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| Qadeer Khan linked to al-Qaeda |
| 2004-02-18 |
| This is by the French author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl? We observed the Abdul Qadeer Khan affair, the incredible story of this Pakistani nuclear scientist who delivered over 15 years -- freely and with impunity -- his most sensitive secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Then we learned that President Musharraf in person, after an interview from which little or nothing has been divulged, ended up granting Khan his "pardon." Case closed? End of story? That’s what the American administration, falling oddly in step with the official Pakistani doctrine, would have us believe. But knowing something of the case -- and being the first French observer, to my knowledge, to have tried to alert public opinion to the extreme gravity of the situation -- I believe that we are only at the very beginning this story... Far from ending on Sept. 11, 2001 -- the day, we are told, on which "the world changed" -- this terrifying nuclear traffic continued until well after: A last trip to Pyongyang, his thirteenth, was made in June 2002 by the good doctor Khan; not to mention the ship inspected last August in the Mediterranean, transporting elements of a future nuclear plant to Libya. The eyes of the world, emulating the eyes of America, were fixed on Baghdad, while the tentacles of nuclear proliferation were being extended from Karachi. We will soon learn that far from being the overexcited, but in the end isolated, "Dr. Strangelove" that most of the press has described, Khan was at the center of an immense network, an incredibly dense web. There were Dubai front companies, meetings in Casablanca and Istanbul with Iranian colleagues, complicities in Germany and Holland, Malaysian and Philippine agents, and detours through Sri Lanka, with Chinese and London connections -- a world of crime and dirty war that the West, mired in a big game that is beginning to get ahead of it, has so blithely allowed to develop. We will find that, since Pakistan is steered by the iron hand of its secret service and its army, it is inconceivable that Khan operated alone without orders or cover. We will understand more precisely that we cannot repeat without contradiction that, on the one hand, the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under control, and that not a warhead can budge without the authorities’ knowledge, and, on the other, that Khan was acting alone, working on his own account, with no official connivance. To put it simply and disconcertingly: Pakistan’s nuclear weapons need to be secured. They cannot -- will not -- be secured by Pakistan alone. We will come back to Gen. Musharraf -- and Pakistan being what it is, we will come back also to other generals and ex-generals, such as Mirza Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat, both former army chiefs of staff. But we must not shift our gaze from the president himself, whose knowledge of Khan’s dark machinations no one in Islamabad doubts, and who, at the very moment of his confounding, celebrated Khan once more as a "hero." What does Khan know of what Gen. Musharraf knows? And what does Khan’s daughter, Dina, who announced in London that she has suitcases of compromising files, know? And at last, sooner or later, we will come to the real secret: that of al Qaeda; and of Khan’s links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the fundamentalist terrorist group at the heart of al Qaeda; and the fact that this "mad scientist" is first of all mad about God, a fanatical Islamist who in his heart and soul believes that the bomb of which he is the father should belong, if not to the Umma itself, at least to its avant-garde, as incarnated by al Qaeda. So let us not shrink from measuring the probability of a nightmare scenario: to wit, a Pakistani state which -- in the shelter of its alliance with an America that is decidedly not counting inconsistencies -- could furnish al Qaeda with the means to take the ultimate step of its jihad. How much time will it take for all this to be said? How much longer will Islamabad’s masquerade endure? Next month the American Congress will vote on the question of three billion dollars in aid to Pakistan: Will this aspect of things be taken into account? Will demands be made, at last, in exchange for this aid, for inspections of Pakistani sites, as well as the installation of a double-key system -- a system that some of us here in Europe have been calling for? These are just a few elements I offer -- as part of a debate that has scarcely begun. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #13 B 2004 is absolutely right on this. I wrote the WSJ a similar comment yesterday. The claim that we have not been aware of this is absurd. Our actions in Libya, which were a direct result of our knowledge of this network, are proof that we have been on the case for some time. Just because the press becomes aware of something does not mean that the intelligence community has not been aware of it for a whole lot longer. |
| Posted by: remote man 2004-2-18 12:49:37 PM |
| #12 B, interesting thoughts--the French either think the guy's a total neo-con whackjob or if they believe him, that Bush named the wrong countries to the Axis of Evil. Screw the Bush and America bashers--Reality will take care of them. Sometimes someone has to be the messenger and in the present case, that's Bernard-Lévy. Sadly, very few are as smart as the RB Army of Steve and Axis of EFL members. How many will read even the WSJ? Don't forget the last part of the piece: we all need to do whatever it takes to stop Congress from giving Perv that $3 billion in aid particularly in light of this: Pakistani leader rejects nuclear inspections, promises missile test [Warning: it's from AFP, so you know what they're about.] |
| Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro 2004-2-18 12:11:35 PM |
| #11 rkb - I agree with you. I also agree with what others have said above, but I see it in a different light. It's important to notice that even though this piece is full of good information- it is, at it's heart, just another Blame Bush piece. It's all Bush's fault you see, because ..."The eyes of the world, emulating the eyes of America, were fixed on Baghdad, while the tentacles of nuclear proliferation were being extended from Karachi." and "a world of crime and dirty war that the West, mired in a big game that is beginning to get ahead of it, has so blithely allowed to develop. " Surely the author isn't sooo ignorant that he believes that he, alone, was aware of this threat. Considering what has come to light recently, does he really expect us to believe that Bush and his cowboys were just gosh dern clueless about this whole dagburn mess. And what does he think we should have done to end this nightmare?? Ask for another UN resolution or send a terse memo to Musharraf. Hello - done that! Maybe he has a better plan - but right now it looks like he must have been living under a rock not to understand that Bush is keenly aware of this threat. This author is incapable of seeing any logic in stopping Sadaam's assistance in Iraq, getting a military foothold in the ME and disrupting AQ footholds. Apparently these are just happy diversions distracting from the "real threat". "Those silly Americans have been too busy bogged down in Iraq to notice the big picture". What I see in this piece is a Frenchman who is being forced to admit that Bush didn't lie. That there is an active nuclear (WMD) program, and that there is an axis of evil. Finding himself incapable of acknowledging this, he makes a clumsy attempt to discredit American successes in exposing diffusing the threat. His attempt to simply dismiss all that has been accomplished by pointing out that Bush didn't name Pakistan in his axis of evil - is IMHO, shallow, stupid, small sighted and petty. Oh and one more thing: Shouldn't there be some kind of DUH! Award to give the author for this statement??? "And at last, sooner or later, we will come to the real secret: that of al Qaeda; and of Khan’s links to Lashkar-e-Toiba, the fundamentalist terrorist group at the heart of al Qaeda;" Call me cynical, but I think we have just received a sneak preview of how the American-Bashers plan to spin increasingly obvious fact that, "Bush didn't lie". If he thinks he is the first to observe this threat than he is an ass and should be ignored. However, I guess I shouldn't be so harsh, after all, what he did say was that he was "the first French observer , to my knowledge, to have tried to alert public opinion to the extreme gravity of the situation. Maybe I should give him that. |
| Posted by: B 2004-2-18 9:30:42 AM |
| #10 Couldn't he have sold Amway or something? The guy is to serial proliferation what John Wayne Gacey was to inner-city population control. I expect that Khan still has flyers posted on phone poles throughout the world - you know the kind with the little phone number tabs you can seperate and tear away. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-18 8:59:10 AM |
| #9 Khan was acting on orders - he's just the agent of Pak military/intelligence (and a disposable one too, in light of his and his wife's "heart attacks"). What is incredible to me is that this huge network went on without (apparently) our knowledge. Is the CIA that incompetent or is there another game afoot? |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-2-18 8:51:38 AM |
| #8 What makes you think they consider this treason? |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-2-18 7:27:51 AM |
| #7 Kahn sells Pak State Sercrets,makes millions of dollars and is a State Hero. Ony in the Biazzaro-land of Islam can High Treason be considered heroic. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-2-18 6:07:25 AM |
| #6 That's my fault, I was trying to make 2 unrelated points on similar topics. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-2-18 1:17:28 AM |
| #5 Ah, I thought that you referring to the jihadis because of the references you cited as far as Gulf and Pakistani involvement that we know has gone to further the goals of the International Front. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-2-18 1:10:26 AM |
| #4 Dan, that's true about their not being a theocracy, I didn't mean that they are involved in the spread of Islamism, but I have read that the Egyptian government has long debated becoming a nuclear power, and there have been unconformed rumors that they have sent scientists to Iran and Libya for training. Similarly, Malaysia isn't an extremist country, but Mahatir has long championed the idea that their should be a Muslim NATO, and they would probably see an Islamic Bomb as something that would make the Ummah a force to be reckoned with. That is my speculation anyway. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-2-18 1:06:27 AM |
| #3 Excellent link Dan, thanks. Think I'll send my Congress-critter an e-mail about that Pakiwaki aid bill. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-2-18 12:50:12 AM |
| #2 Egypt? Their press is certainly chalk full of anti-Semitism, but they seem to be far more of a one-party dictatorship than a theocracy to me, especially with Sadat getting knocked off by the jihadis. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-2-18 12:47:48 AM |
| #1 I agree with Levy, this is just the tip of the iceburg. There is much still to be revealed, such as the billions of dollars that a small group of Pakistani Generals and businessmen have made from smuggling and Heroin trafficing. Some of which went to propping up the Taliban, and some of which went towards sponsoring the Jihad against India. The Gulf Princes and Sheikhs have a similar enterprise operating at a global scale, with the aim of setting up a fascist theocracy with themselves at the top, while the brainwashed cannonfodder are eliminated in Jihads against their enemies. Beyond Iran, Libya and North Korea, we'll probably find out that the quest for an Islamic bomb was far broader, and I wouldn't be suprised to find out that countries such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Egypt and Indonesia are involved. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-2-18 12:41:35 AM |