Bharat Rakshak

From the book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003B6537U/

Page 64-66

To balance the equation and plot a course to get Pakistan to roll back its nuclear programme, President Carter brought out of retirement Gerard C. Smith, a Yale-educated intellectual heavyweight who had been Eisenhower's director of policy planning and Nixon's non-proliferation chief. ... Robert Gallucci at the State Department would assist him.

Gallucci, who had already been tracking Pakistan's nuclear ambitions for three years, set to work gathering every piece of intelligence on the enrichment programme, ready to brief IAEA director Sigvard Eklund at the nect board meeting in Vienna in June 1979. His report would also form the basis of an intelligence estimate that would help the White House decide how to deal with Kahuta--if it was forced to go it alone. The results of Gallucci's initial trawl were shocking and confirmed the need for sensitivity and speed. Gallucci discovered what Khan had been describing in private correspondence to Aziz in Montreal. By working in the margins of the IAEA trigger-list, taking advantage of the world's ignorance about centrifuge technology and slack export controls in Europe and North America, Khan had been able to import virtually every piece of kit Pakistan needed for a fully functioning uranium enrichment plant, even down to manufacturing its own spare parts.

...

Gallucci was asked to put together a colour-coded diagram showning what a Pakistani centriguge looked like and where each part had come from. 'The levels of collusion and professed ignorance among European companies was staggering. Some even had staff based at Kahuta.'

...

Acting as Carter's junkyard dog, Smith flew to Vienna and delivered a blunt message to Sigvard Eklund, a sanitized account of which 'emphasized the extreme sensitivity of the information'. A few weeks previously, Gallucci had flown to Islamabad, borrowed a car from the US embassy pound and attempted to drive to Kahuta. When challenged by Pakistani security officials, Gallucci revived the old picnic spot story. The officials were not amused and Gallucci was sent packing, but not before he had taken a few photographs, which he showed to Eklund. The IAEA director said he was deeply shocked to learn of such extensive facilities already built, although he admitted having received several warning signals. including a recent approach from a Dutch URENCO engineer who had shown the IAEA a photocopy of a large Pakistani order for maraging steel, an alloy so strong and expensive that it was used almost always for jet plane engines and centrifuges. Inexplicably, the IAEA had ignored it.

^ From the same book

Perhaps the shame of publicity would halt Pakistan, Eklund now argued. The Americans baulked. Relations with Pakistan were tense and Smith wanted everything under wraps while they decided how to confront General Zia. When Eklund asked Smith if he could discuss the evidence with anyone else, Smith said no. When they met again to discuss Pakistan two days later, Smith persuaded the IAEA to keep quiet with assurances that Pakistan was still years off configuring a nuclear device. Smith was performing a high-wire act containing Pakistan's programme in such a way that other arms of government back home could still continue to woo Pakistani military.

Within weeks, Kahuta was front-page news anyway, after two Western diplomats were beaten up for straying too close to the enrichment plant. Pol le Gourrierec, the French ambassador, and Jean Forlot, his first secretary, had decided to follow Gallucci's lead and take a look for themselves. This time the Pakistani security guards had not reacted so politely. For twenty-four hours General Zia said nothing, before contacting the French government and wryly advising them that 'the incident might not have taken place had the ambassador been flying the French flag from the bonnet of the car'. Exasperated, the French responded pettily by refusing to invite Zia to a forthcoming Bastille Day celebration, and as a sign of solidarity the Yugoslav ambassador protested 'by taking his official car-flying the flag-up the Kahuta road and driving extremely slowly past the wall protecting the large construction site'. The score-settling theatricals belied the scale of the unfolding crisis.

From link posted above ^

Page 67

General Brent Scowcroft, who had served as national security adviser to President Gerald Ford, raised a controversial proposal. Although his words were redacted from the declassified file, some of those at the meeting recalled that Scowcroft recommended a military strike at Kahuta.

...

In October 1979, Gerard Smith called for one last diplomatic offensive. Pakistan's foreign minister, Agha Shahi, and General K. M. Arif had been invited to Washington and Smith proposed to sandbag them. Agha Shahi was expecting a warm welcome, convinced that the Afghan coup and the fall of the shah had increased Pakistan's leverage. But as soon as he and Arif arrived, he realized that all the Americans wanted to talk about was Pakistan's nuclear programme.

Shahi first met with President Carter and then with Carter's hard-nosed national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. 'I said to him, you are so against proliferation and India had blown up the bomb so why not give a guarantee to non-nuclear states that they would be subject to a Security Council nuclear umbrella?' Shahi recalled. It was the same request Kissinger had refused point-blank in 1974, and Shahi fared no better.

...

Christopher did most of the talking, Shahi recalled. 'He told me he wanted Pakistan to sign NPT. I said we would sign gladly if India signed. He said, "You must sign anyway." I said, "No. India poses a nuclear and conventional threat to us." Christopher said," We want you to give a commitment that you will not transfer this technology to another country." I said, "We can give this guarantee." He said, " You must commit not to carry out a nuclear explosion." I said, "To be frank we have not reached that capability but if and when we do, we will consider the pros and cons."'

Cyrus Vance stood and led Shahi into a side room, where he was introduced to Gerard Smith. 'I was totally shocked. He was the most formidable US negotiator. Smith said to me, "You think you are improving your security but you have no idea how far ahead the Indians are. They can utterly destroy you. Do you know you are entering the valley of death?" I was taken aback. I said, "Mr Smith, I am at a great disadvantage talking to you as you are the foremost expert on nuclear weapons, But it seems to me you don't have to be a nuclear weapons expert to understand the strategic importance of having one. The value lies in the possession, sir, and not in its use."' A terrible silence descended on the room.

From the link posted above:

Page 76

Before the US polls even opened, the Republicans reached out to Pakistan, passing a message that should they get in a sea change would wash over US foreign policy. While he was in New York at the UN in October 1980, Zia received an unexpected call from former president Richard Nixon, who said he wanted to discuss the ongoing Afghanistan crisis. But during the hour-long conversation, Pakistan's nuclear programme also came up. General Arif, who was at the meeting, remembered that Nixon made it clear he was in favor of them gaining nuclear capability(see below). He did not say he was acting for Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, but as a former Republican president his comments signaled the way ahead. Najmuddin Sheikh, then Pakistan's charge d'affaires in Washington, also noticed the temperature warming when he met Alexander Haig, Reagan's of state designate, at a reception. 'Al Haig sidled over, charming as he could be,' remembered Sheikh, 'He said: "We have had problems, Pakistan and the US. But things are going to change."

From page 474

Nixon said: 'I do not know the details of your nuclear effort. But if you have weapons capability, personally I won't mind if you get over with it.' see Arif, Working with Zia, pp. 337-8

Page 77:

Reagan broadcast the news that the Soviets were on the march around the world, undermining Western-looking governments and supporting Marxist alternatives from Angola to Afghanistan. His people turned public opinion in favor of expanding defense and intelligence. Alexander Haig went even further and the fix he got himself into illustrated the fate of intelligence for the next decade. The new secretary of state announced that the Soviets were behind all international terrorism and had to be stopped. Challenged in Congress and unable to supply evidence, he asked the CIA to produce a national intelligence estimate. It came back with the broad finding that the Soviets fundamentally disapproved of terrorism and discouraged the killing of innocents, especially by groups they had trained and supported. Haig was in a fix,. However, Bill Casey, the new CIA director, knew what to do. He rejected the report and Haig ordered another, this time written by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military's intelligence arm. It concluded more ambiguously, suggesting that the Soviets were deeply engaged in the support of 'revolutionary violence' worldwide. It was the first of many occasions to come when intelligence would be renosed and politicized.

^From the link posted above:

Page 80-82

In Washington the ire of those opposed to rewarding a nuclear-bound Pakistan began to grow , as did the feeling among some sections of Congress that they were being chivvied into making the wrong decisions. More leaks from the White House revealed the magnitude of the proposed Pakistan aid package, which was now rumored to include F-16 fighters. Although the Senate had fallen to the Republicans, a small lobby of well-traveled internationalist congressmen got up a head of steam. They were led by Senator John Glenn...

...

Glenn's ears and eyes since 1976 had been Len Weiss, a former professor of electrical engineering, who had helped write the NPT of 1978, ...

...

'Afghanistan had a huge effect on the Hill, becoming the a marker of patriotism. There were only two choices. You were against the Soviets and therefore for the Pakistan. Or you were against Pakistan and somehow for the Soviets,' Weiss said. 'Nobody thought to tell us that we could be against Pakistan's bomb and against the Soviets too. This required too much work for the Reagan people. They were lazy and short-sighted.

...

The president's men were on the offensive. A senior official at the Department of State called Senator Charles Percy, chairman of Senate foreign relations committee, which would have to vet aid to Pakistan. Anticipating strong opposition, Percy was advised to say that Pakistan 'faced an immediate and growing threat from the Soviets in Afghanistan' and its survival hinged on the Afghan freedom fighters. A talking-points pack recommended that if the nuclear issue were to be raised he should acknowledge the Islamic Republic was making a determined effort to acquire nuclear explosives' and that the punitive measures taken in the past had achieved nothing. Sanctions were a failure. The way to gain assurance that A. Q. Khan would roll back the nuclear programme was to give Islamabad jets and money. The twisted logic of granting Pakistan security to buy off its nuclear programme was getting some usage.

Far more worrying, Percy was advised that previous intelligence estimates that concluded Pakistan was 'two to three years' away from getting the bomb, and was willing to sell it to its neighbors, had been wrong. Percy was instead told that Pakistan was far behind and 'we believe [it] will exercise restraint in the transfer of sensitive technology to third countries.' However, this was in marked contrast to the active intelligence estimates in which Pakistan was described as being 'within 12-18 months' of exploding a nuclear device.

...

When the president's own Office of Management and Budget cast doubts, claiming the Pakistan proposals were proposals were politically dangerous and that there were insufficient funds for the war, the State department whipped back a memo warning that 'the establishment of a cooperative security establishment with Pakistan is critical to the success of the administration'. It concluded, dramatically: 'The Reagan administration is determined to improve the US defense posture and considers security assistance an essential component in achieving that objective. We need to tie this down before meeting with the visiting Pakistani foreign minister next Monday'. The clock was ticking. Haig and James Buckley, Reagan's under secretary of security, had already testified before the Senate and House foreign relations committees that only by 'removing insecurities' could Pakistan's nuclear thirst could be quenched.

From the link posted above ^

When foreign minister Shahi eventually arrived in Washington on 20 April, he was not surprised that the US side raised Pakistan's nuclear programme. But he was not expecting the direction the conversation rapidly took. 'We had thought we would be harangued and end up walking out. But Haig volunteered that the nuclear issue need not be the centerpiece of US-Pakistan policy. The only thing that he did warn us against was detonating a bomb. We got the message.

General Arif, Zia's chief of staff, was also at the meeting and was bowled over by the US turnaround. 'Haig characterized the Pakistan nuclear programme as a "private matter". He told us the White House would not interfere in our internal affairs. The message was clear. The US never wanted Pakistan to have the bomb but they were not going to get in our way now. ' Deputy assistant secretary of state Jane A. Coon, the government's leading South Asia specialist, was at the same meeting and summarized Reagan's message, delivered by Haig, as being: 'Reagan could live with the Pakistan bomb'.

Page 85

But strong opposition to the Pakistan aid plan continued to grow. On 2 June, 1981, Israel's permanent representative at the UN warned the General Assembly that 'there is abundant evident indicating that [Pakistan] is producing nuclear weapons.

...

[Ambassador ] Blum warned that Pakistan had established a chain of front companies in fourteen countries to acquire all the necessary components. They were close to having built a cascade of at least 1000 centrifuges and intended to construct more than 10,000 'which in turn could produce about 150 kg of enriched uranium a year, sufficient for seven nuclear devices every year'. It was what the US had known for several years but had chosen not to share with the rest of the world.

The US State department would provide Israel with a classified response. 'We believe that the Pakistanis have so far been unable to make their centrifuge machines work and that they have not yet produced any significant quantities of uranium.' It was a blatant lie and the letter concluded in a similar vein: 'Even if the Pakistanis do manage to eventually overcome their problems in the enrichment area, it would likely take them a few years of successful operations to produce sufficient fissile material to fabricate a single device'. The letter estimated that it would take Pakistan another decade before it had acquired a suitable missile system to wed to a warhead. Not only was the US misrepresenting the available intelligence, but it was also ignoring several articles published by Khan himself in Western nuclear gazettes in which he had explicitly laid out the hurdles his centrifuge construction programme had overcome. Moshe Ya'alon, a former head of Israel's military intelligence and until 2005 chief of staff to the IDF, recalled the stunned reaction in Jerusalem. 'The US was glib on Pakistan. It was their weak spot. They knew we knew far more than that. After all, when the shah was toppled we became the primary source for a generous slice of intelligence in the region'.

Back in 1979, the Israelis, according to a senior intelligence source in Israel, had been shown a classified US memo by their counterparts in RAW. Intercepted on its way from the US embassy in New Delhi to the secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, it confirmed that the US privately believed Pakistan would be able to explode a bomb within 'two or three years'--most likely by 1981.

Abhishek we need to put into perspective the other data that shows the PRC tested a bomb for the Pakis at Lop Nor and how it was fudged by US.

You heard this first on BR more than 10 years ago,about the Paki-Saudi-Sino nuclear nexus,where the Chinese had sold their Dong-Feng BMs to the Saudis to be later tipped with Paki built nukes (paid for by the Saudis,who helped bankroll the so-called "Islamic bomb").It has all come to pass.The enhanced Paki nuclear bomb making capability being rapidly built up by the Chinese,is in part meant to also provide the Saudis with warheads so that they can deter the Iranians! Here China is playing a duplicitous double game,whereby they supply both the Saudis and the Iranians with arms,just as the US is with India and Pak.The close Saudi-US relationship is why the ties with Iran are so strong.

http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/2 ... e-and.html

Independent Israeli Intelligence and Security News Service Says Saudi Arabia Has Acquired Atomic Arms
READ ALL ABOUT IT: PAKISTAN SELLS
SAUDI ROYALS READY-TO-SHIP NUKES

Xcpt:

Two Pakistani N-bombs available to Saudi Arabia
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 30, 2010, 9:41 AM (GMT+02:00) Tags: nuclear Pakistan Saudi Pakistan's GhauriII guided missileWith an eye on the nuclear arms race led by its neighbor Iran, Saudi Arabia has arranged to have available for its use two Pakistani nuclear bombs or guided missile warheads, debkafile's military and intelligence sources reveal. They are most probably held in Pakistan's nuclear air base at Kamra in the northern district of Attock. Pakistan has already sent the desert kingdom its latest version of the Ghauri-II missile after extending its range to 2,300 kilometers. Those missiles are tucked away in silos built in the underground city of Al-Sulaiyil, south of the capital Riyadh.

At least two giant Saudi transport planes sporting civilian colors and no insignia are parked permanently at Pakistan's Kamra base with air crews on standby. They will fly the nuclear weapons home upon receipt of a double coded signal from King Abdullah and the Director of General Intelligence Prince Muqrin bin Abdel Aziz. A single signal would not be enough.
Our military sources have found only sketchy information about the procedures for transferring the weapons from Pakistani storage to the air transports. It is not clear whether Riyadh must inform Pakistan's army chiefs that it is ready to take possession of its nuclear property, or whether a series of preset codes will provide access to the air base's nuclear stores. The only detail known to our Gulf sources is that the Saudi bombs are lodged in separate heavily-guarded stores apart from the rest of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
This secret was partially blown by Riyadh itself. In recent weeks, Saudi officials close to their intelligence establishment have been going around security forums in the West and dropping word that the kingdom no longer needs to build its own nuclear arsenal because it has acquired a source of readymade arms to be available on demand. This broad hint was clearly put about under guidelines from the highest levels of the monarchy.

Partial nuclear transparency was approved by Riyadh as part of a campaign to impress on the outside world that Saudi Arabia was in control of its affairs: The succession struggle had been brought under control; the Saudi regime had set its feet on a clearly defined political and military path; and the hawks of the royal house had gained the hand and were now setting the pace.

Down the nuclear rabbit hole

Apologies if this is a repost, mods. Posting in full, if there are copyright issues, please edit thanks.

The damage done by rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's network show that nations must put aside their individual interests to stop proliferation.

By Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz

January 3, 2011

Seven years after the U.S. government proclaimed victory over the rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, the seeds of catastrophe he sowed are still sprouting worldwide. Iran's march toward an atomic bomb? We have Khan's nuclear trafficking network to thank. North Korea's continuing development of nuclear weapons? Again, Khan's doing.

Despite putting the world's most dangerous weapons in the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes, not one participant in Khan's network is in jail today. Even the mastermind himself, too powerful for his own government to imprison, was allowed the comfort of house arrest, and now even that has ended. Instead of a strong message of deterrence, shutting down the atomic bazaar resulted in an unseemly mercy for its perpetrators and a new form of cyber proliferation.

By its nature, nuclear trafficking crosses borders. Combating this danger requires international cooperation. Yet at every turn in tracking the Khan network from Pakistan to Iran, North Korea and Libya, national interests trumped counter-proliferation objectives. Decisions by policymakers and intelligence officials in several nations created a calculus in which selling the means to wipe out a city carried less risk of severe punishment than robbing the neighborhood convenience store.

The worst scofflaw was our own Central Intelligence Agency, aided and abetted by senior officials in the George W. Bush administration. Together, they advocated obstructionism masquerading as prudence, blocking prosecutions and orchestrating the destruction of evidence detailing the full extent of the damage to our security by the Khan network.

Khan's indulgent treatment is well known. Less attention has been paid to the leniency granted his collaborators. None spent more than 4 1/2 years in prison; most served far less. The logistics chief, B.S.A. Tahir, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in late 2003, but he was never charged and walked free in June 2008. Tahir might have helped put a number of his associates behind bars, but the Malaysians refused to let him testify in Germany and South Africa. Similarly, German and South African prosecutors squabbled over evidence and witnesses, leading to light or suspended sentences for four ring members in those countries.

But the most flagrant effort to undermine prosecutions was a four-year campaign by the U.S. government to kill a Swiss investigation of the network. Interviews and previously undisclosed documents we reviewed in writing our new book provided a chilling portrait of American bullying at the highest levels to block a criminal inquiry of three Swiss citizens who were part of Khan's global enterprise: engineer Friedrich Tinner and his sons, Marco and Urs. The Americans stonewalled Swiss requests for help and then pressured them into destroying a staggering quantity of evidence.

Senior CIA and Bush administration officials argued that stopping the Tinner inquiry and destroying the evidence was necessary to protect U.S. intelligence operations and keep nuclear information away from terrorists. But our research uncovered more sinister motives.

For one, according to confidential documents, the CIA had paid the Tinners huge sums and wanted to protect their role in bringing down Khan. The CIA also wanted to stop Swiss plans, documented in a parliamentary commission report, to prosecute six of its officers who violated Swiss law by recruiting the Tinners and improperly searching their homes and offices. More important, preserving Bush's claim that shutting down Khan was a major intelligence victory meant suppressing the disclosure of the real volume of nuclear secrets the network had put on the open market — much of it after the CIA penetrated the ring.

In February 2008, documents show, the Swiss succumbed to U.S. pressure and destroyed a huge cache of evidence seized from the Tinners. Among the material shredded, crushed and incinerated under CIA supervision were plans for two nuclear warheads from Pakistan's arsenal, blueprints for uranium enrichment plants and producing nuclear weapons, and decades of records detailing network transactions.

For the last 2 1/2 years, a dogged Swiss magistrate has been reassembling fragments of the evidence case, and he recently recommended charging the Tinners. But the case against the CIA agents has gone up in smoke, as has the road map to outposts in the Khan network that remain undiscovered today.

The destruction was not only wrong, it was too late. Long before the Swiss seized the cache from the Tinners, the warhead plans and other designs had been transferred to digital formats, easily sent to any computer. Copies were found in Thailand, Malaysia and South Africa; no one is sure where else they may have gone in what we regard as the world's first example of cyber proliferation.

The lesson here is clear: Leaders must set aside national interests and work cooperatively to stay ahead of nuclear traffickers. United Nations' efforts on this front have yielded poor results. What's needed is a new multilateral legal regime that puts trafficking in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on a par with crimes against humanity. This won't be easy, but blind adherence to narrow national objectives increases the risk to all of us.

Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz are the authors of "The Man From Pakistan: The True Story of the World's Most Dangerous Nuclear Smuggler" and the forthcoming book "Fallout: The True Story of the CIA's Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking."

ramana wrote:Abhishek we need to put into perspective the other data that shows the PRC tested a bomb for the Pakis at Lop Nor and how it was fudged by US.

US has fudged so much that many people at the State dept, CIA and Pentagon should get Nishan-e-Imtiaz. There were many probes/investigations in the behavior of many high-level officials. As you can guess, all those guys were forgiven. It appears that this process was blessed from the highest level in the US.

Many members here have already read the book. For them this is old news. I will post some selected paragraphs for people who have not read the book.

ramana wrote:Abhishek we need to put into perspective the other data that shows the PRC tested a bomb for the Pakis at Lop Nor and how it was fudged by US.

The following is about the overall US support for the Pakistan-China proliferation.

Successive US Governments, especially Reagan, did not stop Pakistan's quest for a nuclear weapon and its delivery mechanism, in spite of the stranglehold they had on Pakistan due to its massive economic and military assistance since 1950s. For example, the US imposed sanctions on Pakistan in April, 1979 (under section 669 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 or FAA by Pres. Carter) after it was learned that Pakistan had secretly begun construction of a uranium enrichment facility, but it was lifted by the same US Government soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan without Pakistan capping any of its clandestine activities. If Brzezinski is to be believed that the US set up a bear trap for the FSU in Afghanistan and the efforts started well over a year prior to the Soviet arrival in Kabul in Dec. 1979, then one should suspect that the sanction by Carter was deliberate so that the US could squeeze Pakistan to help the US efforts.

Predictably, Gen. Zia’s support for the US campaign in Afghanistan was predicated on two conditions, one, the United States should not raise any queries on Pakistan's nuclear programme and two, there should be no pressure or calls for democratization. On December 26, 1979, Brzezinski told Pres. Carter “This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy.” Pakistan was determined to build a nuclear weapon since 1964 and the US in spite of deep-rooted nonproliferation concerns turned a blind eye to the ominous developments of smuggling in nuclear technology by the Pakistani state and even “protected” a proliferator like Dr. AQ Khan, possibly as a quid-pro-quo for various help Pakistan was providing such as in U2 spy plane operations over FSU from the Peshawar base at Badaber, until 1969, improving its relationship with an isolated but commercially and politically attractive China in the 70s, in keeping a tab on the Iranian revolution and later in the Afghan campaign, Operation Cyclone, in the 80s. The US probably colluded with Turkey in allowing export of sensitive items to Pakistan even as it continued to issue demarchés to that country and even as Turkey protested these demarchés citing its weak export laws. So was the then West Germany. Not only did sensitive parts and machinery go to Pakistan, but also German scientists went to that country to train Pakistanis. So have been Dutch companies and Dutch friends of AQ Khan. The US pressurized Holland to release the thief AQ Khan twice from any prosecution and punishment even after he was caught red handed.

By 1984, PRC had tested the Pakistani bomb in Lop Nor and the US intelligence was aware of that. In A.Q. Khan's own words, we now know that PRC supplied 50 Kg of enriched Uranium to Pakistan in 1982 and got in return a more advanced European enrichment technology. The US was swarming all over Pakistan at that time with the Afghan jihad at its peak. It is impossible that such a transaction could have taken place without the US knowledge. Apart from procuring material for its own programme, the Pakistanis also did the same for their Chinese friends. Again, by AQ Khan's own admission, Pakistan sent 135 C-130 planeloads of "of machines, inverters, valves, flow meters, pressure gauges" right under the US nose. Obviously, a Pakistan which did not even produce bicycles, could not have manufactured these slightly more sophisticated things.

The US Congress passed the Solarz Amendment to FAA in August 1985 that demanded the US cut-off aid to any country that illegally exported or attempted to export nuclear-related materials from the US. Pakistani agents have been caught several times doing that but not only were they let go but also the Solarz Amendment was not applied. In the same month of August, 1985, the US Congress also passed the Pressler Amendment that required a mandatory certification from the US President every year that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon before the US foreign aid could flow to that country. The US President farcically and falsely gave such a certification in spite of mounting evidence from its own State Department and the CIA. None other than the present Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, has stated that the Pressler Amendment itself was worded in collaboration with the Pakistani foreign office to calm that country down and assure it of escape clauses therein.

The White House even tipped off the Pakistani agent, a retired Brigadier from the Pakistani Army, procuring material clandestinely in the US so that he could escape a CIA sting operation. Richard Barlow, who as a CIA analyst was tasked with tracking the Pakistani nuclear programme, was confronted by a White House representative in the US Congressional hearing in July 1987 as he started spilling the beans and was eased out of the organization immediately thereafter. It is thus very obvious that the White House followed an agenda of supporting Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme by muzzling its own official agencies. At least until February, 1988 (when Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Peck, testified before a House subcommittee) the US maintained that there was no reason to doubt the Pakistani assurance given to Pres. Reagan (and later confirmed several times by Pakistani President, Foreign Minister etc.) in circa 1984 that Uranium would not be enriched beyond the 5% level ! When ultimately one of the Pakistani agents, caught redhanded in a sting operation, was convicted by a US Court, Reagan had to invoke the Solarz Amendment in 1988 and sanction Pakistan but within a few weeks used his Presidential waiver to waive it off.

As the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan on February 15, 1989, the US was suddenly seized of nuclear proliferation concerns. A former deputy CIA director Richard Kerr, had accepted that Pakistan had the bomb by 1987. One US Official would later say, "Our relationship with Pakistan was to counter the Soviet-Indian relationship. The Pakistanis knew that time was limited. And that’s why they went balls out on the nuclear program." Even as late as circa 2003, the US President George W Bush thought it fit not to apply sanctions on Pakistani entities exporting nuclear technology to North Korea even after Pakistan was implicated. The US Government simply said that ". . . cooperation between the two was a thing of the past". The US Government exhibited a similar attitude to bail out its ally Pakistan in its more dangerous liaisons of nuclear proliferation to other states, especially rogue states, when the State Department of the US briefed other friendly governments with information contrary to what its own intelligence agencies were reporting about the Pakistani-Libyan deal which in fact went back to Z.A.Bhutto’s days. The US said that North Korea sent Uranium Hexafluoride to Libya while it was Pakistan that re-exported this gas to Libya. Again, the charade that was played out by Musharraf, pretending to be shocked by the revelations of proliferation by AQ Khan when it was the entire State of Pakistan that was involved in it, was scripted between George Bush and Musharraf. The US government wilfully allowed Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons as it needed that State’s help in dealing with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Later, it condoned

Such deliberate and benign neglect and help of the Pakistani nuclear weapon programme did not stop with the weapons per se. It even extended to the delivery mechanism. Even as the CIA confirmed the supply of M-9 & M-11 missiles to Pakistan by PRC, the White House refused to take note. The F-16s that were sold to Pakistan came with a rider that they would not be modified to deliver nuclear weapons. But, Pakistan did indeed modify them and the US has since then given three more tranches of F-16s with the same farcical condition. The DoD even lied to the Congress (or played with words to be more charitable) when queried about such Pakistani modifications, as the US President himself did by claiming Pakistan did not 'possess' a nuclear weapon.

Compare all this extraordinary lengths to which the US went to develop the Pakistani nuclear and delivery arsenal, in contrast, with how the US treated India. We would then understand what the US could have done and what it didn't do in Pakistan's case. Tough sanctions imposed on India after the 1974 PNE (Peaceful Nuclear Explosion), the long-term effects of which on India's civilian power generation programmes linger even today. The NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group or the "London Club" as it is popularly known) which is an outgrowth of the Zangger Committee agreement of August 1974 and the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) which have all been made even more comprehensive through "Energy" and "Wassenaar" protocols (which in circa 1992 banned dual-use technologies even when these were not meant for non-nuclear applications), were specifically meant for India and have affected India's civilian nuclear and space programmes significantly. Pres. Reagan, who portrayed himself a non-proliferation zealot, even suspended LEU fuel supply for the Tarapur Atomic Power Station in India by retro activating his new policy (though it had to arrange an alternate supply through France). Such measures have affected the genuine programmes such as power generation and other research activities of India, a country that scrupulously follows its international responsibilities, while leaving Pakistan with the ability to recklessly follow its clandestine acquisition and proliferation of dangerous technologies in collusion with PRC and the US and its Western allies.

SS. what you said is filled with otai's (tamil).

SSridhar please put it on blog so others can spread it.

Deleted

From the book Islamic Bomb written in 1980s early on it was KSA and Libya to some extent. After the FSU entered into Afghan, US provided indirectly by all that 'aid' and looking otherway.

From the link posted above:

Page 87-90

Jerusalem would not stand by and allow realpolitik to arm Pakistan either, and a highly secretive bombing campaign orchestrated by the Mossad, which had begun earlier in the year and targeted A. Q. Khan's European suppliers, was escalated. The first victim had been Heinz Mebus, Khan's old friend from West Berlin Technische Universitat, who, along with LAbert Migule, had helped build Pakistan's fluoride and uranium conversion plants in 1979. A letter bomb exploded inside Mebus's home in Erlangen, West Germany. Mebus was out at work, but his dog died in the attack. European investigators soon linked the bombing to another that had occurred in Berne, Switzerland, on 20 February, outside the home of Eduard German, managing director of CORA Engineering, the company that had exported the gasification and solidification unit to Pakistan in 1979. The company had been preparing to send another rig to Pakistan when the bomb went off. The incident was followed by an anonymous caller demanding that CORA stop trading with Pakistan. Rudolf Walti, a CORA official, recalled that after his company was threatened again two months later it ended its association with Pakistan, having discovered that the US knew everything. However, this information had been kept highly classified, lest it undermine the aid train that had started to leave for Pakistan.

...

After the Osirak attack, President Reagan, was asked in a press conference where he stood. 'We are opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and do everything in our power to stop it', he replied. Publicly at least, Reagan was emphatic, as was James Buckley. He told John Glenn's government affairs committee in June 1981 that he had received 'absolute assurances' from Pakistan that it would not develop or test a nuclear weapon. That September, Buckley went on to testify before Congressman Stephen Solarz and the House foreign affairs committee that Pakistan was even more unlikely to progress with its nuclear programme once it began receiving US assistance.

...

However, over the months in which these speeches and testimonies were given, James Buckley and other officials were ordered by the White House to shuttle between Washington and Islamabad, refining the back-channel deal with on Pakistan nuclear programme, making certain that both sides knew that when the president had signalled the US's intention to ignore Pakistan's bomb--through Alexander Haig--it had been no slip of the tongue. General Arif greeted Buckley on one occasion and recalled that after discussing the delivery of Pakistan's F-16s, he had raised the nuclear question. 'The Americans suggested there was no need to talk about Pakistan's [nuclear] programme any more'.

In December 1981, the Senate rubber-stamped Pakistan's $3.2 billion aid package.

...

Congress was assured that the programme was dependent on Pakistan desisting with its nuclear efforts. However, days later Agha Shahi received Buckley in Islamabad and recalled: 'I mentioned the nuclear caveats and emphasized that if we had a bomb and wanted to test it there was nothing the US could do. Buckley shrugged his shoulders and said, "I understand. Yes, we know."'

The 'Fallout' Of The CIA's Race To Get Khan

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/04/132629443 ... o-get-khan

In Fallout, Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins track the ways the United States secretly penetrated Khan's network to prevent Libya and Iran from obtaining nuclear secrets. Frantz tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies that the CIA knew about and tracked Khan's nuclear trafficking network for more than 30 years — but was so obsessed with getting information that it let Khan and his associates spread dangerous nuclear technology around the globe rather than moving aggressively to shut the network down.

"They could literally have stopped him in his tracks [in the 1970s]. It would have done an enormous amount to delay Pakistan building its own nuclear weapon, to delay the arms race on the South Asian continent and to stop Iran from getting where it is on the nuclear front," Frantz says. "This is something that the CIA, in our view, has been guilty of for more than 30 years now."

There is one Q that remains unanswered.Why didn't Israel stop the "Islamic bomb" when it had the chance,especially with so much of US intel avaiable to it,that now looks like spreading to the ungodly through a fundamentalist regime that will emerge in Pak? It has reportedly carried out "ops" against Iranian scientists,Syrian installations,etc.,in order to protect itself,but the true danger that it will have to face is from a rogue N-state that is Pak,unaccountable to no one and exists parasitically through blackmailing the US and on large dollops of aid from the Saudis,the Chinese and heroin trafficking.

Philip wrote:There is one Q that remains unanswered.Why didn't Israel stop the "Islamic bomb" when it had the chance,especially with so much of US intel avaiable to it,that now looks like spreading to the ungodly through a fundamentalist regime that will emerge in Pak?

From page 105

This is after Pakis warned India about bombing Trombay if we bombed Kahuta.

New Delhi paused. Israel stepped in, suggesting that it carry out the raid, using India's airbase at Jamnagar to launch Israeli air force jets and a second base in northern India to refuel. A senior Israeli analyst close to the operation recalled that the plan was to enter Pakistan beneath the radar, with jets tracking the line of the Himalayas through Kashmir. As Reagan's staff finalized arrangements for the president's visit to China in March 1984, prime minister Indira Gandhi signed off the Israeli-led operation, bringing India, Pakistan and Israel to within a hair's breadth of a nuclear conflagration. It was at this point that the CIA tipped off President Zia, hoping the chain reaction would defuse the situation. And after Khan's outbursts in the Pakistani newspapers, India and Israel had backed off.

From the link posted above

Page 89-92

In August 1980 three Canadians of Pakistani origins were arrested allegedly trying illicitly to export nuclear components to Pakistan, among them Aziz Khan, A. Q. Khan's correspondent from Montreal. Custom officials recovered from Aziz's house a bundle of letters from Islamabad, painting the first picture of life inside the secretive Project 706. Spanning the earliest days in Sihala to the shift of Pakistan's enrichment facilities to Kahuta, they revealed the names of Khan's most trusted aides and suppliers in the West and identified many of Khan's employees. They provided a route map to the Pakistan nuclear industry-if anyone in the Reagan administration had cared. In one letter, Aziz had offered the prescient warning that if he and his friends were rounded up they 'had nothing to be scared about', and when the case came before a court in Quebec, in October 1981, although Aziz and two others were charged with supplying sensitive electronic components to Pakistan, the hearings were closed, the evidence sealed.

Ostensibly the gagging order was requested by the Canadian authorities in order to protect nuclear secrets, particularly details concerning components that US companies had allegedly supplied to Khan. But just as crucially it also prevented the US congress from learning that many American firms had helped to facilitate Pakistan's nuclear project. Aziz was acquitted, having convinced the jury that he had supplied 'harmless' Pakistani projects, including the now familiar 'food-processing factory' and a textile plant.

...

Behind the scenes, the Reagan administration was desperately struggling to suppress that A. Q. Khan was designing a bomb. After British intelligence caught his network shopping in the UK for reflective shields made from Beryllium, which could significantly boost the power of a nuclear device, Reagan sent a warning to Islamabad via his envoy, Vernon Walters, a two-star general and former CIA deputy director.Robert Gallucci, who was then director of the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs at the State Department, accompanied him there in October 1982. 'I'd been issuing demarches from State to Zia for months saying as politely as I could, "I'm sorry to have to tell you that some people in your government are doing really bad stuff,"' recalled Gallucci. 'But the bad stuff had continued so we had to confront Zia face-to-face. Our evidence was incontrovertible. "This is what your experts have been up to," we said, as politely as we could, giving Zia a get-out. However, the president rejected our briefing, saying our information had come from the Indians.' When General Walters showed Zia a satellite photograph of Kahuta, Pakistan's president brushed it aside, saying, 'This can't be a nuclear installation. Maybe it's a goat shed.' Gallucci recalled: 'Ambassador Walters didn't want to believe that Zia was lying to him but there was no way this stuff could have been going on without Zia's knowledge.'

What Gallucci was not privy to, were secret White House instructions for Walters who had been asked to warn the Pakistanis to do their nuclear trading more discreetly, rather than demanding from them a rollback. Walters confided as much to a senior State Department colleague on his return. 'He came in looking miserable,' the colleague recalled. 'I said, "What's up?" He said, "I was told [by the White House] to tell Zia to get that nuclear problem off our radar." I was shocked. It was the antithesis of what we were supposed to be doing. Instead of giving it to them with both barrels, Walters had told the Pakistanis that they better hide their bomb programme, lest it humiliate Reagan.'

So abhishek what is your impression about the book? What did you learn and what was confimed? Also what was the whole tenor of the book?

I did not know much about US policies as far as Paki nuclear program is concerned , so it was a good learning experience.

The most surprising fact is that in one case, very high-level State Department officials were warning Pakis (in good lawyerly language to protect themselves) about CIA/FBI investigations in Paki procurements from US. The Paki escaped. An inquiry was ordered. But Reagan forgave them.

The Pentagon lied many times that F-16s sold to Pakis can't be used to drop nuclear bombs. They knew that Pakis have already made necessary changes. Teresita C. Schaffer also lied to Congress about this issue.

Some people like Richard Barlow tried to stop these policies. They were punished ruthlessly. Barlow was declared insane. He had to live in a trailer in Montana.

Pakis could not repair Kahuta labs after the earthquake in 2005 because A. Q. Khan was under house arrest. What are they going to do when he dies?

Abhishek Sharma, not only 'Deception', but also numerous other sources have reinforced what you have written about the US support for Pakistani nuclear proliferation. My little post above was a gist of some of those things. There are other issues too like the BCCI, the Swiss connection etc. where too the US played crucial roles.

It makes one wonder how foolish, reckless and tactical can the US get if it wants to, putting not only itself but the entire world to tremendous harm. How could it have even thought that somehow Pakistan's nuclear genie and its delivery platforms would remain confined to India and India alone ?No doubt India's misfortune is Pakistan, but a bigger misfortune has been the USofA.

When Gorbachev started talking about leaving Afghanistan, Pakis started thinking about new ways to raise cash. Probably it was started by Zia, but most deals were done by Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg.

Kahuta scientists were not allowed to talk to Benazir. Gen Beg once scolded her when she wanted to know more about nuclear matters.

US intelligence was aware of scores of C-130 flights from Pakistan to countries like North Korea, Libya etc.

US made a model of Paki bomb and its triggering system. It always worked. They showed it to Benazir when she visited US.

In 1998, Paki test fired Ghauri. They simply painted North Korean missiles in Paki colors.

A. Q. Khan's daughter left the country with a letter from her father which contained incriminating evidence about Paki military. Musharraf threatened A. Q. Khan with death if the letter is released.

Kahuta scientists are very bitter because Musharraf dumped them.

Armitage (and one more person) met with Musharraf and negotiated a deal before A. Q. Khan confessed. I did not understand what the US got from it. After 1-2 years, Musharraf closed the case assuming that everyone has forgotten it. Pakis are still offering their nuclear technology to anyone who wants to pay for it.

China gave a design of nuclear weapons to Pakis. Bill Clinton did not do anything to protect the economic interests of US companies.

In all departments (State, CIA, Pentagon) there were people who were opposing Paki bomb, but they were overruled by their superiors in their department (or by White House). Sometimes the dissenting voice was fired. Paul Wolfowitz was involved in one of these disputes.

The idea that Pakis should have a bomb to balance India is not mentioned in the book. I think the author had no access to those top-secret discussions.

India threatened to bomb Lop Nor in 1971 if the Chinese attacked.

abhishek_sharma wrote:The 'Fallout' Of The CIA's Race To Get Khan

. . . the CIA knew about and tracked Khan's nuclear trafficking network for more than 30 years — but was so obsessed with getting information that it let Khan and his associates spread dangerous nuclear technology around the globe rather than moving aggressively to shut the network down.

30 long years and the US was tracking and tracking and unable to conclude and stop ?

As Sunny Deol would say shout:

Tracking pe tracking, tracking pe tracking, tracking pe tracking mili my lord, par Xerox Khan nahin mila.

Frequently, the Pakistanis claim falsely that their pursuit of nuclear weapons started after their defeat in the 1971 war and especially after India detonated its first nuclear device in circa 1974. However, Pakistan's quest for nukes started in late 1964 as soon as the Chinese exploded their first device in October 1964. Pakistan had already forged a friendlier relationship with the Chinese under the young foreign minister ZA Bhutto who even seceded a portion of PoK to them. Ayub Khan and Z.A. Bhutto began a series of manoueveres with the Chinese to get nuclear know-how. In his manuscript "If I am Assassinated" written from his death cell, Z.A.Bhutto has clearly said that the negotiations with the Chinese started in circa 1965 and Foreign Secretary Late Agha Shahi has since confirmed that. Let us remember that Pakistan had ceded more than 5000 Sq. Km of Shaksgam Valley to PRC by March 1963 and even given up claims to other territories that are part of Xinjiang today. China was grateful and its gratitude was to grow immensely later when Pakistan facilitated the US-China rapprochement. It is generally believed that as early as circa 1965, Pakistan had concluded a secretive agreement with China wherein China had rumoured to help Pakistan acquire nuclear capabilities. It was probably on this strength that in 1965 in the General Assembly of the UN that Z.A.Bhutto said famously, “We Pakistanis will eat grass but shall live to win. We will fight for a thousand years but we will not submit or yield.”. So, the Pakistani efforts predate the "Smiling Buddha" by a decade. PAEC chief Dr. Munir Akram recalls FM Ayub Khan saying in late 1965 that ‘ . . . if needed, Pakistan could get it from China’, referring to the nuclear weapons. Later, in September 1974, Z.A. Bhutto told A.Q.Khan who approached him with the idea of building an enrichment plant using designs he could steal from The Netherlands, “Beg, borrow or steal. We must make the nuclear device to counter the threat posed by India. Money should be no problem.” By c. 1973, Pakistan had made significant decisions in making its nuclear weapon.

Though Pakistan was determined to build a nuclear weapon since circa 1964, the real impetus was given to this programme by President Z.A.Bhutto when he convened a meeting of Pakistani nuclear scientists from far and near in Multan on January 20, 1972 where he declared Pakistan needed ‘nuclear fission within three years’. In that meeting he said, “The Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations have he capability. The Islamic civilization was without it, but that situation is about to change”. He thus implicitly equated the Pakistani efforts with ‘Islamic bomb’. Thus was born Project 706, Pakistan’s attempt at making nuclear bombs. By November, 1972, Pakistan had started the designs for a fission device at the Quaid-e-Azam university. By c. 1973, an explosive lens for the implosion-type device was being built. By February 1974, Z.A. Bhutto had tied up the finances for the project with Libya’s Col. Qadaffi. India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) was still a few months away, on May 18, 1974.

The nuclear weapon that Pakistan today possesses is a ba*t*rd because the father could be US-European and Chinese, but certainly not a Pakistani.

SSridhar wrote: How could it have even thought that somehow Pakistan's nuclear genie and its delivery platforms would remain confined to India and India alone ?

There is one fact I can't understand. Why don't the Pakis seek ICBMs from the Chinese? If they have 50 ICBMs pointing at American cities, there would be endless Jizya and no predators. No threats of stone age visits. Right?

In 2006 when Bush visited Pakistan, Musharraf asked A. Q. Khan what he should ask from Bush in order to bargain for an equal treatment (w.r.t. India-US Nuclear deal). A. Q. Khan replied:"I can help you, but I won't. Go and lick Bush's balls."

abhishek_sharma wrote:

SSridhar wrote: How could it have even thought that somehow Pakistan's nuclear genie and its delivery platforms would remain confined to India and India alone ?

There is one fact I can't understand. Why don't the Pakis seek ICBMs from the Chinese? If they have 50 ICBMs pointing at American cities, there would be endless Jizya and no predators. No threats of stone age visits. Right?

That's what I implied, that the US ensured that longer range missiles were not made available to Pakistan by the Chinese so that Pakistan could threaten the US and its Western allies. The US foolishly thought that somehow Pakistan would limit itself to threatening India and India alone. It never understood the Pakistanis, not then and not even now.

A time may come when PRC decides to even give ICBM to Pakistan, but not yet. For Pakistan too, there is still a lot to be milked from the Americans. ICBM can wait. A PRC-TSP convergence will happen then.

SSridhar, Brilliant recap. Again blog it.

Also one question is the Paki bum is a Chinese design why did Pakis get arrested for stealing US parts? Are there any reports of Paki acquistion of parts in the 1963 era for PRC use?

ramana wrote:Again blog it.

Also one question is the Paki bum is a Chinese design why did Pakis get arrested for stealing US parts? Are there any reports of Paki acquistion of parts in the 1963 era for PRC use?

Ramana, blog, I will. Something else is going on in my blog right now.

Yes, the TSP Bomb was (and is) a Chinese design. But, components for making the bomb (except enriched uranium) had still to be procured. The new enrichment-plant of the URENCO design had to be built both in Pakistan and in China. That's where the Pakistanis had to make double procurement, one for itself and the other for the taller than the tallest mountain nation.

As for any pre-1974 procurement by the Pakistanis, the Chinese did not depend on the Pakistanis for these. The Sino-Pak entente, soon to become a dance, did not start until end-1962 when Pakistan made a radical change in its policy. By 1964, the Chinese had detonated the fission device and within four years thereafter, by 1968, a TN demonstration took place. The Russian help to the Chinese nuclear program was substantial, even though the Chinese had to go on their own in the last few miles after the Sino-Soviet relationship suffered in the very late 50s.

The first known instance of Pakistan setting up a procurement network for obtaining material for its nuclear programme from the western countries started in 1974 and predictably from The Netherlands.

As for the arrest itself in the US, it is my surmise that the decision to turn a blind eye (or even help when needed) was taken at the PoTUS level with only a few top officials of the administration being privy to that. A guy like Barlow, fresh from college and with a lot of enthusiasm and being completely unaware of realpolitik, took it upon himself to stop the spread of nuclear weapon menace. There were probably others in the FBI who, again being unaware of what was happening, set up the sting that caught one of the Pakistani agents. But, the mastermind escaped because the CIA (probably at high levels) warned him in the nick of time. Then, the Solarz Amendment kicked in as there was a court conviction for export of banned items. The President had to use his discretionary power to waive it etc.

Indian govt worried about PAk nukes command and control

'Threat of Pak nukes falling in jehadi hands'

'Threat of Pak nukes falling in jehadi hands'
Updated on Friday, January 07, 2011, 17:58
Swati Chaturvedi

New Delhi: The Cabinet committee on Security (CCS) is extremely worried about an ''eyes only'' Research & Analysis report that warns that the ''command and control'' structure of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling in to the hands of what the report describes as the ''hardline jehadi'' elements rampant in Pakistan society
Authoritative sources told Zee News that earlier both Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and Union Minister for External Affairs S M Krishna had ''flagged'' the issue of Pakistan's nuclear weapons with the USA.

The report which comes from Islamabad is based on both ''humint'' and ''techmint'' (human intelligence and technical intelligence) and says that the weapons thought to carry limited payload are entirely in the hands of the Army the rapid ''jehadification'' of the Army is a serious cause of concern.

Separately, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has also warned that the Taliban and even Osama Bin Laden are also eyeing Pakistan's nuclear weapons.


The report asks the CCS to take a joint view with the USA and wants the government to take it up at the appropriate levels with the US establishment as it says that the Pakistan nuclear weapons are a bigger threat than Iran's going the nuclear route.


A CCS member told Zee News, ''We have decided to take up the matter with the US government since it is a cause of grave concern. Pakistan Punjab Governor Salman Taseer's murder by his own security guard lays bear the cancer at the heart of Pakistan.''

Almost always, Indian assessment of Pakistan has been very accurate.

Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies
By David Albright
Free Press, 2010, 295 pp.

The following is an excerpt from a lengthy review by Leonard Weiss. I have just picked up the Pakistani specific portions.

To his list of dubious achievements, Abdul Qadeer Khan can add the denuding of forests for all the books, reports, documents, and papers that have been printed about him and his activities since he began his career more than 30 years ago. There are at least seven books in English, as well as extensive investigative reporting by some of the best-known names in journalism. David Albright’s book, Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies, is the latest but probably not the last word on Khan’s history.

Given the large amount of material on the Khan network, it is not surprising that Albright’s book covers a great deal of familiar ground. However, in some areas he does provide interesting detail not matched by other accounts. His chapter on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq contains some additional information on Khan’s offer of a nuclear weapons design to Iraq, first reported by John Barry in Newsweek.

The part of the book that shines is Albright’s detailed description of the nodes, connectors, and actors of the Khan network during its operations as an exporter of nuclear weapons-related technology from the 1990s until 2002, when its cover was blown. He chronicles the roles of unscrupulous businessmen and companies operating out of Germany, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates in not only helping Pakistan’s own nuclear weapons program, but also helping Khan to sell the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons materials to other developing nations, including Iran and Libya.

To Albright’s evident frustration, Khan and the vast majority of his professional or business associates in Pakistan or abroad have not suffered any major penalties to date. The lone exception is Gunes Cire, who died while under police interrogation in Turkey. The only case still open is that of Friedrich, Urs, and Marco Tinner, who worked for the Swiss company Vakuum Apparat Technik. Swiss prosecutors have accused the Tinners of violating nonproliferation laws and, by virtue of becoming CIA agents, anti-espionage laws. In that role, they provided important information that helped unravel at least part of the Khan network. The U.S. government protested their possible prosecution, and the Swiss government tried but failed to prevent the assembling of evidence.

However, one should note, as Albright does, that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons production complex is still operating and still shopping for components. Intelligence agencies in the European Union warned companies in 2005 of a huge shopping spree in Europe by agents working for Pakistan, suggesting that new nodes and connectors are being sought and perhaps found to replace those lost after the Libya affair became public and arrests were made. Thus, the Khan network has perhaps not been busted, but more likely transformed.

Whether or not the network was “rolled up” in 2003, could it have been disrupted earlier, before all those transfers to other countries occurred? Although he does not explicitly say, Albright appears to accept the notion that the Khan network could not have been broken up until 2003, when President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a meeting planning the Iraq war, decided that Khan had to be stopped. The CIA had, in fact, infiltrated Khan’s network and collected a great deal of information about elements of it during Pakistan’s drive in the 1970s and 1980s to build its bomb. The U.S. National Security Agency was intercepting communications between elements of the network, and the CIA began to collect even more when it realized that Khan had become an exporter as well as an importer of weapons-related technology. For various reasons, no actions such as arrests were taken. One factor might have been the desire to protect U.S. intelligence agents inside the network from exposure, which is what happened later in the case of Friedrich Tinner. So the question is, did the United States choose not to break up the Khan network at an earlier time even though it had the ability to do so? Hersh’s 2004 New Yorker article quotes a Bush administration intelligence officer as saying that “we had every opportunity to put a stop to the Khan network 15 years ago. Some of those involved today are the children of those we knew about in the 80s.” (He may have been referring to the sons of Friedrich Tinner and Cire, who play a significant role in Albright’s narrative.)

It may be legitimate to complain that Hersh used an unidentified source for that assertion, but Albright cannot be one of the complainers. This reviewer counted 95 references to unidentified sources for the material in his book, and they tend to put themselves and their agencies in a favorable light on the Khan affair. The difference between Albright’s and Hersh’s accounts in this case is important. It could have meant the difference between having and not having advanced centrifuge technology in the hands of countries the United States does not trust. In a similar vein, Peddling Peril contrasts with another recent book, The Nuclear Jihadist, as to whether the CIA advised the BVD, the Dutch intelligence agency, not to arrest Khan for espionage in 1975 in order to provide more time to track his contacts and activities. It is another case of “Whose source do you believe?”

Pakistan’s Program

Albright recognizes that the story of the Khan network’s aid to other proliferators is inseparable from the story of the Pakistani bomb, and he devotes a chapter to that story. However, despite the many details he includes about how Khan stole centrifuge blueprints in the 1970s and set up his network to provide materials and equipment to Pakistan for building centrifuges and the bomb, his treatment of that story ignores a shameful part of U.S. Cold War history. Albright takes great pains to show how the Khan network was infiltrated by Western spies, including those of the United Kingdom and the United States, but readers will look in vain for any reference to the radical shift of U.S. nonproliferation policy toward Pakistan, engineered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, that took place in 1979 after the mujahideen revolt against the Communist regime in Afghanistan began.

The United States had embarked on a mission that required an impossible balance. On the one hand, the U.S. government was attempting to convince the Pakistanis that it was serious about stopping their nuclear weapons program. On the other hand, the United States, determined to show the importance it attached to assisting the anti-Soviet mujahideen, changed its nonproliferation laws to allow aid to continue flowing to Pakistan in spite of weapons activities that otherwise would have triggered a cutoff. The Glenn-Symington amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act were altered to allow time-limited military aid to Pakistan. Subsequent extensions of the time limit on military aid, plus failure to adhere to the Pressler and Solarz amendments, which created new redlines for Pakistan’s nuclear progress, sent the message to Pakistan that the creation of the Khan network was not an impediment to U.S.-Pakistani relations, at least as long as the Soviets were in Afghanistan. By the time the Soviets left in 1989, after which Pakistan was cut off from U.S. assistance, Pakistan had built its first nuclear weapons, including some based on a design provided by China in 1983. It had also put into place the trading network that, with a few additional nodes and connectors, provided Khan and Pakistan with the ability to send nuclear weapons technology to other countries.

People inside and outside the U.S. government were trying to change the disastrous path taken by its nonproliferation policy in the 1980s. Some leaked detailed information to the press, and there was much activity behind the scenes to intercept or otherwise block nuclear-related shipments to Pakistan. The basic U.S. policy, however, ensured that such activity would fail to stop Pakistan’s drive for the bomb. Moreover, the highly classified nature of U.S. information in this area meant that hardly anyone inside government was speaking out publicly about this shameful state of affairs. The loudest voices were in Congress, which is invisible in Albright’s book. Perhaps the most sustained voice of protest was that of Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio), in speeches on the Senate floor and his investigatory hearings.

The Turkish Connection

An exception to the virtual silence in Albright’s book on the U.S. decision to take no action against Pakistan or its bomb enablers is contained in his rather sparse discussion of the role of Turkey in the Khan network. The story is as follows: Two Turkish contractors, Selim Alguadis and Cire, had for years been helping Khan obtain component parts such as frequency inverters and ring magnets for powering and controlling centrifuges. The British and U.S. governments were aware of this early on. A secret State Department cable, not mentioned by Albright, to the U.S. embassy in Ankara, which was leaked in 1981, stated, “We have strong reason to believe that Pakistan is seeking to develop a nuclear explosives capability” and that “a covert purchasing organization” of Turkish companies known to the Pakistani, Turkish, and U.S. governments was purchasing U.S.-made electrical equipment and diverting it to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The cable also said that “Pakistan is conducting a program for the design and development of a triggering package for nuclear explosive devices.” Over a decade, the U.S. government sent more than 100 démarches to Turkey on this matter. No action resulted, although President Ronald Reagan raised the issue in a 1988 meeting with Turkish President Kenan Evren. Albright writes that the lack of action was because “Turkey was a crucial ally in the fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, and many did not want to threaten that cooperation by pressuring the Turkish government to stop sales to Khan.” He does not say whether he believes that was an acceptable trade-off, nor does he say that those sales made Turkey a violator of the Glenn-Symington amendments and therefore subject to a cutoff of military and economic assistance unless the sales were stopped or the president issued a waiver. This was a prime and early example of U.S. enabling of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development, but Albright does not characterize it that way. He simply writes of “a huge internal debate” within the State Department and the belief of “many U.S. officials” that Turkey had stopped the sales. He also makes no reference to what some have characterized as outright lies told to Congress in hearings about Pakistan’s nuclear activities. Richard Barlow exposed these transgressions when he worked for the CIA and suffered mightily as a result. Albright thanks him in the Acknowledgments section of the book, but one must consult other books, such as The Nuclear Jihadist and Deception, for Barlow’s story and how Congress was purposefully misled.

This book's release had been posted earlier here in this very thread. Not having read the book so far, I found the above extensive discussion quite interesting and tallying with what we have discussed above a few days ago.

X post:
Google Earth images of the nuclear bunker at PAFB Kamra - under construction.






Zoomed out view of the bunkers and the runway.


N weapons kept in the bunker can probably be brought out of the Main entrance in a trolley or a golf cart type vehicle, and driven to either the missiles on the Telars nearby or to the Runway Tarmac and loaded onto aircraft. The main entrance has a sloping tunnel that is visible while under construction.

There is a service entrance also visible right in the middle of the picture with a white colored path leading away in the 7 O'clock direction. This one possibly has a lift.

Numerous trees newly planted are also visible in the 8 O'clock position to hide the main bunker.

But why Kamra?
1. This is the site where Pakistan Manufactures components of both missiles and N weapons.
2. The place lies west of Islamabad and away from India.

The place is ~ 200-210 Kms away from several points across the LOC / IB in India and well within LACM Brahmos range.

The Talibs and AQAM have tried to breach the perimeter of this base several times in the past years to try and reach this place. This is wild wild west - taliban territory outside of the base.

Another bunker with EXACTLY the same design has been built at PAFB Mushaf Sargodha.









This took the pakistanis upwards of 6 years to build!!!
I am sure they had Chinese labourers, designers and engineers involved.

these bunkers would also be brahmos immune
moabs will be required

the stone crushing system and feed arms for trucks is clearly visible 8-o-clock in the earlist sargodha photo from 2004.

I wonder if the missile TELARs are meant to disperse away with loaded warheads or wait there until such time as launch order is given? in second case, any air or missile strike can pick them off. so I suppose when hostilities are imminent , the warheads already placed inside RV will be tested and vetted by technicians inside these bunkers, made active and loaded onto missiles waiting outside before the trucks disperse into the countryside.

my theory is these sites are funded and monitored by americans rather than china. being in a airbase also permits easy (and safe) visits by american agents and technicians tasked to account for them periodically and sign off on the next monthly EMI.

Lalmohan sir, I am doubtful if MOAB works on buried concrete structures....something like a GBU28 or Brahmos in a diving attack might do more damage - go deep via kinetic energy/momemtum and then explode a shaped charge firing down.

Singha-sir, i am in two minds about bunker busters. it kinda depends on depth of concrete and mud. moab has the advantage of shock wave concussion damage - its a non nuke nuke as it were. It would have to be cheyenne mountain sized facility to withstand moab damage i think. paquis would have worked out how much depth we can penetrate before deciding on concrete thickness i expect. maybe a reason for hypersonic brahmos III!?

also, i suspect that there may be one set of facilities that the americans see (e.g. sargodha) and then another set where the real maal is kept