D
Dr. Jai Maharaj
Guest
TERRORIST PAKISTAN'S COMPLETE NUKE PACKAGE TO N KOREA
Facts about terrorist Islam and Muslims:
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
Forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Jihadistan's 'complete nuke package' to N. Korea
[ Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006
Pakistan-North Korea Connection Creates Huge Dilemma For
U.S.John E. Carbaugh, Jr
Oct. 22, 2006, Pakistan-North Korea axis
U.S. government officials were taken aback last October
when officials in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) admitted during high level bilateral talks that the
country is pursuing a uranium enrichment nuclear program-a
violation of four international agreements. Since then,
tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have risen
steadily, as the Bush Administration works quietly but
decidedly to organize international pressure on Pyongyang
to end its nuclear weapons program.
Given the prominence that North Korea's nuclear program has
achieved in U.S. foreign policy, it is a little odd that
Pakistan-which U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced
supplied North Korea with technology to pursue its nuclear
program-has thus escaped high-level pressure from
Washington.
Major Diplomatic HeadachePakistan has become a major
diplomatic headache for the Bush Administration. On the one
hand, Pakistan is a crucial ally in the war against
terrorism. Many analysts suspect Osama Bin Laden is now
hiding somewhere in Pakistan; cooperation from Pakistani
security and intelligence officials is needed to capture
Osama and cut the power of Al Qaeda. On the other hand,
Pakistan's ties to North Korea's nuclear program have
violated bilateral assurances to the U.S. Pakistan's
actions also have facilitated a signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (North Korea is a signatory) to
violate its commitments.
In the view of some analysts, Pakistan is "double-dealing"
with the U.S., claiming to work together in the war against
terrorism while maintaining ties with North Korea of the
sort that essentially facilitated the current nuclear
tension on the Korea Peninsula. After the 9/11 terrorist
attacks the U.S. invested a lot of political capital to
cultivate improved ties with Pakistan. The U.S. waived all
economic sanctions against Pakistan in return for Pakistani
cooperation in the war against terrorism. Now President
George W. Bush has his hands tied. The U.S. government has
doggedly worked to stem the proliferation of nuclear (as
well as chemical and biological) weapons to hostile and
unstable countries.
What should be its priority now: punishing Pakistan for its
proliferation policies or pursuing the war against
terrorism? U.S. officials have a hard time answering a
basic question: Why tolerate Pakistani proliferation and
possession of nuclear weapons, yet take such a hard line
against North Korea for following a similar path?
Pakistan's DenialsThe Pakistanis deny exporting nuclear
technology to North Korea. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the
Pakistani ambassador to the United States, insists that
Pakistan is innocent. During a trip to Tampa in October he
responded to these allegations in the St. Petersburg Times,
"It is simply not true. [Pakistan] has a track record on
nuclear export controls that nobody has challenged." But
U.S. intelligence officials are fully convinced that
Pakistan supplied North Korea with crucial technology
needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. The Bush
Administration has been reluctant to release the full
facts, both to protect intelligence sources and to
forestall a backlash on Capitol Hill against the Pakistani
regime. But a steady flow of leaks from U.S. intelligence
agencies to the news media have had the effect of giving a
warning to Pakistan that it better back off from its
nuclear ties with North Korea.
Long Term TiesAlthough the extent of Pakistani-North Korean
contacts remains somewhat cloudy, it is clear that they
have existed for some time. The military relationship
between North Korea and Pakistan-from which the nuclear
connection eventually emerged-began during the 1970s, when
then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto began expanding
bilateral ties with Pyongyang. The relationship got a big
boost after a day trip to Pyongyang 20 years later by Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
The 1993 discussions between Bhutto and North Korean
officials were ostensibly about economic relations. Most
analysts believe that Ms. Bhutto also went to Pyongyang to
discuss the purchase of ballistic missiles from North
Korea, a deal that was finally signed in 1995.
Pakistan's motive was to keep pace with India's development
of nuclear weapons. Pakistan had nuclear warheads at the
time but was desperately seeking a delivery system. Because
of its weak economic position and the extended length of
time required to build up a missile program, Pakistan ruled
out indigenous development.
Initial Help from ChinaInitially, it sought help from
China, which sold Pakistan 34 M-11 short-range missiles in
the early 1990s. Continued purchase of missiles from China
proved difficult, however, because of strong U.S.
opposition. Pakistan was still determined to obtain longer-
range missiles that would enable it to target,
strategically, all of India. So, Pakistan scouted out the
potential of North Korea's Nodong missile. Numerous
personnel visits are believed to have taken place between
North Korea and Pakistan during the 1990s. In a paper for
the Center for Nonproliferation Studies entitled, "A
History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK,"
Joseph Bermudez, Jr. writes that the first of these visits
took place in August, 1992, when Pakistani officials
journeyed to North Korea to examine the Nodong.
"The DPRK Deputy Premier-Foreign Minister Kim Yong-nam
traveled to.Pakistanto discuss a number of issues,
including missile cooperation and DPRK sales of Hwasong 6
and possibly Nodong missiles. Pakistani and Iranian
specialists are believed to have been present for the
DPRK's May 29-30, 1993, tests," Bermudez says. Shortly
thereafter, Pakistan established a ballistic missile
project to purchase and manufacture the Nodong missile.
Pakistanis called it the Ghauri. The spring of 1996 saw the
delivery of missiles by Changgwang Sinyong Corp.-North
Korea's marketing arm for missile production facilities-to
Pakistan, most of which went to A.Q. Khan Research
Laboratories. Pakistan tested the Ghauri in April, 1998,
for the first time; North Korean observers apparently were
present.
Although Pakistan now admits buying missiles from North
Korea, it initially denied it. Few analysts were fooled
about the missiles' origin. Gaurav Kampani, a senior
research associate at the Monterey Institute's Center of
Nonproliferation Studies notes some telling clues: "If you
look at the history of missile development in any country,"
Kampani says, "it's really a one or two decade long
process. Pakistan is probably one of the only cases where
it has no history of testing or development and all of a
sudden it displays a fully developed ballistic missile.
Then it tests it over an urban center. That degree of
confidence suggests that a tested, reliable weapon system
has been procured. "Second, there is no doubt that the
missile is the Nodong in external appearance, range, and
warhead payload," Kampani continues. "Third, North Korean
crews were present during the launch in Pakistan, and there
was a lot of air freight traffic between North Korea and
Pakistan before the launch. Fourth, the U.S. State
Department sanctioned the Khan Research Labs and the North
Korean entity from which the missiles were supplied."
According to the Arms Control Association, Pakistan has
produced three versions of the Nodong. The Ghauri-1, with a
range of 1,300+ km and a payload of 700kg; the Ghauri-2,
with a much longer range of 2,300 km and a payload of
700kg; and the Ghauri-3, which is untested, but expected to
have a range of 3,000km. The Nodong is not the only model
procured. Bermudez notes, "[The Pakistani 2,000km range
Ghaznavi] missile may actually be a Taepodong-1."
Nuclear BarterThat Pakistan obtained ballistic missiles
from North Korea is not in question. U.S., British, and
South Korean intelligence officials have long wondered how
Pakistan would repay the debt. The answer seems to be: by
providing North Korea with enrichment technology. It is
unclear whether Pakistan originally agreed to supply
nuclear technology in exchange for ballistic missiles.
Purportedly, the original arrangement was that Pakistan
would pay in cash. But missiles are expensive; by the time
they were delivered by North Korea in the spring of 1996,
Pakistan's economic situation had deteriorated badly. It
was dependent on bailouts by the International Monetary
Fund. (As a point of reference, in 1999 North Korea asked
million for Taepodong missiles.)
Intelligence officials now believe that Pakistan decided to
transfer nuclear technology as a means of payment. This
barter proved to be a perfect match. In 1994, the North
Koreans signed the Agreed Framework, in which they agreed
to shut down their plutonium-based nuclear program. But
North Korean scientists found Pakistan's uranium enrichment
technology to be a good means of continuing a covert
nuclear program, albeit one that requires time.
"Early Warning to Congress"U.S. government officials said
recently that they have suspected North Korea has been
pursuing a uranium enrichment program for at least two
years. Larry Niksch, Senior Asia Specialist at the
Congressional Research Service and the leading expert on
North Korea in Congress, summarized the clues that led U.S.
officials to make this assessment. In a briefing to
Congress in November, Niksch told Congressional Leaders
that "In March, 2000, President Clinton notified Congress
that he could not certify that North Korea was not
acquiring enriched uranium for the production of nuclear
weapons." The Japanese newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, reported
on June 9th, 2000, the contents of a "detailed report" from
Chinese government sources on a secret North Korean uranium
enrichment facility inside North Korea's Mount Chonma.
"In May, 2002, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton
cited a U.S. intelligence estimate of December, 2001, in
accusing North Korea of operating a secret nuclear
program," Niksch wrote. U.S. officials say they confirmed
beyond doubt the existence of North Korea's program last
July. "It was like the Rosetta Stone," Niksch said. "Once
we had that, we knew what was going on." President Bush
ordered the intelligence community to review the assessment
once again, to make absolutely sure it was correct. The
various U.S. intelligence agencies are in full agreement.
Confirmation of the Pakistan connection apparently emerged
at the same time. One report among intelligence circles is
that British Intelligence was able to obtain from the
Pakistani Embassy in London crucial information about the
Pakistan-North Korea connection.
According to Kampani, some big clues have been leaked to
the press:
First, some retired Pakistani officials have tracked
questionable shipments to North Korea that may have been
centrifuge uranium enrichment technology.
Second, some Indian defense officials have named the
private airline associated with the Pakistani Interservice
Intelligence Division that was used to transport equipment
to North Korea.
Third, the centrifuge designs that North Korea is using are
startlingly similar to what is used in Pakistan. How could
the North Koreans, who had no experience or background in
uranium centrifuge enrichment, suddenly develop one within
four years? Export regulations are very tight; if a massive
clandestine procurement program were to be undertaken by
North Korea, it would be visible to the international
community. Pakistan was the only nuclear power with the
means and the motive to help North Korea.
Despite the apparent evidence, Pakistan's president,
General Pervez Musharraf, in a discussion with Secretary of
State Colin Powell, denied any involvement in North Korea's
nuclear program. Powell told reporters, "[Musharraf] said,
'Four hundred percent assurance that there is no such
interchange taking place now.'" It is telling, however,
that Powell reported that the two had not discussed the
past, and he would not discuss it because it would shed
light on how the U.S. government collects evidence.
Rogue Scientists?Some analysts suspect that the transfer of
nuclear technology can be attributed to rogue elements
within Pakistan, in particular one man: Abdul Qadeer Khan,
the founding father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.
A household name in Pakistan, A.Q. Khan substantially
advanced Pakistan's uranium enrichment program in the
1970's, and thus the capability to build nuclear weapons.
The fissile material for the initial Pakistani nuclear
weapons apparently came from A.Q. Khan's labs. As head of
the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories, Khan was always in
fierce competition with colleagues at the Pakistan Atomic
Energy Agency. Some analysts believe that the intense
rivalry led Khan to act independently of the Pakistani
government to purchase delivery systems from abroad for
nuclear weapons systems.
Thus, if there were a rogue element in Pakistan, Khan would
be the likely suspect. Khan is often described as a
flamboyant, egomaniacal scientist who claims credit for
much more than he deserves. He is also famous for having
pilfered from the Netherlands both the designs used to
build Pakistan's uranium enrichment gas-centrifuge plants,
and also the lists of manufacturers of components of
nuclear technology in the U.S. and Europe. With this
knowledge he was able to exploit export regulations in the
early 1970's and import materials into Pakistan. After
graduating from school in Karachi, Khan went to Europe in
1961 to continue his studies, ultimately earning a
doctorate in metallurgy. Khan accepted a position with the
Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO), a
subcontractor for Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland (UCN), the
Dutch partner of URENCO, a tri-national European uranium
enrichment centrifuge consortium.
In 1974, Khan was asked to translate highly classified
design documents for the world's most advanced industrial
enrichment technology at that time-something which he
dutifully did while taking copious notes. In 1976, Khan
suddenly left the Netherlands under suspicious
circumstances. Later, Khan turned up in Pakistan, where he
founded Engineering Research Laboratories, subsequently
renamed the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). Then-
Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto gave Khan control of the
country's budding uranium enrichment program. The Dutch
government later convicted Khan in abstentia for stealing
classified plans and technology from URENCO.
The Khan Research Laboratory is home to both a missile-
development center and an industrial sized gas-centrifuge
plant for enriching uranium. Most of the ballistic missiles
Pakistan purchased from North Korea were delivered to KRL.
It is probably not coincidental, then, that Khan has
reportedly made as many as 13 trips to North Korea.
Pakistani Government "Approval"Still, most analysts dismiss
the suggestion that Khan acted independently of the
government. Gaurav Kampani said, "On the one hand you have
the Pakistani government reiterating consistently that they
have multiple controls of their nuclear materials and
weapons. But then they insinuate that it was done by A.Q.
Khan. Pakistan's nuclear scientists don't have the degree
of autonomy to make independent decisions like this; they
are subject to Pakistan's National Command Authority." That
is not is not to say, however, that Khan can't make
trouble.
Some analysts wonder if there is a story behind his
resignation last year. The High Energy Weapons Archive
website reports: "A. Q. Khan's official career came to an
abrupt end in March, 2001, when he [was] suddenly retired
by order of President Pervez Musharraf. It may be that
Musharraf, who was busy mending fences with the outside
world, wished to tie down some loose cannons that were a
source of irritation with India and the United States."
Others suspect that Khan is still involved with North
Korea's nuclear project. Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage expressed concern on June 1st, 2001, in an article
which appeared in the Financial Times, stating that,
"people who were employed by the nuclear agency and have
retired" may be assisting North Korea with its nuclear
program. Armitage's comments are believed to refer to Khan.
Khan is now a "Special Adviser" to the Musharraf on
Strategic and KRL Affairs. The likelihood of a rogue
military element is also dubious. Pakistan's National
Command Authority is comprised of three divisions: the
Weapons Development Control Committee, the Weapons
Employment Control Committee, and the Strategic Plans
Division, which acts as a secretariat to the other two. The
Weapons Development Control Committee is comprised of all
the top military brass and the relevant scientific
organizations, which includes the nuclear bureaucracies,
while the head of Pakistan's government is supposed to
chair the Weapons Employment Committee. "The Pakistani
military really calls the shots as far as the nuclear
program is concerned," Kampani said. "But it's hard to
imagine that something could have happened without the
tacit consent of the Prime Minister."
Strategic LeaksThe clinching evidence-the "Rosetta Stone"
referred to earlier-about North Korea's enrichment program
emerged last summer when U.S. and other intelligence
services found North Korea trying to acquire large amounts
of high-strength aluminum. The metal is used in equipment
to enrich uranium to make nuclear bombs. This assessment
was confirmed when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly
visited Pyongyang in early October and confronted North
Korean officials with the information. North Korea admitted
to the charge.
U.S. officials then fingered Pakistan as a supplier of
parts and expertise to North Korea's uranium enrichment
gas-centrifuge program. But U.S. suspicions had been around
for quite some time. In October, 2001, the Washington Times
reported the contents of a classified 1999 Energy
Department Report which said that North Korea had
undertaken a uranium enrichment nuclear project. It pointed
to an attempt by a North Korean company to buy frequency
converters from a Japanese company. According to the
report, this equipment is "almost certainly for use in a
gas-centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium." According to
Bill Gertz, the Washington Times correspondent, the report
specifically identifies Pakistan as a possible collaborator
in North Korea's nuclear development. "Pakistan may well
have lent some level of assistance on uranium enrichment,"
the report said. It surmises that North Korea is at least
six years from the production of highly-enriched uranium,
but warns that "with significant technical support from
other countries, such as Pakistan, the time frame could be
decreased by several years."
Strategic SilenceWhy is the U.S. going so easy on Pakistan?
The most obvious explanation is that Pakistan is a crucial
ally in America's war against terrorism. As a neighbor of
Afghanistan, Pakistan has been a central staging area for
the Bush Administration's efforts to overthow the Taliban
and rout out Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda ringleaders
hiding there. President Musharraf's support has been key in
pursuing terrorists as they flee Afghanistan, especially to
anti-Western, radical Muslim communities in Pakistan. The
U.S. cannot afford to lose Pakistan's cooperation.
There are some Bush Administration officials who cite
another explanation. It is simply too dangerous to alienate
Pakistan. It is a possessor of nuclear weapons, but it also
is the most politically unstable of all nuclear powers. It
is economically bankrupt, and a home to rising Islamic
fundamentalism. Given the right circumstances, Pakistan
could proliferate nuclear weapons to other entities hostile
to the U.S., including international terrorists. "There is
enormous concern that if Pakistan became a failed state it
would be a total disaster," Kampani said. "The U.S.
obviously wants to see to it that Musharraf is able to
reform Pakistan. They realize that it was because of its
isolation, economic situation, and sense of strategic
paranoia during the 1990s that Pakistan did what it did
with North Korea; it could do it again if faced with
similar situation." Can Musharaf-"one bullet away from
eternity," as one observer described Musharaf's current
dilema-make such reforms?
Indeed, there are many would-be buyers out there. Saudi
Arabia, for one. Saudi Arabia is believed to have funded
part of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Last year the
Saudi defense minister was given a tour of the centrifuge
uranium enrichment labs, which raised eyebrows among U.S.
officials. It seems to be the case, then, that the U.S. is
protecting Pakistan. The news leaks suggest that the U.S.
government has stumbled upon evidence and is warning
Pakistan publicly. But the leaks stop short of
incriminating it to the extent that Congress and the U.S.
public would demand that the U.S. government come down on
Pakistan.
Watching CloselyColin Powell has warned Musharraf that the
U.S. will not tolerate any further exchanges, and that it
will be keeping a close eye on Pakistan's activities
hereafter. Optimists believe-hope-that it now appears
likely that Pakistan will curtail its nuclear trade with
North Korea, at least for now. First, Musharraf's comments
to Powell suggest that this summer's transfers may have
completed the North Korean-Pakistan nuclear barter
arrangement.
Second, if it didn't before, Pakistan now understands that
continuing nuclear transfers to North Korea (or elsewhere)
will bring them into direct confrontation with the U.S.
Third, Pakistan's political credibility would be destroyed.
This could compromise crucial international aid, for which,
incidentally, Japan is the second largest donor.
But given Pakistan's instability, the situation will have
to be watched closely.
http://www.pakistan-
facts.com/staticpages/index.php?page=20030111164804284
Pak gave N Korea all help to make N-weapons: Report
March 15, 2004, Deccan Herald, Bangalore
"The complete package" comprised of all equipment and
technology from raw uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges
to enrich it into nuclear fuel.
NEW YORK, PTI:
A new US classified intelligence report details for the
first time the extent to which Pakistan's Khan Research
Laboratories (KRL) provided North Korea with all the
equipment and technology it needed to produce uranium-based
nuclear weapons.
"The assessment, by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
confirms the Bush administration's fears about the
accelerated nature of North Korea's secret uranium weapons
programme, which some intelligence officials believe could
produce a weapon as early as sometime next year," the New
York Times quoted American and Asian officials as saying.
The report was presented to the White House last week.
The assessment, the paper says, is based in part on
Pakistan's accounts of its interrogations of Abdul Qadeer
Khan, the developer of Pakistan's bomb, who was pardoned by
President Pervez Musharraf in January. The report concluded
that North Korea probably received a package very similar
to the kind the Khan network sold to Libya for more than
$60 million, including nuclear fuel, centrifuges and one or
more warhead designs.
A senior American official described it as "the complete
package", from raw uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges
to enrich it into nuclear fuel, all of which could be more
easily hidden from weapons inspectors than were North
Korea's older facilities to produce plutonium bombs.
In the report, the Times says, Khan's transactions with
North Korea are traced to the early 1990s, when Benazir
Bhutto was the Pakistani Premier, and the clandestine
relationship between the two countries is portrayed as
rapidly accelerating between 1998 and 2002.
At the time, the report said, North Korea was desperate to
come up with an alternative way to build a nuclear bomb
because its main plutonium facilities were "frozen" under
an agreement struck with the Clinton administration in
1994. North Korea abandoned that agreement late in 2002.
But the new assessment, the Times says, leaves two critical
issues unresolved as the Bush administration attempts to
use a mix of incentives and threats to persuade North Korea
to dismantle its nuclear programme, so far with little
success.
American intelligence agencies still cannot locate the site
or sites of North Korean uranium enrichment facilities. If
the six-party negotiations over the North's nuclear program
fail, it would be virtually impossible to try to attack the
facilities, which can be hidden in tunnels or inside
mountains, undetectable by spy satellites.
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/mar152004/f6.asp
Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS Research Story)
Proliferation Unbound: Nuclear Tales from Pakistan [image:
Photo] Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.
By Gaurav Kampani
February 23, 2004
After years of blanket denials, Pakistan's government has
finally admitted that during 1989-2003 Pakistani nuclear
scientists and entities proliferated nuclear weapons-
related technologies, equipment, and know how to Iran,
North Korea, and Libya. The Pakistani government's denials
collapsed after Libya formally decided to terminate its
clandestine weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in
October 2003 and make a full disclosure of its efforts to
build nuclear weapons; and after Iran, in fall 2003, agreed
to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and provide details of its clandestine uranium
enrichment programs that originated in the mid-1980s.
The Iranian and Libyan revelations have exposed a vast
black market in clandestine nuclear trade comprising of
middle men and shell companies; clandestine procurement
techniques; false end-user certifications; transfer of
blueprints from one country, manufacture in another,
transshipment to a third, before delivery to its final
destination. But even more remarkably, the investigations
of Iranian and Libyan centrifuge-based uranium enrichment
efforts have exposed the central role of the former head of
Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Dr. A.Q. Khan,
in the clandestine trade. Detailed information has surfaced
about transfers of technical drawings, design
specifications, components, complete assemblies of
Pakistan's P-1 and P-2 centrifuge models, including the
blueprint of an actual nuclear warhead from KRL. But the
transfer of hardware apart, there is equally damning
evidence that Khan and his top associates imparted
sensitive knowledge and know how in secret technical
briefings for Iranian, North Korean, and Libyan scientists
in Pakistan and other locations abroad.
Three decades ago, Khan, with the support of Pakistan's
government, set out to create a new model of proliferation.
He used centrifuge design blueprints and supplier lists of
companies that he had pilfered from URENCO's facility in
the Netherlands to launch Pakistan's nuclear weapons
program. In the process, he perfected a clandestine model
of trade in forbidden technologies outside formal
government controls. By the end of the 1980s, after KRL
acquired the wherewithal to produce highly-enriched uranium
for a nuclear weapons program, it reversed course and began
vending its services to other clients in the international
system. KRL and Khan's first client was Iran (or possibly
China even earlier); but the list gradually expanded to
include North Korea and Libya. Starting in the late 1980s,
Khan and some of his top associates began offering a one-
stop shop for countries that wished to acquire nuclear
technologies for a weapons program. Khan's key innovation
was to integrate what was earlier a disaggregated market
place for such technologies, design, engineering, and
consultancy services; and in the process offer clients the
option of telescoping the time required to develop a
nuclear weapons capability.
As independent evidence of diversions from KRL has come to
light, the Pakistani government has swiftly sought to
distance itself from Khan and his activities. President
Pervez Musharraf's regime has publicly denied that it or
past Pakistani state authorities ever authorized transfers
or sales of sensitive nuclear weapons-related technologies
to Iran, Libya, or North Korea. Islamabad attributes Khan's
clandestine nuclear trade to personal financial corruption,
abuse of authority, and megalomania. Alarmed that Khan's
past indiscretions might directly implicate the Pakistani
military and state authorities, the Musharraf regime also
launched an internal probe to apparently get a clearer
picture of the activities of its top nuclear lab and senior
scientists. In fall 2003, Pakistani investigators traveled
to Iran, Dubai, Vienna, and Libya to investigate US and
IAEA complaints against Khan. They discovered that the
complaints were borne out by evidence; and more alarmingly,
that Khan had apparently made unauthorized deals
unbeknownst to Islamabad and reaped huge personal financial
rewards in the process.
Since October-November 2003, Khan and his close associates'
movements have been restricted. While Khan himself has been
under placed under informal house arrest, his aides are
undergoing what Pakistani government spokesmen politely
describe as "debriefing sessions." In late January 2004,
the government ultimately stripped Khan of his cabinet rank
and fired him from his position as senior advisor to the
chief executive. As part of a deal, Khan made a public
apology on television before the Pakistani nation. In that
apology, he admitted to personal failings, accepted
responsibility for all past proliferation activities, and
absolved past and present Pakistani state authorities of
any complicity in his acts. In return, the Jamali cabinet
granted Khan a conditional pardon. However, Khan's senior
aides remain in custody and the government has not made up
its mind on whether to press formal charges against them
for violating the state's national secrets or to pardon
them.
Most proliferation specialists and independent observers of
Pakistani politics have watched the surreal saga of what is
perhaps the greatest proliferation scandal in history with
disbelief. Most also find the Pakistani government's
assertions of innocence and attempts to absolve itself of
any responsibility in the matter astonishing. For most, the
mammoth scale of the diversion from KRL, its extended time
span, the logistics of transporting material and machines
out of Pakistan, and the difficulty of circumventing the
security detail surrounding senior Pakistani scientists and
KRL, are obvious pointers to state complicity. In the past
three months, senior Pakistani politicians have raked up
the historical record to point fingers at the Pakistani
Army. Others, including US government officials, have
alluded to indicators that at least some of Khan's
activities might have enjoyed tacit, if not formal sanction
from oversight authorities within the state. Such
indicators include Islamabad's past unresponsiveness to
diplomatic entreaties, sharing of intelligence inputs,
published documentary records, informed public speculation
about Khan and KRL's nuclear proliferation activities, and
the Pakistani military's corporate ability to sustain its
WMD programs on a weak military-industrial base, even as
the state operated at the margins of economic solvency. As
new evidence surfaces by the day, the record becomes
clearer; even as the controversy surrounding the role of
the past and present Pakistani governments becomes uglier.
This research report provides an overview of the evidence
that has surfaced in the last three months to paint a
clearer picture of what we now know of Khan and KRL's
contributions to Iran, North Korea, and Libya's clandestine
centrifuge-based uranium enrichment programs. It reviews
the internal debate and finger pointing in Pakistan, and
analyzes the narrative presented by President Musharraf's
regime in its defense. The report also outlines some of the
reasons for the Bush administration's muted response and
concludes by offering a net assessment of the strategic
implications of the new disclosures.
What Do We Now Know?
Although Pakistan has admitted that its nuclear scientists
and entities engaged in clandestine nuclear transfers to
Iran, North Korea, and Libya during the period 1989-2003,
the full extent and nature of those transfers are still
unclear. Iran has still not made a full disclosure about
its two-decades-old centrifuge enrichment program.
Scientists and engineers at the US Department of Energy are
still in the process of analyzing documents and equipment
turned over by Libya. And North Korea maintains that it
never admitted to pursuing a clandestine centrifuge-based
uranium enrichment program in October 2002.
But despite existing gaps, there is evidence that nuclear
transfers to Iran from Pakistan occurred during 1989-
1995.[1]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn1>
According to Pakistani government sources, North Korea
obtained similar assistance between the years 1997-2001.[2]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn2>
However, US intelligence agencies believe that strategic
trade between Pyongyang and Islamabad continued as late as
August 2002.[3]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn3>
Khan also began cooperating with Libya in 1997and such
cooperation continued until fall 2003.[4]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn4>
All three countries - Iran, North Korea, and Libya -
obtained blueprints, technical design data, specifications,
components, machinery, enrichment equipment, models, and
notes related to KRL's first generation P-1 and the next
generation P-2 centrifuges. Cooperation between Pakistan
and Iran most likely began in 1987 after the two countries
signed a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation for
peaceful purposes. Apparently, Khan sold "disused" P-1
centrifuges and what he describes as outmoded equipment to
Iran along with the drawings and technical specifications
and possibly components or complete assemblies of the more
advanced P-2 model.[5]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn5>Initial
deliveries were made during the years 1989-1991; but
evidence has surfaced that transfers continued as late as
1995.[6]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn6>Pakistani
investigators believe that some of the shipments were
probably transported over land through a Karachi-based
businessman. Other shipments were routed through Dubai.
Similarly, Khan and his associates supplied Pyongyang with
centrifuge and enrichment machines, and depleted uranium
hexaflouride gas (UF6).[7]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn7>Orders for
the North Korean contract were placed in 1997 and
deliveries continued until 1999. KRL also rendered further
technical assistance to Pyongyang during 1999-2001.[8]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn8>Some of the
shipments to North Korea were flown directly from Pakistan
using chartered and Pakistan Air Force transports.[9]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn9>
In 1997 Khan supplied Libya with 20 assembled P-1
centrifuges; with components for an additional 200 more for
a pilot facility. The Libyans also obtained 1.87-tons of
UF6 in 2001; the consignment was directly airlifted from
Pakistan on board a Pakistani airline. IAEA sources believe
that amount is consistent with the requirements for a pilot
enrichment facility. In September 2000, Libya placed an
order for 10,000 centrifuges of the more advanced P-2
model. Component parts for the centrifuges began arriving
in Libya by December 2002.[10]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn10>However, a
subsequent consignment of parts was intercepted by US
intelligence agencies in October 2003, after which Libya
decided to make a full disclosure and terminate its nuclear
weapons program. But more alarmingly, in either late 2001
or early 2002, Khan also transferred the blueprint of an
actual fission weapon to Libya as an added bonus.[11]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn11>
The supply package to all the three countries did not just
include hardware and design information. Khan and his
associates also provided their clients integrated shopping
solutions in a fragmented market. They shared sensitive
information on supplier networks, manufacturers,
clandestine procurement and smuggling techniques, and
arranged for the manufacture, transport, and delivery of
equipment and materials through a clutch of companies and
middlemen based in South-East Asia, the Middle East,
Africa, and Europe.[12]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn12>Pakistani
scientists and technicians held multiple briefing sessions
for their Iranian counterparts in Karachi, and locations in
Malaysia and Iran. [13]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn13>
Briefings for Libyan scientists were held in Casablanca and
Istanbul.[14]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn14>Khan also
visited North Korea nearly a dozen times, and it is likely
that technical briefing sessions for North Korean
scientists were arranged during those visits. But there are
also reports that North Korean scientists were allowed to
train at KRL itself.[15]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn15>In addition,
Pakistani engineers and scientists were also on hand for
providing consulting advice and trouble-shooting services
through intermediaries.
US intelligence analysts believe that the nuclear weapon
blueprint that Khan and his network sold Libya is most
likely a design that China tested in the late 1960s; and
later shared with Pakistan. Apparently the design documents
transferred from Pakistan contain information in both
Chinese and English, establishing their Chinese lineage;
they also provide conclusive evidence of past Chinese
assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.[16]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn16>The
blueprint provides the design parameters and engineering
specifications on how to build an implosion weapon weighing
over 1,000 pounds that could be delivered using aircraft or
a large ballistic missile.[17]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn17>Analysts
believe that the design is not currently in use in
Pakistan, which has graduated to building more advanced
nuclear weapons.[18]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn18>However, the
transfer of an actual weapon design to Tripoli has left
open the question whether Tehran and Pyongyang obtained a
similar copy; whether the design is still in circulation;
or who else might have obtained it.
In the mid-1990s, Khan also set up a clandestine meeting
with a top Syrian official in Beirut to offer help with
setting up a centrifuge enrichment facility for an HEU-
based nuclear weapons program.[19]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn19>In mid-1990,
he also made a similar offer through a Gulf-based
intermediary to Saddam Hussein's regime. However, the Iraqi
government ignored the offer in the erroneous belief that
it was likely a sting operation or a scam.[20]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn20>There is
also fragmentary and indirect evidence to suggest that Khan
may have offered his nuclear services to Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates.[21]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn21> But little
is publicly know about the outcome of those overtures.
The Internal Blame Game
The Pakistani government claims that the nuclear trade with
Iran, North Korea, and Libya was unauthorized; that KRL
proliferated centrifuge technologies, equipment, and
related intellectual property clandestinely and illegally,
unbeknownst to military oversight authorities formally in
charge of the nuclear weapons program. Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf has publicly accused A.Q. Khan and his top
aides of corruption and attributed their actions to
financial gains.[22]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn22>In an
attempt to distance Pakistani state authorities from the
scandal's fallout, Musharraf has also suggested that the
scientists were rogue operators, who abused the trust and
autonomy granted by state authorities to pursue their
personal agendas.[23]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn23>
In calculated leaks to the press, senior Pakistani
government officials have painted Khan as a megalomaniac; a
publicity hound who created a larger-than-life image of
himself. They have narrated tales of KRL's corrupt culture;
of Khan's parceling of procurement contracts at exorbitant
prices to family members and associates; bribes for
procurement orders from vendors; Khan's palatial houses and
real estate investments in Pakistan and abroad; his lavish
lifestyle; and unaccounted for millions in secret bank
accounts.[24]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn24>
Pakistani government sources from the president on down
have also made it plain that Khan's corruption and
profiteering from proliferation activities were critical
factors behind his removal from KRL in March 2001.[25]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn25>
However, Khan has disputed Musharraf's allegations in
private debriefings with Pakistani government
investigators. Apparently Khan has made the case that he
was pressured to sell nuclear technologies to Iran by two
individuals close to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The first, Dr. Niazi, was a friend, while the latter,
General Imtiaz Ali, served as military advisor to
Bhutto.[26]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn26>Both
individuals are now deceased. Khan has further alleged that
aid for Iran's uranium enrichment program was also approved
by then Chief of Army Staff, General (retd.) Mirza Aslam
Beg (1988-1991). Similarly, Khan claims the nuclear-for-
missile deal with the Kim Jong Il regime was backed by two
former army chiefs, Generals (retd.) Abdul Waheed Kakar
(1993-1996) and Jehangir Karamat (1996-1998). The latter,
according to Khan, made a secret trip to North Korea in
December 1997 and presided over efforts to obtain Nodong
ballistic missiles from that country. Khan's friends have
also privately suggested that General Pervez Musharraf, who
succeeded Karamat and took over responsibility for the
Ghauri missile program in 1998, had to have known about the
transfers to North Korea.[27]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn27>
In interviews with Pakistani government investigators, Khan
apparently insisted that no investigation would be complete
until all the actors -Khan, former army chiefs, and other
senior military and government officials - were questioned
together. Equally significant, Khan is believed to have
challenged his interlocutors' reticence to probe the nature
of the technology and equipment transfers to North Korea as
against the blanket charge of proliferation; the import of
his suggestion being that either the equipment and material
transferred to North Korea would not enable it to enrich
uranium to weapons-grade in the short-term, or
alternatively, that the logistics of the equipment and
technology transfers would directly implicate the military
and state authorities. [28]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn28>There are
also rumors that Khan has smuggled out evidence with his
daughter Dina, who is a British citizen, which would
directly implicate senior Pakistani officials in an
unfolding scandal.[29]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn29>
Fearing that any further washing of Pakistan's dirty
nuclear laundry in public could cause irretrievable harm to
the Pakistani military and state authorities, Musharraf has
sought to cap the controversy by pardoning Khan for his
past transgressions. In the bargain, Khan has accepted
personal responsibility for all acts of proliferation and
absolved the Pakistani state and the military from blame.
However, in his contrite public confession on television,
Khan declared that he acted in "good faith but on errors of
judgment," obliquely hinting at the likely involvement of
the Pakistani military and other state authorities in his
activities.[30]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn30>
Despite the Pakistani government's attempts to absolve
itself from the charges of proliferation, most independent
analysts of Pakistani politics remain unconvinced that A.Q.
Khan and his associates could have engaged in nuclear
transfers over nearly two decades without sanction or tacit
acknowledgement from sections or individuals within the
Pakistani government. The Pakistani military's tight
control over the nuclear weapons program, multiple layers
of security surrounding it, the exports of machinery and
hardware from Pakistan, as well as rumors, leaks, and past
warnings about Pakistan's nuclear cooperation with Iran and
North Korea by Western intelligence agencies, have led
analysts to believe that the current effort to pin the
blame on a small number of senior officials from KRL is a
cynical ploy to prevent the Pakistani military and state
from being implicated in the unfolding scandal.[31]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn31>
Musharraf's Narrative
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has deployed four
arguments to explain why Khan and his associates were able
to proliferate nuclear technologies and secrets for nearly
two decades without the knowledge of successive Pakistani
governments.
First, he has argued that during the covert phase of
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, which lasted from 1975-
1998, A.Q. Khan and KRL had to rely on shell companies,
clandestine procurement techniques, smuggling networks, and
middlemen for the purchase of equipment and technologies
that were on the export control lists of advanced
industrial countries. Thus the same networks that supplied
the Pakistani nuclear weapons effort were redirected to
meet the demand for similar technologies in the
international market. Once Khan and his associates
developed a successful model of clandestine trade in
forbidden technologies outside formal governmental control,
they were able to offer their services for financial
rewards to other bidders in the international system.[32]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn32>
During a press briefing earlier in February, Musharraf
explained that since Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was
covert until 1998, civilian governments were out of the
nuclear decision-making loop. But more astonishingly, he
sought to peddle the line that even former army chiefs, who
were supposed to exercise oversight authority over KRL,
never knew of the intimate happenings within the entity.
Musharraf's proffered explanation for successive army
chiefs' ignorance: the KRL's near total organizational
autonomy. According to Musharraf, such autonomy was an
essential precondition for the lab to achieve its mandated
objectives However, the army never imagined that Khan would
abuse the trust and confidence reposed in him by the state.
Furthermore, Khan gradually capitalized on his successes
and the state's mythologizing of his contributions to
elevate himself to the status of a national hero. Hence,
the organizational demands for success during the
development phase of the nuclear weapons program, as well
as Khan's nearly unassailable position within domestic
Pakistani politics, made it difficult for successive army
chiefs to confront him for his transgressions.[33]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn33>
Third, Musharraf maintains that the United States did not
share intelligence on Khan's proliferation network with the
Pakistani government until very recently.[34]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn34> In the
absence of such damning evidence, it was difficult for the
Pakistani government to proceed against Khan and his
associates.[35]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn35>And finally,
Musharraf insists that the bulk of the proliferation from
Pakistan occurred in the form of intellectual property
transfers; the implication of his suggestion being that it
is easier for governments to safeguard industrial hardware
and nuclear material than the transmission of software.[36]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn36>
The Counter Narrative
Musharraf's defense provides some useful information on the
historical evolution of Pakistan's nuclear command
authority, the relationship between the military and the
nuclear entities and scientists, and damning disclosures
about Khan's personal corruption, but it does not offer
credible explanations as to how or why successive Pakistani
governments remained ignorant of Khan's activities for such
a long period of time; or why they should not be held to
account. On balance, the historical evidence points in the
direction of a more complex and murkier reality that casts
aspersions on Musharraf's motivations.
Admittedly, it is easier for governments to safeguard
industrial hardware and equipment in comparison to software
which resides in the neural networks of human beings,
floppy disks, CDs, and computers. Humans can carry software
on their person, unbeknownst to oversight authorities; and
transmit it either verbally or electronically. However,
evidence has surfaced that Khan and his associates
proliferated both hardware and software. Pakistan's
Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan recently told the
Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court that the
scientists transferred "secret codes, nuclear materials,
substances, machinery, equipment components, information,
documents, sketches, plans, models, articles and notes
entrusted them [scientists] in their official
capacity."[37]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn37>Given the
logistics of moving machinery and materials, it is
extraordinarily difficult to believe that the Pakistani
military and its intelligence agencies had no inkling of
the nuclear trade.
Musharraf has offered a novel explanation as to why the
army did not know of the intimate happenings at KRL.
According to him, the military commanders tasked with KRL's
security detail were under the lab's autonomous control;
the military officers were answerable to Khan and not the
army high command. [38]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn38>
However, most independent observers who are familiar with
the Pakistani Army's professional ethics, training
procedures, and command protocols are skeptical that this
would indeed be the case.[39]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn39>Others more
familiar with KRL's security detail are equally dismissive
of Musharraf's explanations.[40]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn40>
Pakistani government sources have also suggested that KRL's
security detail was designed to prevent penetration and
sabotage of the nuclear weapons program from the outside.
But it was not particularly well-designed to prevent the
egress of men, material, and equipment in the reverse
direction. [41]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn41>
The obvious flaw of designing a one-dimensional security
model apart, the nature of nuclear cooperation with Iran
and North Korea suggests that sensitive nuclear facilities
in Pakistan were penetrated from the outside; and the
osmosis of technical exchange between the scientists and
entities was facilitated by formal nuclear cooperation
agreements between the Pakistani and Iranian and later
North Korean governments.[42]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn42>
Iranian nuclear scientists reportedly traveled to the port
city of Karachi in Pakistan for technical briefings during
the early 1990s.[43]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn43>The ease
with which foreign scientists and technicians gained access
to Pakistani scientists and sensitive facilities stands in
sharp contrast to the difficulty former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto encountered while trying to gain similar
access. For example, the army denied Bhutto security
clearances to visit KRL during her first tenure as prime
minister (1988-1990).[44]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn44>
General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg allegedly withheld details
about the nuclear weapons program from the prime minister
on the rationale that "briefings at Kahuta were on a need-
to-know basis."[45]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn45>In another
episode in 1979, the French ambassador to Pakistan was
physically manhandled by Pakistani security forces when he
made the mistake of venturing close to KRL.[46]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn46>Thus, some
of the anecdotal evidence from the late 1970s and early
1990s undercuts the army's recent assertions about lapses
in KRL's security network.
Two former cabinet ministers in the first Nawaz Sharif
government (1990-1993), Senator Ishaq Dar and Chaudhry
Nisar Ali Khan have stated for the record that in 1991
former Chief of Army Staff General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg
lobbied Sharif for the transfer of nuclear technology to a
"friendly state," for the sum of $12 billion. The proposed
figure was apparently supposed to underwrite Pakistan's
defense budget for the decade. [47]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn47>
According to Dar, a representative of that "friendly state"
accompanied Beg when he made the offer. However, Sharif,
rejected Beg's proposal.
Similarly, Nisar Ali Khan maintains that in the aftermath
of the 1991 Gulf War, Beg proposed that Pakistan should
sell its nuclear technology to Iran as part of a grand
alliance. The general's reasoning: that after the United
States succeeded in defeating Iraq, it might be the turn of
Iran and Pakistan next. Sharif, according to Nisar,
rejected Beg's proposal. But this does not rule out the
possibility that Khan and Beg might have acted
independently of the prime minister, who never had control
over the nuclear weapons program in any case.[48]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn48>
Musharraf's protestation to the contrary, Pakistani
governments have had some knowledge about Khan's activities
and about equipment and technology transfers from KRL to
Iran and North Korea. There is evidence to suggest that
every army chief from the late 1980s has known of Tehran's
interest in acquiring enrichment technologies from Pakistan
for a weapons program. Apparently, Pakistani investigators
have also found evidence that Khan informed Beg of
equipment transfers to Iran. However, Beg claims that he
received assurances from Khan that the equipment being sold
to the Iranians was outmoded and disused and would not
enable them to enrich uranium in the short term.[49]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn49>
Washington has also raised proliferation concerns with
Islamabad repeatedly since the early 1990s. Former US
Ambassador to Pakistan Robert B. Oakley (1988-1991) recalls
Beg telling him in 1991 that he had reached an
understanding with the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards
to help Tehran with its nuclear program in return for an
oil facility and conventional weapons. An alarmed Oakley
broached the subject with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.[50]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn50>
Subsequently, according to Oakley, Sharif and Pakistani
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan informed the Iranian government
that Pakistan would not carry such an agreement
through.[51]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn51>
In the mid-1990s, when UNSCOM inspectors in Iraq uncovered
documentary proof that Khan had approached Saddam Hussein's
regime with offers of assistance in the area of centrifuge-
based uranium enrichment, the Pakistani government declared
that it had conducted an internal investigation and found
the allegations to be fraudulent.[52]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn52>
Similarly, Washington began querying Islamabad about
possible nuclear transfers to North Korea as early as
1998.[53]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn53>Musharraf
also recently confirmed that the ISI raided an aircraft
bound for North Korea in 2000 after it was tipped off that
KRL was transferring sensitive equipment to Pyongyang; but
that raid drew a blank.[54]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn54>More
recently, US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher
took issue with Musharraf's charge that Washington did not
provide the Pakistani government with timely intelligence
against Khan; Boucher insisted that the United States had
"discussed nonproliferation issues with Pakistan
repeatedly, over a long period of time, and it's been an
issue of concern to us and President Musharraf...so it's
not a single moment of information." [55]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn55>
Besides the intelligence inputs that Islamabad received
from Washington, whistle blowers within the Pakistani
nuclear establishment began warning the Pakistani military
and its intelligence agencies about Khan's corruption as
early as the late 1980s.[56]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn56>Musharraf
recently admitted that he suspected Khan of clandestine
proliferation activities as early as 1998; and that it was
a critical factor behind his removal from KRL in March
2001.[57]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn57>Yet, despite
Khan's removal, US intelligence tracked strategic trade
between Pakistan and North Korea until fall 2002. More
alarmingly, Khan and his network coordinated nuclear trade
with Libya until October 2003; and Khan, despite being
moved out of KRL, was able to transfer a nuclear weapons
design to Libya in late 2001 or early 2002.[58]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn58>
But oddly enough, despite mounting evidence that Khan might
have profited illegally by selling the Pakistani state's
most sensitive secrets, the Pakistani military did not
consider it fit to investigate him or his top associates
until October 2003. Despite repeated foreign government
entreaties, published documentary evidence, foreign
intelligence leaks, and news reports alleging nuclear
proliferation to Iran and North Korea over a period of 14
years, the proverbial Pakistani military watchdog did not
bark. Furthermore, even after the Pakistani government
launched an internal probe after receiving incriminating
intelligence from the United States and the IAEA in fall
2003, Pakistani investigators visited Iran, Libya, Dubai,
and Malaysia, but excluded North Korea from their
itinerary.[59]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn59>
The Pakistani military's lack of institutional curiosity in
investigating the internal affairs of its nuclear
scientists and labs, physical transfers of machinery,
nuclear materials, and components from Pakistan over land
routes and on board chartered and air force transports,
travel of Pakistani scientists to Iran, and
training/briefing sessions for Iranian and North Korean
scientists in Pakistan, suggests that the Musharraf regime
is being frugal with the truth. In fact, Musharraf alluded
to the latter reality in an address to Pakistani
journalists when he said that even if for the sake of
argument it were accepted that the Pakistani military and
governments were involved in nuclear proliferation, the
Pakistani press should avoid debating the issue out of
deference to the country's national interests.[60]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn60>
Washington's Muted Response
Washington's public reaction to what is perhaps the
greatest proliferation scandal in history has been
relatively muted. Although US officials have privately
expressed disbelief that such massive diversions from KRL
could have occurred for nearly two decades without the
knowledge and consent of the Pakistani military, the Bush
administration has publicly accepted Musharraf's fiction
that Khan's was a rogue operation; and that the Pakistani
military and other state functionaries were probably
unaware of some of Khan's operations. Senior administration
officials have also publicly lauded President Musharraf for
investigating Khan and his associates and strengthening
internal controls over KRL.[61]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn61>
However, Washington has privately warned Musharraf that
Pakistan risks jeopardizing the $3 billion proposed
economic aid package and its relations with the United
States. During a visit to Islamabad in October 2003, US
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage personally
presented evidence against Khan to Musharraf and threatened
that Pakistan could be reported to the United Nations
Security Council and suffer sanctions if it failed to put
an end to Khan's nuclear entrepreneurship permanently.[62]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn62>The implicit
bargain between Washington and Islamabad: the United States
will avoid publicly hectoring and embarrassing Musharraf in
return for a Pakistani undertaking to tear up Khan's
clandestine nuclear trading network from its "roots";
intelligence inputs that would help US intelligence
agencies fill critical gaps in their knowledge about the
scale, depth, and modus operandi of the clandestine global
trade in nuclear technologies; and details on North
Korea[63]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn63>and possibly
Iran's uranium enrichment programs.
Washington's public nonchalance has also been determined by
the necessity of avoiding actions that might rebound on
Musharraf domestically. The Bush administration regards
Musharraf and the Pakistani Army as critical allies in the
global war on terror against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Since the launch of the Afghan war in fall 2001, Pakistan
has rendered critical intelligence, logistical, and
military support for US military operations. Pakistan's
cooperation has also been critical in apprehending al-Qaeda
operatives taking shelter in Pakistan and along the
Pakistan-Afghan border. Because Osama Bin Laden and his key
lieutenants remain at large, and because the United States
needs Pakistan's political support to pacify the resurgent
Taliban threat in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has
resorted to quiet diplomacy to force changes in Islamabad's
proliferation policies.[64]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn64>
In this regard, re-imposition of US economic sanctions
would only compound the problem. On the one hand, because
the drivers that led to Pakistani proliferation in the past
would remain in place, economic privation would only create
further incentives for the Pakistani military to feed its
corporate appetite through weapons of mass destruction-
related technology sales abroad. On the other hand, the
consequences of military action against Pakistan would be
infinitely worse. If the United States ever made the
mistake of degrading or destroying the Pakistani military's
coercive capacity, Pakistan might become a failed state,
and the problem of securing its nuclear facilities, fissile
materials, scientific personnel, and actual weapons and
delivery systems would become a security nightmare.
Because it is likely that some of past clandestine nuclear
trade had the tacit if not formal support of the Pakistani
military, the United States is also perhaps trying to avoid
actions that would place Musharraf, who is also the head of
the army, in an institutional quandary. Perhaps the quiet
calculation in Washington is that a policy of selective
intelligence leaks, private and multilateral diplomacy, and
a combination of carrots and sticks would constitute more
robust means to persuade Islamabad to mend its ways. More
enticing is the possibility, howsoever remote, of
recruiting the Pakistani military's intelligence agencies
and nuclear labs to help roll up the global black market in
nuclear technologies they helped create in the first
place.[65]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn65>
Finally, the US reticence in publicly rebuking Islamabad
for its proliferation transgressions is an acknowledgement
of the sensitive regard with which nuclear issues are
treated in domestic Pakistani politics. Nuclear weapons are
closely tied to the Pakistani nation's sense of self-worth
and national identity. Pakistanis count their nuclear
capability as one of the few areas of national achievement.
Nuclear scientists are treated as cult figures; and until
recently, the Pakistani state lionized Khan as a national
hero.[66]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn66>Khan and the
nuclear establishment also enjoy the support of the
Islamist parties in Pakistan. Hence, Washington has been
keen to avoid giving the impression that it is intruding
into the holy sanctum of Pakistan's nuclear politics; or
doing anything that would compromise Pakistan's nuclear
weapons program. But, behind the fa
Facts about terrorist Islam and Muslims:
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
Forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Jihadistan's 'complete nuke package' to N. Korea
[ Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006
Pakistan-North Korea Connection Creates Huge Dilemma For
U.S.John E. Carbaugh, Jr
Oct. 22, 2006, Pakistan-North Korea axis
U.S. government officials were taken aback last October
when officials in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) admitted during high level bilateral talks that the
country is pursuing a uranium enrichment nuclear program-a
violation of four international agreements. Since then,
tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have risen
steadily, as the Bush Administration works quietly but
decidedly to organize international pressure on Pyongyang
to end its nuclear weapons program.
Given the prominence that North Korea's nuclear program has
achieved in U.S. foreign policy, it is a little odd that
Pakistan-which U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced
supplied North Korea with technology to pursue its nuclear
program-has thus escaped high-level pressure from
Washington.
Major Diplomatic HeadachePakistan has become a major
diplomatic headache for the Bush Administration. On the one
hand, Pakistan is a crucial ally in the war against
terrorism. Many analysts suspect Osama Bin Laden is now
hiding somewhere in Pakistan; cooperation from Pakistani
security and intelligence officials is needed to capture
Osama and cut the power of Al Qaeda. On the other hand,
Pakistan's ties to North Korea's nuclear program have
violated bilateral assurances to the U.S. Pakistan's
actions also have facilitated a signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (North Korea is a signatory) to
violate its commitments.
In the view of some analysts, Pakistan is "double-dealing"
with the U.S., claiming to work together in the war against
terrorism while maintaining ties with North Korea of the
sort that essentially facilitated the current nuclear
tension on the Korea Peninsula. After the 9/11 terrorist
attacks the U.S. invested a lot of political capital to
cultivate improved ties with Pakistan. The U.S. waived all
economic sanctions against Pakistan in return for Pakistani
cooperation in the war against terrorism. Now President
George W. Bush has his hands tied. The U.S. government has
doggedly worked to stem the proliferation of nuclear (as
well as chemical and biological) weapons to hostile and
unstable countries.
What should be its priority now: punishing Pakistan for its
proliferation policies or pursuing the war against
terrorism? U.S. officials have a hard time answering a
basic question: Why tolerate Pakistani proliferation and
possession of nuclear weapons, yet take such a hard line
against North Korea for following a similar path?
Pakistan's DenialsThe Pakistanis deny exporting nuclear
technology to North Korea. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the
Pakistani ambassador to the United States, insists that
Pakistan is innocent. During a trip to Tampa in October he
responded to these allegations in the St. Petersburg Times,
"It is simply not true. [Pakistan] has a track record on
nuclear export controls that nobody has challenged." But
U.S. intelligence officials are fully convinced that
Pakistan supplied North Korea with crucial technology
needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. The Bush
Administration has been reluctant to release the full
facts, both to protect intelligence sources and to
forestall a backlash on Capitol Hill against the Pakistani
regime. But a steady flow of leaks from U.S. intelligence
agencies to the news media have had the effect of giving a
warning to Pakistan that it better back off from its
nuclear ties with North Korea.
Long Term TiesAlthough the extent of Pakistani-North Korean
contacts remains somewhat cloudy, it is clear that they
have existed for some time. The military relationship
between North Korea and Pakistan-from which the nuclear
connection eventually emerged-began during the 1970s, when
then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto began expanding
bilateral ties with Pyongyang. The relationship got a big
boost after a day trip to Pyongyang 20 years later by Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
The 1993 discussions between Bhutto and North Korean
officials were ostensibly about economic relations. Most
analysts believe that Ms. Bhutto also went to Pyongyang to
discuss the purchase of ballistic missiles from North
Korea, a deal that was finally signed in 1995.
Pakistan's motive was to keep pace with India's development
of nuclear weapons. Pakistan had nuclear warheads at the
time but was desperately seeking a delivery system. Because
of its weak economic position and the extended length of
time required to build up a missile program, Pakistan ruled
out indigenous development.
Initial Help from ChinaInitially, it sought help from
China, which sold Pakistan 34 M-11 short-range missiles in
the early 1990s. Continued purchase of missiles from China
proved difficult, however, because of strong U.S.
opposition. Pakistan was still determined to obtain longer-
range missiles that would enable it to target,
strategically, all of India. So, Pakistan scouted out the
potential of North Korea's Nodong missile. Numerous
personnel visits are believed to have taken place between
North Korea and Pakistan during the 1990s. In a paper for
the Center for Nonproliferation Studies entitled, "A
History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK,"
Joseph Bermudez, Jr. writes that the first of these visits
took place in August, 1992, when Pakistani officials
journeyed to North Korea to examine the Nodong.
"The DPRK Deputy Premier-Foreign Minister Kim Yong-nam
traveled to.Pakistanto discuss a number of issues,
including missile cooperation and DPRK sales of Hwasong 6
and possibly Nodong missiles. Pakistani and Iranian
specialists are believed to have been present for the
DPRK's May 29-30, 1993, tests," Bermudez says. Shortly
thereafter, Pakistan established a ballistic missile
project to purchase and manufacture the Nodong missile.
Pakistanis called it the Ghauri. The spring of 1996 saw the
delivery of missiles by Changgwang Sinyong Corp.-North
Korea's marketing arm for missile production facilities-to
Pakistan, most of which went to A.Q. Khan Research
Laboratories. Pakistan tested the Ghauri in April, 1998,
for the first time; North Korean observers apparently were
present.
Although Pakistan now admits buying missiles from North
Korea, it initially denied it. Few analysts were fooled
about the missiles' origin. Gaurav Kampani, a senior
research associate at the Monterey Institute's Center of
Nonproliferation Studies notes some telling clues: "If you
look at the history of missile development in any country,"
Kampani says, "it's really a one or two decade long
process. Pakistan is probably one of the only cases where
it has no history of testing or development and all of a
sudden it displays a fully developed ballistic missile.
Then it tests it over an urban center. That degree of
confidence suggests that a tested, reliable weapon system
has been procured. "Second, there is no doubt that the
missile is the Nodong in external appearance, range, and
warhead payload," Kampani continues. "Third, North Korean
crews were present during the launch in Pakistan, and there
was a lot of air freight traffic between North Korea and
Pakistan before the launch. Fourth, the U.S. State
Department sanctioned the Khan Research Labs and the North
Korean entity from which the missiles were supplied."
According to the Arms Control Association, Pakistan has
produced three versions of the Nodong. The Ghauri-1, with a
range of 1,300+ km and a payload of 700kg; the Ghauri-2,
with a much longer range of 2,300 km and a payload of
700kg; and the Ghauri-3, which is untested, but expected to
have a range of 3,000km. The Nodong is not the only model
procured. Bermudez notes, "[The Pakistani 2,000km range
Ghaznavi] missile may actually be a Taepodong-1."
Nuclear BarterThat Pakistan obtained ballistic missiles
from North Korea is not in question. U.S., British, and
South Korean intelligence officials have long wondered how
Pakistan would repay the debt. The answer seems to be: by
providing North Korea with enrichment technology. It is
unclear whether Pakistan originally agreed to supply
nuclear technology in exchange for ballistic missiles.
Purportedly, the original arrangement was that Pakistan
would pay in cash. But missiles are expensive; by the time
they were delivered by North Korea in the spring of 1996,
Pakistan's economic situation had deteriorated badly. It
was dependent on bailouts by the International Monetary
Fund. (As a point of reference, in 1999 North Korea asked
million for Taepodong missiles.)
Intelligence officials now believe that Pakistan decided to
transfer nuclear technology as a means of payment. This
barter proved to be a perfect match. In 1994, the North
Koreans signed the Agreed Framework, in which they agreed
to shut down their plutonium-based nuclear program. But
North Korean scientists found Pakistan's uranium enrichment
technology to be a good means of continuing a covert
nuclear program, albeit one that requires time.
"Early Warning to Congress"U.S. government officials said
recently that they have suspected North Korea has been
pursuing a uranium enrichment program for at least two
years. Larry Niksch, Senior Asia Specialist at the
Congressional Research Service and the leading expert on
North Korea in Congress, summarized the clues that led U.S.
officials to make this assessment. In a briefing to
Congress in November, Niksch told Congressional Leaders
that "In March, 2000, President Clinton notified Congress
that he could not certify that North Korea was not
acquiring enriched uranium for the production of nuclear
weapons." The Japanese newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, reported
on June 9th, 2000, the contents of a "detailed report" from
Chinese government sources on a secret North Korean uranium
enrichment facility inside North Korea's Mount Chonma.
"In May, 2002, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton
cited a U.S. intelligence estimate of December, 2001, in
accusing North Korea of operating a secret nuclear
program," Niksch wrote. U.S. officials say they confirmed
beyond doubt the existence of North Korea's program last
July. "It was like the Rosetta Stone," Niksch said. "Once
we had that, we knew what was going on." President Bush
ordered the intelligence community to review the assessment
once again, to make absolutely sure it was correct. The
various U.S. intelligence agencies are in full agreement.
Confirmation of the Pakistan connection apparently emerged
at the same time. One report among intelligence circles is
that British Intelligence was able to obtain from the
Pakistani Embassy in London crucial information about the
Pakistan-North Korea connection.
According to Kampani, some big clues have been leaked to
the press:
First, some retired Pakistani officials have tracked
questionable shipments to North Korea that may have been
centrifuge uranium enrichment technology.
Second, some Indian defense officials have named the
private airline associated with the Pakistani Interservice
Intelligence Division that was used to transport equipment
to North Korea.
Third, the centrifuge designs that North Korea is using are
startlingly similar to what is used in Pakistan. How could
the North Koreans, who had no experience or background in
uranium centrifuge enrichment, suddenly develop one within
four years? Export regulations are very tight; if a massive
clandestine procurement program were to be undertaken by
North Korea, it would be visible to the international
community. Pakistan was the only nuclear power with the
means and the motive to help North Korea.
Despite the apparent evidence, Pakistan's president,
General Pervez Musharraf, in a discussion with Secretary of
State Colin Powell, denied any involvement in North Korea's
nuclear program. Powell told reporters, "[Musharraf] said,
'Four hundred percent assurance that there is no such
interchange taking place now.'" It is telling, however,
that Powell reported that the two had not discussed the
past, and he would not discuss it because it would shed
light on how the U.S. government collects evidence.
Rogue Scientists?Some analysts suspect that the transfer of
nuclear technology can be attributed to rogue elements
within Pakistan, in particular one man: Abdul Qadeer Khan,
the founding father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.
A household name in Pakistan, A.Q. Khan substantially
advanced Pakistan's uranium enrichment program in the
1970's, and thus the capability to build nuclear weapons.
The fissile material for the initial Pakistani nuclear
weapons apparently came from A.Q. Khan's labs. As head of
the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories, Khan was always in
fierce competition with colleagues at the Pakistan Atomic
Energy Agency. Some analysts believe that the intense
rivalry led Khan to act independently of the Pakistani
government to purchase delivery systems from abroad for
nuclear weapons systems.
Thus, if there were a rogue element in Pakistan, Khan would
be the likely suspect. Khan is often described as a
flamboyant, egomaniacal scientist who claims credit for
much more than he deserves. He is also famous for having
pilfered from the Netherlands both the designs used to
build Pakistan's uranium enrichment gas-centrifuge plants,
and also the lists of manufacturers of components of
nuclear technology in the U.S. and Europe. With this
knowledge he was able to exploit export regulations in the
early 1970's and import materials into Pakistan. After
graduating from school in Karachi, Khan went to Europe in
1961 to continue his studies, ultimately earning a
doctorate in metallurgy. Khan accepted a position with the
Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO), a
subcontractor for Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland (UCN), the
Dutch partner of URENCO, a tri-national European uranium
enrichment centrifuge consortium.
In 1974, Khan was asked to translate highly classified
design documents for the world's most advanced industrial
enrichment technology at that time-something which he
dutifully did while taking copious notes. In 1976, Khan
suddenly left the Netherlands under suspicious
circumstances. Later, Khan turned up in Pakistan, where he
founded Engineering Research Laboratories, subsequently
renamed the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). Then-
Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto gave Khan control of the
country's budding uranium enrichment program. The Dutch
government later convicted Khan in abstentia for stealing
classified plans and technology from URENCO.
The Khan Research Laboratory is home to both a missile-
development center and an industrial sized gas-centrifuge
plant for enriching uranium. Most of the ballistic missiles
Pakistan purchased from North Korea were delivered to KRL.
It is probably not coincidental, then, that Khan has
reportedly made as many as 13 trips to North Korea.
Pakistani Government "Approval"Still, most analysts dismiss
the suggestion that Khan acted independently of the
government. Gaurav Kampani said, "On the one hand you have
the Pakistani government reiterating consistently that they
have multiple controls of their nuclear materials and
weapons. But then they insinuate that it was done by A.Q.
Khan. Pakistan's nuclear scientists don't have the degree
of autonomy to make independent decisions like this; they
are subject to Pakistan's National Command Authority." That
is not is not to say, however, that Khan can't make
trouble.
Some analysts wonder if there is a story behind his
resignation last year. The High Energy Weapons Archive
website reports: "A. Q. Khan's official career came to an
abrupt end in March, 2001, when he [was] suddenly retired
by order of President Pervez Musharraf. It may be that
Musharraf, who was busy mending fences with the outside
world, wished to tie down some loose cannons that were a
source of irritation with India and the United States."
Others suspect that Khan is still involved with North
Korea's nuclear project. Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage expressed concern on June 1st, 2001, in an article
which appeared in the Financial Times, stating that,
"people who were employed by the nuclear agency and have
retired" may be assisting North Korea with its nuclear
program. Armitage's comments are believed to refer to Khan.
Khan is now a "Special Adviser" to the Musharraf on
Strategic and KRL Affairs. The likelihood of a rogue
military element is also dubious. Pakistan's National
Command Authority is comprised of three divisions: the
Weapons Development Control Committee, the Weapons
Employment Control Committee, and the Strategic Plans
Division, which acts as a secretariat to the other two. The
Weapons Development Control Committee is comprised of all
the top military brass and the relevant scientific
organizations, which includes the nuclear bureaucracies,
while the head of Pakistan's government is supposed to
chair the Weapons Employment Committee. "The Pakistani
military really calls the shots as far as the nuclear
program is concerned," Kampani said. "But it's hard to
imagine that something could have happened without the
tacit consent of the Prime Minister."
Strategic LeaksThe clinching evidence-the "Rosetta Stone"
referred to earlier-about North Korea's enrichment program
emerged last summer when U.S. and other intelligence
services found North Korea trying to acquire large amounts
of high-strength aluminum. The metal is used in equipment
to enrich uranium to make nuclear bombs. This assessment
was confirmed when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly
visited Pyongyang in early October and confronted North
Korean officials with the information. North Korea admitted
to the charge.
U.S. officials then fingered Pakistan as a supplier of
parts and expertise to North Korea's uranium enrichment
gas-centrifuge program. But U.S. suspicions had been around
for quite some time. In October, 2001, the Washington Times
reported the contents of a classified 1999 Energy
Department Report which said that North Korea had
undertaken a uranium enrichment nuclear project. It pointed
to an attempt by a North Korean company to buy frequency
converters from a Japanese company. According to the
report, this equipment is "almost certainly for use in a
gas-centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium." According to
Bill Gertz, the Washington Times correspondent, the report
specifically identifies Pakistan as a possible collaborator
in North Korea's nuclear development. "Pakistan may well
have lent some level of assistance on uranium enrichment,"
the report said. It surmises that North Korea is at least
six years from the production of highly-enriched uranium,
but warns that "with significant technical support from
other countries, such as Pakistan, the time frame could be
decreased by several years."
Strategic SilenceWhy is the U.S. going so easy on Pakistan?
The most obvious explanation is that Pakistan is a crucial
ally in America's war against terrorism. As a neighbor of
Afghanistan, Pakistan has been a central staging area for
the Bush Administration's efforts to overthow the Taliban
and rout out Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda ringleaders
hiding there. President Musharraf's support has been key in
pursuing terrorists as they flee Afghanistan, especially to
anti-Western, radical Muslim communities in Pakistan. The
U.S. cannot afford to lose Pakistan's cooperation.
There are some Bush Administration officials who cite
another explanation. It is simply too dangerous to alienate
Pakistan. It is a possessor of nuclear weapons, but it also
is the most politically unstable of all nuclear powers. It
is economically bankrupt, and a home to rising Islamic
fundamentalism. Given the right circumstances, Pakistan
could proliferate nuclear weapons to other entities hostile
to the U.S., including international terrorists. "There is
enormous concern that if Pakistan became a failed state it
would be a total disaster," Kampani said. "The U.S.
obviously wants to see to it that Musharraf is able to
reform Pakistan. They realize that it was because of its
isolation, economic situation, and sense of strategic
paranoia during the 1990s that Pakistan did what it did
with North Korea; it could do it again if faced with
similar situation." Can Musharaf-"one bullet away from
eternity," as one observer described Musharaf's current
dilema-make such reforms?
Indeed, there are many would-be buyers out there. Saudi
Arabia, for one. Saudi Arabia is believed to have funded
part of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Last year the
Saudi defense minister was given a tour of the centrifuge
uranium enrichment labs, which raised eyebrows among U.S.
officials. It seems to be the case, then, that the U.S. is
protecting Pakistan. The news leaks suggest that the U.S.
government has stumbled upon evidence and is warning
Pakistan publicly. But the leaks stop short of
incriminating it to the extent that Congress and the U.S.
public would demand that the U.S. government come down on
Pakistan.
Watching CloselyColin Powell has warned Musharraf that the
U.S. will not tolerate any further exchanges, and that it
will be keeping a close eye on Pakistan's activities
hereafter. Optimists believe-hope-that it now appears
likely that Pakistan will curtail its nuclear trade with
North Korea, at least for now. First, Musharraf's comments
to Powell suggest that this summer's transfers may have
completed the North Korean-Pakistan nuclear barter
arrangement.
Second, if it didn't before, Pakistan now understands that
continuing nuclear transfers to North Korea (or elsewhere)
will bring them into direct confrontation with the U.S.
Third, Pakistan's political credibility would be destroyed.
This could compromise crucial international aid, for which,
incidentally, Japan is the second largest donor.
But given Pakistan's instability, the situation will have
to be watched closely.
http://www.pakistan-
facts.com/staticpages/index.php?page=20030111164804284
Pak gave N Korea all help to make N-weapons: Report
March 15, 2004, Deccan Herald, Bangalore
"The complete package" comprised of all equipment and
technology from raw uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges
to enrich it into nuclear fuel.
NEW YORK, PTI:
A new US classified intelligence report details for the
first time the extent to which Pakistan's Khan Research
Laboratories (KRL) provided North Korea with all the
equipment and technology it needed to produce uranium-based
nuclear weapons.
"The assessment, by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
confirms the Bush administration's fears about the
accelerated nature of North Korea's secret uranium weapons
programme, which some intelligence officials believe could
produce a weapon as early as sometime next year," the New
York Times quoted American and Asian officials as saying.
The report was presented to the White House last week.
The assessment, the paper says, is based in part on
Pakistan's accounts of its interrogations of Abdul Qadeer
Khan, the developer of Pakistan's bomb, who was pardoned by
President Pervez Musharraf in January. The report concluded
that North Korea probably received a package very similar
to the kind the Khan network sold to Libya for more than
$60 million, including nuclear fuel, centrifuges and one or
more warhead designs.
A senior American official described it as "the complete
package", from raw uranium hexafluoride to the centrifuges
to enrich it into nuclear fuel, all of which could be more
easily hidden from weapons inspectors than were North
Korea's older facilities to produce plutonium bombs.
In the report, the Times says, Khan's transactions with
North Korea are traced to the early 1990s, when Benazir
Bhutto was the Pakistani Premier, and the clandestine
relationship between the two countries is portrayed as
rapidly accelerating between 1998 and 2002.
At the time, the report said, North Korea was desperate to
come up with an alternative way to build a nuclear bomb
because its main plutonium facilities were "frozen" under
an agreement struck with the Clinton administration in
1994. North Korea abandoned that agreement late in 2002.
But the new assessment, the Times says, leaves two critical
issues unresolved as the Bush administration attempts to
use a mix of incentives and threats to persuade North Korea
to dismantle its nuclear programme, so far with little
success.
American intelligence agencies still cannot locate the site
or sites of North Korean uranium enrichment facilities. If
the six-party negotiations over the North's nuclear program
fail, it would be virtually impossible to try to attack the
facilities, which can be hidden in tunnels or inside
mountains, undetectable by spy satellites.
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/mar152004/f6.asp
Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS Research Story)
Proliferation Unbound: Nuclear Tales from Pakistan [image:
Photo] Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.
By Gaurav Kampani
February 23, 2004
After years of blanket denials, Pakistan's government has
finally admitted that during 1989-2003 Pakistani nuclear
scientists and entities proliferated nuclear weapons-
related technologies, equipment, and know how to Iran,
North Korea, and Libya. The Pakistani government's denials
collapsed after Libya formally decided to terminate its
clandestine weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in
October 2003 and make a full disclosure of its efforts to
build nuclear weapons; and after Iran, in fall 2003, agreed
to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and provide details of its clandestine uranium
enrichment programs that originated in the mid-1980s.
The Iranian and Libyan revelations have exposed a vast
black market in clandestine nuclear trade comprising of
middle men and shell companies; clandestine procurement
techniques; false end-user certifications; transfer of
blueprints from one country, manufacture in another,
transshipment to a third, before delivery to its final
destination. But even more remarkably, the investigations
of Iranian and Libyan centrifuge-based uranium enrichment
efforts have exposed the central role of the former head of
Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Dr. A.Q. Khan,
in the clandestine trade. Detailed information has surfaced
about transfers of technical drawings, design
specifications, components, complete assemblies of
Pakistan's P-1 and P-2 centrifuge models, including the
blueprint of an actual nuclear warhead from KRL. But the
transfer of hardware apart, there is equally damning
evidence that Khan and his top associates imparted
sensitive knowledge and know how in secret technical
briefings for Iranian, North Korean, and Libyan scientists
in Pakistan and other locations abroad.
Three decades ago, Khan, with the support of Pakistan's
government, set out to create a new model of proliferation.
He used centrifuge design blueprints and supplier lists of
companies that he had pilfered from URENCO's facility in
the Netherlands to launch Pakistan's nuclear weapons
program. In the process, he perfected a clandestine model
of trade in forbidden technologies outside formal
government controls. By the end of the 1980s, after KRL
acquired the wherewithal to produce highly-enriched uranium
for a nuclear weapons program, it reversed course and began
vending its services to other clients in the international
system. KRL and Khan's first client was Iran (or possibly
China even earlier); but the list gradually expanded to
include North Korea and Libya. Starting in the late 1980s,
Khan and some of his top associates began offering a one-
stop shop for countries that wished to acquire nuclear
technologies for a weapons program. Khan's key innovation
was to integrate what was earlier a disaggregated market
place for such technologies, design, engineering, and
consultancy services; and in the process offer clients the
option of telescoping the time required to develop a
nuclear weapons capability.
As independent evidence of diversions from KRL has come to
light, the Pakistani government has swiftly sought to
distance itself from Khan and his activities. President
Pervez Musharraf's regime has publicly denied that it or
past Pakistani state authorities ever authorized transfers
or sales of sensitive nuclear weapons-related technologies
to Iran, Libya, or North Korea. Islamabad attributes Khan's
clandestine nuclear trade to personal financial corruption,
abuse of authority, and megalomania. Alarmed that Khan's
past indiscretions might directly implicate the Pakistani
military and state authorities, the Musharraf regime also
launched an internal probe to apparently get a clearer
picture of the activities of its top nuclear lab and senior
scientists. In fall 2003, Pakistani investigators traveled
to Iran, Dubai, Vienna, and Libya to investigate US and
IAEA complaints against Khan. They discovered that the
complaints were borne out by evidence; and more alarmingly,
that Khan had apparently made unauthorized deals
unbeknownst to Islamabad and reaped huge personal financial
rewards in the process.
Since October-November 2003, Khan and his close associates'
movements have been restricted. While Khan himself has been
under placed under informal house arrest, his aides are
undergoing what Pakistani government spokesmen politely
describe as "debriefing sessions." In late January 2004,
the government ultimately stripped Khan of his cabinet rank
and fired him from his position as senior advisor to the
chief executive. As part of a deal, Khan made a public
apology on television before the Pakistani nation. In that
apology, he admitted to personal failings, accepted
responsibility for all past proliferation activities, and
absolved past and present Pakistani state authorities of
any complicity in his acts. In return, the Jamali cabinet
granted Khan a conditional pardon. However, Khan's senior
aides remain in custody and the government has not made up
its mind on whether to press formal charges against them
for violating the state's national secrets or to pardon
them.
Most proliferation specialists and independent observers of
Pakistani politics have watched the surreal saga of what is
perhaps the greatest proliferation scandal in history with
disbelief. Most also find the Pakistani government's
assertions of innocence and attempts to absolve itself of
any responsibility in the matter astonishing. For most, the
mammoth scale of the diversion from KRL, its extended time
span, the logistics of transporting material and machines
out of Pakistan, and the difficulty of circumventing the
security detail surrounding senior Pakistani scientists and
KRL, are obvious pointers to state complicity. In the past
three months, senior Pakistani politicians have raked up
the historical record to point fingers at the Pakistani
Army. Others, including US government officials, have
alluded to indicators that at least some of Khan's
activities might have enjoyed tacit, if not formal sanction
from oversight authorities within the state. Such
indicators include Islamabad's past unresponsiveness to
diplomatic entreaties, sharing of intelligence inputs,
published documentary records, informed public speculation
about Khan and KRL's nuclear proliferation activities, and
the Pakistani military's corporate ability to sustain its
WMD programs on a weak military-industrial base, even as
the state operated at the margins of economic solvency. As
new evidence surfaces by the day, the record becomes
clearer; even as the controversy surrounding the role of
the past and present Pakistani governments becomes uglier.
This research report provides an overview of the evidence
that has surfaced in the last three months to paint a
clearer picture of what we now know of Khan and KRL's
contributions to Iran, North Korea, and Libya's clandestine
centrifuge-based uranium enrichment programs. It reviews
the internal debate and finger pointing in Pakistan, and
analyzes the narrative presented by President Musharraf's
regime in its defense. The report also outlines some of the
reasons for the Bush administration's muted response and
concludes by offering a net assessment of the strategic
implications of the new disclosures.
What Do We Now Know?
Although Pakistan has admitted that its nuclear scientists
and entities engaged in clandestine nuclear transfers to
Iran, North Korea, and Libya during the period 1989-2003,
the full extent and nature of those transfers are still
unclear. Iran has still not made a full disclosure about
its two-decades-old centrifuge enrichment program.
Scientists and engineers at the US Department of Energy are
still in the process of analyzing documents and equipment
turned over by Libya. And North Korea maintains that it
never admitted to pursuing a clandestine centrifuge-based
uranium enrichment program in October 2002.
But despite existing gaps, there is evidence that nuclear
transfers to Iran from Pakistan occurred during 1989-
1995.[1]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn1>
According to Pakistani government sources, North Korea
obtained similar assistance between the years 1997-2001.[2]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn2>
However, US intelligence agencies believe that strategic
trade between Pyongyang and Islamabad continued as late as
August 2002.[3]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn3>
Khan also began cooperating with Libya in 1997and such
cooperation continued until fall 2003.[4]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn4>
All three countries - Iran, North Korea, and Libya -
obtained blueprints, technical design data, specifications,
components, machinery, enrichment equipment, models, and
notes related to KRL's first generation P-1 and the next
generation P-2 centrifuges. Cooperation between Pakistan
and Iran most likely began in 1987 after the two countries
signed a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation for
peaceful purposes. Apparently, Khan sold "disused" P-1
centrifuges and what he describes as outmoded equipment to
Iran along with the drawings and technical specifications
and possibly components or complete assemblies of the more
advanced P-2 model.[5]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn5>Initial
deliveries were made during the years 1989-1991; but
evidence has surfaced that transfers continued as late as
1995.[6]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn6>Pakistani
investigators believe that some of the shipments were
probably transported over land through a Karachi-based
businessman. Other shipments were routed through Dubai.
Similarly, Khan and his associates supplied Pyongyang with
centrifuge and enrichment machines, and depleted uranium
hexaflouride gas (UF6).[7]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn7>Orders for
the North Korean contract were placed in 1997 and
deliveries continued until 1999. KRL also rendered further
technical assistance to Pyongyang during 1999-2001.[8]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn8>Some of the
shipments to North Korea were flown directly from Pakistan
using chartered and Pakistan Air Force transports.[9]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn9>
In 1997 Khan supplied Libya with 20 assembled P-1
centrifuges; with components for an additional 200 more for
a pilot facility. The Libyans also obtained 1.87-tons of
UF6 in 2001; the consignment was directly airlifted from
Pakistan on board a Pakistani airline. IAEA sources believe
that amount is consistent with the requirements for a pilot
enrichment facility. In September 2000, Libya placed an
order for 10,000 centrifuges of the more advanced P-2
model. Component parts for the centrifuges began arriving
in Libya by December 2002.[10]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn10>However, a
subsequent consignment of parts was intercepted by US
intelligence agencies in October 2003, after which Libya
decided to make a full disclosure and terminate its nuclear
weapons program. But more alarmingly, in either late 2001
or early 2002, Khan also transferred the blueprint of an
actual fission weapon to Libya as an added bonus.[11]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn11>
The supply package to all the three countries did not just
include hardware and design information. Khan and his
associates also provided their clients integrated shopping
solutions in a fragmented market. They shared sensitive
information on supplier networks, manufacturers,
clandestine procurement and smuggling techniques, and
arranged for the manufacture, transport, and delivery of
equipment and materials through a clutch of companies and
middlemen based in South-East Asia, the Middle East,
Africa, and Europe.[12]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn12>Pakistani
scientists and technicians held multiple briefing sessions
for their Iranian counterparts in Karachi, and locations in
Malaysia and Iran. [13]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn13>
Briefings for Libyan scientists were held in Casablanca and
Istanbul.[14]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn14>Khan also
visited North Korea nearly a dozen times, and it is likely
that technical briefing sessions for North Korean
scientists were arranged during those visits. But there are
also reports that North Korean scientists were allowed to
train at KRL itself.[15]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn15>In addition,
Pakistani engineers and scientists were also on hand for
providing consulting advice and trouble-shooting services
through intermediaries.
US intelligence analysts believe that the nuclear weapon
blueprint that Khan and his network sold Libya is most
likely a design that China tested in the late 1960s; and
later shared with Pakistan. Apparently the design documents
transferred from Pakistan contain information in both
Chinese and English, establishing their Chinese lineage;
they also provide conclusive evidence of past Chinese
assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.[16]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn16>The
blueprint provides the design parameters and engineering
specifications on how to build an implosion weapon weighing
over 1,000 pounds that could be delivered using aircraft or
a large ballistic missile.[17]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn17>Analysts
believe that the design is not currently in use in
Pakistan, which has graduated to building more advanced
nuclear weapons.[18]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn18>However, the
transfer of an actual weapon design to Tripoli has left
open the question whether Tehran and Pyongyang obtained a
similar copy; whether the design is still in circulation;
or who else might have obtained it.
In the mid-1990s, Khan also set up a clandestine meeting
with a top Syrian official in Beirut to offer help with
setting up a centrifuge enrichment facility for an HEU-
based nuclear weapons program.[19]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn19>In mid-1990,
he also made a similar offer through a Gulf-based
intermediary to Saddam Hussein's regime. However, the Iraqi
government ignored the offer in the erroneous belief that
it was likely a sting operation or a scam.[20]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn20>There is
also fragmentary and indirect evidence to suggest that Khan
may have offered his nuclear services to Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates.[21]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn21> But little
is publicly know about the outcome of those overtures.
The Internal Blame Game
The Pakistani government claims that the nuclear trade with
Iran, North Korea, and Libya was unauthorized; that KRL
proliferated centrifuge technologies, equipment, and
related intellectual property clandestinely and illegally,
unbeknownst to military oversight authorities formally in
charge of the nuclear weapons program. Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf has publicly accused A.Q. Khan and his top
aides of corruption and attributed their actions to
financial gains.[22]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn22>In an
attempt to distance Pakistani state authorities from the
scandal's fallout, Musharraf has also suggested that the
scientists were rogue operators, who abused the trust and
autonomy granted by state authorities to pursue their
personal agendas.[23]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn23>
In calculated leaks to the press, senior Pakistani
government officials have painted Khan as a megalomaniac; a
publicity hound who created a larger-than-life image of
himself. They have narrated tales of KRL's corrupt culture;
of Khan's parceling of procurement contracts at exorbitant
prices to family members and associates; bribes for
procurement orders from vendors; Khan's palatial houses and
real estate investments in Pakistan and abroad; his lavish
lifestyle; and unaccounted for millions in secret bank
accounts.[24]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn24>
Pakistani government sources from the president on down
have also made it plain that Khan's corruption and
profiteering from proliferation activities were critical
factors behind his removal from KRL in March 2001.[25]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn25>
However, Khan has disputed Musharraf's allegations in
private debriefings with Pakistani government
investigators. Apparently Khan has made the case that he
was pressured to sell nuclear technologies to Iran by two
individuals close to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The first, Dr. Niazi, was a friend, while the latter,
General Imtiaz Ali, served as military advisor to
Bhutto.[26]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn26>Both
individuals are now deceased. Khan has further alleged that
aid for Iran's uranium enrichment program was also approved
by then Chief of Army Staff, General (retd.) Mirza Aslam
Beg (1988-1991). Similarly, Khan claims the nuclear-for-
missile deal with the Kim Jong Il regime was backed by two
former army chiefs, Generals (retd.) Abdul Waheed Kakar
(1993-1996) and Jehangir Karamat (1996-1998). The latter,
according to Khan, made a secret trip to North Korea in
December 1997 and presided over efforts to obtain Nodong
ballistic missiles from that country. Khan's friends have
also privately suggested that General Pervez Musharraf, who
succeeded Karamat and took over responsibility for the
Ghauri missile program in 1998, had to have known about the
transfers to North Korea.[27]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn27>
In interviews with Pakistani government investigators, Khan
apparently insisted that no investigation would be complete
until all the actors -Khan, former army chiefs, and other
senior military and government officials - were questioned
together. Equally significant, Khan is believed to have
challenged his interlocutors' reticence to probe the nature
of the technology and equipment transfers to North Korea as
against the blanket charge of proliferation; the import of
his suggestion being that either the equipment and material
transferred to North Korea would not enable it to enrich
uranium to weapons-grade in the short-term, or
alternatively, that the logistics of the equipment and
technology transfers would directly implicate the military
and state authorities. [28]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn28>There are
also rumors that Khan has smuggled out evidence with his
daughter Dina, who is a British citizen, which would
directly implicate senior Pakistani officials in an
unfolding scandal.[29]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn29>
Fearing that any further washing of Pakistan's dirty
nuclear laundry in public could cause irretrievable harm to
the Pakistani military and state authorities, Musharraf has
sought to cap the controversy by pardoning Khan for his
past transgressions. In the bargain, Khan has accepted
personal responsibility for all acts of proliferation and
absolved the Pakistani state and the military from blame.
However, in his contrite public confession on television,
Khan declared that he acted in "good faith but on errors of
judgment," obliquely hinting at the likely involvement of
the Pakistani military and other state authorities in his
activities.[30]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn30>
Despite the Pakistani government's attempts to absolve
itself from the charges of proliferation, most independent
analysts of Pakistani politics remain unconvinced that A.Q.
Khan and his associates could have engaged in nuclear
transfers over nearly two decades without sanction or tacit
acknowledgement from sections or individuals within the
Pakistani government. The Pakistani military's tight
control over the nuclear weapons program, multiple layers
of security surrounding it, the exports of machinery and
hardware from Pakistan, as well as rumors, leaks, and past
warnings about Pakistan's nuclear cooperation with Iran and
North Korea by Western intelligence agencies, have led
analysts to believe that the current effort to pin the
blame on a small number of senior officials from KRL is a
cynical ploy to prevent the Pakistani military and state
from being implicated in the unfolding scandal.[31]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn31>
Musharraf's Narrative
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has deployed four
arguments to explain why Khan and his associates were able
to proliferate nuclear technologies and secrets for nearly
two decades without the knowledge of successive Pakistani
governments.
First, he has argued that during the covert phase of
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, which lasted from 1975-
1998, A.Q. Khan and KRL had to rely on shell companies,
clandestine procurement techniques, smuggling networks, and
middlemen for the purchase of equipment and technologies
that were on the export control lists of advanced
industrial countries. Thus the same networks that supplied
the Pakistani nuclear weapons effort were redirected to
meet the demand for similar technologies in the
international market. Once Khan and his associates
developed a successful model of clandestine trade in
forbidden technologies outside formal governmental control,
they were able to offer their services for financial
rewards to other bidders in the international system.[32]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn32>
During a press briefing earlier in February, Musharraf
explained that since Pakistan's nuclear weapons program was
covert until 1998, civilian governments were out of the
nuclear decision-making loop. But more astonishingly, he
sought to peddle the line that even former army chiefs, who
were supposed to exercise oversight authority over KRL,
never knew of the intimate happenings within the entity.
Musharraf's proffered explanation for successive army
chiefs' ignorance: the KRL's near total organizational
autonomy. According to Musharraf, such autonomy was an
essential precondition for the lab to achieve its mandated
objectives However, the army never imagined that Khan would
abuse the trust and confidence reposed in him by the state.
Furthermore, Khan gradually capitalized on his successes
and the state's mythologizing of his contributions to
elevate himself to the status of a national hero. Hence,
the organizational demands for success during the
development phase of the nuclear weapons program, as well
as Khan's nearly unassailable position within domestic
Pakistani politics, made it difficult for successive army
chiefs to confront him for his transgressions.[33]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn33>
Third, Musharraf maintains that the United States did not
share intelligence on Khan's proliferation network with the
Pakistani government until very recently.[34]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn34> In the
absence of such damning evidence, it was difficult for the
Pakistani government to proceed against Khan and his
associates.[35]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn35>And finally,
Musharraf insists that the bulk of the proliferation from
Pakistan occurred in the form of intellectual property
transfers; the implication of his suggestion being that it
is easier for governments to safeguard industrial hardware
and nuclear material than the transmission of software.[36]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn36>
The Counter Narrative
Musharraf's defense provides some useful information on the
historical evolution of Pakistan's nuclear command
authority, the relationship between the military and the
nuclear entities and scientists, and damning disclosures
about Khan's personal corruption, but it does not offer
credible explanations as to how or why successive Pakistani
governments remained ignorant of Khan's activities for such
a long period of time; or why they should not be held to
account. On balance, the historical evidence points in the
direction of a more complex and murkier reality that casts
aspersions on Musharraf's motivations.
Admittedly, it is easier for governments to safeguard
industrial hardware and equipment in comparison to software
which resides in the neural networks of human beings,
floppy disks, CDs, and computers. Humans can carry software
on their person, unbeknownst to oversight authorities; and
transmit it either verbally or electronically. However,
evidence has surfaced that Khan and his associates
proliferated both hardware and software. Pakistan's
Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan recently told the
Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court that the
scientists transferred "secret codes, nuclear materials,
substances, machinery, equipment components, information,
documents, sketches, plans, models, articles and notes
entrusted them [scientists] in their official
capacity."[37]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn37>Given the
logistics of moving machinery and materials, it is
extraordinarily difficult to believe that the Pakistani
military and its intelligence agencies had no inkling of
the nuclear trade.
Musharraf has offered a novel explanation as to why the
army did not know of the intimate happenings at KRL.
According to him, the military commanders tasked with KRL's
security detail were under the lab's autonomous control;
the military officers were answerable to Khan and not the
army high command. [38]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn38>
However, most independent observers who are familiar with
the Pakistani Army's professional ethics, training
procedures, and command protocols are skeptical that this
would indeed be the case.[39]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn39>Others more
familiar with KRL's security detail are equally dismissive
of Musharraf's explanations.[40]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn40>
Pakistani government sources have also suggested that KRL's
security detail was designed to prevent penetration and
sabotage of the nuclear weapons program from the outside.
But it was not particularly well-designed to prevent the
egress of men, material, and equipment in the reverse
direction. [41]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn41>
The obvious flaw of designing a one-dimensional security
model apart, the nature of nuclear cooperation with Iran
and North Korea suggests that sensitive nuclear facilities
in Pakistan were penetrated from the outside; and the
osmosis of technical exchange between the scientists and
entities was facilitated by formal nuclear cooperation
agreements between the Pakistani and Iranian and later
North Korean governments.[42]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn42>
Iranian nuclear scientists reportedly traveled to the port
city of Karachi in Pakistan for technical briefings during
the early 1990s.[43]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn43>The ease
with which foreign scientists and technicians gained access
to Pakistani scientists and sensitive facilities stands in
sharp contrast to the difficulty former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto encountered while trying to gain similar
access. For example, the army denied Bhutto security
clearances to visit KRL during her first tenure as prime
minister (1988-1990).[44]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn44>
General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg allegedly withheld details
about the nuclear weapons program from the prime minister
on the rationale that "briefings at Kahuta were on a need-
to-know basis."[45]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn45>In another
episode in 1979, the French ambassador to Pakistan was
physically manhandled by Pakistani security forces when he
made the mistake of venturing close to KRL.[46]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn46>Thus, some
of the anecdotal evidence from the late 1970s and early
1990s undercuts the army's recent assertions about lapses
in KRL's security network.
Two former cabinet ministers in the first Nawaz Sharif
government (1990-1993), Senator Ishaq Dar and Chaudhry
Nisar Ali Khan have stated for the record that in 1991
former Chief of Army Staff General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg
lobbied Sharif for the transfer of nuclear technology to a
"friendly state," for the sum of $12 billion. The proposed
figure was apparently supposed to underwrite Pakistan's
defense budget for the decade. [47]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn47>
According to Dar, a representative of that "friendly state"
accompanied Beg when he made the offer. However, Sharif,
rejected Beg's proposal.
Similarly, Nisar Ali Khan maintains that in the aftermath
of the 1991 Gulf War, Beg proposed that Pakistan should
sell its nuclear technology to Iran as part of a grand
alliance. The general's reasoning: that after the United
States succeeded in defeating Iraq, it might be the turn of
Iran and Pakistan next. Sharif, according to Nisar,
rejected Beg's proposal. But this does not rule out the
possibility that Khan and Beg might have acted
independently of the prime minister, who never had control
over the nuclear weapons program in any case.[48]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn48>
Musharraf's protestation to the contrary, Pakistani
governments have had some knowledge about Khan's activities
and about equipment and technology transfers from KRL to
Iran and North Korea. There is evidence to suggest that
every army chief from the late 1980s has known of Tehran's
interest in acquiring enrichment technologies from Pakistan
for a weapons program. Apparently, Pakistani investigators
have also found evidence that Khan informed Beg of
equipment transfers to Iran. However, Beg claims that he
received assurances from Khan that the equipment being sold
to the Iranians was outmoded and disused and would not
enable them to enrich uranium in the short term.[49]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn49>
Washington has also raised proliferation concerns with
Islamabad repeatedly since the early 1990s. Former US
Ambassador to Pakistan Robert B. Oakley (1988-1991) recalls
Beg telling him in 1991 that he had reached an
understanding with the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards
to help Tehran with its nuclear program in return for an
oil facility and conventional weapons. An alarmed Oakley
broached the subject with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.[50]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn50>
Subsequently, according to Oakley, Sharif and Pakistani
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan informed the Iranian government
that Pakistan would not carry such an agreement
through.[51]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn51>
In the mid-1990s, when UNSCOM inspectors in Iraq uncovered
documentary proof that Khan had approached Saddam Hussein's
regime with offers of assistance in the area of centrifuge-
based uranium enrichment, the Pakistani government declared
that it had conducted an internal investigation and found
the allegations to be fraudulent.[52]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn52>
Similarly, Washington began querying Islamabad about
possible nuclear transfers to North Korea as early as
1998.[53]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn53>Musharraf
also recently confirmed that the ISI raided an aircraft
bound for North Korea in 2000 after it was tipped off that
KRL was transferring sensitive equipment to Pyongyang; but
that raid drew a blank.[54]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn54>More
recently, US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher
took issue with Musharraf's charge that Washington did not
provide the Pakistani government with timely intelligence
against Khan; Boucher insisted that the United States had
"discussed nonproliferation issues with Pakistan
repeatedly, over a long period of time, and it's been an
issue of concern to us and President Musharraf...so it's
not a single moment of information." [55]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn55>
Besides the intelligence inputs that Islamabad received
from Washington, whistle blowers within the Pakistani
nuclear establishment began warning the Pakistani military
and its intelligence agencies about Khan's corruption as
early as the late 1980s.[56]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn56>Musharraf
recently admitted that he suspected Khan of clandestine
proliferation activities as early as 1998; and that it was
a critical factor behind his removal from KRL in March
2001.[57]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn57>Yet, despite
Khan's removal, US intelligence tracked strategic trade
between Pakistan and North Korea until fall 2002. More
alarmingly, Khan and his network coordinated nuclear trade
with Libya until October 2003; and Khan, despite being
moved out of KRL, was able to transfer a nuclear weapons
design to Libya in late 2001 or early 2002.[58]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn58>
But oddly enough, despite mounting evidence that Khan might
have profited illegally by selling the Pakistani state's
most sensitive secrets, the Pakistani military did not
consider it fit to investigate him or his top associates
until October 2003. Despite repeated foreign government
entreaties, published documentary evidence, foreign
intelligence leaks, and news reports alleging nuclear
proliferation to Iran and North Korea over a period of 14
years, the proverbial Pakistani military watchdog did not
bark. Furthermore, even after the Pakistani government
launched an internal probe after receiving incriminating
intelligence from the United States and the IAEA in fall
2003, Pakistani investigators visited Iran, Libya, Dubai,
and Malaysia, but excluded North Korea from their
itinerary.[59]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn59>
The Pakistani military's lack of institutional curiosity in
investigating the internal affairs of its nuclear
scientists and labs, physical transfers of machinery,
nuclear materials, and components from Pakistan over land
routes and on board chartered and air force transports,
travel of Pakistani scientists to Iran, and
training/briefing sessions for Iranian and North Korean
scientists in Pakistan, suggests that the Musharraf regime
is being frugal with the truth. In fact, Musharraf alluded
to the latter reality in an address to Pakistani
journalists when he said that even if for the sake of
argument it were accepted that the Pakistani military and
governments were involved in nuclear proliferation, the
Pakistani press should avoid debating the issue out of
deference to the country's national interests.[60]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn60>
Washington's Muted Response
Washington's public reaction to what is perhaps the
greatest proliferation scandal in history has been
relatively muted. Although US officials have privately
expressed disbelief that such massive diversions from KRL
could have occurred for nearly two decades without the
knowledge and consent of the Pakistani military, the Bush
administration has publicly accepted Musharraf's fiction
that Khan's was a rogue operation; and that the Pakistani
military and other state functionaries were probably
unaware of some of Khan's operations. Senior administration
officials have also publicly lauded President Musharraf for
investigating Khan and his associates and strengthening
internal controls over KRL.[61]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn61>
However, Washington has privately warned Musharraf that
Pakistan risks jeopardizing the $3 billion proposed
economic aid package and its relations with the United
States. During a visit to Islamabad in October 2003, US
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage personally
presented evidence against Khan to Musharraf and threatened
that Pakistan could be reported to the United Nations
Security Council and suffer sanctions if it failed to put
an end to Khan's nuclear entrepreneurship permanently.[62]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn62>The implicit
bargain between Washington and Islamabad: the United States
will avoid publicly hectoring and embarrassing Musharraf in
return for a Pakistani undertaking to tear up Khan's
clandestine nuclear trading network from its "roots";
intelligence inputs that would help US intelligence
agencies fill critical gaps in their knowledge about the
scale, depth, and modus operandi of the clandestine global
trade in nuclear technologies; and details on North
Korea[63]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn63>and possibly
Iran's uranium enrichment programs.
Washington's public nonchalance has also been determined by
the necessity of avoiding actions that might rebound on
Musharraf domestically. The Bush administration regards
Musharraf and the Pakistani Army as critical allies in the
global war on terror against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Since the launch of the Afghan war in fall 2001, Pakistan
has rendered critical intelligence, logistical, and
military support for US military operations. Pakistan's
cooperation has also been critical in apprehending al-Qaeda
operatives taking shelter in Pakistan and along the
Pakistan-Afghan border. Because Osama Bin Laden and his key
lieutenants remain at large, and because the United States
needs Pakistan's political support to pacify the resurgent
Taliban threat in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has
resorted to quiet diplomacy to force changes in Islamabad's
proliferation policies.[64]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn64>
In this regard, re-imposition of US economic sanctions
would only compound the problem. On the one hand, because
the drivers that led to Pakistani proliferation in the past
would remain in place, economic privation would only create
further incentives for the Pakistani military to feed its
corporate appetite through weapons of mass destruction-
related technology sales abroad. On the other hand, the
consequences of military action against Pakistan would be
infinitely worse. If the United States ever made the
mistake of degrading or destroying the Pakistani military's
coercive capacity, Pakistan might become a failed state,
and the problem of securing its nuclear facilities, fissile
materials, scientific personnel, and actual weapons and
delivery systems would become a security nightmare.
Because it is likely that some of past clandestine nuclear
trade had the tacit if not formal support of the Pakistani
military, the United States is also perhaps trying to avoid
actions that would place Musharraf, who is also the head of
the army, in an institutional quandary. Perhaps the quiet
calculation in Washington is that a policy of selective
intelligence leaks, private and multilateral diplomacy, and
a combination of carrots and sticks would constitute more
robust means to persuade Islamabad to mend its ways. More
enticing is the possibility, howsoever remote, of
recruiting the Pakistani military's intelligence agencies
and nuclear labs to help roll up the global black market in
nuclear technologies they helped create in the first
place.[65]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn65>
Finally, the US reticence in publicly rebuking Islamabad
for its proliferation transgressions is an acknowledgement
of the sensitive regard with which nuclear issues are
treated in domestic Pakistani politics. Nuclear weapons are
closely tied to the Pakistani nation's sense of self-worth
and national identity. Pakistanis count their nuclear
capability as one of the few areas of national achievement.
Nuclear scientists are treated as cult figures; and until
recently, the Pakistani state lionized Khan as a national
hero.[66]
<http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/040223.htm#fn66>Khan and the
nuclear establishment also enjoy the support of the
Islamist parties in Pakistan. Hence, Washington has been
keen to avoid giving the impression that it is intruding
into the holy sanctum of Pakistan's nuclear politics; or
doing anything that would compromise Pakistan's nuclear
weapons program. But, behind the fa
