Benazir Bhutto, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, had consistently denied any role of the Pakistani government in Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But
now, it has come to light that a CD containing vital nuclear data was carried by her personally to be handed over to her Korean counterpart as part of
a secret deal!
As she was due to visit North Korea at the end of 1993,
she was asked and readily agreed to carry critical nuclear data on her person and hand
it over on arrival in Pyongyang…..The gist of what she told me was that before leaving Islamabad she shopped for an overcoat with the deepest
possible pockets into which she transferred CDs containing the scientific data about uranium which the North Korean wanted.
The Great Nuclear Conspiracy: Bhutto Carried Nuke Secrets On CDs To North Korea.
ATS Premium article by member MikeSingh
May 12th, 2008
Pakistan’s Nuclear Facilities
Map courtesy: Carnegie Endowment For International Peace
Pakistan’s Strategic Imperative
Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since the last 60 years and four wars have been fought by Pakistan in its
unsuccessful bid to wrest it from India by force. Conventionally, they could never hope to match the Indian war machine. The biggest force leveler
would be a viable nuclear deterrent against conventional force asymmetry. With a nuclear deterrent, an incursion into Kashmir would prevent an all out
assault by India’s huge military juggernaut against Pakistan which lacked strategic depth.
Thus commenced a covert nuclear program and by the early 1990s Pakistan had acquired the capability to build nuclear weapons using highly enriched
uranium cores. But it lacked the delivery systems. American made F-16s were not a viable option and missiles armed with nuclear warheads were a system
of choice as they are not as vulnerable to air defense systems as are aircraft, and are also more cost effective.
But Pakistan did not possess the wherewithal to build a delivery system consisting of long range missiles which it was desperate to acquire, whatever
the cost.
Pakistan’s Quest For Missile Delivery Systems
Since the Chinese were reluctant to provide Pakistan with the ‘M’ series of longer range missiles due to American pressure, Pakistan turned to
North Korea to view their Nodong prototype. In 1995, the missile deal was consummated and in April 1998, Pakistan test fired the Nodong which was
re-christened as
Ghauri.
Evidence for the missile-for-uranium enrichment technology trade probably emerged sometime in 1999. But when U.S. officials raised the subject
with the Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he denied any knowledge of it.
And there it rested. Nawaz Sharif’s word was taken as confirmation that there was no such trade going on. Or did it?
Was Washington Privy to The Pak-N Korea Nuclear Deal?
Why did the U.S follow a policy of appeasement where Pakistan was concerned? The answer is simple: Pakistan is an ally in the so called war against
terror. With its contiguous borders with Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and the Taliban could use this ‘no man’s land’ as launch pads against NATO Forces
under the U.S, and thus it was imperative that nothing short of a policy of appeasement could assure the advancement of American strategy in
Afghanistan and to a lesser extent Iraq, by keeping the command and control set up of the militants in disarray.
For example, In late July last year, the Institute for Science and International Security issued a report revealing that Pakistan was building a
heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year. The Surprising response from Frederick Jones, a
spokesman for the National Security Council, was astonishingly mild:
“The reactor is expected to be substantially smaller and less capable
than reported.”!
Pakistan's plutonium production reactor at Khushab.
Image Source: DigitalGlobe
Double standards and double speak is nothing new and are the hallmarks of the present dispensation in Washington. No one batted an eye lid when on
September 6th last, Pakistan’s military dictatorship announced a peace treaty with militants in North Waziristan, al-Qaeda’s center of gravity.
Vice President Cheney’s response was unabashed praise of President Pervez Musharraf as
“a man who has demonstrated great courage under very
difficult political circumstances and has been a great ally for the United States.”
Concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear links with North Korea go back to 1999 when proliferation analysts began to speculate about North Korea’s likely
gains from the Nodong ballistic missile sales to Pakistan. Senior U.S. officials who were briefed on Pakistan’s nuclear cooperation with North Korea
raised the issue at the highest levels of the Pakistani government. In Jun 2001, U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage drew attention to the
role of retired Pakistani nuclear scientists in North Korea’s nuclear program. However, his public warnings weren’t paid heed to.
Then came the bomb shell in the form of a U.S. government source leak to the New York Times in Oct 2002 that Pakistan was the likely source of North
Korea’s gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program.
The nuclear-for-missile barter trade between Islamabad and Pyongyang probably began in 1997 and continued at least until Jul 2002. During this
period, Pakistan’s cooperation with North Korea involved the exchange of nuclear personnel, the sharing of technical knowledge, design information
on gas centrifuges, machinery and possibly nuclear material.
This was confirmed tacitly by the then Secretary of State, Collin Powell, when replying to a question whether such cooperation had taken place in the
past said,
“ We didn’t talk about the past and I don’t want to get into who might have done what, when and at what point in
history.”
The conspiracy: The Smoking Gun
U.S. intelligence officials claim that Pakistan was a key supplier of uranium enrichment technology to North Korea, and suggested that Pakistan had
exchanged centrifuge enrichment technology for North Korean help in developing long range missiles, by transfer of vital technology and assembling
missiles from semi knocked down kits surreptitiously transported from Korea, ironically in American made C-130 Hercules transport aircraft!
U.S. official statements leave little doubt that cooperation occurred,
but there
are significant details missing on the scope of cooperation and the role of Pakistan’s
government. Further, both North Korea and Pakistan have denied that nuclear
technology was provided to North Korea. Benazir Bhutto once played an active role in furthering Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear programme by personally taking CDs to and from North
Korea on an official trip as Prime Minister, reveals a book by her Oxford college mate and journalist Shyam Bhatia who subsequently kept in regular
touch with her.
It was in the 90’s that North Korea offered to provide long range missiles to Pakistan to offset the imbalance with India’s integrated guided
missile development program then led by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.
By 1993, Pakistan was under the spotlight as never before [on bartering enrichment technology for missiles], with Russia, India and western secret
services monitoring every nuance of Pakistan’s military research.
As she was due to visit North Korea at the end of 1993,
she was asked and readily agreed to carry critical nuclear data on her person and hand it
over on arrival in Pyongyang…..The gist of what she told me was that before leaving Islamabad she shopped for an overcoat with the deepest
possible pockets into which she transferred CDs containing the scientific data about uranium which the North Korean wanted.
Pakistani contacts later explained that Benazir returned with more than just CDs. The delighted North Koreans who had already sold missile
technology to Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen insisted she carry back the disassembled parts of an entire missile so that Pakistani scientists
could study it part by part.Pakistan Gets A New Nuke Missile To Use On India!
The Associated Press.
April 2008.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan said that a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead anywhere in India is ready for wartime use after troops
launched it on Monday during a field exercise. Scientists and engineers had prepared the Hatf VI missile, also known as Shaheen II, for the exercise
with a test-firing on Saturday.
Monday’s launch “validated the operational readiness of a strategic missile group equipped with the Shaheen II missile,” the Pakistani military
said in a statement.
Pakistani long range nuclear-capable ballistic missile,
Shaheen II, or Hatf VI, (Nodong) missile being fired
during a test at an undisclosed location in Pakistan.
North Korea Could Make Nuclear Warhead For Missile Delivery
The North Korean nuclear
tipped medium-range Nodong
missile, seen here dressed in
Pakistani Ghauri
missile colors.
North Korea is capable of arming its medium-range Nodong missile with a nuclear warhead, two US experts said. The report by the Washington-based
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) also estimates that the communist state has separated enough plutonium to build about five to
12 nuclear weapons. It is also suspected to have obtained warhead designs from Pakistan's rogue nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Should war break out,
"North Korea would be expected to use its nuclear weapons against military targets and population centres in South Korea or
Japan."
Can one put the genie back in the bottle? By tacitly allowing the interchange to take place to keep Pakistan amused in its so called war against
terror, the U.S has helped make the world more insecure than it has ever been. So much for American policy of protecting its vital interests. It has
done just the opposite.
Refs:
www.hindu.com...
www.inthesetimes.com...
cns.miis.edu...
suzieqq.wordpress.com...
www.spacewar.com...
CRS Report for Congress
[edit on 12-5-2008 by mikesingh]
