General Pervez Musharraf was surprised. Visiting New York for a session of the
UN, the last thing the Pakistani president expected was to be confronted
with evidence of his country’s secret sales of nuclear bomb technology and
equipment to members of the “axis of evil”.
Yet here on the polished wooden table of Musharraf’s hotel suite, George
Tenet, director of the CIA, was laying out a sheaf of incriminating
evidence.
There were intricate drawings of Pakistan’s P-1 uranium-enriching centrifuge,
with part numbers, dates and signatures. And there were details of the
activities of Abdul Qadeer “A Q” Khan, the so-called Father of the Pakistani
Bomb: his travels around the world, bank statements, even paperwork showing
what his organisation had offered for sale and to which countries.
A senior Musharraf aide described it disingenuously as “the most embarrassing
moment in the president’s life” – not because of the evidence but because he
had felt Pakistan was on a long leash as it was integral to the Americans’
war on terror.
It was only three months since President George W Bush had cancelled a $1
billion debt and instigated a new $3 billion military and economic
assistance package for Pakistan.
“Now the leash was being wound in, but Musharraf got over his surprise. He
moved on and thought, so be it. He was a survivor. Pakistan was a survivor.
We would adapt to a new reality,” a source said.
But he was not going to confess all: “Musharraf would play dumb until he
ascertained what the US knew and whom we could blame.”
The general feigned ignorance. But everyone in the room during this
“confrontation” four years ago knew that they were involved in a charade.
American officials knew that Musharraf had known about the nuclear trade all
along. And Washington had itself not only turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s
nuclear bomb project for decades but had covered it up for imperative
geopolitical reasons, even when Islamabad began trading its secret
technology.
By 2003 there was mounting evidence – still kept from Capitol Hill and the UK
parliament – that Pakistan’s clients now encompassed North Korea, Iran and
Libya and probably other countries and individuals too.
Britain had privately been pressing America to tell Musharraf it had to stop.
In October 2003 MI6 uncovered Pakistani nuclear material on a boat heading
for Libya. But the consensus in Washington was that saving Pakistan’s
vulnerable (and valuable) president mattered more than prosecuting the
guilty.
A senior British Foreign Office source explained: “He would come up with his
own framework for survival and we would help him get through it, as long as
the dirty deals were wound up. It was a compromise struck in the world of
realpolitik.”
The details were agreed between Musharraf and Richard Armitage, the deputy
secretary of state, at a meeting in Islamabad. A drama was conceived that
drew from Musharraf a promise to shut down Pakistan’s nuclear black market
in return for winning continued US support for his unelected regime.
It was agreed that A Q Khan and his aides would be arrested and blamed for
“privately” engaging in proliferation. The country’s military elite – who
had sponsored Khan’s work and encouraged sales of technology to reduce their
reliance on American aid – were left in the clear.
Khan was made to admit his “unauthorised activities” on television. Bush
subscribed to the deceit, announcing: “Khan has confessed his crimes and his
top associates are out of business . . . President Musharraf has promised to
share all the information he learns about the Khan network, and has assured
us that his country will never again be a source of proliferation.”
The truth was that Musharraf had been reducing Khan’s role in the nuclear
enterprise and had pushed him into official retirement. The nuclear
programme and trading were – and are – completely under the military
government’s control. And proliferation did not stop.
Four years on, Khan is still under house arrest, and Musharraf is still in
power. In a further exercise in “realpolitik”, another political deal is
being stitched together to keep him in the presidency as America’s best hope
of maintaining stability in this geopolitically vital but desperately
unstable country.
Musharraf’s term of office comes to an end in November. Under the constitution
he cannot win another term if he remains chief of army staff. Urged on by
Washington, he has been discussing a power-sharing agreement with Benazir
Bhutto, the former prime minister.
He intends, however, to keep hold of foreign affairs, the armed forces,
internal and external security portfolios, the nuclear deterrent and the WMD
(weapons of mass destruction) programme, according to Pakistani sources.
America’s reason for sustaining Musharraf in power is that the alternative is
even less appealing. The upper reaches of the army, and the retired military
elite, are rife with Islamists – a legacy of General Zia ul-Haq, the zealot
who both ramped up the nuclear programme and gave the military a religious
mission when he was president from 1978-88.
The tragedy is that America’s gamble on Musharraf has not paid off.
Washington’s nightmare is a nuclear Pakistan controlled by fundamentalists.
Yet Musharraf presides over a country that is not only still a nuclear
proliferator but the real source of the Islamist terrorism menacing the
West.
Al-Qaeda has merged with Pakistan’s home-grown terrorists, spawning new camps,
new graduates and new missions abroad – including the July attacks in London
in 2005.
At least 17 of the worst Sunni terror groups banned by the US and the UN have
been allowed to operate openly and launch recruitment drives, using flimsy
cover-names, most of them operating within sight of the Pakistan military.
The Taliban reformed after Musharraf signed a secret pact with its supporters
in Waziristan – the tribal region of northwest Pakistan – in 2004, and again
in 2006, leading to what Nato commanders in Afghanistan complained of as a
300% increase in attacks on UK and Afghan forces.
US intelligence sources have accused elements of Pakistan’s intelligence
establishment and army – including General Mo-hammad Aziz Khan, who until
October 2004 was Musharraf’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – of
coaching and sheltering the neo-Taliban.
Pakistan today stands on the failed states index at position 12, just below
Haiti, in worse shape than North Korea and Burma. Yet Musharraf’s government
has been rewarded with a 45,000% increase in US aid since 2001, taking
assistance levels to more than $10 billion, five times more than received by
any other country (including Israel).
On his only visit to Pakistan, in March 2006, Bush flew in at night,
unannounced, without lights. As the US knew only too well, America’s enemies
had access to US-supplied Stinger missiles that Pakistan’s former army
chiefs had declined to help the CIA claw back after the Afghan war.
Bush never got near to the people of Pakistan. A heavy security blanket
enveloped Islamabad, which was patrolled by thousands of riot police and
para-troopers while US Black Hawks buzzed the skies which were empty of any
commercial traffic.
After Bush’s visit, Eliza Manningham-Buller, then the director of MI5, made an
unusual outing in public to warn that “resilient networks” of terror in
Britain and elsewhere in Europe were being “directed by al-Qaeda in
Pakistan”.
Pakistan’s unsecured nuclear arsenal is increasingly vulnerable as terrorists
gain new footholds in Islamabad. According to a recent poll of 100 US
foreign policy experts by the Centre for American Progress and the Carnegie
Endowment, both in Washington, Pakistan poses today’s greatest nuclear
threat to the world.
Robert Gallucci, who as a young US diplomat tracked its nuclear programme from
inception in 1972 and ended his career as Bush’s adviser on WMD, describes
Pakistan as “the number one threat to the world at this moment in time”.
He warns: “If it all goes off, a nuclear bomb in a US or European city, I’m
sure we will find ourselves looking in Pakistan’s direction.”
Furthermore, disturbing new intelligence suggests that proliferation has not
stopped. Last year, a 55-page highly classified “early warning” assessment
was produced by Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, taking in
the pooled knowledge of British, French and Belgian spies.
Its authors found that a range of materials and components were still being
procured by Pakistan that “clearly exceeds” what Islamabad needed for its
domestic nuclear programme. One of the report’s authors said: “They were
buying to sell, and it could no longer be hived off as rogue scientists
doing the deed.”
The report said that KRL labs, Khan’s old facility, had continued to
coordinate the Pakistani sales programme and now ran a network of front
companies in Europe, the Gulf and southeast Asia which deployed all the old
tricks: disguising end-user certificates by shielding the ultimate
destinations from sellers, and lying on customs manifests.
The Pakistan-North Korean relationship was still very much alive, the report
stated. Islamabad had hooked Pyongyang into its nuclear procurement network
in western Europe, buying raw materials and machinery for production lines
in North Korea that were churning out cheap centrifuge components. Pakistan
was one of the key customers, selling the parts on to other clients.
Most alarming was the finding that hundreds of thousands of components amassed
by Khan had vanished since he had been put out of operation. In other words,
Pakistan has continued to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known
and unknown) even as Musharraf denies it – which means either that the sales
are being carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in
control of Pakistan’s nuclear programme than he is of the bands of jihadis
in his country.
Some of Pakistan’s generals are gleeful and even unguarded about the trade,
seeing it as proof of their apparently untouchable status as a prime ally in
the US war on terror, but also as evidence of their rapid industrialisation.
Pakistan has learnt to manufacture the restricted components and materials,
electronic equipment and super-strong metals needed for a ready-made nuclear
weapons facility which they were selling to anyone who could come up with
the cash.
General Khalid Mahmud Arif, formerly in charge of the nuclear programme and
still an influen-tial figure in military circles, said: “Once we skulked
around. Now we have a new generation of men and the technology. We have labs
and the industry to rival the West.”
He said Pakistan was producing super-strength maraging (low carbon) steel
which is primarily used for making centrifuges with which Pakistan enriched
uranium to weapons grade. It was also making high-frequency inverters which
regulate power to the centrifuges.
“They used to come from the UK and now we are selling them ourselves,” he
said. “Maraging steel too – once we struggled but now, finally, we are
manufacturing it at the People’s Steel Mill and exporting it. It is better
than you can get outside.”
For many years the US and Europe have barred the export of both items to
Pakistan.
Musharraf has consistently hidden bad news from his American backers. Two
particularly worrying incidents were recently disclosed by sources close to
those involved.
In 2001, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence
agency, had proof that Osama Bin Laden had received in person two retired
Pakistani nuclear scientists at his secret HQ in Afghanistan. Both had
become Islamist radicals in retirement.
According to the son of one of them, Bin Laden told them he had succeeded in
acquiring highly enriched uranium from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
and he wanted their help to turn it into a bomb. Amazed, they explained that
while they could help with the science of fissile materials, they were not
weapons designers.
Soon afterwards, a secret army audit discovered evidence that 40 canisters of
highly enriched uranium (HEU), the feedstuff for a nuclear bomb, were
missing from the Kahuta enrichment labs outside Islamabad after A Q Khan
retired.
Dr Muhammad Shafiq ur-Rehman, an insider who is the son of one of Khan’s
former key aides, revealed: “They could only account for 80 out of a
supposed 120 canisters.”
The ISI reasoned that some of the drums had probably gone to North Korea, and
some to Iran and probably Libya, according to a former ISI officer.
Enough highly enriched uranium remained at large to fuel 1,000 dirty bombs or
a sizable nuclear device. All it would take for a doomsday scenario is 100lb
of HEU – a mass the size of a sugar bag as the material is heavier than lead
– to get into the hands of terrorists with the right expertise.
Split into two loads to prevent accidental fission, it could be machined into
semi-spheres, loaded into a cannon-style device, and driven in the back of a
van to a western target.
Behind this desperately worrying state of affairs lies a grand deception. For
three decades, consecutive US administrations, Republican and Democrat, as
well as governments in Britain and other European countries, allowed
Pakistan to acquire highly restricted nuclear technology. Key US agencies
were then misdirected and countermanded in order to disguise how Pakistan
had sold it on.
Intelligence gathering in the US was blunted while the departments of state
and defence were corralled into backing the White House agenda and forced to
side-step Congress and break federal laws. Officials who tried to stop the
charade were purged.
The deceit began under President Jimmy Carter; but it burgeoned under Ronald
Reagan, who used Pakistan as a springboard for American aid to the
antiSoviet jihad in Afghanistan.
US officials converged on Islamabad carrying cash and the message that America
would ignore the growing nuclear programme – while Reagan publicly insisted
that nonproliferation remained a primary policy.
A flavour of the duplicity comes from Robert Gallucci, who was director of the
bureau of near eastern and south Asian
affairs at the State Department in 1982 at a time when the Reagan
administration was desperately struggling to suppress evidence that Khan was
designing a bomb.
After British intelligence caught the Khan network shopping in the UK for
reflective shields made from beryllium, which could boost the power of a
nuclear device, Reagan sent General Vernon Walters, a former CIA deputy
director, to see President Zia in Islamabad.
Gallucci, who accompanied him, remembers: “Our evidence was incontrovertible.
‘This is what your experts have been up to’, we said, as politely as we
could, giving Zia a get-out.
“However, the president rejected our briefing, saying our information had come
from the Indians.”
Gallucci was not privy to a secret agenda. Walters confided to a senior State
Department colleague on his return that, far from demanding a rollback in
nuclear trading, he had been asked to warn the Pakistanis to do it more
discreetly.
“He came in looking miserable,” the colleague recalled. “He said, ‘I was told
[by the White House] to tell Zia to get that nuclear problem off our radar’.
“I was shocked. It was the antithesis of what we were supposed to be doing.
Instead of giving it to them with both barrels, Walters had told the
Pakistanis they had better hide their bomb programme, lest it humiliate
Reagan.”
But Zia did not heed the warning and, as the months passed, the intelligence
mounted. It was augmented by a US data-collect-ing operation made possible
by a high-tech surveillance device secreted in the arid area surrounding the
heavily guarded Kahuta hills outside Islamabad, where the nuclear
installation had been built.
The device, a resin “boulder”, was capable of transmitting intelligence
through an array of recording and air-sampling technology hidden inside.
A freak accident exposed the operation. Somebody fell on the “rock”, exposing
the whirring and blinking components.
While knowing what was going on, Washington pursued a deception that bloomed
into a complex conspiracy. Evidence was destroyed, criminal files were
diverted, and Congress was repeatedly lied to.
The obfuscation concealed from the world Pakistan’s “cold-testing” of a
nuclear bomb in laboratory conditions in 1983 and the intelligence that it
had “hot-tested” – exploded – one in 1984 with the help of China.
By the time Reagan’s presidency came to an end in 1989, Pakistan possessed a
deployable and tested nuclear device. Much of the programme had been funded
using hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid diverted by the Pakistan
military.
The bomb could be mated to a missile or dropped from Ameri-can-supplied F-16
fighter jets, also given by Reagan in the mid1980s, and the nuclear weapons
programme had become a shop window for the world’s most unstable powers.
The US deceit lapsed in the 1990s when President George Bush Sr cut Pakistan
adrift after the fall of the Soviet Union; but this increased Islamabad’s
need to develop and sell nuclear technology in place of aid.
Under Bill Clinton an ever more detailed picture was pieced together of
Pakistan’s dangerous liaisons: Iran in 1987, Iraq in 1990, North Korea in
1993, and by 1997 Libya, too. In 1998 both India and Pakistan held publicly
announced nuclear tests.
By the time George W Bush became president in 2001, there was a mountain of
precise intelligence portraying Pakistan as the epicentre of global
instability: a host of and patron for Islamist terrorism, ruled by a
military clique that was raising capital and political influence by selling
WMD.
Yet even when American spy satellites photographed missile components being
loaded into a Pakistani C-130 outside Pyong-yang, the North Korean capital –
and intelligence analysts concluded that the cargo was a direct exchange for
Pakistani nuclear technology – Washington did not react.
It was in this dangerous condition that Pakistan was clutched back into the
American bosom after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11,
2001. And the deception continued.
© Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark 2007
Extracted from Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in
Nuclear Weapons, to be published by Atlantic Books on September 13 at £25.
Copies can be ordered for £22.50 including postage from The Sunday Times
BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585
Haha these comments are great!
Al Qaeda was created to defeat the Soviets??? Really?!! Ha. Check you r dates, and read something other than the Sun.
Nuclear Technology will come to all states? Well, if North Korea, who can barely manufacture a car can do it, why not?
Eddie, Leeds, UK
It isn't a question of having the right to acquire the technology but of openly proliferating. Pakistan doesn't offer the technology as part of its brotherly actions or its ideology. It does it because the military is greedy for more money. The money doesnt come to Pakistanis, it goes into the pockets of the Generals. Pakistanis have every right to ask: "What did you do with OUR money, General?" wihout being sent to jail or hounded out of the country. This is what makes Pakistan a problem, and not just for the West
baber, Karachi, Pakistan
I wonder if similar type of article can be put together with allegations and evidence trail to support an ongoing underground process of technology transfer (nuclear and strategic) to countries like Isreal. I bet it can.
It may be true that Pakistan have traded some N technology to DNK to secure missle technology, the notion that Pakistan's has a nuclear bazaar and its weapons are at disposal of extremist is a far fetched horror story. However, it is good to know that Pakistan has been able to self- propel its nuclear program without reliance on outside support. It is probably this element of the story that I feel disappointed authors the most. How could they do that without us?
Yes, you can frame as many stories as you can for scare mongering. The fact is that Pakistan nuclear program is as secure any other nuclear nation. It is a fact even civilian leaders like Ms Bhutto has little knowledge of it let alone extremists. Extremist have a lot on disposal from open bazaars in CIS.
AIntel, Toronto,
Another anti-Pakistan article, it cant be more simple. It is every country's birth right to acquire nuclear technology and not the very few privelaged ones.
JZ, London, UK
Here are some hard questions for the proud, courageous, bright and well-meaning Pakistinis out there - of which there are MILLIONS! How proud are you of your country and its image today? Can you disagree that support for all these feudal-type regimes comes back to haunt us all and degrade the lives of ordinary Pakistanis? Dont you still believe like Jinnah did that lack of justice and welfare for all breeds animosity and militancy? Dont you dream of a day when Pakistan will not be maligned and disrespected but held up as a fantastic survivor of evil designs and a Turkey-like model of a new face of moderate and progressive Islam? When will you hold India, your natural sibling, to your chest and work together to prosper in peace? What are you doing as a Pakistani today to contribute to the world with regard to modernization, progress, peace and prosperity? And lastly, how can all non-Pakistanis help you win this war on poverty and militancy?
Name Withheld, Chicago,
It is important to look at the way the US operates in international arena.
US and the developed world are driven by commercial and geo-political considerations.
Support to democracies is the last on the list of priorities.
The war against terrorism, can be won if politics are driven by higher values of humanism and welfare and equality of all people of the world.
Pakistan is a symptom of the underlying disease of opportunistic politics of big powers.
RK, Cambridge, UK
I'm not gonna say anything about the article itself, but the comments at the end are hillarious. The Indian commentators, as is typical of them, use any and all excuses, however flimsy they be to start screaming "woe is us, we are good, Pakistan is bad, kill them all". The Americans and the Europeans in general, start screaming hysterically about "profileration" and "viper's den" of terrorism, also typically. Let me get this straight, its ok for the US to supply nuclear weapons and technology to Israel, but not ok for Pakistan to sell the same to someone else? Its ok for the west to prop up Indian nuclear programmes, while its horrendous of Pakistan to sell technology? You're all two-faced shameless hypocrites. As far as terrorism goes, get over it. Al-Qaeda was created by the west, and now its bitten them in the a$#. If you put your hand into the fire that you started yourself, and get burned, don't start crying and blame me for it.
Pinto, Lahore, Pakistan
One can very well understand the Propaganda of US to target these countries for strengthing its hold in Asia and Middle-East.. Western politicians don't want growth of powers in these regions.
Sarfraz, Lahore, Pakistan
It is all to blackmail and demoralize Pakistani people. Pakistan is very cautious country and knows how to safe guard its arsenals. Why USA is not worried about Atomic Bomb of India and Israel. There are terrorist and extremist in India and Israel. If neuclear arsenal falls in their hand what will happen? Does the writer knows it. Pakistani nation is very very brave and cautious and knows to use what at what time. India dare not attack Pakistan despite of its ultimate desire to finish Pakistan only because of Pakisstani nationals. USA must not take it like Afghanistan or Iraq. We know how to live and are not scared of death.
Iftekhar Alavi, Lahore, Pakistan
Its very important that US and India start working together. Both sides should be more open. India should out down the communists who thinks anything US is wrong whereas US should do more to win the trust of India. Europe never had the guts to be hard and I won't wonder if Europe becomes pro Muslim soon, they way they are getting influenced by the fundamentalist islamic people by supporting and getting supported by them.
A close unity betwen US and India can change the game and I guess Europe will follow the same route later.
Surajit, Stockholm,
Pakistan will be problematic for decades at best. Why we support them is very vexing to this American. If anything Pakistan is the brood nest to most the vipers who plague our Western societies. Brazen, unapologetic and with a sense of grand entitlement Pakistanis plunder our open societies. But there is some good news in the neighborhood today! America and India are making real progress in mutual businesses, defense projects, manufacturing industries and strengthening their diplomatic ties. The sooner we stop ungrateful Pakistan from feeding at our expense the better. know, I know, they may cause us Western Nations extra trouble but let's face that trouble NOW rather than later.
Rubin, Pacifica, Ca. USA
In other words, the US has effectively colluded in the supply to Iran of nuclear materials, whilst menacing Iran with all sorts of hell if it does not desist from its nuclear strategy. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Allister Steele, Bristol, UK
It is just outright nightmare, this Pakistan is! And, its creator, the "Raj" and American are so ignorant of Pakistan's real intention that it goes beyond believe! How on earth UK and US spy agencies, political pundits and general population allowed Pakistan to spread the nuclear terror? Is it the ignorance of Western power or the will of mighty Allah? Only time will tell. But here is a moment to pause and reflect on Lord Krishna's declaration on Karma. "cause and effect", and here, the cause is America's continous effort to undermine democratic India, and the effect is the creation of Pakistan's nulcear arsenal. God knows what may happen to our earth, but one thing is sure, the West and Allah are now engaged in a war of mutual destruction. If someone can rescue these two from their destruction is the power of non-violence, the power of Gandhi, and the power of Lord Krishna.
Bikram, Toronto, Canada
The whole problem is that on all major issues Muslims are on one side and the others - the Christian , Jewish and Hindu axis on the other .You call the Muslim struggles for freedom in kashmir, Chechneya and Palestine as terrorism and suppress them with brute force. in Kashmir , India has killed well over 80000, While in the case of East Timor, being Christian it was soon given independence and rightfully so, yet it's struggle was not characterised as terrorism. Likewise if there was a Hindu majority province in Pakistan which was occupied by a million man army practicing the most heinous of human rights abuses , what would India do ? Likewise Muslim countries right to self defence - in case of Pakistan acquiring nuclear arms in reply to India is so objectionable and considered a threat by non of it's neighbouring countries except those of the axis, only because it is a muslim country , On the other hand there is no threat to the world from the Indian or Israeli or the Western bombs?
Adam Patel, Toronto, Canada
For Indians, none of this is news. American weapons and money, poured into Pakistan, since 1950, have killed our people in thousands, caused us enormous trouble sticking to our border with Pakistan. Why should anyone be ever surprised, much less upset, that India acquired nuclear weapons? Not just the West, China has also helped Pakistan acquire WMD. We envy Pakistan's long run of luck in her external relations, sorrow over the West's naievety but strangely feel vindicated by the present agonies of the West - the same West which feigned deafness since 1950 to our leaders' pleas over our troublesome but wily cousins. Pakistan has carved itself a special place in the history of international relations - for "two-facedness". Failed state may be but what an achievement, sustained for so long.
The article above has not mentioned how Pak- ISI's friends, the Taliban, are the leading suppliers of recreational drugs to the West !! Suck'em dollars by hook or by crook !!! Some ally!!
Kris iyer, Wellington, Newzealand.
I hope the Americans (hood-winked again) learn this time.....or are they so deep in their collusion that their intelectual inept-ness cannot see reality anymore.....
For a nation so proud of its democratic traditions and ethics.......the mid boggles.
Do they really need more 9/11's to wake up?
Alf, London, UK
The West and US are hell bent on destruction of India. And instead of them getting their hands dirty, they employ the impressionable Pakistanis to carry out the deed.
India has no friends in the West precisely because it is secular, democratic and free – just the qualities that the West and US does not want others to have. Europeans and Americans would like nothing better then to watch the holocaust unfold in a war between Pakistan and India.
Then they can sit back and tut tut at the “primitive†Indians.
Dev Anand, Mumbai, India
This is one of the most frightening scenarios today - Being of Pakistani origin, it is shocking to ready this - May God help us all!!
Nadira Kurtha, London, United KIngdom
An utterly hysterical excerpt, which is very obviously designed to sell a book. There is nothing new in these allegations they are years old and many have proven wrong. This is a politically motivated piece, I mean if Pakistan getting the bomb is so dangerous, how is Israel getting the bomb for the pursuit of peace? What hypocritical nonsense. Anyone who knows anything about the way Pakistan guards its nuclear weapons knows they are very safe, even their enemies the Indians think they are secure.
akram, London,
Pakistan will continue building its strategic arsenal. This story is part of a trail of hypocrisy where every nuclear state 'proliferated' at some point, but Pakistan is singled out. You have no hope of converting even the 'moderates' in Pakistan to your cause while this hypocrisy continues. Just to our east is India. They 'proliferated' to Saddam's Iraq in the 1980s and to Mullahs' Iran in the 1990s. Documents are lying with IAEA in Geneva. Any takers?
Ahmed Quraishi, Islamabad, Pakistan
To think we have been worried about a bomb on a bus, when we have all this going on around the world & with our own governments , makes you wonder why we worry about the small time terrorists. It looks as though there are no such things as goodies anymore, at least in the cold war we knew who are enemies were. It will get to the stage where the mighty airpower of the US cannot be used , for fear of dropping conventional bombs on nuclear sites would be too dangerous. It has to be remembered that unlike us, these Jihadi's are programmed to die at Allah's will, It's a mess , all of it.
Maggie Millington, Brittany , France
Pakistan needs to be purged of Islamists, by force, without compromises. Sadly, nuclear technology is hard to contain. But Islamists are easy to kill in comparison, and they are the real danger. We need a government in Pakistan that cracks down harder on them. Perhaps Benazir Bhutto can serve as an ameliorative frontend for a harder government effort. To see this through, she needs to be tougher than Margaret Thatcher, not weak like last time.
Andy Ross, Altrip, Germany
I read with interest the comments to the article and sympathise as such. However, does that sympathy come with being a born and bred englishman who tolerates other peoples points of views and thus am very glad that in UK we no longer have 'tribal warfare' (so 200 hundred years ago) and freedom of speech? For the record, I have worked in many muslim countries and respect the culture.
Getreal, london, england
Did the US and allies not turn a blind eye to Nazi Scientists and Scientists guilty of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity? Did the US-West not turn a blind eye to HR abuses by regimes' it supported? Indeed, it murdered a democratically elected PM of Iran to install the Shah. How did USSR and China get their Nuclear weapons? So it goes on. That's the way of the world I am afraid.
Shoukat, London, UK
What's new in this article? if USA has a right to defend it's self with nuclear weapons so has every other country.
Al qaeda is USA's problem not Pakistan's. it was created in the first place to defeat Soviets and seek revenge for defeat in Veitnam. Unfortunately it has back fired for USA, and now it needs Pakistan once again to control the area as USA is reluctant to indulge in a full scale occupation of afghanistan and pakistan. i would love to see USA try that !
aéjaz, salford,
Blah Blah Blah,
one word
BASELESS
SOHAIL M RIZKI
p.s Pakistan is strong nuclear country can do whatever it want.
There is no such thing as control of nuclear technology after US and Autralia's support to India with nuclear technology.
Sohail M Rizki, Houston, United States of America
An interesting article that conveniently focuses on Western interests only; this menace has been going on for decades and all evidence and facts have been presented by India at the highest levels for so many years.
Presence of foreign and Al- Qaeda/Pakistani outfits 'banned' by the US/UN is well known in Kashmir since 1995.
However, the West has chosen to ignore them as it did not hurt their interests; after all, a compliant dictator is always preferred over a free democracy and we are seeing history repeat itself yet again!
Jaydeep, UK,
In my opinion, this may prove to be one of the most important articles ever published in the Sunday Times. It lays down the mechanisms underlying the almost inevitable Doomsday of nuclear explosions in the West, India and Israel that we are heading towards. Despite their personal differences, such a 'success' would create the basis for the worldwide Caliphate that both Musharraf and Bin Laden and their friends and well-wishers (including 1million radicalised Islamic UK citizens) would always be dreaming of.
Instead of Iraq, the US and EU should have concentrated on sanitising Pakistan in the first instance, and cutting off any funding from the Middle East that could be helping their common cause. They may not have succeeded by 2007 but, with concentrated effort on the dismantling of Pakistan's nuclear capability and secularising Pakistan (and Indian and Pakistani Kashmir - a hotbed of Islamic radicalism), they may have been able to reduce the threat. It may now be a little too late.
Mark, Brighton, United Kingdom
ultimately nuclear technology will come to all nations in the world. No one can stop the aquisition of knowledge amongst the people of this world.What we the peopple of this world should be striving for is peace,harmony,understanding and respect amongst nations so that this knowledge is used responsibly for the good of the people.
At the present moment there is such a wide gap in the understanding between groups of people created by politicians that people in the east particularly of muslim origin are number one enemy of the west and the same doctrine is preached in the eastern countries. This is far fom th truth. I believe there should be huge efforts to bring the people of this world together.We should all learn about each others values and culture and also learn to respect foreach other. Get rid of the hatred and mistrust and cultivate love and understanding.
Otherwise we will end up with more Afghanistans and more Iraqs. I see the United Nations taking on this vital task.
Dr Shahida Qureshi, Rochester, Kent UK
America has been totally ungrateful for Blairs support of the Iraqi misadventure. We have had nothing in return. Its about time arrogant America got told some home truths and we cooled relations with them until they grow up a bit.
thevoiceofreason, nottingham,
It reminds me the story of Frankenstein!
For decades after decades Europe and US helped Pakistan against India, lately against Russia via Afghanistan and recently only against India. Sad to see that instead of having the best intelligence agencies and their reports both US and Europe continued their help to Pakistan sponsored terrorism against India. Suddenly a new word came TERRORISM!
These same group of people have been killing innocent Indians for decades. None of these countries bother. One 11 sept and couple of bombs at London changed the whole story!
Even today most of the funding to Pakistan sponsored terrorism comes from Europe and please don't tell that the intelligence agencies of UK and its allies were not aware of this.
Lets see the fate of Frankenstein!
Surajit, Stockholm,
Political Chess is all very well, but we the citizens aren't even the pawns with an opportunity, however small to influence events, we are the ones that will bear the brunt when it literally blows up in the faces of our "political masters". So much for democracy and accountability.
Why are the politicians who practice these decietful acts never prosecuted when exposed?
Answer there are opaque forces behind the scenes that truely weild power.
John, London, UK