Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 02 October 2004

[NRao]

Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, et al are small scrap. They have nothing that can be hidden.

It is Chicom that needs to be snagged. The crown jewel of scraps.

[Manu]

The story that refuses to die

By Aamer Ahmed Khan
BBC News

Dr AQ Khan was once revered in Pakistan as the father of the country's nuclear weapons development programme.
He is now a pariah spending time in virtual house arrest in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, a city that was once his citadel.

On 3 February, 2004, Dr Khan went on national TV to admit that he had shared Pakistan's coveted nuclear secrets to groups and nations who aspired to building weapons of mass destruction.

He sought forgiveness from his countrymen, accepting full responsibility for his actions and absolving all Pakistani governments of any blame.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf called national editors to Islamabad shortly after Dr Khan's disclosures and asked them to forget about the whole affair.

The man responsible had suffered a total loss of prestige and therefore needed no further punishment, the president said.

Journalists were told that Pakistan would have faced horrendous consequences had Dr Khan not been asked to admit to his clandestine activities.

But now it was all over and it was best to let sleeping dogs lie, Gen Musharraf had concluded, firmly.

Most did as they were told.

'More dangerous'

Yet a year after those sensational events, the story refuses to die.

As the global anti-proliferation tightens its net around the states harbouring not-so-secret nuclear ambitions, Dr Khan's name keeps creeping up again and again.

In a 14 February cover story by Time magazine titled Merchant of Menace, the magazine said that Dr Khan had single-handedly made the world a more dangerous place than was previously imaginable.

The Time magazine report said that the proliferation network put together by Dr Khan was "still operational".

That was swiftly denied by the government in Islamabad.

Now the Pakistan government has formally admitted that Dr Khan had given "a few centrifuges" to Iran.

Major US publications have continued to follow the story, refusing to believe the Pakistan government's claim that the AQ Khan saga was over.

That may not be hard to understand, given the macabre scenarios associated with the prospects of theft and use of nuclear materials for terrorist purposes.

What is perhaps less comprehensible is the lukewarm response that such stories now generate in Pakistan, a country that many in the West believe ought to be more worried about the affair than any other.

The answer, say analysts, may lie in the curious nature of the US-Pakistan relationship.

Classified information of any nature, argue these analysts, has become a highly valuable bargaining chip in the post-September 2001 world.

Few countries appreciate this more than Pakistan, which has used its knowledge of the al-Qaeda network with great dexterity in what analysts have often described as its thrust-and-parry relationship with the US.

In doing that, say analysts, Pakistan is only putting into use some bitter lessons it learnt from the Afghan war.


Pakistan stunned

Simply put, the most important of these lessons says that the moment you give your more powerful allies all that they need, they have no more use for you.

Pakistan's role in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan was not enough to keep the western world its ally forever.

Once the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan towards the end of the 1980s, the US lost interest in the region with a finality that left its allies in the Pakistani establishment stunned.

Its current role in the proliferation business, however willingly and competently it is played, is similarly unlikely to permanently endear the West to a country that is seen to have been unable to look after its destructive technologies in the first place.

Perhaps Pakistan has decided to play it bit by bit, say analysts, and thereby ensure being a vital part of the game for as long as the game lasts.

If information is a strategic asset, it must be spent with extreme caution. And with a miserly hand. As an asset, especially for a military government, information is to be used to keep allies grateful - and dependent.

It may look like a dangerous game. But for countries such as Pakistan, the world has always been a dangerous place.

In the 1980s, Pakistan and its surrounding region was supplying the world with a bulk of its narcotics. In the 1990s, the same region was turning into the hub of a global terror regime.

Half way through the first decade of the 21st century, the country finds itself at the centre of a worldwide nuclear proliferation controversy.

Pakistani analysts thus seem convinced that the AQ Khan affair is here to stay.

The world may get to learn a lot more about it, but only over a period of time, only bit by bit.

[Arun_S]

Bhutto Personally Got Missile Blueprints For Pakistan

by Anwar Iqbal
UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst
Washington (UPI) Mar 07, 2005

Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has said that she personally brought blueprints from North Korea for her country's missile program.

In February 2004, when father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, media reports also suggested that Pakistan had given nuclear technology to North Korea in return for the missiles it bought from the communist state.

Talking to a group of Pakistani journalists in Washington over the weekend, Bhutto said Pakistan paid "cash" for these blueprints, but Pakistani authorities might have exchanged nuclear technology for missiles later, after the United States and other world powers slapped strict economic sanctions on Islamabad following the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan. Bhutto's political rival, Nawaz Sharif, was in power then.

"It is quite possible that in 1998, when we were facing a financial crunch because of our nuclear tests, at that time this (exchange of nuclear technology for missiles) might have happened, but not by us.

"I was out of the government by then, but I have read press reports saying that this has been done. Rather, this has been indirectly admitted in Dr. A. Q. Khan's confession," said Bhutto while referring to Khan's televised confession of Feb. 6, 2004.

A State Department official, when asked for comments, said her "remarks were interesting" but declined further comments.

The former Pakistani prime minister said that in 1989 her government formed a missile technology board which produced short-range missiles that do not violate international restrictions on this technology.

Bhutto said in 1993, when she was going to North Korea as Pakistan's prime minister, Pakistani scientists working on the country's nuclear and missile programs asked her to bring blueprints of North Korean missiles that had a longer range than those Pakistan already had.

"These were not nuclear missiles but had the capability to carry nuclear weapons," said Bhutto.

She said these were blueprints for short- and medium-range missiles, which Pakistan's archrival, India, did not have at that stage. So initially she was reluctant to ask North Koreans for the blueprints of these missiles.

"I told them, our policy is to have parity with India, unless India tests those missiles, we should not. But I was told that we will not make these missiles. We will only make preparations," said Bhutto.

The former prime minister, whose father was hanged by a military ruler, Gen. Zia ul Huq, and who is now prevented from returning to Pakistan by another military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said there was a time when the Pakistani military depended on her for defense purchases.

"I was told, 'Only you can bring these blueprints; only you can bring F-16s from America; only you can bring Mirage aircraft from France. Look what they have done to me now," said Bhutto referring to the Musharraf government's policy that she could be arrested and tried for corruption if she returned home.

"I told the North Koreans: Give us missile technology. We should be prepared for (any threat). It was a cash transaction - no exchange of nuclear technology. Exchanging nuclear technology for missiles was never even discussed during my visit."

Bhutto recalled that her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, started Pakistan's nuclear program after the first nuclear test by India in 1974 and brought Khan from Holland to work on the project to make a nuclear bomb for his country.

She urged the Pakistani government to order an independent inquiry into the allegations against Khan because many in Pakistan still believe that he is a national hero who has been unfairly treated.

Bhutto said Khan played a key role in Pakistan's nuclear program for which the entire nation respected him.

"But it is a matter of great shame and disappointment that he appeared on the national television and confessed to selling Pakistan's nuclear secret in the black market."

Bhutto said there were people in Pakistan who believed that Khan was made a scapegoat and that it's "possible that he was ordered to do whatever he did."

"If this is true, then the people should know about it. This ambiguity can be cleared by holding an independent inquiry," said Bhutto, hoping that the current government will hold such an inquiry.

"If some people believe a national hero has been wrongly accused of what he has not done, they have a right to know the truth. If he has done what he is accused of doing, then he is wrong."

Although in the past Bhutto had said she was kept in the dark on Pakistan's nuclear program, she has now changed her stance.

Referring to a book written by a former official of the Pakistani military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, who claimed that the former prime minister was given "fake briefings" on Pakistan's nuclear program, she said: "ISI and Tirmizi had nothing to do with the nuclear program. The ISI was kept out of it both in the Bhutto and Zia governments."

She said she was not briefed by the ISI. "I called our scientists and asked for a briefing, and they briefed me. ISI-walay (the ISI men) were not the chief executive of Pakistan; I was. And Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the founder and father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb."

"I am silent because of national interests. Otherwise, I know a lot. Perhaps even today's rulers do not know as much about our nuclear program as I do."

[Arun_S]

Bhutto Missile Story Raises Hill Hackles

by Peter Roff, UPI Senior Political Analyst
Washington (UPI) Mar 07, 2005
Members of the U.S. Congress reacted with concern Monday to a report that North Korean missile blueprints had been couriered to Pakistan for use in its missile program by Benazir Bhutto while she was prime minister.

The report, published Monday by United Press International, said Bhutto told a group of Pakistani journalists in Washington that her country purchased the designs for the short- and medium-range missiles for cash and that no transfer of nuclear technology was involved.

Bhutto did allow, however, that following her tenure as head of the Islamabad-based government, Pakistani representatives might have engineered the exchange of nuclear technology for actual missiles in the period after international sanctions were placed on her country following its 1998 nuclear test.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said Bhutto's disclosure points up the need for a stricter regime of international controls governing the spread of nuclear and missile technology.

"These reports underscore the profound implications for global security if and when rogue regimes like North Korea sell such blueprints or even nuclear devices to terrorist groups," Brownback said.

"What we've done with Afghanistan and Iraq is crucial and an important step," Brownback continued, labeling Bhutto's disclosure as evidence of the need for closer cooperation between the United States and "all interested parties around the world to stop the spread of WMDs and missile technologies."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a member of the House International Relations Committee, labeled the report a demonstration of "both the arrogance and insanity of Pakistani leaders who wasted money pursuing rocket and nuclear technology while their own people go hungry and are denied adequate healthcare and education."

"The more serious question," he continued, "is where did North Korea obtain the technology that was passed on to Pakistan?"

To Rohrabacher, the answer is obvious. "The real villain," he said, "is China, which continues to play its normal, despicable role."

Bhutto told UPI that in 1993, as she headed to North Korea on a state visit, scientists working on Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs asked her to bring back blueprints of North Korean missiles that had a longer range than those possessed at the time by either Pakistan or India.

"These were not nuclear missiles but had the capability to carry nuclear weapons," Bhutto said. "I was told, 'Only you can bring these blueprints.'"

Bhutto told UPI that she had only offered cash to the North Koreans for the missile technology. "It was a cash transaction - no exchange of nuclear technology. Exchanging nuclear technology for missiles was never even discussed during my visit."

[Rangudu]

Talking of China, KK's next piece is about Uncle's glossing over of Chicom's nuke peddling:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GC11Ad05.html

[Rye]

Talking of China, KK's next piece is about Uncle's glossing over of Chicom's nuke peddling:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GC11Ad05.html

Rangudu, thanks for the link. Great Article by KK.

Goes to show once again that the US must be considered a hostile country w.r.t. India for all practical purposes, as their actions of getting china into the NSG and giving them free reign to proliferate seem to be motivated by a plan to deal with only one asian power instead of two. Even if this is more incompetence/expedience than malice, it makes no difference from India's point of view.

[SaiK]

when india has no takat to supply to its consumers fearing uncle, where is india's power projection equated to? otoh, china and has, is, and will supply to anyone in the world and get arround even doing nuclear proliferation.

[Leonard]

The great Pakistani lie
How long is the world to believe that A.Q.Khan proliferated alone?


11 March 2005: There is a limit to the patience that is expected of the world and India in respect of Pakistani proliferation, that patience and forbearance demanded of and obtained by the United States, but limits to them have been crossed by the latest disclosure. Pakistan yesterday acknowledged that its notorious nuclear scientist, A.Q.Khan, shipped entire centrifuges to Iran to make nuclear weapons.

The Pakistan information minister who made the disclosure, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, however continued with the fiction that the Pakistan government had no hand or knowledge of the centrifuge shipments. Centrifuges are not the same as mobile phone made for ants, and Pakistani proliferation which commenced in the Eighties and continued apace through the Nineties and still apparently goes on with Saudi Arabia is of a scale and magnitude that implicates the Pakistan government and its successive constituent regimes. The tragedy is that we are expected to believe Khan ran this great huge nuclear empire alone with close relatives.

Pakistan became an assured proliferator soon after Khan credibly claimed making the deterrent in the mid-Eighties. Pakistan was then ruled by General Zia-ul-Haq who had forced the US to look the other way of its weaponisation programme in return for the waged so-called jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Zia’s assassination by mid-air explosion attributed to some dissident Shia military officers lead to a succession of civilian governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief, toppled or propped up by the military, and in regard to the nuclear and missile programmes, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief were merely figurehead heads of government, because they were neither informed nor kept apprised of all that went on with weaponisation and in the name of it.

Nawaz Sharief himself was toppled by General Parvez Musharraf, and through all these upheavals, there were two continuities. There was no let up in Pakistan’s weaponisation programme, with increasing and deeper linkages with China, which was proliferating nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan against India. The second continuity was A.Q.Khan. Through all the political maelstroms, Khan led a charmed existence as the so-called “Father of the Pak Bomb”. He was lavished with favours and fringe benefits, he came to enjoy almost as much absolute status as Pakistan’s absolute rulers, and not only did he run the nuclear programme, he became the nuclear programme. The Pakistani state built huge stakes on him. Like the military, he became a representative symbol of the Pakistani state.

It has often been speculated that the Shah of Iran funded Pakistan’s nuclear programme after it suffered crippling and humiliating defeat at India’s hands in the 1971 war and lost East Pakistan. If that be true, Pakistan was keeping only state commitments by supplying centrifuges and worse to Iran, a manner of nuclear quid pro quo. To blame this entire transaction, then, on one person, Khan, fools no one. Khan was representative of the Pakistan state, but it is unbelievable that the state knew little or nothing of his dealings, as the Pakistan information minister would have us believe.

But Iran was not the only Middle East power with a stake in Pakistan’s weaponisation programme. There was principally Saudi Arabia terrified of Shia Iran acquiring weapons, and it got a leg up after the Shah’s deposition by Ayatollah Khomeini turned America against. Throughout the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, America, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were close, quite a triumvirate, and as an espouser of Sunni fundamentalism, the Saudis and General Zia were close. Saudi Arabia also contributed to Pakistan’s weapons programme, and we published recent intelligence that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were keeping nuclear contacts alive long after A.Q.Khan’s exposure. So much for Pakistani government innocence in proliferation.

But this is hardly all. To US and British denukers, Libyan interlocutors confessed that Pakistan and China proliferated to them, and Pakistan itself admitted to this after incriminating evidence was presented, but with a rider. The entire Pak-Libyan connection was blamed on Khan. More outrageously, the proliferation to North Korea was also laid at Khan’s door, although here, the deceptions of the Pakistan government have been more swiftly and comprehensively exposed.

In the proliferation to North Korea, two countries were involved, Pakistan as a cutout for China, and China. While China is rogue North Korea’s sole supporter, and supporter of its weapons programme, because it terrorises South Korea and Japan and others in the Asia-Pacific region, it cannot afford to be tied closely to North Korean nukes as an NPT power. Enter Pakistan.

Pakistan sealed a nukes-for-missile deal with North Korea, meaning, for traded nuclear-capable North Korean ballistic missiles of Chinese origin, Pakistan would provide nuclear technology, also of Chinese descent. To clear the picture, China gave missile technology and maybe whole ballistic missiles to North Korea much in the same fashion that it provided nuclear technology and perhaps entire early generation nuclear weapons to Pakistan. Then to cross serve both its rogue allies, it got them to trade with one another, nukes for missiles as it went.

Long before A.Q.Khan was exposed, we logged his clandestine visits to North Korean nuclear facilities on Pakistan air force planes, the same planes that were later photographed delivering nuclear technologies or carrying away missile components. It is hard to believe that this whole China-Pakistan-North Korea nuclear and missile axis was controlled and operated by one man, Khan.

The point is, nobody believes this, not the US and the rest of the West, not the NPT powers excluding China, not India, having to face the brunt of Pakistani nuclear blackmail in the sub-continent, and not the international nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. But America, for its own reasons, is preventing the full and final exposure of Pakistan, and playing extra cautious in denuking Pakistan before its weapons fall into terrorist hands. The CIA says Pakistan will be a failed state by 2015 when it will be plunged in inter-provincial strife and civil war, and therefore US inaction seems even more irresponsible. The US believes in its own invincibility and infallible judgement, but the world should be wiser after 9/ 11 and the disastrous Iraq War. Pakistani government proliferation is a threat to international security, and consequently, Pakistan’s nuclear programme must be capped soonest.

http://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebat ... recno=1096

[Gerard]

Walk out over nuclear admission

Opposition groups in Pakistan have walked out of parliament in protest over a minister's admission that Iran was given Pakistani centrifuges.

Opposition law makers called on Friday for a debate on the minister's remarks, warning that "such irresponsible behaviour" could threaten national security.

Hardline Islamist leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed said the minister's statement had put the entire nation on the defensive.

[Vivek_A]

Pakistan 'to submit centrifuges'

Pakistan has reportedly agreed to hand uranium-enriching components over to UN inspectors, which could help in an inquiry into Iran's nuclear programme.

It earlier admitted the former head of its own programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had sold Iran similar centrifuge parts.

Diplomats close to the inquiry told reporters that Pakistan would give them to a UN laboratory in Austria.

They will then be compared with centrifuges found in Iran with suspicious uranium traces.

"These may hold the crucial fingerprints, the DNA, of the uranium traces found on equipment in Iran," a diplomat, who asked not to be named, told Reuters news agency.

Diplomats said the parts to be sent to Austria would come from the same group of centrifuges as those sold to Iran.

"The components will be secretly flown to Vienna in the middle of the night," one said, without giving further details.

'Contamination'

The UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for the past two years.

While it has found no proof that Iran plans to build nuclear weapons, it has also been unable to confirm that the programme is entirely peaceful, as Iran insists.

Washington has accused Iran, a state already rich in gas and oil, of pursuing atomic energy as a screen to develop nuclear weapons.

In 2003, the IAEA found traces of uranium in Iran that had been enriched to various levels, some of them close to what would be useable in weapons.

Fears then arose that Iran had been secretly seeking to purify uranium for use in weapons.

Iran blamed the traces on contaminated centrifuge components it had acquired second-hand from Pakistan.

[Alok_N]

Talking of China, KK's next piece is about Uncle's glossing over of Chicom's nuke peddling:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GC11Ad05.html

R, good job by KK ... Here's something you may wish to pass on to him ... its minor but worth a thought ...

I have highlighted some sentences with a particular phrase:

... closer scrutiny and interviews with experts reveal a weak, inconsistent and ultimately dangerous US policy with regard to China and its past (some say present) weapons proliferation, as well as China's own efforts to acquire nuclear reactors ...

Some well-placed sources, however, say they believe China probably has made promises not to proliferate ...

It has made that commitment, though some doubt Beijing's sincerity.

Some would point to their view that China has moved greatly along the path of non-proliferation ...

I am sure KK has interviewed the sources and does not wish to reveal them. However, the phrase "some say" has been abused so badly on FoX News that it grates ...

[the movie OUTFOXED has a long sequence with clips of the Talking Heads saying "some say" ...]

isn't there another way to phrase it?

Regards.

[Arun_S]

Pakistan denies it's sending centrifuges to IAEA for testing

ISLAMABAD (AFP) Mar 14, 2005
Pakistan on Monday denied reports it was to send used centrifuge parts to the UN atomic agency to trace the origin of highly enriched uranium contamination found in Iran.

"We are not providing any centrifuges," Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told AFP. "These are entirely baseless reports."

Diplomats in Vienna Sunday told AFP Pakistan was sending used centrifuge parts to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to help it figure out the origin of highly enriched uranium contamination found in Iran.

"We have not been asked to hand over any centrifuges to the IAEA," Jilani said later.

"We are cooperating with the IAEA and as is the norm and international practice, our cooperation with the IAEA is of confidential nature," he told a weekly press briefing.

Pakistan, while dealing with the UN agency, would be "strictly guided by our national interest and also by the imperatives of protecting our strategic assets," Jilani said.

An IAEA spokeswoman said Monday that the agency had no comment on the matter.

Pakistan last week admitted that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced scientist who fathered the country's nuclear weapons program, had sold Iran centrifuges used to enrich uranium into what can be either fuel for nuclear power plants or the explosive core of atom bombs.

Jilani said Pakistani investigations found some "clandestine transfers" took place at some stage.

"Those transfers were investigated by us and we shared the results with the international agency. Our efforts have been greatly appreciated by the IAEA," he said.

"The centrifuge parts will be sent to the IAEA in Seibersdorf" near Vienna, which will analyze and compare them with centrifuge components Khan sold to Iran, a Western diplomat close to the IAEA told AFP.

The IAEA is investigating contamination by microscopic particles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) found in Iran at a workshop in Tehran, at a pilot enrichment plant at Natanz and at other sites where there were centrifuges.

Iran, which says its nuclear program is for the peaceful purpose of making electricity, claims the HEU-contaminated equipment came from imported machinery and not from enrichment activities in Iran.

[Rangudu]

Alok_N,

The issue is that for Asia Times, KK is a correspondent unlike WTimes/UPI where KK is an op-ed writer/columnist.

Also ATimes is a proper news organization with levels of editing and sourcing.

So, any point of view for ATimes needs to be conveyed with caveats. The point of view suggested in that piece on China is echoed by some in the US while others see it differently. That is why it has to be written that way. KK's sources include people who actually deal with Beijing on a day-to-day basis and cannot afford to be quoted on the record.

BTW, folks there is a point for India to ponder.

China used to be like India - sitting outside these gora created multilateral regimes. The only difference was that we did not proliferate while the Chinese did with gusto.

In the 1990s, China figured out that the non-prol crowd play by some rules that can be used against them once you get inside. They have now become brilliant players of this game.

India needs to decide if such an approach is worth considering. We can easily join some of these alphabet soup of organizations. The mere fact that we are in there will give us room to manouver, I feel. Sitting outside ain't working.

[jrjrao]

Heh heh. Pakis just being, well, Pakis.

Pakistan Reviving Nuclear Black Market, Experts Say

VIENNA (Reuters) - Pakistan has developed new illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear weapons program, despite efforts by the U.N. atomic watchdog to shut down all illegal procurement avenues, diplomats and nuclear experts said.

Western diplomats familiar with an investigation of the nuclear black market by the U.N.'s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said this news was disturbing.

While Pakistan appeared to be shopping for its own needs, the existence of some nuclear black market channels meant there were still ways for rogue states or terrorist groups to acquire technology that could be used in atomic weapons, they said.

"General procurement efforts (by Pakistan) are going on. It is a determined effort," a diplomat from a member of the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"This was discussed at an NSG meeting in Vienna last week."

Nuclear experts said these channels involved new middlemen who had not played a role in earlier deals which came to light last year.

"These are not the same people. They're new, which is worrying," said one Western diplomat.

A diplomat from another NSG country that is a producer of technology usable in weapons programs said his country's customs agents were not surprised. "Our people are well aware of Pakistan's efforts to upgrade its centrifuge program."

Asked if Pakistan was using the black market to upgrade its facilities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said in Islamabad: "To be honest, I don't have an update on that."

"Pakistan's nuclear capability is a reality which has to be reconciled, and obviously in order to maintain its capability Pakistan would make all the preparations," he added.

The diplomats said national authorities had intercepted some of Pakistan's attempted purchases, including high-strength aluminum for gas centrifuges used to make atomic fuel.

Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a U.S. think-tank, said a warning was issued last year that Pakistan would be shopping globally.

"A European country gave out a warning about a year ago that Pakistan had funding to renovate its nuclear weapons complex and would use Malaysia as a false end-use location," Albright said.

[arun]

Testimony of Director of Central Intelligence, Porter J. Goss, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence :

“We believe North Korea continues to pursue a uranium enrichment capability drawing on the assistance it received from A.Q. Khan before his network was shutdown.”

And regarding that other Pakistani national pastime besides proliferation :

”In Pakistan, terrorist elements remain committed to attacking US targets.”

CIA

[arun]

Extract from Secy. Rice's interview with Pakistani TV :

MR. MIR: Are you satisfied with the investigations regarding the nuclear black marketing and investigations against Dr. A.Q. Khan?


SECRETARY RICE: First of all, it was a very good thing for the world that the A.Q. Khan network is out of business and we are working with a number of governments around the world, most especially Pakistan, to make sure that that is indeed the case. We have good cooperation with Pakistan on this matter, good information sharing, and we are working with all who might have been involved because this is a very serious matter. The thought of a black market entrepreneur trading in the world's most terrible weapons technology, really gives us cause to think that this is not just a state-to-state issue but that these networks need to be understood and broken up.


MR. MIR: Do you want direct access to Dr. A.Q. Khan for your investigators?


SECRETARY RICE: Well, we are working with the Pakistanis to -- for reasonable arrangements to get what we need to work together in order to deal with this problem. It's important to realize that this isn't just of interest to the United States. It's, of course, of interest to Pakistan which wants to know what happened here. And so I'm confident that we can work together and arrangements can be made.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/43605.htm

[jrjrao]

Pakistan Nuke Scientist Khan,Colleagues Met Libyans-Kyodo

TOKYO -- Prior to his fall from grace, Pakistan's nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and his colleagues, including military officials and financiers, made three trips to Africa where they met with Libyan officials to discuss the sale of nuclear technology, Kyodo News reported Friday, citing sources in Pakistan.

Khan, three fellow nuclear scientists, three senior Pakistani army officials and two middlemen traveled together to Mali three times between 1998 and 2000, ostensibly to study the Islamic heritage of an ancient town on the banks of the Niger River, the sources told Kyodo.

B.S.A. Tahir, one of the middlemen, told Malaysian interrogators in late 2002 that Khan met with Libyan officials once in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1998 and several times in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates between 1997 and 2000.

According Kyodo's sources, the meeting in Casablanca took place in February 1998 during a stopover by Khan's group on the way to or on the return journey from Timbuktu in Mali.

Investigations by Kyodo News confirmed that in February 1998 Khan's travel party stayed in Sheraton Hotel in Casablanca.

Khan was accompanied by his personal physician Lt. Gen. Riaz ullah Chohan, Brig. Sajawal, who was security chief at the Khan Research Laboratory, Brig. Tajwar, in charge of administrative affairs at the laboratory, three scientists from the laboratory - Nazir Ahmad, Fakhr-ul-Hasan Hashmi and Mohammad Farooq - and two brokers - Tahir and Dutch businessman Henk Slebos.

Except for Chohan and Hashmi, the other four Pakistanis were detained by security authorities and interrogated after Khan's proliferation activities came to light.

All but one - Farooq, who is Khan's close friend and head of the procurement department at the laboratory - have been released.

The first concrete evidence that Khan leaked nuclear secrets surfaced in September 2003, when Italian customs officials found centrifuge components on a ship bound for Libya. The consignment was sent by Tahir, a Dubai-based businessman.

Tahir told interrogators that he attended a meeting in Turkey in 1997 in which Libyans asked Khan for assistance with their nuclear program, the sources said.

"Several meetings were held between the arms expert (Khan) accompanied by B.S.A. Tahir and Libyans headed by Mohammad Matuq Mohammad from 1998 to 2000. One discussion was held in Casablanca, and several discussions in Dubai," a 14-page report by Malaysian police quoted Tahir as telling interrogators.

A Pakistani newspaper reported last year that Khan is fond of traveling to Timbuktu and owns a hotel there in the name of his wife, Handrina Khan.

The sources, however, said Handrina Khan Hotel in Timbuktu is owned by a man named Abderhamane Alpha Maiga, not Khan.

After the newspaper report came out, Khan told one of his friends that Maiga acted as a guide during his visits to Timbuktu, so he helped Maiga in constructing the small hotel. As an expression of gratitude Maiga named the hotel after his wife.

Khan used to call his accompanying travelers the "Timbuktu group," the sources told Kyodo.

The group assembled in Dubai to begin their journey to Timbuktu. Every time, they used different routes to reach the town, the sources said.

Reports in the international media over the past year have described Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's pardon of Khan as a "nuclear whitewash." Observers say it would have been impossible for Khan to engage in such activities for so long without authorities knowing.

The Pakistani government had flatly denied the involvement of government and military officials in the nuclear black market.

Khan, who had headed the laboratory until he was removed from the post by Musharraf in 2001, is now under house arrest in Islamabad.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_ ... 45,00.html

[Rich]

Pakistan reviving nuclear black market, experts say - Canada's Globe & Mail

Subscription required so posting in full:

Vienna -- Pakistan has developed new illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear weapons program despite efforts by the United Nations atomic watchdog to shut down all illegal procurement avenues, diplomats and nuclear experts said yesterday.

A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency refused to comment, but experts familiar with an investigation of the nuclear black market said the channels involve new middlemen and called the trend disturbing.

"These are not the same people. They're new, which is worrying," one Western diplomat said. Reuters

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... TPBusiness

[SaiK]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... 056443.cms Pakistan and Iran too are developing Land Attack Cruise Missiles.

[Gerard]

Iran too will have the technical capability to develop an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) by 2015, according to Jacoby.

The magical year 2015 yet again..
These expert analysts and their BS reports..

[Gerard]

US wants to crush testicles.. err.. tentacles of Khan nuclear network: Rice

[arun]

Joining the "destroyed in testing" detonator from the Mumbai Serial blast and the "misplaced" plutonium sample snagged over Chagai.......

Washington Post :

U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export

North Korea Sent Material To Pakistan, Not to Libya

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A01

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.
The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States.

In an effort to repair the damage, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is traveling through East Asia this weekend trying to get the six-nation talks back on track. The impasse was expected to dominate talks today in Seoul and then Beijing, which wields the greatest influence with North Korea.

The new details follow a string of controversies concerning the Bush administration's use of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the White House offered a public case against Iraq that concealed dissent on nearly every element of intelligence and included interpretations unsupported by the evidence.
A presidential commission studying U.S. intelligence is reviewing the case, as well as judgments on Iran and North Korea. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also is reviewing evidence on nuclear, chemical and biological programs suspected in Iran and North Korea.
The United States briefed allies on North Korea in late January and early February. Shortly afterward, administration officials, speaking to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, said North Korea had sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. The officials said the briefing was arranged to share the information with China, South Korea and Japan ahead of a new round of hoped-for negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program.
But in recent days, two other U.S. officials said the briefings were hastily arranged after China and South Korea indicated they were considering bolting from six-party talks on North Korea. The talks have been seen as largely ineffectual, but the Bush administration, which refuses to meet bilaterally with Pyongyang, insists they are critical to curbing North Korea's nuclear program.

The White House declined to offer an official to comment by name about the new details concerning Pakistan. A prepared response attributed to a senior administration official said that the U.S. government "has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities."

Although the briefings did not mention Pakistan by name, the official said they made it clear that the sale went through the illicit network operated by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdel Qadeer Khan. But the briefings gave no indication that U.S. intelligence believes that the material had been bought by Pakistan and transferred there from North Korea in a container owned by the Pakistani government.

They also gave no indication that the uranium was then shipped via a Pakistani company to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and on to Libya. Those findings match assessments by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating Libya separately. Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program in December 2003.

Since Pakistan became a key U.S. ally in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, the administration has not held President Pervez Musharraf accountable for actions taken by Khan while he was a member of Musharraf's cabinet and in charge of nuclear cooperation for the government.

"The administration is giving Pakistan a free ride when they don't deserve it and hurting U.S. interests at the same time," said Charles L. Pritchard, who was the Bush administration's special envoy for the North Korea talks until August 2003.

"As our allies get the full picture, it doesn't help our credibility with them," he said.

Pritchard, now a Brookings Institution fellow, and others had initially raised questions about the Libya connection when it became public last month. No one in the administration has been willing to discuss the uranium sale publicly.

In testimony to Congress last month, CIA Director Porter J. Goss spoke extensively about North Korea's nuclear arsenal and capabilities. But he gave no indication the intelligence community believed that North Korea had supplied nuclear materials to Libya, that it was capable of producing uranium hexafluoride or that it was a member of the nuclear black market.
Two years ago, U.S. officials told allies that North Korea was trying to assemble an enrichment facility that would turn uranium hexafluoride into bomb-grade material.

But China and South Korea, in particular, have been skeptical of those assertions and are becoming increasingly wary of pressuring North Korea.
The National Security Council briefings in late January and early February, by senior NSC officials Michael J. Green and William Tobey, were intended to do just that by keeping the spotlight solely on North Korea.

Pakistan was mentioned only once in the briefing paper, and in a context that emphasized Pyongyang's guilt. "Pakistani press reports have said the uranium came from North Korea," according to the briefing paper, which was read to The Post.

After initial press reports about the briefing appeared last month, Pyongyang announced that it possessed nuclear weapons and would not return to the six-party talks.

Pritchard said North Korea's reaction was "absolutely linked" to the Green-Tobey trip.

The United States tried to persuade North Korea to return to the talks, but without success. The North Korean leadership responded with a list of conditions, including a demand that Rice apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny."

During the first stop on her Asian tour, Rice used noticeably softer language on North Korea, telling a Tokyo audience that the U.S. offer was open to negotiation, and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il should grab the opportunity.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report from Seoul.

[arun]

Meanwhile from the New York Times :

March 21, 2005
Pakistani's Nuclear Black Market Seen as Offering Deepest Secrets of Building Bomb
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER


Nuclear investigators from the United States and other nations now believe that the black market network run by the Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan was selling not only technology for enriching nuclear fuel and blueprints for nuclear weapons, but also some of the darkest of the bomb makers' arts: the hard-to-master engineering secrets needed to fabricate nuclear warheads.

Their suspicions were initially raised by the discovery of step-by-step instructions, some of which appear to have come from China and Pakistan, among the documents recovered last year from Libya. More recently, investigators have found that the Khan network had offered similar materials to Iran.

The secrets range from how to cast uranium metal into the form needed at the core of a bomb to how to build the explosive lenses that compress the core and start the detonation.

The discoveries have set off a debate in the intelligence community about whether those technological skills made their way to North Korea and Iran. President Bush has vowed he will not tolerate either country's obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran was a customer of the Khan network, and while it appears to have turned down the offer of the engineering secrets in 1987, some intelligence officials are concerned that it picked up the technology elsewhere. North Korea, which is believed to have two separate bomb projects under way, also did business with the Khan network, although precisely what it obtained is not clear.

The weeks leading up to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to China this weekend, American officials provided their Chinese counterparts with a stream of new information about North Korea's nuclear program, but it is not clear how much detail they went into about their latest suspicions. The Chinese, for their part, are skeptical of the quality of the American intelligence.

The inability of intelligence officials to track down the whereabouts of the bomb-making instructions underscores the fact that more than a year since Mr. Khan's arrest and pardon by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, there are still many mysteries about what exactly the Khan network was selling, and to whom.

The United States has not been allowed to interview Dr. Khan, and Ms. Rice raised concerns about cooperation in the nuclear investigation when she met with General Musharraf last week. But American officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency are beginning to extract information from Dr. Khan's chief deputy, Buhari Sayed Abu Tahir, who is in jail in Malaysia. "It's becoming clearer to us that Khan was selling a complete package," said a senior American official involved in the setting of nuclear strategy. "Not a turnkey operation - that would be overstating it - but close to it."

To investigators and other experts, the discovery that Dr. Khan was selling step-by-step directions for making crucial parts of a bomb was startling.

"The real secrets are in the details of the metallurgy, the manufacturing and the engineering," said Siegfried S. Hecker, director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory from 1986 to 1997 and now a senior fellow there.
Intelligence officials in the United States and European diplomats said documents from Libya and Iran showed the Khan network had offered for sale instructions on such tricky manufacturing steps as purifying uranium, casting it into a nuclear core and making the explosives that compress the core and set off a chain reaction. Unlike bomb designs themselves, these manufacturing secrets can take years or even decades for a country to learn on its own.

Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, a private group that tracks nuclear arms, said having the manufacturing instructions was a tremendous leap beyond rudimentary bomb designs. "I can show you the schematic of an automobile that has a engine and a transmission, and go to a book that describes how the pistons work," he said. "But if you actually want to build a car, you need the details and step-by-step procedures for everything from casting the components, to machining them, to assembling them."
Dr. Khan is a metallurgist and an expert at making both centrifuges that enrich uranium and nuclear warheads. Investigators say that in the early 1980's, he obtained the detailed blueprints for a Chinese atomic bomb.
The first public hint that Dr. Khan's network traded in bomb designs and engineering instruction emerged in 1995 after United Nations inspectors in Iraq found a set of documents describing an offer made to Baghdad before the Persian Gulf war of 1991. An internal Iraqi memorandum, dated June 10, 1990, told of an unidentified middleman saying that Dr. Khan could help Iraq "establish a project to enrich uranium and manufacture a nuclear weapon" and that he was "prepared to give us project designs for a nuclear bomb."

The Iraqis never took up the proposal, which they judged a scam or a sting operation. Western experts also questioned its authenticity.
But the apparent validity of the offer became clear in late 2003 when Libya showed investigators blueprints for a 10-kiloton atomic bomb that it got from the Khan network. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the documents included information on both nuclear design and fabrication, calling it of "utmost concern."

The Libya disclosure touched off a global hunt for more Khan documents. Officials in the United States and Europe said the trail recently led to Dubai, where Mr. Tahir, the Sri Lankan businessman who was Dr. Khan's deputy, ran a front company, SMB Computers. They said reliable network sources had told of seeing bomb documents there that contained step-by-step instructions on how to fabricate components for nuclear arms. Intense searches in Dubai, they added, had so far failed to turn up the documents.

The latest development in the hunt came March 1 with the disclosure of the network's 1987 offer to Iran of centrifuge machines and materials, as well as "uranium reconversion and casting capabilities," according to an I.A.E.A. report.

While investigators have determined that Tehran paid precious hard currency to the Khan network for nuclear equipment, it appears to have turned down the offer of the engineering secrets necessary to build the core of a nuclear weapon.

European and American officials said they considered the 1987 transaction some of the best evidence that Iran sought, starting at least 18 years ago, to assemble the technologies needed to build a nuclear arsenal.

"It adds a piece to the puzzle that makes the whole thing more incriminating," a European official said. "But is this a smoking gun? No. Does this make people more suspicious? Yes."

[Nandu]

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea

It was more like an effort to shield Pakistan, no?

[Umrao]

Its no longer a farce the commitment of NPA jihadis Uncles , Its just a farting game each saying you farted first then he farted. Like in Austin Powers Gold Member

Seesh Jokers suggested India be penalised for conduction Nuke explosions, and yet another joker still thinks it all started by India in 1974.

So much for the experts or perverts.

[SaiK]

Nuclear investigators from the United States and other nations now (onlee) believe that the black market network run by the Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan was selling not only technology for enriching nuclear fuel and blueprints for nuclear weapons, but also some of the darkest of the bomb makers' arts: the hard-to-master engineering secrets needed to fabricate nuclear warheads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/21/inter ... es.html?th

documents siezed which appear to have come from China and Pakistan, to libya and iran..how to build the explosive lenses that compress the core and start the detonation. Unlike bomb designs themselves, these manufacturing secrets can take years or even decades for a country to learn on its own.

The United States has not been allowed to interview Dr. Khan who in the early 1980's, obtained the detailed blueprints for a Chinese atomic bomb.

in late 2003 when Libya showed investigators blueprints for a 10-kiloton atomic bomb that it got from the Khan network.

...

AND THE REST OF THE STORY IS MAKING A CASE AGAINST IRAN. whatever.. the truth and the core of nuclear proliferation is epicentric to PAKISTAN.

[ramana]

The intriguing aspect would be how A.Q. Khan got the designs from China? Who was the nameless. faceless identity that gave him the designs? Because the fuel even if its enriched by itself is useless.

We all know about how he purloined the centrifuge designs from the Anglo-Dutch conglemerate URENCO in the 70s. Now for the other prolif shoe to fall.
So how did AQK and TSP get the know how to weaponize the enriched fuel? Was it AQK or the PAEC under Munir Khan?

[Sunil]

http://www.cedib.org/coca/documentos/OG ... 20asia.pdf

On April 16 (1998) a retired Pakistan Army officer Maj. Munawar Shah, was arrested with 2 kilograms of heroin which he was planning to smuggle into London, he was also carrying Uranium.

Johann Note.

[ramana]

FWIW from newsinsight.net

I N T E L L I G E N C E

Pakistan forced on NSG visit

23 March 2005: It took four months to persuade General Parvez Musharraf to accept a visit of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on 11-12 April, but diplomats of the European Union who pushed for this with the US said Pakistan has got enough lead time to remove the evidences of proliferation to Iran and other countries.

The NSG visit will focus on the uranium enrichment facility in Kahuta, separately inspect seven fissile material storage depots, determine the various technologies and equipment Pakistan has stolen or imported for its weapons programme, and study the different management structures of Pakistan’s military and civilian nuclear programmes.

Diplomatic sources said that Musharraf first took the line that a NSG visit could not occur without a reached national consensus, then Musharraf’s special envoy, Tariq Aziz, and his ambassador in the US, Jehangir Ashraf Qazi, proposed a trip by American and not NSG or IAEA investigators.

In an EU-US joint meeting in Brussels in January, EU representatives said such conditionalities were unacceptable, and that if Pakistan was not transparently investigated, the case to get tough on Iran for weaponisation would weaken, and ultimately, Musharraf was forced to host the NSG team.

Subsequently, to salvage the situation, Pakistan asked the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to enable Pakistan’s membership of the NSG, but Rice’s counter was, “Washington is just one of the total strength of forty-four, and Pakistan would have to do more to get into the exclusive club.”

[jrjrao]

From Pittsburgh.

Dan Simpson: Double standards at the nuclear club
India, Israel and Pakistan get a pass on their nukes, while Iran and North Korea are pariahs
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05082/475902.stm

...It would also be desirable if India, Israel and Pakistan didn't have nuclear weapons either, or that they had adhered to the NPT, joining its 187 signatories, and their programs were being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.....

The most heinous case in point is Pakistan. It is difficult to imagine a state apart from North Korea that one would like less to have an unrestricted, uninspected nuclear weapons program than Pakistan. It turns out that the former head of it, the notorious and ubiquitous A.Q. Khan, was not only something of a genius at stealing the plans for and then developing a nuclear weapons program for Pakistan. He also developed and pursued a sales program for different elements in Pakistan's weapons program that makes U.S. cell-phone sales programs look like miracles of restraint. It appears that the only limits on A.Q.'s call list were countries' ability to pay.

If the criterion to apply is the level of responsibility of the country concerned, again, Pakistan blows out all the rules. Since the idea that its highest authorities didn't know what Dr. Khan was doing -- as they claim -- is truly ludicrous, the decades-long sales program in itself is prima facie evidence of irresponsible government on Pakistan's part. Post-revelation punishment of Khan has been purely symbolic; he is considered a national hero.

Apart from that, Pakistan is only questionably stable. Its post-independence history is one of successive military coup d'etat regimes interspersed with financially corrupt civilian governments. Pakistan's current president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was going to give up his military position and become a civilian president, an idea that didn't last long. He is regularly subject to assassination attempts. Who would be able to say what direction Pakistan will go when he leaves the scene?

[Sunil]

http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/TraffickingSmuggling.pdf

Similarly, the 1997 arrest, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, of international drug and arms trafficker Munawar Shah, on his way to Islamabad airport with two kilograms of heroin, a pistol, and uranium samples,60

http://www.nti.org/db/nistraff/1997/19970233.htm

Abstract:


On 16 April 1997, Munawar Shah, an ex-major in the Pakistani Army and notorious international drug and arms trafficker, was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan for possession of two kilograms of heroin, a .30 caliber pistol, and a few uranium samples. According to Colonel Sanaullah of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, an ANF raiding party apprehended Shah on his way to the Islamabad airport. The ANF discovered the heroin and uranium samples concealed in Shah's vehicle. The ANF also discovered documents linking Shah to international arms smuggling rings operating in Central Asia, Saudi Arabia, and Europe.

According to preliminary reports, Shah was to deliver the goods to an unidentified passenger on a flight bound for Great Britain. Colonel Sanaullah said that Raja Atlaf, another notorious drug trafficker, would receive the heroin and uranium samples at London's Heathrow airport.

DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS*DWS
970417
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Smuggler held with uranium samples
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Correspondent

RAWALPINDI, April 16: A notorious smuggler, wanted in several international cases of drug trafficking and gun-running was arrested on Wednesday here allegedly with two kilograms of fine quality heroin worth Rs 20 million, a .30 bore pistol and a few samples of uranium, used in atomic bombs.

Munawar Shah, an ex-army officer who retired with the rank of major, was arrested on his way to Islamabad airport where he was to deliver the heroin and samples of uranium to an unidentified carrier, Colonel Sanaullah of the Anti-Narcotics Force in Rawalpindi said.

The man was going to the airport in a Toyota Corolla car (RPP-9788) when he was intercepted on Peshawar Road by an ANF raiding party. During the search ANF recovered the heroin and uranium samples from concealed parts of the vehicle.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Munawar Shah was to deliver the
consignment to an unidentified passenger of a UK- bound flight.

Raja Altaf, another known drug dealer was reportedly to receive the heroin and uranium samples at Londons Heathrow airport, Colonel Sanaullah added. Raja Altaf was arrested in a heroin smuggling case a few year ago in Peshawar. Later he obtained bail from a local court and managed to escape to London, the official said.

ANF has also found some documents which suggest that Munawar Shah
reportedly has links with international gangs of arms smugglers operating
from Central Asian States, Saudi Arabia and Europe.

The ANF official said the agency had been on the trail of Mr Shah for the
last three months. He did not give any further details about the uranium
samples recovered from Mr. Shah.

www.xavier-raufer.com/english_8.php

At the same time, Pakistani police arrested a known drug trafficker near the Rawalpindi airport. A former officer and ex-member of Pakistani secret services, Munawar Shah, was transporting two kilos of pure heroin, and samples of uranium (military grade, according to the local press). The drugs and uranium were on their way to another drug trafficker, Raja Altai, based in London.

[Leonard]

BJP wants IAEA to take action against Pakistan

* Yashwant Sinha says nuclear proliferation was not possible without govt’s active support

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) called for action to be taken against Pakistan for nuclear proliferation, rather than Iran and North Korea.

Former External Affairs minister Yashwant Sinha suggested launching a diplomatic bombardment targeting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to punish Islamabad, “Because nuclear proliferation could not have been possible without their government’s active support, knowledge and approval.”

Sinha said IAEA officials would be visiting Pakistan next month and “It was time for India to intensify its campaign to get the guilty punished.”

Releasing a book ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Underworld: An Investigation’ published by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Sinha criticised the US for its double standards on the issue. He said the book clearly chronicled Pakistan’s nuclear black market and showed that it could not have been possible without the government’s active support.

The book by ORF Senior Fellow Wilson John documents clandestine dealings of AQ Khan with networks in US, France, Germany, Netherlands, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China, North Korea, Malaysia and Libya. Criticising the US and its allies, Sinha said “so-called international monitors are attacking Iran and North Korea and keeping a blind eye on the Pakistani activities.” He said people like AQ Khan should not escape punishment.

However, he said the BJP did not want the nuclear proliferation issue to overshadow the peace process between India and Pakistan. “These are separate issues and need to be dealt with separately,” he said. Expressing concern over the possibility of nuclear materials falling into the hands of militants, he said India should remain vigilant especially with the easing of travel between India and Pakistan.

Sinha said the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) would not succeed unless countries like India were made members and only equality (among nuclear countries) would solve the problem.

Wilson John said Pakistan was trying to wash its hands of the AQ Khan’s activities, which could not have been possible without the support of the government. He said these activities were done with the knowledge of the US as well. He said a CIA report had noted that most of the 19 billion-dollar grant from the US to Pakistan was “subverted ‘ into nuclear activities during 1974 and 1995.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 005_pg7_49

[Arun_S]

Pak Nukes Terrify World And "This Serves Pakistan Well"

Washingtonw (UPI) Mar 18, 2005
by Arnaud De Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large

"Nuclear Pakistan terrifies the world and this serves Pakistan well." So spoke retired Gen. Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, on the eve of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival in Pakistan.

Gul is an admirer of Osama bin Laden, a friend of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, and A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal who sold nuclear weapons know-how to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Gul, who hates the United States with a passion, is also promoting Khan, Pakistan's most popular living legend, as a natural successor to President Pervez Musharraf.

In his capacity as "strategic adviser" to MMA, Pakistan's coalition of six Islamist extremist political parties, Gul appeared on two consecutive days on the popular Pakistani satellite television network ARY ONE to hammer home his nuclear thoughts:

- Iran should continue its quest to become a nuclear power by enriching uranium to weapons-grade quality.

- Muslim countries and smaller countries should develop nuclear capabilities to thwart America's aggressive policies.

- It is only Pakistan's nuclear capability that is preventing war between India and Pakistan.

- If Iraq had possessed nuclear weapons, the U.S. would not even have thought of attacking Iraq.

- The largest uranium enrichment plant is in Pakistan.

- Khan is a "Moshin," or "bestower," of Pakistan. Thanks to him Pakistan is the only nuclear Muslim country in the world.

- Nuclear Pakistan terrifies the world and this serves Pakistan well.

- Knowledge and technology cannot be prevented from traveling anywhere. It is like air, which can go in any direction.

The United States is still being denied direct access to Khan to pin down an exact accounting of the nuclear knowledge he passed on to the "Mullahocracy" in Iran. He first began visiting Iran's atomic energy agency in the mid-1980s. He has made a number of trips to Iran since then.

Khan ran a clandestine nuclear black market for two decades. These secret activities made him one of Pakistan's wealthiest men.

Following repeated complaints from the United States, Musharraf, then chief executive before he made himself president, relieved Khan of his official nuclear responsibilities and made him a private adviser.

Musharraf also told his U.S. interlocutors he knew nothing of Khan's clandestine activities and the United States had no proof to back up its allegations.

In late 2003, then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage confronted Musharraf with detailed accusations of Khan's secret proliferation activities.

Musharraf still claimed it was news to him, which stretches credulity, as he was army chief of staff prior to staging a coup in October 1999. Khan frequently traveled on Pakistani military aircraft.

Khan was allowed to go free and keep his nuclear black market gains in exchange for a public apology on television - in English. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis speak only Urdu.

U.S. attempts to have direct access to Khan to find out exactly what he did to assist Iran's nuclear ambitions have been rebuffed by Musharraf. During Rice's first visit to Islamabad, Musharraf agreed to submit to Khan a detailed list of questions about his secret work in Iran. But direct access was still denied.

[Anshul]

Hi Arun,
Can I have your Email Id.This request is regarding the BR Bangalore Meet.
please fwd ur email id to mr_anshul AT excite DOT com

[Arun_S]

Anshul: Sent

[jrjrao]

Perkovich Oovacha.

How can the USA treat Taliban-infected Pakistan as an ally, and indulge its careless possession of nuclear weapons, but regard Iran as the world's worst menace? "Pakistan – is that a country?" an influential Iranian conservative asked me...

Link

[Vivek_A]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2005_pg1_4

Govt considering sending centrifuges: Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday that Pakistan was considering sending nuclear centrifuges to Vienna for inspection to end controversy surrounding the alleged transfer of nuclear technology once and for all.

“We want to send nuclear centrifuges to Vienna for inspection to put to rest controversy over the matter,” President Musharraf told Aaj TV. However, he said the government had not made a decision yet. He said sending the centrifuges would help dispel International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) concerns about the alleged transfer of nuclear technology from Pakistan.

The president said that IAEA became suspicious when it came to know that Iran was in possession of nuclear centrifuges and that this information had added a new dimension to investigations into Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear black market.

[Rudradev]

Notice Musharraf doesn't specify how MANY centrifuges. Maybe...all of them? That would put an end to the controversy once and for all, surely.

[parsuram]

Notice Musharraf doesn't specify how MANY centrifuges. Maybe...all of them? That would put an end to the controversy once and for all, surely.

They must have got presentable centrifuges by now. "Haathi ke daant, khane ke aur, dikhane ke aur"

[Rangudu]

Cohenite A.R.Siddiqi writes this. Seems to me that the stage is being set for another scapegoat. Gen. Beg?

http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/25/fea.htm

Pakistan's nuclear dilemma

By A.R. Siddiqi

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at her joint press conference with Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri during her recent visit to Islamabad did not mince words about the threat potential of Dr A.Q. Khan's nuclear 'entrepreneur ship'.

The Khan network, she said, represented a threat 'not just to the United States, but to Pakistan, to the region, to the international community'. A statement simple in verbiage but ominously loaded in intent.

Whereas Pakistan has cooperated with the US in breaking up the Khan network, the US also had a number of other countries cooperating with it on that front, Ms Rice said. She stressed her country's interest in knowing what happened so that 'we can safeguard against this kind of black market entrepreneurship....'

Ms Rice left no doubt that her country would not rest content until fully equipped with vital information leading to the origins of the Khan network and its international world-wide sweep.

Pakistan might well have gone out of its way to assuage US anxiety on that score, yet, apparently, not far enough to get down to the bottom of the case. In other words, to bring the culprit to book and punish him to meet the ends of American justice, ala Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay style.

One of the questions Pakistan must answer pertains to the mystifying ignorance or the deliberate connivance of authorities at the highest level when this illicit trafficking was going on for over a decade or so.

How could an operation as elaborate and world-wide happen right under the nose of Islamabad without a finger being pointed or a hand raised to stop the mess at the source?

Time magazine in a recent cover story 'The merchant of menace', asked: How did A.Q. Khan become the world's most dangerous trafficker? Even as an essentially speculative story based on information provided by unnamed sources, it did inestimable damage to Pakistan's image as a 'responsible' nuclear state nevertheless.

How can Pakistan boast of ensuring foolproof security of its nuclear assets with whole centrifuges and allied equipment being flown out of Islamabad airport either direct to the end-user or to Karachi for onward shipment to destination? This is a question calling for a categorical answer to satisfy the world community as well as our own public.

Time squarely accuses Abdul Qadeer Khan of 'stealing' nuclear designs from the Netherlands to help Pakistan build a bomb. He was then to create a vast network to trade nuclear secrets and 'illicit technology across several continents'.

Just about three weeks after the publication of the Time canard, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad appeared on TV (March 10) to confirm the substance of the story. Dr Khan, the information minister admitted in so many words, gave centrifuges to Iran in his 'individual capacity' and the government of Pakistan had nothing to do with it.

What sort of government would that be to have allowed the head of its highest security institution to indulge in extended piracy and not know about it?

As if the bare acknowledgement of Dr Khan's role as a private salesman of vital nuclear equipment was not enough, the information minister went on to say that the centrifuges (P-1 and P-2) provided by Dr Khan were 'outdated'. Dr Khan was thus acting not only as a private nuclear proliferator but also as a cheat.

The first to react to his information minister's gaffe was Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz himself. He said the minister was 'misquoted'. Less than a week later, President Pervez Musharraf told the BBC in an interview that no nuclear material was transferred.

Investigation 'revealed' that no 'nuclear material has been given over, other than some centrifuge parts, centrifuge designs.' By implication nothing like enriched uranium or fissile nuclear material was included in Dr Khan's bill of lading. It was the best the president could do in the face of distressing circumstances.

The somewhat baffling diversity of response to the A.Q. Khan affair has left the people at large wondering as to what exactly the truth might be. Even the Foreign Office versions about a 'request' from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were tentative if not exactly evasive. According to the FO spokesman, 'We have not been asked to hand over any centrifuges to IAEA for inspection/verification) nor will Pakistan do so.'

The question remains as to what exactly Pakistan has been asked for. Also for how much longer will we be able to withstand the pressures being brought to bear on us to throw our nuclear programme open (if not the facility itself) to international inspection?

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army