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| India-Pakistan |
| More on Pak nuclear program |
| 2004-01-28 |
| The United States’s patience could finally be running out with Pakistan and its nuclear program, even though Islamabad is scrambling to reassure Washington that any proliferation in the past was an aberration on the part of rogue individuals. Disclosure by Iran to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency of the names of people who provided Tehran with nuclear technology - including Pakistani scientists - has clearly alarmed Washington, even though these events took place some years ago. All of Pakistan’s scientists are also now under heavy surveillance to track their every move, and the government has issued a circular stating that Dr Khan, a long-time celebrity in Pakistan, is not to be invited to any ceremonies or official functions, or in any way treated as a VIP. Parallel to this Pakistani investigation, though, the US has launched its own independent probe into Pakistan’s links to the nuclear programs of Iran, Libya and North Korea, and, depending on the results, according to insiders in the Pakistani administration, Washington could lean on Islamabad to completely abandon its program. Such action would conform with the US’s broader agenda to defuse tension on the sub-continent. That would be something very difficult to pull off, I shudder to think how Musharaff’s fellow Generals would react. Besides which, Washington would probably have to put pressure on India to disarm in order to pacify the Pakistanis, and it has much less leverage over New Delhi than it does over Islamabad. US attention is also focussed clearly on Dr Khan. US and UK investigators have already made known evidence of him traveling on a personal rather than a diplomatic passport to Iran, North Korea, the United Arab Emirates and the UK. The UK government unofficially informed Islamabad several times of the visits, but received no response, leading investigators to conclude that he was, in fact, on official business. Tehran authorities have also released information concerning a property near the port of Bandar Abbas, officially given to Dr Khan by the government of Iran. A Pakistan scientist who was affiliated with Pakistan’s nuclear program spoke to Asia Times Online, on condition of anonymity, about the country’s nuclear program. The program was the brain child of former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was a champion of Third World countries and their rights. "If India develops nuclear weapons, Pakistan will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry" in order to develop a program of its own, he said at the time. But somehow I doubt Bhutto missed many meals.. Pakistan became the main supply line of arms (mostly from the US) to Afghan mujahideen rallying to fight the Soviets, who had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. In 1981, because of its importance in the Afghan puzzle, the US Congress granted Pakistan a six-year exemption from the Symington Amendment, which prohibited aid to any non-nuclear country engaged in illegal procurement of equipment for a nuclear weapons program. Pakistan also accepted a US$3.2 billion, six-year aid package from the US that included the sale of F-16 planes. Free from the threat of sanctions, in 1982, there was a cold test at a small-scale reprocessing plant in Pakistan. Another case of blowback from the Afghan Jihad.. Around this time, Allama Ariful Hussaini, the chief of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqa-i-Jaferia Pakistan, the largest Shi’ite organization in Pakistan, emerged as a go-between for Tehran and Pakistan, first for arms, and ultimately in the transfer of nuclear technology. Hussaini was shot dead in Peshawar in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) a few days before General Zia’s death in a plane accident in August 1988. Hussaini’s party blamed then corps commander and governor of NWFP, Lieutenant-General Fazal-i-Haq, who was Zia’s right-hand man. Haq himself was later murdered by a Shi’ite assassin. Wheels within wheels By the late 1980s, then, the US was aware that Pakistan’s nuclear program was well advanced, and knew that Pakistan and Iran were cooperating in weapons transfers - most likely including nuclear technology. In mid-1988, a US oil tanker was fired on and it emerged that US missiles that had been given to Pakistan as supplies for Afghan mujahideen had been used in the attack. The US was outraged, and proposed an audit at a large ammunition dump at Ojri in Pakistan. Mysteriously, on August 17, 1988, the dump went up in a huge blast that killed about 100 people and injured thousands. An inquiry did find, however, evidence that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence was involved in selling Stinger missiles and other American arms on the black market. The Former director of the ISI, Javid Nassir, openly admitted to smuggling Stinger Missiles to Chechnya and Bosnia. His forceable retirement was on of the conditions Clinton gave Pakistan to give them of the State Sponsorship of Terrorism list back in 1993. And that ammunition dump explosion isn’t the only time convenient fires have destroyed incriminating evidence in Pakistan. Since Pakistan was still a trusted ally in the Cold War, the US did not take any action. In June 1989, then prime minister Benazir Bhutto visited Washington DC. Before Bhutto’s trip, though, production of highly-enriched uranium was stopped, a step that was verified by the US. It is believed that production was re-started after heightening tensions with India over Kashmir in 1990. During these years, the deep seeds of suspicion over Pakistan’s trustworthiness were planted, and they are now bearing the fruit that could poison Pakistan’s nuclear program, with the country’s scientists already feeling the ill effects. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |