistani officials have held with Mr. Khan and his associates from the Khan Research Laboratory. But so far, American officials have had no direct access to the Pakistani scientist, who is regarded as a hero in the country.

"What we are getting is second-hand accounts, which means the Pakistanis may be editing it," said one senior American diplomat.

The United States, in turn, is declining to reveal some details of its new assessment to some of its closest allies, including Japan, which has asked Pakistan to give it a separate set of briefings about Mr. Khan's confession.

The unusual American reluctance to share its full intelligence findings has led several senior Asian officials, in interviews in recent weeks, to speculate that the assessment is particularly sensitive because the lengthy timeline of transfers it describes inevitably leads to the conclusion that the Pakistani military was a major partner with Mr. Khan.

The evidence suggests that North Korean scientists worked at the Khan Laboratories in the late 1990's, ostensibly on missile technology, and that several of the critical shipments to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, took place on Pakistani military cargo planes.

According to two officials with access to the intelligence at the time of those transfers, American spy satellites repeatedly took photographs of Pakistani cargo planes on the tarmac at an airfield in Pyongyang. At the time, many officials believed the cargo planes were picking up parts for North Korean missiles; it was unclear whether they were also unloading material intended for North Korea.

But even then, one of the officials said, "we suspected there was a quid pro quo, and there was a lot of speculation on the nuclear side. But there was no evidence."

"It makes no sense that the deal with North Korea was exclusively a private transaction," said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms control group in Washington.

The issue is particularly sensitive for Mr. Bush and Mr. Musharraf. Despite the mounting evidence, the White House has decided not to challenge Mr. Musharraf's contention that the Pakistani military was never involved in nuclear transfers to North Korea, and that he was never personally aware of them.

Although Mr. Bush has vowed to pursue and prosecute those who spread nuclear weapons technology, the administration did not criticize Mr. Musharraf when he decided to pardon Mr. Khan, who ran what now appears to be one of the largest nuclear proliferation networks in the past half-century.

Administration officials concede, when speaking off the record, that their decision was rooted in pragmatism: Mr. Musharraf's assistance was critical in the search for Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush decided, they said, that the search for the Qaeda leader must take priority over pressing Pakistan to hand over Mr. Khan and even over investigating the role of the Pakistani military.

The classified report is largely a history of the Khan Laboratories' dealings with North Korea, a relationship that dates back to the early 1990's. Many of those early dealings concerned importing North Korean missile technology to Pakistan, which needed long-range missiles that could reach virtually all parts of India. That Pakistani goal has now been reached, partly because of North Korea's help.

The report also detailed how Mr. Khan, who was already selling nuclear components to Iran, converted the relationship to one of two-way trade. By the late 1990's, he was sending raw uranium hexaflouride to North Korea directly from the Khan laboratory. North Korea also obtained parts for manufacturing its centrifuges, intelligence officials said, from some of the same factories and middle-men that supplied Libya.

"It largely confirms our suspicions," one senior administration official said of the new assessment.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Shashank »

Didn't Vajpayee visit some gulf country (was it Libiya?) before all this xerox drama? If it is the case then wonder what message he carried to Libiya and from whom?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by NRao »

I would be VERY interested in compiling a list of COUNTRIES (NOT companies from those countries) that have contributed to Xerox Khan's coffers.

Here is one from (my favorite) Japan

Sale smade in 1984 folks. Under the very nose of the Yapan government. Who has been lecturing India since THEN. Wow.

(Subscription site)

[QUOTE] Japan linked to nuclear black market

Items compiled from Tribune news services

March 13, 2004

VIENNA, AUSTRIA -- A Japanese company supplied Libya with technology essential to the production of nuclear weapons, diplomats revealed Friday.

The report adds a new piece to the nuclear black market puzzle, which also involves Pakistan and several other countries.

One of the diplomats called the 1984 sale of a uranium conversion plant a "flagrant example" of the failure of export controls meant to keep such equipment away from rogue nations and terrorists.

He also noted that the parts for such plants are so large and expensive, it would have been difficult to ship them out of the country without the knowledge of the Japanese government.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN watchdog, mentioned in a report this week that Libya ordered a "pilot scale uranium conversion facility" in 1984, but did not specify the country of origin.

A government spokesman said Japan was looking into the matter.

[\QUOTE]
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rangudu »

Boston Globe Story
From Salem to Pakistan, an atomic smuggler's plot

By Farah Stockman and Victoria Burnett, Globe Staff, Globe Correspondent, 3/13/2004

SALEM -- It looked like any other package when a mail truck carried it away from the four-story office park at 35 Congress St., along with packages from other businesses near Pickering Wharf, like the Palmer's Cove Yacht Clubcq and the Harbor Sweets candy store.

But the contents of this particular parcel, mailed in September 2003, were so alarming that US special agents secretly tracked its journey from Salem to an office in Secaucus, N.J., on to a warehouse in South Africa, then to an air cargo shed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and to its final destination: a military supplier in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Nestled inside the box were 66 high-speed electrical switches called ``triggered spark gaps,'' each the shape of a spool of thread and the size of a soda can. In small numbers, they are used in hospitals to break up kidney stones. In large numbers, they can detonate a nuclear weapon.

The story of how a box at the North Shore office of PerkinElmer, Inc., -one of about a dozen firms in the world that produces the switches, - ended up in the hands of a Pakistani army supplier supplier for the Pakistani army, provides a rare glimpse into the underworld of nuclear smuggling.

In many respects, it is a victory in the in-the-trenches battle to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons. Tipped off by suspicious PerkinElmer employees and an anonymous source abroad, US officials arranged for the box's dangerous contents to be disabled before it was shipped, tracked the package, and arrested the alleged nuclear supplier, an Israeli businessman named Asher Karni.

Karni was arrested on Jan. 1 New Year's Day in Colorado as he flew into the United States for a ski vacation. He was charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., with violating US export laws.

But the case is also a disturbing reminder of just how rare it is for a nuclear smuggler to be prosecuted:. Karni seems to be the only person currently facing trial for selling nuclear components to a middleman in Pakistan, which is at the center of a massive international investigation into dozens of companies involved in nuclear black-market trading.

Selling dual-use technology like the switches to certain foreign companies is still legal, but it can be hard to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands once it goes overseas, according to Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit research group that tracks arms-control issues.

Manufacturers are required by law to scrutinize their customers, flag suspicious orders, and keep track of an ever-growing list of blacklisted companies. Despite heavy fines for non-compliance, security specialists acknowledge that companies cannot catch every problem order.

"You don't catch it all, but you try to catch enough of it so that you deter people,'' said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, who said that two or three people each year are caught trying to smuggle items that can be used for nuclear weapons. ``It's like street crime. . . . It's just a continuing battle.''

Another problem is that nuclear export controls are essentially "gentlemen's agreements'' which lack the legal force of treaties and do not reach several countries that are nuclear suppliers, said David Albright, a former weapons inspector at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. D.C. ``It's a huge problem and not much is being done,'' Albright he said. ``The enforcement can work, but then ``When it comes to giving penalties, they are often just very minor.''

Into dangerous hands

The case of the switches - a crucial and hard-to-get ingredient for a modern nuclear weapon - is even more disturbing since because they were bound for Pakistan, a hub for nuclear smuggling to rogue nations around the world.

In January, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who helped developed Pakistan's nuclear bomb, confessed to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. That black market will be a key issue for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell when he travels to Pakistan this week. Despite a probe of Khan's activities that uncovered dozens of middlemen and businesses around the world, very few have been punished for their involvement.

Karni, the 50-year-old Israeli salesman who allegedly ordered the switches from Salem, was an expert at circumventing US export controls, US prosecutors say. His South African company, Top-Cape Technology, often served as a middleman for foreign clients who were banned from buying directly from US firms, according to documents filed in his criminal case.

Karni wrote often by e-mail about how to get around bypass export license requirements, even lamenting the loss of business when the restrictions on the sale of sensitive technology to India and Pakistan were loosened in 2001, according to e-mails submitted as exhibits in his case.

``I have not heard from you in a long time,'' Karni wrote to a man who procures items for India's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre . ``I guess now that the sanctions are off, you are probably going directly to the manufacturer, but I still think there must be many other opportunities [in] which we can book some orders together.''

In the summer of 2003, Karni was contacted by Humayun Khan , a Pakistani businessman who counts the Pakistani military among his clients.

Humayun Khan, who has no known connection to Abdul Qadeer Khan, allegedly asked Karni to provide him with 200 ``triggered spark gaps'' - enough, specialists say, to detonate three to 10 nuclear bombs.

Karni called companies in Europe, including PerkinElmer's sales agent in France, asking for the items, but was rebuffed, court records said. He wrote back that the sale was not possible because an export license was required.

But Humayun Khan begged him to try again. ``I know it is difficult, but that's why we came to know each other,'' he wrote. ``Please help negotiate with any other source.''

Eyebrows raised in Salem

So Karni approached Zeki Bilmen, of Giza Technologies Inc., a New Jersey-based company that does not face the same purchasing restrictions as a foreign firm. Karni asked Bilmen to buy the switches and ship them to South Africa, where Karni said they were needed at the Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.

Bilmen agreed, even though experts say a hospital would only need five or six triggered spark gaps, at most. Bilmen's lawyer, Robert Herbst, said Giza deals with thousands of products a year and did not know enough about this one to notice that the order was unusual.

In July of 2003, Bilmen placed the order with PerkinElmer Optoelectronics, based in Salem, for 200 triggered spark gaps, model GP-20B, at a price of for $447 each.

But the order - on the magnitude of a military request - raised eyebrows in Salem, where PerkinElmer employs a specialist to monitor the sales and make sure they comply with all regulations.

``It was such a huge quantity. A hospital buys one or two,'' said Daniel Sutherby, a PerkinElmer spokesman. It was the largest such order the company had ever received.

PerkinElmer contacted US officials, who told the company they were already tracking Karni's request, following an anonymous tip from South Africa, according to Sutherby and court documents.

Under the direction of special agents with the Department of Commerce, PerkinElmer moved to fill the order as though nothing was wrong. But before the first shipment of 66 switches was sent to New Jersey in September, PerkinElmer employees permanently disabled the devices.

US investigators tracked the package across three continents, until it arrived a month later at Khan's office in a run-down commercial complex in Islamabad. For the last leg of the journey, the package was labeled ``scientific equipment'' and addressed to the ``AJKMC Lithography Aid Society.'' No public record could be found in Pakistan of such an organization.

David Poole, a special agent with the US Department of Commerce, told the court he thinks the AJKMC Lithography Aid Society is an organization that prints copies of the Koran. In other court documents, US investigators note that ``AJKMC'' are the initials of the ``All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference,'' a Pakistani opposition party that supports extremist fighters in Kashmir, a disputed terroritory between Pakistan and India.

Lack of punishment

In a recent interview with the Globe, Humayun Khan said he had no idea why the package had been shipped to his street address or what AJKMC Lithography is. He also denied ever having seen the package, and insisted said he knew nothing about it.

He acknowledged that he had dealt with Karni before on the attempted purchase of sensors to guide aircraft and wireless communications equipment, but denied buying the switches. He said the flurry of e-mails sent in his name had come from a rogue employee who has since disappeared. Khan said he has been put on a blacklist by the US Commerce Department and is no longer able to import goods from the United States, - a restriction he called rash and unfair.

Karni was arrested Jan. 1 when he flew to the United States for a ski vacation with his family, and was released on bail into the supervision of a Maryland rabbi. His lawyer, Alyza Lewin, declined to comment on his case.

Others accused of involvement in underground nuclear sales to Pakistan have avoided harsh penalties.

Even Abdul Qadeer Khan, who confessed to helping three countries to pursue a nuclear bomb, has been pardoned by Pakistan's president and allowed to keep the money he made from the deals.

Milhollin said the lack of punishment is outrageous because the wares that nuclear smugglers sell threaten the lives of far more people than the act of an ordinary criminal: ``You have to punish those people,'' he said. ``They are basically businessmen. he said. ``They sit down and calculate their risks. If you raise the chances of conviction, they are going to alter their behavior.''

Back at PerkinElmer in Salem, people say many feel their role in solving the case is just part of the business. ``Employees talked about the incident around the water coolers for a day or so,'' Sutherby said. ``But then everyone went back to their daily routines.''

Victoria Burnett reported from Islamabad. Ross Kerber of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by NRao »

"You don't catch it all, but you try to catch enough of it so that you deter people,'' said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, who said that two or three people each year are caught trying to smuggle items that can be used for nuclear weapons. ``It's like street crime. . . . It's just a continuing battle.''
There you have it folks. We need to adjust and live with this for ever.

I have a new theory. I very seriously think that Xerox Khan was actually trying to waste BR bandwidth to such an extent that he had hoped to shut down BR.

This nuke proliferation has really nothing to do with proliferation of anything, it is a direct attack on BR itself. In our attempt to self preserve, we must shut down this thread. :)
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Sunil »

Good Lord!

I can't believe Milholn is actually saying that. Is he really that dense?

wtf is going to happen if nuclear attacks become as common as getting mugged?

I am seeing that same strain of non-chalance that used to exist about this before. The people still have not learnt from the mistakes of the past.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

I am moving (back) to outer Space.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Gayatri »

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/031004Leopold/031004leopold.html

"Cheney helped cover-up Pakistani nuclear proliferation in '89 so US could sell country fighter jets"

...
"So it was sort of a surprise when Bush, upon finding out about Khan's proliferation of nuclear technology, let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was all an act. In fact, it was actually a coverup designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it."
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Vivek_A »

Rangudu
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rangudu »

Link
Tajikistan arrests man with 3 grams of plutonium

DUSHANBE: Tajik authorities have arrested a man with three grammes of factory-grade plutonium that he allegedly planned to sell to someone in Afghanistan or Pakistan</font>, officials said on Monday.

“The arrested man confessed that he intended to sell the plutonium to citizens of Afghanistan or Pakistan</font> for 21,000 dollars,” said Avaz Yuldashev, spokesman for the drug control agency in the Central Asian country.


Mr Yuldashev did not release the suspect’s name, but said he was a citizen of neighbouring Uzbekistan. Tajik special services suspected him of drug smuggling, but during a search found a capsule of factory-grade plutonium that was likely made either in Russia or Kazakhstan. Tajikistan is a main smuggling route for drugs destined for Western markets from Afghanistan, with which it shares a 1,340-kilometer border that is patrolled by thousands of Tajik and Russian troops. The economic disarray that followed the break up of the Soviet Union has sparked fears that downtrodden scientists would sell weapons of mass destruction to extremists.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

$7000 per gram?

Man! How does one grow this stuff?
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Amber G. »

$7000 per gram?
Price for Pu ( for research purpose etx) is about $15 per gram in open market... If some one is ready to sell it to you.
Kuttan
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Kuttan »

ANNOUNCING formation of

MULTAN MUTANT MULLAH POO WORKS

By Appointment to his GUBO Excellency Presidente Musharraf.

"We sell no Pu before its due"

Strategic Business Plan.

Buy Pu at $15/gram from IAEA, sell Pu at $7000/gram to Al Qaeda.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by shiv »

Originally posted by narayanan:


Buy Pu at $15/gram from IAEA, sell Pu at $7000/gram to Al Qaeda.
$3 billion in economic aid should buy you 400 Kg of Poo and still leave enough money to send one RAPE kid to Harvard.
Jash

Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Jash »

quote:
($3 billion in economic aid should buy you 400 Kg of Poo and still leave enough money to send one RAPE kid to Harvard.)
Ya and blow your Towers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Arun_S »

SpaceDaily:Powell expects to have "full discussions" with Musharaff on nuclear leaks

Will it be a "Bench Pressing" outing or a General to General bon-homie? :p
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by jrjrao »

Chimps in a chimp-trap settle for chump change from Libya.

Libya paid Pakistani $100 mln in nuclear deals - U.S.

U.S. Displays Nuclear Parts Given by Libya
Abraham Calls Haul A 'Big, Big Victory'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Libya paid at least $100 million to the nuclear arms network run by the father of Pakistan's atom bomb for equipment needed in Tripoli's own drive to build a bomb, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Flanked by guards armed with automatic rifles, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham led journalists past wooden crates containing 50,000 pounds of machine parts used for enriching uranium -- the "tip of the iceberg" of a vastly larger quantity of sensitive technology sold to Libya by Khan and his black-market associates, Abraham said.

The nuclear parts -- which Libya voluntarily turned over to the United States earlier this year -- were laid out in rows inside an enormous white tent in a parking lot at the Energy Department's Y-12 National Security Complex in eastern Tennessee. The rare display, witnessed by 45 journalists who were flown to the complex by chartered jet, was intended to call attention to what Abraham called a "big, big victory" in the administration's effort to combat weapons of mass destruction: Libya's unilateral decision to give up its unconventional weapons.
photo - of Libyan centrifuge parts
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by arun »

LA Times:

U.S. Discusses Depth of Khan's Nuclear Network
By Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writer

March 16, 2004

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — The black-market network of Pakistan's top atomic scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, stretched across several continents, had active training programs and received $100 million from Libya for equipment and technology to make nuclear weapons, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

Operatives in at least a dozen countries manufactured, sold or transported nuclear components to Libya, Iran, North Korea and perhaps other nations as part of Khan's enterprise in recent years, the officials said.

"Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East — it really did span the entire globe," said one, who requested anonymity. "We were surprised by the quantity and how advanced it was."

The disclosures marked the most comprehensive statements by senior Bush administration officials about the network run by Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program. He is believed to have personally made millions of dollars from illicit sales of nuclear technology and components to rogue nations.

The officials spoke during a daylong media tour of the U.S. Energy Department's top-secret Y-12 National Security Complex, which put on display 55,000 pounds of nuclear components surrendered by Libya in recent months, including centrifuges — used to enrich uranium — and other equipment allegedly supplied by Khan's network.

The officials, including Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, said Libya's decision to voluntarily dismantle its program marked a milestone in the effort by the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency to curb the proliferation of unconventional weapons.

"The success of our mission in Libya underscores the success of our administrator's broader nonproliferation efforts around the world," Abraham said.

But officials also acknowledged that gaining unfettered access to Libya's nuclear program showed how damaging — and lucrative — the network's activities had been.

If Libya had received a large shipment of centrifuges and other nuclear components from Khan's network last year, it would have gained everything it needed to soon begin building bombs, Abraham and the other officials said.

In return, Libya paid handsomely for the technology and equipment. "The estimate is about $100 million — which, for a very small number of individuals, made it a very lucrative trade," said a second senior administration official. That figure was confirmed by deputy national security advisor James Wilkinson.

In briefings, officials with the Energy Department, the State Department and the National Security Council discussed their secret negotiations with Libya, which led to Tripoli's decision in December to dismantle its nuclear program and its efforts to produce chemical weapons and deploy long-range missiles.

They also described the dramatic scramble to secure thousands of centrifuges, huge canisters of highly enriched uranium and other components, truck them through the congested streets of Tripoli and load them on a C-17 transport plane in the dead of night.

"We got that entire plane loaded, lashed down and off the runway in five hours, from 9:30 at night to 2 a.m.," said one official, a veteran nonproliferation expert who oversaw the U.S. effort in Libya. "It's safe to say their nuclear program has been completely dismantled and removed from the country."

The official said an additional 1 million pounds of nuclear components, largely less-sensitive equipment, was on a freighter bound for the United States.

The officials said that although they had learned little about Khan's operation from the scientist himself, a top associate, Buhary Syed abu Tahir, had provided substantial information to Malaysian authorities, who passed it on the U.S.

To date, no one has been criminally charged — including Khan, who was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

The U.S. officials said they believed that a Briton named Peter Griffin provided training in Libya, the Basque region of Spain and perhaps elsewhere in Europe to members of the network. Libyan officials have told the IAEA that their nuclear workers were sent to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for weeklong training courses.

The U.S. officials also disclosed more than was previously known about the role of Tahir, who they said oversaw day-to-day operations of the network, including shipping the equipment to Libya. Tahir also "managed the financial aspects of the network" and the manufacturing facility in Malaysia.

And an official said a German, Gotthard Lerch, "was very active in acquiring specific components of centrifuges both for Libya and Iran" and that two companies in Turkey provided centrifuge parts and electrical components to Libya. "All of these nodes operated together. All of them operated as a coordinated network," the official said.

Times staff writer Douglas Frantz in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this report.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by arun »

Washington Post:
Powell to Seek Nuclear Details From Pakistan

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A18

NEW DELHI, March 15 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Monday that he planned to press Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to disclose whether his country's probe of a nuclear trafficking network blamed on scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had uncovered the involvement of other Pakistani officials.

Powell, speaking to reporters on his plane shortly before arriving here Monday night to begin a swing through South Asia, said he was seeking a detailed briefing on "what else they may have learned about the network" that he had not "been made aware of through normal intelligence channels."

In particular, Powell said, he would "be interested to see whether there is any involvement of past officials or any official involvement in any of this over the years. I think that is something the government of Pakistan should look into and I think is looking into."

The scope of Khan's dealings suggest that key members of the Pakistani military, intelligence services or government may have aided or ignored Khan's efforts to peddle nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But Bush administration officials have been wary of probing too deeply because the United States needs Pakistan's assistance in the search for Osama bin Laden and members of his al Qaeda network.

Powell said that the administration wants even greater Pakistani cooperation. "Pakistan has undertaken a number of operations recently along the border . . . and we just want to see them do more of that," he said. Referring to the militia that once ruled most of Pakistan's neighbor, Afghanistan, he said, "We want to see if they can do a better job of apprehending Taliban persons who we might be able to identify for them."

Khan, who long ran Pakistan's main nuclear weapons plant and is known as the creator of the country's nuclear bomb, acknowledged last month that he had passed nuclear secrets without government authorization; Musharraf then pardoned him. The Pakistani government launched an investigation of Khan last year after receiving evidence from the United States.

Powell is to hold talks with Indian officials on boosting U.S. exports to India and about the growing thaw between Pakistan and India. Powell also is to discuss how to implement an agreement in which the United States will help India with its nuclear energy and space technology in return for India's promise to use the aid for peaceful purposes and to help block the spread of dangerous weapons.

Powell noted that tensions have eased enough between Pakistan and India that they have begun a series of cricket matches this week. But he arrived the day after India's Foreign Ministry rejected Musharraf's insistence that the disputed region of Kashmir was the central issue dividing the countries.

Over the weekend, Musharraf said India and Pakistan must resolve the 56-year conflict over Kashmir in order for the two nuclear powers to resolve their differences.

Powell also has scheduled a visit to Afghanistan to confer with Afghan leaders about their preparations for an election and efforts by the central government to win greater control -- and tax revenue -- from areas now controlled by regional military leaders.
The full transcript of Colin Powell "speaking to reporters on his plane", is here.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Sunil »

Hmm..

> The U.S. officials said they believed that a Briton named Peter Griffin provided training in Libya, the Basque region of Spain and perhaps elsewhere in Europe to members of the network.

A basque connection.

> Libyan officials have told the IAEA that their nuclear workers were sent to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for weeklong training courses.

interesting link

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb13/edst.asp

Feb 13 2003

Have Pakistani scientists passed on nuclear technology to
Chechen and Uighur rebel forces?
Nuke chase: Foul’s fair for Pakistan
By T Sreedhar

Some new revelations about Pakistan’s nuclear programme give a glim-pse of how the nuclear non-proliferation regime is wor-king. First is the clandestine procurement drive through London. According to various accounts published in the western media, a British exporter of Pakistani origin by the name of Abu Bakar Siddiqui was facing trial in Southwark Crown Court in London from 2000 for illegal export of dual-use items to Pakistan for the last two years.

These materials were required by Dr A Q Khan Rese-arch Laboratories (AQKRL) which is engaged in developing weapons of mass destruction. The illegal exports were detected when a batch of high grade aluminum bars, destined for Karachi, were seized by the customs authorities at Southa-mpton docks in November 1998. Siddiqui chose to ignore the seizure and tried to ship special aluminum sheets in January 1999, by showing its destination as Dubai. Follo-wing this disclosure, the British Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) had warned him.

However, again on 10th May 1999, customs authorities intercepted another consignment of 20 tonne of special aluminum destined for Dubai at Thamesport container terminal on Isle of Graine in Kent, South Eastern England. This led to a raid on Siddiqui’s office. During a search of his premises, a huge quantity of papers and computer discs were confiscated. On the basis of these documents, the prosecution has alleged that ‘Siddiqui was directly receiving instructions for such ‘exports from AQKRL from 1995.

Clandestine network

The documents revealed that in December 1996, he received a hand-written note for furnace (worth Euro 64,000), which he processed through a UK firm, M/S Comco Combus-tion Ltd of west Midlands. The furnaces were delivered at Karachi on February 4, 1997. Thereafter, on April 16, 1997, there was another inquiry for furnaces and Comco sought some technical clarifications from Siddiqui. According to the prosecution, this was responded to by Dr A Q Khan himself using his personal fax number. Comco had also sought details of the end-user and destination.

Siddiqui even used Bangladesh as a destination for some liquid analysers ordered by AQKRL. It also ordered special bottles which were procured through Business Machine Ltd of the UK. In July 1997, an order for welding materials was processed through a Cambridge firm, M/S Huston Electros, the invoice for which was placed through M/S United Engineering Trading Co (UETC), of Pakistan. The order and the invoice were made to Siddiqui’s home address. A further order of ‘Installation Tester Series – I’ was also processed by Siddiqui with the destination being show as Bangladesh. When queried by customs authorities about the end user, Siddiqui reportedly admitted that it was intended for use in the petro-chemical Industry in Pakistan.

Backlash

The prosecution also suspects that several other small items may have gone through undetected by customs to false destinations in Dubai and Bangladesh. On October 8, 1998, several DC converters were ordered through a Bangladesh address which were later shipped to Karachi. It was alleged that the same year some furnaces were also sent to M/S Somer Machinery Equipment Co, in Dubai, allegedly for the University of Dubai’s Physics Department.

The thrust of the prosecution case is that Abu Bakar Siddiqui was working for AQKRL since 1995 and deliberately violated export restrictions on dual-use items. Siddiqui, however, denies all charges of violating export restrictions.
Second was the sudden disappearances of at least nine Pakistani nuclear scientists between 1997 and 2002 from the power plant being built at Chasma with the Chinese assistance. No one knows where they have gone. Ostensibly, they left the plant due to poor working conditions and low salaries.

These reports are being seen within the context of the famous A Q Khan’s secret visits to North Korea, Kanda-har and some other countries. Over the years, the clandestine network for acquiring nuclear technology from across the globe has been perfected. This is making some people to conclude that these missing nuclear scientists and their ideological guru, A Q Khan, have passed on technology to rebel groups like Chechens, Uighurs and some others.

If this is true, the original Chinese ploy to transfer nuclear technology to Pakistan, to acquire pressure point vis-a-vis India, has boomeranged; and China has become an agent of nuclear weapons proliferation.
(The writer is a visiting Professor at CWAAS, School of International Studies, Jawa-harlal Nehru University, New Delhi
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by NRao »

First the director of Wisconsin Project makes a joke of himself, now CP follows that act.

Nuclear prolifeartion in full swing and CP is still trying to find details? The perpetrators were more serious than the cops it looks like - and still are.

We may need to coin new words for this predicament.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by vishnua »

From TOI By CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's open market sale of nuclear materials and blueprints netted $100 million from Libya alone, US officials disclosed on Monday.

The nuclear sale, described by one official as a "one-stop shopping," might have netted similar amounts from North Korea and Libya, it was suggested.
In an extraordinary move, the Bush administration flew out 45 journalists on a chartered jet to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to showcase nuclear materials shipped in from Libya, in an effort to underscore its success on the foreign policy front, even as it continued to absolve Pakistan of official complicity in the serial proliferation.
Ascribing the activities to a network led by Pakistan's nuclear hero A Q Khan, US deputy national security advisor Jim Wilkinson said the Khan network's financial dealings were complex and Washington did not yet have a complete picture yet.

"The developing picture, however, indicates that the network received at least $100 million dollars for supplying technology, equipment and know-how to Libya," he said.

The $100 million figure, small change for oil-rich Libya but a bonanza for cash-strapped Pakistan, was double the $50 million amount previously suggested.

"Those are the ingredients that could have provided Libya with nuclear weapons capabilities," US Energy Secretary Spenser Abraham said, showing reporters, including TV cameras, components of gas-centrifuge machine used to enrich uranium.
Accounts by reporters who went on the trip described the haul as "the largest recovery, by weight, ever conducted under US non-proliferation efforts." More material is on its way from Libya by sea, they were told.

While bragging about the Libya recovery, US officials however showed no particular alarm about Pakistan's nuclear shenanigans. Senior Bush administration officials have repeatedly sought to absolve Pakistani government and the military, and sought to shift the blame on Khan alone, despite scepticism on this score from US analysts.

The state department in particular has taken a lead role what is seen as a credulous expression of faith in Pakistan despite its record as a serial proliferator.

While raising the estimates of how much the so-called Khan network made from the nuclear deals, the Bush administration has also been blasé about Musharraf’s announcement that Khan could keep his nuclear lucre, nor has it been particularly worried about Islamabad's continuing tests of ballistic missiles.

American commentators and public opinion is increasingly veering around to the view that the Bush administration is chasing a red herring in Iraq, while winking at far more egregious violations from Pakistan added by me dahh it is not too late to fix the mistakes

Describing Pakistan as the "real rogue nation of proliferation," New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff recently excoriated Washington, saying the administration's policy was mystifying.

"Several experts on Pakistan told me they believe that the administration has been so restrained because its top priority isn't combating nuclear proliferation — it's getting President Pervez Musharraf's help in arresting Osama bin Laden before the November election," Kristoff wrote last week, giving wide currency to talk in Washington that Bush is putting his personal political fortunes before the dangers posed to US and the rest of the world by Pakistan's proliferation.
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by Rangudu »

Former Bush admin (#41) Pentagon non-proliferation Czar Henry Sokolski opines for the National Review.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/sokolski200403160842.asp
Proliferation Pass

Stopping China and Pakistan in their nuclear tracks.


By Henry Sokolski

You'd think that after the illicit Pakistani nuclear sales to North Korea, Iran, and Libya, the U.S. and its allies would want to boost the rules on nuclear exports, especially for nuclear goods bound for Islamabad. But if you knew what Chinese, French, Japanese, and U.S. reactor vendors and energy officials were up to, you'd realize you were wrong.

Westinghouse in the U.S., Japan's Mitsubishi, and the French firm Areva are so eager to sell China nuclear-power plants that they and their governments are turning a blind eye to an even more troubling nuclear export — a Chinese deal to sell Islamabad a large reactor. This sale, revealed in the press last week, defies the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines — rules China says it wants to adhere to and that President Bush is anxious to bolster.

Saying nothing to protest this sale to Islamabad would confirm that the worst proliferators, such as Pakistan, can not only go Scot-free for their proliferating past, but also receive more nuclear technology without having to follow the rules. It's one deal that should be killed and could be if U.S. and allied officials made their own reactor sales to China contingent on Beijing renouncing its nuclear-reactor pledge to Pakistan.

Backers of the civilian nuclear industry, of course, see things differently. Pakistan and China, they note, are already nuclear-weapons states and China now says it will place its proposed reactor to Pakistan under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Besides, the U.S. government has spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars helping Westinghouse on its AP 1000 reactor design to make sure Beijing gets the reactors it needs. What nonproliferation concerns, they ask, could warrant blocking the sale?

There are three.

First, the U.S. and its allies can hardly sell China reactors and say nothing about Beijing's Pakistani reactor deal without making a hash of the NSG's guidelines and President Bush's own most recent nonproliferation proposals. On February 11, 2004, President Bush announced a series of initiatives that would put real teeth and backbone into the NSG. Under this organization's rules, no member is supposed to supply nuclear goods to any state unless the recipient is willing to open all of its nuclear facilities to full-scope IAEA inspections. President Bush not only backs this rule, but wants to toughen it by requiring NSG members to cut off nuclear sales to states that have refused to adopt the IAEA's latest, most stringent additional inspections protocol.

Pakistan, of course, has refused to allow the IAEA to inspect all but a handful of its nuclear facilities. China, meanwhile, proudly announced in January that it intends to become a member of the NSG (a step that U.S. officials undoubtedly encouraged China to take in anticipation of U.S. nuclear sales to it). China's pledge to sell Pakistan a large reactor, then, could hardly be more obnoxious: It makes a mockery of the NSG, China's candidacy to become a member, President Bush's nonproliferation initiative, and nuclear restraint in general.

Second, letting these reactor sales proceed can only persuade Pakistani officials they are off the hook for behavior that has distinguished them as the worst nuclear proliferator since the advent of nuclear energy. Pakistan, in fact, has been cutting nuclear weapons deals with Libya, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea for a decade or more. A recent Central Intelligence Agency report leaked to the press pegs Pakistan's first nuclear dealings with North Korea to information exchanges that began in 1991.

U.S. officials clearly would like to learn more from Pakistan's proliferation mastermind Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Unfortunately, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who recently pardoned Khan for selling Pakistan's nuclear crown jewels, has kept U.S. officials from interviewing him. So far, the White House has put up with this. If, on top of this, the U.S. and its allies do nothing to block China's reactor sale to Pakistan, Islamabad will have reason to conclude that they are forgiven and need not cooperate any further.

Third, doing nothing to block China from selling Pakistan a new reactor will make it much more difficult to restrain nuclear sales to other nations. Pakistan, after all, needs another reactor like Iran needs its nuclear power plant at Bushehr and its uranium enrichment plants. Well-informed Pakistani critics have pointed out that the $700 million reactor and its proposed location at Chashma raises major safety and economic concerns. Unfortunately, Islamabad has so far ignored the critics.


If Washington says nothing, it will only suggest Islamabad is right. This will set a horrendous precedent. Is there any country less qualified financially or in need of buying such a reactor, more able to convert the reactor's fresh or spent fuel quickly into bomb material, or freer of legal constraints to proliferate? (Pakistan, unlike most nations, has never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.) If we let this sale go without protest, how will we and our allies be able to say no to anyone else?

Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to visit Islamabad before the end of this week. The urgent topic of Pakistan's nuclear-proliferation exports is sure to be on his agenda. To this he needs to add stopping Pakistan's planned reactor import from China. Certainly, Washington won't impress the Pakistanis about blocking the bomb's further spread if it lets this one go.
NRao
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Re: Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 Mar 2004

Post by NRao »

OK. Listen up folks. CP talks:

US raises proliferation worries

It is good when US worries I guess.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called for a nuclear proliferation network led from Pakistan to be completely rooted out
Wow. In 2004. They are going to find the roots.
Speaking after meeting Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, Mr Powell said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was "as determined as we are" to put an end to nuclear proliferation.
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