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| India-Pakistan |
| AQ Khan shifted Iraq’s WMD to Pakistan? |
| 2004-02-07 |
| Okay, definitely read with salt at the ready, but the author has very good contacts in the region, and I would think that at least some of the assertions have merit. EFL There are many intriguing questions which have remained unanswered. The first is why did Iran and Libya let down Pakistan by giving officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) all the details of the role played by Pakistani scientists in helping them to develop a military nuclear capability? Since the beginning of 2003, Iran was under tremendous pressure from the IAEA and the US to come clean on its nuclear projects after the IAEA detected its enrichment plant at Natanz. All that Iran had to do to avoid international sanctions was to admit that it had a clandestine programme, give details of it and agree to dismantle it. It did not have to volunteer details of the role of Pakistan in this programme. Why did it do so? Ever since sections of the US media got hold of the inspection reports of the IAEA inspectors who had visited Natanz and other sites in Iran and reported that the centrifuges being used by Iran, which had traces of enriched uranium, were second hand and that Iran itself had admitted that it bought them from elsewhere, there was considerable nervousness and even panic in the Pakistan Army’s GHQ and in the nuclear establishment. A.Q.Khan made at least half a dozen visits to Dubai to meet officials of the Iranian intelligence and nuclear establishment. On at least one of his visits, he was accompanied by Lt.Gen. Ehsan-ul-Haq, the Director-General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). According to reliable sources, during these meetings A. Q. Khan pleaded with the Iranians to return the copies of the drawings of the URENCO uranium enrichment plant in Holland which he had given to them in the past and not to tell the IAEA inspectors anything about the Pakistani origin of the centrifuges. The Iranian officials evaded his requests to return the drawings, but reportedly assured him that they would not reveal anything which might embarrass Pakistan. And yet, they did. Why? What had gone wrong in Pakistan-Iran relations which made Teheran insensitive to Pakistani concerns? The Pakistani military-intelligence establishment was thus aware for over a year that Teheran was under pressure from the US and the IAEA to come clean on its military nuclear programme and the external assistance received by it. It was, therefore, mentally prepared for the subsequent developments to the detriment of the credibility of Pakistan’s past assurances that there had never been a leakage of Pakistani nuclear expertise to other countries. What came as a real bombshell to it was the disclosure by the US and the UK towards the end of 2003 that officials of Khadaffi had been secretly talking to them on Libya’s clandestine nuclear programme and had agreed to dismantle it. The US-UK talks with Libya were a well-kept secret and, to my knowledge, none of the Western media could get scent of it. Till the Libyan case broke out, Musharraf was fairly confident that he would be able to ride out the storm over the disclosures of Pakistani collaboration with Iran without any adverse consequences to himself or to Pakistan because this collaboration had started during the rule of the late Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and Mrs. Benazir Bhutto and his own role was minimal. As against this, the reports towards the end of 2003 that Libya too had made a clean breast of its clandestine programme and the role of Pakistan in it shook his sang-froid for two reasons. Firstly, much of this collaboration had taken place after he seized power on October 12,1999. Secondly, since he had been unaware of the secret talks of Libya with the US and the UK, he had had no time or opportunity for damage limitation. Why did Libya, like Iran, betray Pakistan by volunteering information about the role of Pakistan to its interlocutors from the US and the UK and subsequently from the IAEA when it was brought into the picture? What explains the total lack of concern of Iran and Libya to the embarrassment and difficulties which they would be creating for Pakistan by their singing on this subject? Many reasons are offered by Pakistani sources. They are speculative and not convincing, but would still need to be noted:
Pakistani sources claim that there has been another bombshell in the admissions of guilt made by Khan’s colleagues and juniors, who are still under custody and questioning. They are reported to have stated that during his over 40 visits to Dubai in the last three years, he had met Iraqi intelligence officials who sought his help in having some of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) material of Iraq airlifted from Syria to Pakistan for being kept in safe custody there to prevent their falling into the hands of the UN inspectors. Khan allegedly agreed to their request. According to them, in October, 2002, Khan had a Pakistani aircraft, which had gone to Iran to deliver some equipment, stop in a Syrian airport on its way back. It picked up the Iraqi WMD "material" and brought it to Pakistan for safe custody on behalf of Iraq. It is not clear what did they mean by material---only documents or something more? I would find the need to get incriminating documents out of Iraq to be somewhat plausible at least. The Musharraf regime has been desperately trying to see that this is not played up in the Pakistani media. There was a note of desperation in Musharraf’s admonition of the media during his press conference on February 5, 2004, at which he announced his pardon for Khan. He said: "For me Pakistan comes first and everything else is secondary. In the first place you (the media) should play a more responsible role in this matter and secondly, even if for the sake of argument it is accepted that the government and the army were involved in the affair, do you think it will serve our national interest to shout about it from the roof-top?" |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #6 This has all the makings of a Clancy novel. The preceding chapter was the pardon on Dr. AQ. It would be delicious to contemplate Libya, Syria, Iran, and Doc singing to the skies simultaneously. All of this, John, thanks to the upsetting of the apple cart that Bush has done in the Islamofascist belt. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-2-7 8:39:44 PM |
| #5 I have found that Raman, the author, provides really interesting material. How he has managed to survive over the last decade is a miracle. |
| Posted by: Tancred 2004-2-7 3:04:58 PM |
| #4 He did it--he did it-- not my fault. Serve Pakistan up on a (plastic) platter. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-2-7 1:14:30 PM |
| #3 Iran gets help. Libya gets help. Everybody gets help. But not Iraq ? It sounds like Iraq DID get help, got nervous and told Khan to take it back while the inspectors were around. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-2-7 11:13:58 AM |
| #2 So, Anyone care to guess how mush of this activity would of happened if the US had not gone into Afghanistan and Iraq? And how much of this activity would have occurred if we had waited for France and Germany and the UN to come to the table? Over to you, Senator Kerry. Discuss. |
| Posted by: john 2004-2-7 7:58:57 AM |
| #1 Great!.. the good thing is that the nukes are in ready state. Lets see who goes in to get these nukes. |
| Posted by: Faisal 2004-2-7 7:10:30 AM |