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US
draws a line on Pakistan's nuclear
program
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD
- 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.
Under strong US pressure, Pakistan
has grilled at least 13 scientists from Kahuta, the site
of the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Pakistan's main
nuclear weapons laboratory, and at least three are
expected to be charged with selling Pakistan's nuclear
technology to another country. Among those interrogated
are former KRL director-general, Mohammed Farooq, and
Major Islamul Haq, the principal staff officer of Dr
Abdul Qadeer Khan. Dr Khan spearheaded Pakistan's
nuclear development program until his replacement two
years ago as head of KRL, again under severe pressure
from the US, which feared connections of al-Qaeda
elements with some Pakistani scientists.
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. Already the US has forced India
and Pakistan, not quite kicking and screaming, to the
peace negotiating table, and for this peace process to
last, Pakistan, a perennial meddler in Afghanistan and
Kashmir in particular, would need to be tamed.
The US hand has been strengthened by the weekend
announcement by President General Pervez Musharraf, who
for the first time admitted that "some individual or
individuals" may have been involved in proliferating
Pakistan's nuclear technology. And on Monday,
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, saying that a
two-month probe into allegations of nuclear technology
proliferation to Iran and Libya was near completion,
added: "One or two people acted in an irresponsible
manner for personal profit. Money is involved in the
matter. I am not naming any scientist."
According to sources in the Pakistani
establishment who spoke to Asia Times Online, after
questioning a few Pakistani scientists, US intelligence
operators are now looking for a Karachi-based Pakistani
entrepreneur who is said to manufacture some of the
components that are used in atomic programs. The
investigators want to establish the level of proficiency
of the manufacturing, and the chances of the products
being - or having been - exported.
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.
Pakistan builds a time
bomb
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.
Bhutto was
instrumental in bringing Dr Khan to Pakistan in the
mid-1970s from the Netherlands where he had been
associated with Urenco, a British,German and Dutch
consortium. After his return to Pakistan, the Dutch
government accused Dr Khan of stealing centrifuge plans
from the plant. He was tried in absentia and convicted;
the verdict was later overturned on a technicality.
Western experts believe that Pakistan used Urenco gas
centrifuge blueprints and information to build its own
facilities.
Through Bhutto's diplomacy,
according to the scientist who spoke to Asia Times
Online, Iran and Libya were persuaded to make a joint
investment in Pakistan's program. As a result, they were
privy to the first phases of that program. Due to the
secrecy of the program at this stage, all information
and financing was channeled directly through Bhutto,
even using his personal bank accounts. Dr Khan, too,
answered only to Bhutto, and his "welfare" was the
premier's responsibility.
Bhutto's government,
though, was toppled by General Zia-ul Haq in a coup in
1977 over allegations of vote rigging. Two years later,
on April 4, 1979, Bhutto was hanged after being
convicted a year earlier on charges of conspiring to
murder a political opponent.
Bhutto's demise -
both political and physical - ended the cosy
relationship that Pakistan had had with Muammar Gaddafi
in Libya, while the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979,
which threw out the monarchy, severely strained Tehran's
ties with pro-US Pakistan.
These developments
obviously forced Pakistan to continue its nuclear
program on its own. In 1979 a pilot uranium enrichment
facility started up at Sihala, and construction began on
a full-scale facility at Kahuta. In April of that year,
the US imposed sanctions on Pakistan after learning
about its enrichment program.
At the same time,
however, 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. And once the Iran-Iraq war broke out in
1980, Pakistan developed into a key transit point for
arms on their way to Iran.
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.
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.
By 1986, US sources were reporting that Pakistan
had produced weapons-grade uranium (greater than 90
percent U-235.
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.
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, to this day, 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.
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. In
February of that year, Pakistan announced the successful
test of two new surface-to-surface ballistic missiles:
Hatf I and II, with 80 kilometer and and 300 kilometer
ranges. 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.
(Note: On May 28 and 30 of 1998, Pakistan
conducted underground nuclear tests - six according to
the government - in response to India's May 11 and 13
five underground tests.)
(Copyright 2004
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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