Posted on 06/19/2007 4:43:36 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Saudi King Says Middle East Crisis Will Affect The World
DUBAI, June 19 (Bernama) -- The Saudi king has warned of an impending "explosion" in the Middle East, saying that it will not only affect the region but will spread all over the world, the English daily Gulf News reports.
"The Middle East region suffers from the longest conflict in our contemporary history which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's occupation of Arab lands," King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said in an interview with the Spanish El Pas newspaper which was published simultaneously in Al Riyadh newspaper yesterday.
"At this point in time we are exerting efforts to solve this conflict, but we are witnessing an expansion of the crisis to include other countries like Iraq and Lebanon," he said.
"This makes the region replete with troubles that pose grave concerns for us. My fears are the fears of all reasonable men that the explosive situation will not be confined to the region but will extend to the whole world," he added.
The Saudi monarch yesterday began a five-nation trip that will take him to Spain, France, Poland, Egypt and Jordan.
King Abdullah also underlined the importance of solving the problem of Iran's nuclear programme peacefully in a way that guarantees all countries in the region to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in accordance with the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=268361
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http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/kosovo-real-flashpoint.html
August 22, 2007
Kosovo: The Real Flashpoint
Source: Stratfor
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August 22, 2007 16 34 GMT
Summary
Unidentified assailants attacked a Kosovar Serbian couple Aug. 20 — precisely the type of event that enflames Serbian nationalism and might trigger the return of Serbian forces to Kosovo. But any decision in Belgrade to send troops to Kosovo first requires a green light from Russia.
Analysis
A young Serbian couple was assaulted Aug. 20 near the Kosovar city of Gracanica, an outer suburb of the provincial capital of Pristina, Serbian television reported Aug. 21. Although the identity of the assailants is currently unknown, it is being implied in media reports that Albanians are responsible for the assault of the male and rape of the female. Such an event is precisely the sort of development that sparks nationalist passions in Serbia and could usher Serbian forces into Kosovo, but any go order from Belgrade depends on the opinion of another power entirely: Russia.
NATO forces ejected Serbia from Kosovo in 1999, severing Belgrade’s control over what Serbs view as their homeland. To make a very long and painful story more manageable, most Serbs believe they are not to blame for the Yugoslav wars and instead that they have been the victims of relentless punishment by both the West and their immediate Balkan neighbors. They see Kosovo as simply the latest in a long line of humiliations and now the de facto ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo is pushing the government to the brink.
According to the 1999 U.N. settlement that still formally rules Kosovo, Serbia is entitled to station 1,000 troops in the breakaway province to look after places of cultural significance and the Serbian population (currently about 5 percent of the province’s 2 million people). However, concerns among the NATO commanders who run security — and command 16,000 heavily armed NATO troops — in Kosovo have so far prevented those troops from being deployed.
In the past week — before the Aug. 20 assault — many Serbian politicians were clamoring for Serbian forces’ return to the territory. The most important of these politicians is Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica himself, whose political party — Democratic Party of Serbia-New Serbia — also happens to control the Interior Ministry, from which those forces would be drawn and commanded.
This does not mean an intervention is imminent, or at least not for the obvious reasons. Serbia is exhausted — morally, financially and physically — from 17 years of war, sanctions and conflict. The Serbian middle class — represented in the government by two different political parties — does not want a conflict over Kosovo; it simply wants to get on with rejoining the European community. So while Kostunica technically has the power to move forces into Kosovo, he represents the second-largest party in a three-party coalition that would not back him up on the issue. He will not move alone.
But he would move with some prodding. Serbian nationalists — Kostunica included — consider Russia to be their most powerful, if not only, foreign ally and are grateful for Moscow’s refusal to sign off on any U.N. plan that would formally split Kosovo from Serbia. As long as that political cover holds, Kosovar independence will simply not get the U.N. stamp of approval.
Russia, of course, is playing its own game. The Kremlin does not give a whit about Kosovo, but Russian strategists certainly recognize the value of an issue that can send fractures through the Western community. NATO’s 1999 Kosovo operation was controversial in the West at the time, and imposing a final status remains controversial today. Put Russia in a position of influence with the Serbs and give Moscow the institutional leverage (via its U.N. veto) to stymie progress, and the Russians have the option of triggering a crisis — or simply allowing one to boil over — whenever they like.
Like, just perhaps, now.
Russia is attempting to refashion as much of the international system as it can before the United States disentangles itself from Iraq, and to do so at as low a cost to itself as possible. A dysfunctional Serbia/Kosovo, therefore, is in Russia’s best interest because it installs a point of permanent instability in a region that is now within NATO and EU borders.
A green light from Moscow could send Serbian forces into Kosovo and spark a crisis with NATO. After all, if you were the NATO commander on the ground, would you fire at a force that is legally entitled to be there and doing little more than protecting civilians whose security NATO has been unable to guarantee? The answer would likely be “maybe” — definitive enough to keep the Serbs from acting on their own thus far. But if the Russians provided political cover for a Serbian move into Kosovo, that “maybe” would quickly become an “absolutely not.”
Best of all for Moscow, the forces would be Serbian — not Russian — so in the highly likely event that something goes drastically wrong, it would be no skin off the Russians’ nose. Russia wants the world to see the West backing down — publicly — from a confrontation with Moscow. With such a capitulation, the Kremlin feels it could then craft a whole range of security parameters to its liking. For that to happen, quiet disengagements — such as previous developments in Kosovo, with the West backing away from forcing the issue of Kosovar independence — do not suffice. The sort of crisis Russia envisions would be one in which Serbia takes all the risk, while Russia is clearly seen as the instigator.
Which means the real question is not whether the Serbs will move but whether the Russians will urge them to. And that will be a decision driven by the logic of Russia’s needs — something that has absolutely nothing to do with Serbia and/or Kosovo.
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/afghanistan-dadullahs-strategic-name.html
August 22, 2007
Afghanistan: Dadullah’s Strategic Name-Dropping
Source: Stratfor
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August 22, 2007 19 30 GMT
Summary
Osama bin Laden is alive and actively involved in operations against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, top Taliban military commander Haji Mansour Dadullah said, according to the transcript of a video released Aug. 22. The statement offers a glimpse of the Taliban’s leadership structure and probably was motivated more by a desire to confirm Dadullah’s position than to provide an update on bin Laden’s status.
Analysis
The younger brother of former top Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah said al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is alive and well, according the transcript of a 12-minute video released Aug. 22. In the video, which features an interview with top Taliban military commander for Southern Afghanistan Mullah Bakht Mohammad — aka Haji Mansour Dadullah — the younger Dadullah said bin Laden gave him his blessing to succeed his brother, who was killed during fighting with U.S. and Afghan forces in May.
Haji Mansour’s claims about bin Laden’s health are aimed at asserting his own position rather than assuring jihadists that bin Laden is still alive.
The video is dated June 15, around the time of Haji Mansour’s last video, and shows him giving a commencement address to a class of suicide bombers before supposedly dispatching them to conduct attacks against the West. The interview was in Pashto with an Arabic voice-over and English subtitles.
The Arabic voice-over suggests the video is meant for a foreign audience. Haji Mansour refers to bin Laden only briefly, dropping his name in the context of the jihadist leader endorsing him as the Taliban’s military leader in Afghanistan and directing him to “follow Mullah Dadullah and continue the same activities so that the mujahideen may not weaken.”
If the video was in fact made in June, the interview would have taken place about a month after Haji Mansour’s brother was killed in Helmand province, making it similar to a communique regarding his assumption of military command. Like his older brother, Haji Mansour was born in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, which — along with Helmand — is where most of the fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces occurs.
Claiming close association with bin Laden was a trademark of Mullah Dadullah’s videos. The elder brother was featured in a video released on Al Jazeera a few weeks before his death, in which he claimed bin Laden himself planned and directed the suicide bombing at Bagram Air Base during a surprise visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in February. The younger Dadullah thus seems to be following in his brother’s footsteps
The video provides interesting insights into the Taliban’s overall leadership structure. If the younger Dadullah has the blessing of Arab-dominated al Qaeda, then he probably heads the Taliban faction closer to the Arab jihadists. Meanwhile, Maulvi Jalal-ud-Deen Haqqani heads the faction with a greater affinity with the Pakistanis.
Haji Mansour’s name-dropping indicates he is trying to rally supporters and confirm his status as the Taliban’s commander in an important combat theater. This suggests his hold on power is not completely solidified.
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
Posted by Naxal Watch at 12:49 PM
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/negotiation-in-new-strategic.html
August 22, 2007
Negotiation in the New Strategic Environment: Lessons from Iraq
Authored by Mr. David M Tressler.
In stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations like the U.S. mission in Iraq, negotiation is a common activity. The success or failure of the thousands of negotiations taking place daily between U.S. military officers and local civilian and military leaders in Iraq affects tactical and operational results and the U.S. military’s ability to achieve American strategic objectives. By training its leaders, especially junior ones, to negotiate effectively, the U.S. military will be better prepared to succeed in the increasingly complex operations it is conducting—in Iraq as well as the ones it will face in the new strategic environment of the 21st century. This monograph analyzes the U.S. Army’s current predeployment negotiation training and compares it with the negotiating experience of U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers deployed to Iraq. The author argues that successfully adapting to the nature of the contemporary operating environment requires changes that include increased training in negotiation. Based on interviews with U.S. officers, the author identifies three key elements of negotiation in SSTR operations and offers recommendations for U.S. soldiers to consider when negotiating with local Iraqi leaders; for U.S. military trainers to consider when reviewing their predeployment negotiation training curriculum; and for the Army and Marine Corps training and doctrine commands to consider when planning and structuring predeployment training.
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http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/pakistan-under-siege.html
August 22, 2007
Pakistan Under Siege
By Zia Mian
22 August, 2007
Fpif.org
Pakistan is 60 years old. For over 40 years of its life, it has been ruled directly or indirectly by its army. Each cycle of military rule has left the country in desperate crisis.
The rule of General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in 1999, has been no different. Beset on all sides, he now seeks, with American help, to ride out the storm and stay in power.
Down this path lies even greater disaster.
Origins of Failure
Pakistan’s leaders have failed it from the beginning. At independence, its founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, adopted the British colonial title and powers of governor-general. He died within a year, leaving no clear vision of the country’s identity or future, no broad-based, cohesive, national political party or movement to guide it, no tradition of democracy. Pakistan fell into the hands of a civil service and army that knew only colonial habits.
There were four governor-generals and seven prime ministers in the first 10 years, rising and falling through palace intrigues, but all powerless in the end. Pakistan could not even create a constitution. Then, in 1958, came the first military coup. General Ayub Khan told the country the army had no choice. There was, he said, “total administrative, economic, political and moral chaos” brought about “by self-seekers, who in the garb of political leaders, have ravaged the country.”
General Ayub Khan ruled for a decade. His two goals were strengthening the army and modernizing of the society and economy. The General negotiated a close military alliance with the United States, which was looking for Cold War clients around the world. American dollars, weapons, advisors, and ideas poured into Pakistan. The result was the 1965 war with India, wrenching social change, and grievous inequality. By the end of his rule, it was said that 22 families controlled two-thirds of Pakistani industry and an even larger share of its banking and insurance sector.
Eventually, the people rose in revolt. The demands for representation were greatest in East Pakistan, home to the majority of Pakistan’s people. Elections were held and a nationalist party from the East emerged victorious, but the army and its political allies were mostly from West Pakistan and would have none of it. The army went to war against its own people. There were appalling massacres. In 1971, with help from India, East Pakistan broke free and became Bangladesh.
Lost Generation
The army relinquished power in the West. But the new civilian leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, lacked a democratic temperament, and treated opposition as threat. He nationalized large sectors of the economy, further strengthening already unaccountable bureaucrats, doled out government jobs to his followers, established Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, and refined the practice of buying public support by appeasing the mullahs.
In 1977, the army took back control, and executed Bhutto. The new ruler, General Zia ul Haq, sought to Islamize Pakistan. He introduced religious laws, courts, and taxes, supported radical Islamist madrassas (seminaries) and political parties, and altered school textbooks to promote a conservative Islamic nationalism. Work on the bomb proceeded apace.
The United States turned a blind eye to both the dictatorship and the bomb. It poured billions of dollars into Pakistan to buy support for a war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The Pakistan army trained and armed Islamic militants from around the world, with American money, and sent them across the border to fight godless communism. The jihad was born.
General Zia died in a mysterious plane crash in 1988, and the Soviet Union admitted defeat and left Afghanistan. Elections were held, only to have the army become the power behind the throne. America re-discovered that Pakistan was building the bomb, and imposed sanctions. It was too late.
The new crop of leaders, including Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir, descended into corruption and intrigue, each seeking the army’s help to take office. There were nine prime ministers in 10 years. Some actively courted the mullahs, none tried to undo the Islamic order created by General Zia. A generation was abandoned to intolerance, violence, and radical Islam.
The army demanded the lion’s share of national resources. The politicians paid up, even though the economy crumbled and one-third of Pakistanis fell below the poverty line. The army continued to dominate foreign policy. It helped create, train, arm, and lead the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. The goal was to create a client regime and secure Pakistan’s western borders. The people of Afghanistan paid a terrible price.
A similar strategy was tried in Kashmir. Pakistan organized and armed Islamist fighters and sent them to battle. Kashmiris, who have struggled for decades for the right to decide their own future free from Indian rule, found themselves trapped between the violence unleashed by Indian armed forces and Pakistan-backed militants.
Amid the chaos, in 1998, India and then Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and a year later went to war. Both sides hurled nuclear threats. Pakistan’s elected politicians went along, claiming credit at every opportunity.
The Musharraf Era
There were few protests when the army, led by General Pervez Musharraf, seized power in 1999. “The armed forces have no intention to stay in charge longer than is absolutely necessary to pave the way for true democracy to flourish,” he promised. Instead, he rigged elections and made a deal with Islamist political parties willing to support him as president.
After the September 11 attacks, the United States dropped its opposition to General Musharraf. It needed Pakistan’s support for another American war. Money poured in (over $10 billion so far), and demands for a return to democracy disappeared.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, many Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fled across the border to Pakistan’s tribal areas where they have reconstituted themselves. Under U.S. pressure, the Pakistan army has tried to go into the tribal border areas to show they are tackling the Taliban and al-Qaeda there. They have met resistance. Also, there are many in the army who do not want to fight what they see as an American war. The army has resorted to missile attacks from aircraft, helicopter gun ships, and artillery. As civilian casualties have grown, local people have turned against the army, and some have joined the militants.
The al-Qaeda and Taliban influence has started to spread from the remote border areas to larger towns and even major cities in the two border provinces. These militants have made common cause with local Islamist groups, who find recruits in Pakistan’s countless madrassas and its many Islamic political parties. Militants have attacked soldiers, policemen, local officials, ordinary people, and national leaders, including Musharraf. Suicide bombings have claimed hundreds of lives across the country.
Islamist fighters have taken over whole villages. Emulating the Taliban, they repress women, close girls’ schools, attack DVD and music shops, destroy TVs, and demand men grow beards and go to the mosque. The movement has spread even to the capital. For six months, Islamist students and fighters occupied a mosque in Islamabad and set up their own court. The government sat by until forced to act by national and international pressure. The bloody storming of the mosque served only to fuel the militancy and enrage public opinion.
Sectarian violence has accompanied the rise of the militant Islamists. Armed Sunni groups, some linked to major political parties, have attacked Shias and religious minorities with abandon. Hundreds have died. Even though the groups are banned, they operate with impunity, their leaders appearing in public.
The Islamists are not the only armed resistance to the state. There is an insurgency in Pakistan’s largest province, Baluchistan, fuelled by demands for greater autonomy and control over their natural resources. It is a longstanding grievance. The Pakistani army crushed the latest in a series of four insurgencies. Baluch groups have obstructed and attacked gas facilities, gas and oil pipelines, electricity transmission towers, and train tracks. They have also targeted foreign companies seeking to explore new gas fields in the province and working on other development projects there. They have also called protests and strikes.
The Democratic Challenge
The army’s effort to confront Islamists and Baluch insurgents has created its own crisis. Over the past few years, the government has taken into custody hundreds of people and, after they “disappeared,” denied ever having arrested them. Their families found an ally in the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. He has demanded that the government produce the missing people in court. General Musharraf responded by firing the chief justice. Musharraf’s greater fear is that an activist court would block his effort to continue in power as president.
There was a national movement for the reinstatement of the chief justice. Judges resigned, lawyers went on strike, and police attacked demonstrations by lawyers outside the Supreme Court. Across the country, large crowds gathered to hear and support the chief justice. The Supreme Court declared that the chief justice must be reinstated. Musharraf had to concede defeat.
The Court is now hearing the cases of the missing people. The government has produced some and dragged its feet on others. The chief justice has threatened to jail a senior law enforcement official and summon the chiefs of Pakistan’s armed forces if the government will not produce the people in court. As elections loom, and Musharraf seeks to retain power, the Court has already begun to hear appeals on voter registration.
Some hope that restoring a semblance of democracy could turn the tide against the Islamists and reduce the nuclear danger. Musharraf, with U.S. help, is trying to cobble together a deal to stay in power. He is considering dumping his Islamist allies in exchange for support from Benazir Bhutto, who would be cleared of the corruption charges that she fled and allowed to return from exile. It will not be enough.
In the Musharraf years, the army has consolidated its power in new ways. Generals rule provinces, run government ministries, administer universities, and manage national companies. The army’s business interests now span banking and insurance, cement and fertilizer, electricity and sugar, corn and corn flakes. They will not give this up without a fight.
For the army, the outside world appears threatening too. As India’s economy grows and it increases military spending in leaps and bounds, Pakistan’s army looks for ways to keep up. With the United States cultivating a new strategic relationship with India, the army fears losing its oldest ally. It worries how it will sustain its nuclear, missile and conventional weapons arms race with India. The army must extract yet more from Pakistan’s economy. A civilian government rule will not be allowed to challenge these priorities.
Military rule and puppet politicians have brought Pakistan to its present dreadful state. Rather than keeping Musharraf in power, the world must demand that Pakistan’s army yield control over government and economy once and for all. Only a freely elected and representative government that can actually make decisions can pursue economic development as if people mattered, confront the Islamists, and make peace with India.
Zia Mian is a physicist with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org). An earlier version of this piece appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Copyright © 2007, Institute for Policy Studies.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/chinese-abroad-to-be-better-protected.html
August 22, 2007
Chinese abroad to be better protected
By Li Xiaolun (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-22 07:07
The Foreign Ministry will soon expand its consular services to better protect the interests of Chinese living or traveling abroad, a senior official said in Beijing on Tuesday.
“There are 34 million Chinese going abroad every year, and the figure is increasing at a double-digit rate,” said Wei Wei, director of the department of consular affairs of the Foreign Ministry.
“The number of cases in which Chinese citizens get in trouble abroad has exceeded 30,000 a year,” he noted.
According to the Foreign Ministry, the number of overseas Chinese workers is about 675,000, and the figure for Chinese companies abroad is more than 10,000.
Given the large number, there have been some tragic or unpleasant incidents.
Last month, two Chinese employees were arrested in Iran for mistakenly “taking pictures of sensitive facilities” because of lack of familiarity with the local situation.
On July 8, three Chinese nationals were killed in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar.
Eleven days later, a suicide bomber attacked a group of Chinese engineers in Baluchistan, southwest Pakistan.
The new consular protection center is upgraded from the 10-plus staff of the division of consular protection under Wei’s department.
The center, which now has a staff of 20, will be enlarged gradually, said Ma Cuihong, deputy head of the center.
Also yesterday, the department issued a revised version of a brochure on consular protection and assistance.
“It comprises five parts, including special warnings, the services that consular officials can and cannot offer, as well as answers to frequently asked questions,” said Wei, who handed the guidebooks to passengers and answered their questions at Beijing Capital International Airport.
Compared with the two previous versions issued in 2000 and 2003, the 2007 brochure is more practical and detailed, with additional contact information of relevant governmental institutions, especially Chinese embassies and consulates, said Wei.
The first batch of 50,000 copies will be mainly distributed at Beijing airport, and also at Shanghai and Guangzhou airports.
“We will ask our embassies and consulates to distribute the brochures abroad. Visitors can also download the content at www.fmprc.gov.cn,” added Wei.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/iranshahr-kidnappers-not-related-to.html
August 22, 2007
Iranshahr kidnappers not related to the Rigi ring: intelligence minister
TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (MNA) — The armed gang that kidnapped some Iranian nationals in southeastern country and took them to Pakistan is not linked to Abdulmalak Rigi’s terror cell, Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejeii said here on Tuesday. On Sunday, some armed bandits closed a road between Iranshahr and Chabahar, set several cars and two trucks on fire, and took 21 civilians as hostage to Pakistan.
The hostages were freed and the bandits were arrested by Pakistani security forces on Monday in Baluchistan province, southwest of Pakistan.
Abdulmalak Rigi (also known as Emir Abdul Malik Baluch) leads Jondollah which is a militant organization that is based in Pakistan’s Baluchistan and affiliated with Al-Qaeda. It has been identified as a terrorist organization by Iran and Pakistan.
In some cases it is possible that bandit groups cooperate with Rigi’s organization but they are not organizationally linked, Ejeii told reporters.
Released hostages handed over to Iranian officials in Quetta Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchestan prov, Aug 22, IRNA
Iran-Pakistan-Hostages-Handover
The 21 Iranian hostages released on Monday during a military operation in Pakistan were handed over to Iran’s Consulate in Quetta city Wednesday morning.
Governor of Sistan-Baluchestan, Habibollah Dahmardeh, told IRNA that the released hostages were handed over to Iranian officials by Pakistani police and will later be transferred to Zahedan on a private flight.
“All members of the group are in good health and will return to their family soon,” Dahmardeh said.
The group were taken hostage by armed bandits on a road near the city of Chabahar in this southeastern province on Aug 19.
The kidnappers then took the hostages across the border into Pakistan.
They were released the day after during a military operation by Pakistani security forces in cooperation with their Iranian counterparts in Baluchistan province of Pakistan.
A number of the bandits were killed during the operation and some others were arrested.
The arrested bandits will be later expatriated to Iran based on an agreement between Tehran and Islamabad.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/repressive-regimes-are-prepared-for.html
August 22, 2007
Repressive regimes are prepared for cyberwar
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?WT.mc_id=070822daily&storyID=8300
Last week, a Chinese court sent Chen Shuqing, a dissident internet writer, to jail for four years on charges of subversion. Meanwhile, in the northern Russian city of Syktyvar, 21-year-old blogger Savva Terentyev is looking at two years in prison for making a derogatory comment about the police in an online diary.
Two disparate cases, thousands of miles apart, that send a very clear message about how ruthlessly China and Russia are patrolling their internet borders. This vigilance could serve as useful preparation for cyber war, an increasingly important battlefield where the West risks being overwhelmed.
The internet is a conduit of free speech but also a weapons delivery system. Authoritarian regimes have had to develop defences against the internet to stem the flow of independent thought.
And having learnt how to defend themselves, these states are well- versed in techniques that can be deployed against other nations.
In China any politically sensitive material is blocked by a complex firewall called jindun gongcheng, the Golden Shield. It prevents Chinese citizens in internet cafes from logging onto anything potentially subversive, like a blog supporting independence in Tibet or Taiwan. Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia use similar shields. China’s shield is so sophisticated at blocking inbound traffic it could one day be used to block incoming cyber-attacks.
Meanwhile Russia has also been flexing its muscles in cyberspace, as shown by the attacks on Estonia in May. The virtual barrage that was launched against the Baltic republic showed the world that Vladimir Putin’s regime had the ability to take out a country’s electronic infrastructure, leaving their economy vulnerable to attack. It’s alleged that Russia also targeted opposition and state websites in Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Murad Gassanly, an Azeri human rights activist said: “During the cyber attacks against Estonia, all opposition-linked Azeri websites went down at the same time. My colleagues in Georgia and Belarus noted their websites were down as well. It was integrated and looked like there was a central plan to it.”
Any operation such as this would need to be coordinated, and the suggestion is that Russia’s domestic security service, the FSB, was behind the planning of these attacks.
Cyber security expert, Gadi Evron, who advised Estonia during the attacks, hasn’t ruled out this theory. Following this first wave of attacks on Estonia, more sophisticated cyber weapons were used, with ‘botnets’ sending traffic to Estonian addresses at 100-1,000 times their normal rate. This pattern reflects what happened in the other former Soviet states.
“Our organisation received 600,000 hits within eight hours that day,” Gassanly said. “We normally have 20,000 hits a month. It was sufficient to get our website blocked by our provider. The same thing happened in Georgia and Belarus.”
It is easy to conceal the source of the attacks and blame them on hackers. “It’s the internet, and the internet is chaos,” Evron explains. “Attacks happen all the time.”
But while large-scale intimidation and attacks are easier to co-ordinate, the might of the totalitarian state finds it more difficult to target individual bloggers in cyberspace. In these cases, as the jailing of Chen Shuqing and Savva Terentyev’s impending trial demonstrates, the state cracks down in a more traditional fashion.
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 22, 2007
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-us-army-ordering-robot-spy-blimp.html
August 23, 2007
Is US Army ordering robot spy blimp?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/23/droid_airship_peeper_purchase/
Inflatable airborne Peeping Tom flotillas forecast
By Lewis Page ; More by this authorPublished Thursday 23rd August 2007 13:12 GMTFree whitepaper - The Impact of Virtualization Software on Operating Environments The US Army seems to be moving to acquire a robotic spy blimp, able to float high in the sky for lengthy periods and monitor activities on the ground below.
According to a routine Pentagon summary dated yesterday, Telford Aviation of Dothan, Alabama was awarded an $11,195,164 contract for “operational support for Medium Airborne Reconnaissance Surveillance Systems.” The contract was awarded by the US Army’s Communications-Electronics Command.
Unmanned Spy Blimp. Credit: Telford Aviation.
Telford Aviation is a company which provides leased aircraft, maintenance and parts to the civilian market. It’s central operations are based in Maine: but it also has a “Government Programs” arm based in Dothan, Alabama.
The Telford Government Programs office webpage has a section titled “Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS),” under which it says:
“Today Telford Aviation provides all operational support for a 30,000 cubic foot airship and is part of a research and development team developing a 80,000 cubic foot airship designed for counter terrorism, port security and border patrol. Telford Aviation expects to build and operate this system within the near future.”
The 30,000-cubic-foot ship is presumably the unmanned Skybus 30K, whose consortium of producers is headed by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the well-connected behemoth government tech provider. The Skybus 30K is described as a “testing and demonstration platform for a series of large airships,” and was developed by SAIC and Telford at the Loring UAS Test Centre in Maine under a Navy contract. It was given an experimental FAA airworthiness certificate last month.
SAIC says that the Skybus “can loiter for 30 to 40 hours, can travel up to 35 knots, and has faint visual, radar, infrared, and acoustic signatures.”
The Loring Development Activity, the business park operating on the old Loring airforce base, says that the Skybus “has the potential to support military surveillance operations.”
Putting all this together, it seems clear that the US Army’s “Medium Airborne Reconnaissance Surveillance Systems” - not a term it normally uses - will be robot spy airships intended for ground surveillance. The US Army already operates tethered aerostat balloons for this purpose, and has previously trialled manned blimps. But now it appears to be moving forward with self-propelled robot aircraft.
One might hope that the Army’s interest is in spying on Iraqi insurgents and Taliban gunmen, using cheap-to-run airships which can lurk in the sky for days on end above the range of handheld anti-aircraft missiles. The manned airship in the 2004 trials was said to be able to comfortably exceed 10,000 feet if required, which would keep it safe from shoulder-launched missiles even if they could lock on to its feeble signatures.
“The airship platform can provide a clear and detailed view of the activity on the streets below and yet stay out of the range of many weapon systems,” according to a contractor involved in that trial.
“The military could fly a controlled, quiet orbit over an area like Fallujah, day or night, and be able to locate insurgents placing explosive devices or setting up ambushes,” added another.
But other US government customers could fly a nice quiet orbit over other areas closer to home, too. SAIC thinks its baby would be good for “a variety of security and intelligence operations including border patrol, port security, survivor search, wildlife management and sports event monitoring.”
Of course, a blimp isn’t all that different from police helicopters or - if you’re very important to the Yanks - spy satellites, that we’re all quite used to being watched by. If we live in Southwest Asia, we’re also quite accustomed to a variety of robot planes too. But it costs like crazy to monitor people from above with most of those - especiually for any sustained period - and in many cases a target will know that the spy platform is there. (Even secret spy satellites are often tracked by enthusiastic amateurs.)
Robo-blimps, by contrast, should be cheap, persistent and quiet, very hard to notice at night, and thus could bring with them an explosion in aerial spying activity. Analysts have been predicting their advent for some time.
It appears that the day may be here.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/growing-pains-for-democracy-in-yemen.html
August 23, 2007
Growing pains for democracy in Yemen
The view of Yemen as a safe-haven for terrorists has overshadowed recent moves in that country’s struggle in the search for democracy.
By Martina Fuchs for ISN Security Watch (23/08/07)
The July 2007 suicide bombings in Marib that left seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis dead reinforced the image held by some of Yemen being a weak and lawless state that is unable to exercise control over its own territory. On a purely domestic level, however, it is worthwhile to analyze the recent democratization process by the government before assessing the destabilizing factors and threats of any possible al-Qaida infiltration.
Yemen has made substantial political progress since its 1990 unification and civil war four years later. The country reveals features of a nascent democracy and demonstrates government commitment to developing the instruments of a modern state. But, this commitment is only partial. The country’s politics are dominated by the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party, with President Ali Abdullah Saleh preserving a monopoly of power. This prevents the establishment of a full parliamentary democracy.
On paper, the political landscape presents a multiparty system of 40 groups. In reality, few of them have any representation in parliament. The GPC being the dominant player has led to increasingly dysfunctional Yemeni institutions and governance. There are no formal restrictions limiting the organization of opposition parties, but the government has nevertheless created a difficult environment for opposition parties to operate. Saleh loyalists dominate the business and political arena including the ruling party, the ministries, the parliament as well as the official media.
“With the absence of a factual opposition’s role, some people here call their democracy ‘another military rule with a citizen uniform,’ Mohamed Al-Azaki, a Yemeni journalist and researcher at the Saba Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Sana’a, told ISN Security Watch.
Even with those views, according to Al-Azaki, some believe that the system “is still much better than in Egypt, Algeria or Saudi Arabia.”
Presidential elections bring more of the same
In September 2006 Yemen held its second presidential and local council elections since unification. Saleh was re-elected with 77 percent of the vote. Violence, accusations of fraud from the opposition, serious press freedom violations and detention of journalists also accompanied the electoral process. Despite these observations, the EU’s Election Observation Mission categorized them as “free and fair.”
The elections also saw the first viable opposition candidate, Faisal Ben Shamlan, to challenge the president. Shamlan was supported by the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), a coalition of five opposition parties that included Islah, Yemen’s main Islamist party and best-organized opposition group.
According to Al-Azaki, even with Saleh having to face a serious candidate, his win did not prompt him to follow through with pre-election pledges. “We didn’t notice any improvements in the economic life and the development sector like the 2006 electoral platform had promised. […]
“President Saleh tried to get his 2006 electoral platform into action by forming a governmental committee to carry it out [...] Now we are in August 2007 and his platform is still stuck on the shelf.”
Signs of instability
Yemen shows symptoms of a fragile state, with democratic aspirations being undermined by tribal violence and a rampant small arms proliferation. In 2004, the northern province of Sa’ada witnessed tribal clashes caused by an uprising of members from Yemen’s large community of Zaidi Shiite Muslims.
In a September 2004 article, the daily news service NewsYemen reported that the conflict had declined after the death of Hussein Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi, a Zaidi cleric who lead the movement, but resumed in 2005, causing a large number of internally displaced people. According to Amnesty International’s Annual Report for that year, hundreds of people were killed amid armed clashes between the security forces and Al-Houthi’s followers.
According to Al-Azaki, “[There is] no democracy without safety and stability, and there is no democracy with a dead opposition and corrupt opposition leaders. The current insecurity situation can actually destroy what remains of democratic process.”
Al-Azaki explained that sectarian Shiite war, a corrupt opposition and Islamic extremists along with al-Qaida elements are destroying the oil, gas and tourism industries which can turn a fledgling democracy like Yemen into a Somali-style crisis or even a new Iraq.
Human rights and freedom of expression
Human Rights Watch has reported incidents of political activists, human rights defenders and journalists being subject to harassment and detention by police and security forces. According to a July 2007 article published in the Yemen Observer, increasingly, press freedoms are being violated in the interests of national security.
“Yemen still has no freedom of the press, which I see as utterly necessary for democracy. We are restricted from criticizing the president directly, from addressing religion, from making any argument against capital punishment, and from covering major stories,”Yemen Observer editor Jennifer Steil told ISN Security Watch.
” For example, we were unable to get into Sa’ada to cover the war there, and so really no one in Yemen has any idea what really happened up there - we only know that it was devastating.”
Steil noted that even though the Information Ministry continues to deny licenses for new newspapers, using various excuses, “[F]inally, under pressure from Parliament, it granted 25 new licenses recently. So that is some progress.”
Even with this progress, the internet in Yemen still remains censored.
Strengthening civil society
On a positive note, the number of women registered to vote has increased from half a million casting ballots in the 1993 parliamentary elections to more than three million in the 2006 elections. At the same time, civil society organizations and members of parliament have begun demanding more transparency and accountability from the government.
According to the Yemen News Agency SABA, civil society organizations have increased rapidly. The total number of associations, foundations, syndicates and political parties reached 3200 in 2001 with about 36 human rights NGOs.
“There are some good institutional and legislative changes here, but it remains to be seen how well Yemen can implement these changes,” Steil said. “I am skeptical about the country’s ability to enforce anything smoothly, given that corruption is still rampant and just getting an exit visa to get out of the country is a total nightmare. Getting anything done in Yemen takes 100 times longer than it does in the developed world,” she commented.
Analysts emphasize that the root cause of the political crisis in Yemen is the extreme concentration of executive power; a solution must therefore be preceded by the decentralization of political power. But at the same time, the government is unable to exert full control over remote tribal areas, faces difficulties in implementing the recent peace agreement in the Northern region of Sa’ada and struggles to combat the illicit spread and misuse of small arms.
For these reasons, Al-Azaki noted, the road to democracy will be long and possibly treacherous.
“There is a widely known Yemeni proverb that says ‘Ruling Yemen is like trying to dance on the head of a snake.’”
Martina Fuchs has a MA in Economic History and International Relations from the University of Geneva and wrote her thesis about the impact of small arms on sustainable development in Yemen. She is currently completing an internship at the ISN and is enrolled at the American University in Cairo for a postgraduate diploma in TV journalism.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/geopolitical-diary-russia-rewrites-post.html
August 23, 2007
Geopolitical Diary: Russia Rewrites the Post-Cold War Rule Book
Source: Stratfor
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August 23, 2007 02 00 GMT
Georgia has accused Russia of violating its airspace again. According to Georgia, its radar recently tracked a Russian aircraft penetrating Georgian airspace near Abkhazia — a pro-Russian breakaway region and an area of substantial Georgian-Russian tension. The first incursion allegedly took place Aug. 6 and involved a missile fired at a Georgian village. Whether intentional or not, the missile didn’t explode. That incursion occurred near another Georgian breakaway region, South Ossetia.
The Russians have denied both incidents, claiming the first was a Georgian provocation. Ignoring the fact that parts of the missile could be identified, Georgia has little reason to create a crisis. It is fully aware that U.S. intervention against Russia is unlikely at this point, and that anything more than rhetorical support from European countries is equally unlikely. At least for now, a crisis would leave Georgia alone. Therefore, antagonizing the Russians at this point really doesn’t make a great deal of sense.
But increasing Georgian insecurity does make sense for Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow withdrew from most of the Caucasus region, leaving behind Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan — all former Soviet republics that are now independent states. It also left behind a series of dispute fragments in a region where ethnic and religious strife is endemic. Russia lost its secure frontier with Turkey, replacing it with an unstable and frequently violent border.
The direct threat to Russia was the part of the Northern Caucasus that it continued to control, which included Chechnya. If Russia had abandoned Chechnya, it would have lost its foothold in the Caucasus and, along with it, any natural defensive position. But the Russians decided disintegration stopped there and fought to hold their position.
The Russians believed, with substantial reason, that arms were reaching the Chechen guerrillas via Georgia through the Pankisi Gorge. The minimal Russian charge was that the Georgians, closely aligned with the United States, were not doing enough to stop the flow of weapons. The maximum Russian claim was that the Georgian government was facilitating arms smuggling, supported by the United States, which wanted to see the Russian Federation disintegrate.
The Russians therefore have historically viewed Georgia, allied as it is with Washington, as a direct threat to their national security. First, there was the Chechen issue. Second — and far more important in the long run — was the entire matter of the Russian frontier in the Caucasus. The old Soviet-Turkish frontier allowed Russia to secure the Caucasus and limit insurgencies among ethnic groups. The current frontier is an invitation to insurgency and constantly threatens to draw Russia into conflicts in the region.
Russia is aligned with Armenia, which is afraid of the Turks. It has good relations with Azerbaijan, having military facilities there, as well as trade relations. Georgia is Moscow’s problem. It destabilizes Russia’s southern frontier and is seen as facilitating instability in Russia itself. Georgia’s close relationship with the United States has in the past made it immune to Russian pressure, but close relationships with the United States are not worth what they used to be, or what they might be in the future.
We have spoken before of Russia’s current window of opportunity. The two incursions into Georgia — both of which we believe were intended to be noticed — put the Georgians on notice that, in Russia’s mind, Georgian autonomy is no longer a settled matter. Russia might not be planning to occupy Georgia, but it is letting the Georgians know that it believes they have freedom of action. The moves were designed to make the Georgians extremely concerned — and it is working.
The Russians want to see an evolution in Georgia in which Tbilisi acknowledges that it is within the Russian sphere of influence and, as such, retains its independence to the extent that it is prepared to accommodate Russian interests. Those obviously include collaboration on the issue of Chechen weapons — now a bit of a dated subject. But this specifically means Georgia should shift its relationship with the United States. The Russians do not want to see Washington using Georgia as a foothold in the Caucasus.
Russia is rewriting the post-Cold War rule book. Georgia is one of the places that matter to Russia, and Russia is signaling the Georgians to reconsider their national security interests. It will be interesting to see what the Georgians do, and — assuming they maintain their current stance — what the Russians do next. Moscow did not carry out these incursions without a plan. The Russians have started small. We would be surprised if they restrained themselves in the face of a continuation of Georgian policies toward the United States and the region.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/russias-space-guru-opts-for-evolution.html
August 23, 2007
Russia’s space guru opts for evolution
17:39 | 23/ 08/ 2007
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - Russia’s Federal Space Agency will go slow on its strategy for manned flights. At any rate, this is the implication made by its chief, Anatoly Perminov, at a news conference held at the MAKS-2007 air show on August 22.
“Our main goal is to use the reliable old systems for manned flights,” he said in a preamble to the subject of new spacecraft and deep space studies. As a matter of fact, his words can be taken as a long-awaited policy statement, bringing much needed clarity to the issue of Russia’s space transport system development, and informing about future prospects for Russian and international manned flight programs.
Can the goal be considered achieved? Let us pause and consider two basic points heard despite the roar of MiG and Su fighter jets performing fantastic stunts overhead.
First, after saying that a $400-500 billion manned journey to Mars was currently an impossibility, he stressed the need for “thorough modernization of existing manned spacecraft and development of new ones on their basis.” Second, he underscored that new equipment would be developed in close contact with the European Space Agency.
So far so good. But one wonders how long we can continue to upgrade and modernize equipment that was first developed years and years ago? The Soyuz, which has been over-modernized, is doubtless a very dependable workhorse, but there are limits to everything. Perhaps there are some new ideas for modernization? I would gladly listen to them, or read about them, but alas.... And then what does it mean, “development of new craft on the basis of reliable old ones?” New in relation to what? Again the roar of a diving Su-30 drowned the answer.
That’s it. The important thing, according to Vitaly Lopota, the new president of Russia’s Space and Rocket Corporation Energia, is that we have four new projects concerning manned flight. It is a pity that he did not so much as hint at the specifics. And no MiGs were in the air at the time....
If anything, it is unlikely that these vaguely outlined plans will move beyond the research and development stage. So a new space vehicle is not an immediate prospect.
In other words, questions over manned ships following the winding up of the space shuttle program - by October 2010 at the latest - have remained unanswered. How to increase International Space Station crews with the help of old if upgraded three-seat Soyuz craft is not clear.
The Soyuz will not miraculously change to become a Kliper. It is obvious that the Kliper program has been abandoned once and for all. In Perminov’s view, the winged configuration of a space ship is no good. Even the Americans, he argued, abandoned the airframe idea for a new transport vehicle. True, shuttles existed and still exist. But the Russian guru is sure that Russia need not imitate the prohibitively costly American experience when it has the low-cost Soyuz project.
Maybe it would be a good idea to take a closer look at the Europeans? But their leisurely pace in making crucial decisions may have a bad effect and slow down the evolution of Russia’s space effort, bringing it more in line with that of the human race.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/india-us-sponsored-pax-democratica.html
August 23, 2007
India & The US-Sponsored Pax Democratica
Source: SAAG
by B. Raman
In an article titled “Democratisation And Failed States: The Challenge of Ungovernability” published in the summer 1996 issue of “Parameters”, the quarterly journal of the US Army War College, Dr. Robert H. Dorff, Visiting Professor of Foreign Policy at the US Army War College and Associate Professor of Political Science at the North Carolina State University, traced the evolution of the idea of a community of democracies to the Clinton Administration’s first National Security Strategy entitled “A National Security Strategy of Engagement And Enlargement” published in July 1994.
2.The Strategy projected the US strategic objective as “protecting, consolidating and enlarging the community of free market democracies.” Dr. Dorff wrote: “The US post-Cold War strategy of engagement and enlargement began with public pronouncements in the last year of the Bush (the father of the present President) Administration and then was formally articulated under President Clinton. Fundamentally based on the premise of the “democratic peace” (democracies do not go to war with other democracies), this strategy entails the active promotion and expansion of the community of democratic, free-market countries as a way of applying national resources toward the pursuit of strategic objectives.”
3. At an Open Forum on democracy organised by the US State Department on November 10,1999,Mr.James Robert Huntley, writer and international affairs consultant, explained the theme of a book of his titled “Pax Democratica: A Strategy For the 21st Century”. He traced the evolution of international relations through four phases, namely, the age of the empire, the balance of power, international co-operation and the latest phase of community-building among democracies and claimed that democracies rarely went to war with each other and rarely indulged in internal violence against their own people,
4. Speaking at the same forum, Mr. Penn Kemble, Special Representative of the US Secretary of State for the Community of Democracies Initiative, described the aim of the Initiative as the revitalisation of democracy in the international system. Mr. Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the Brookings Institution said that the idea of Pax Democratica was to see if a viable means existed to build an approach to peace around an idea and institutions rather than around a nation.
5.Subsequently, on November 22,1999, Mr.Bronislaw Geremek, formerly of the Solidarity funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and then the Polish Foreign Minister, announced at Warsaw that the first international meeting of the Community of Democracies would be held at Warsaw on June 26-27, 2000, under the joint sponsorship of the US, Poland, Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Mali and South Korea.
6.In a statement issued in Washington the same day, the State Department endorsed the initiative and said: “ The goal of the Community of Democracies Ministerial is to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of existing international organisations in their support for democracy. Governments attending the meeting will affirm their commitment to a core set of universal democratic principles……They will develop a common agenda to bolster democratic institutions and processes, improve co-ordination of democratic assistance programmes and more effectively respond to threats or interruptions to democracy.”
7. Mr.Penn Kemble used to be on the Board of Directors of one of the NED’s core affiliates, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). His sister Eugenia used to be the Director of the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI), another core affiliate of the NED. He also headed the Executive Committee of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, a neo-conservative group within the Democratic Party. Mr. Kemble, who was allegedly part of the clandestine cell set up in the White House during the Reagan Administration by Col. Oliver North of the Iran-Contra case, also headed the PRODEMCA, Friends of the Democratic Centre in Central America, until it was wound up. The NED’s financial assistance to the anti-Sandinista elements in Nicaragua used to be allegedly funneled through PRODEMCA by Mr. Kemble, who was reputed to be an expert in the clandestine financing of foreign political groups co-operating with the US in its national objectives.
8. Under his stewardship, the PRODEMCA used to place full-page advertisements in the 1980s in the “Washington Post”, the “Washington Times” and the “New York Times” calling for congressional funding of US $ 100 million to assist the Contras. Col. North allegedly used the PRODEMCA to funnel money to the Contras and the PRODEMCA acted in tandem with Carl Channel’s National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty.
9. Amongst the others posts held by Mr. Kemble in the past were as a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, of the Social Democrats, USA, and of the radio programme advisory committee of the US Information Agency (USIA), in which capacity he used to advise on the running of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty by the CIA from Munich and the Voice of America.
10. Mr. Kemble was a close associate of Ms. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the US Permanent Representative to the UN during the Reagan Administration, who was also a member of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority and the Committee on the Present Danger, both of which were strongly anti-communist. She was also associated with other anti-communist organisations such as the Committee for the Free World, PRODEMCA, the American Enterprise Institute, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Social Democrats, USA, and the highly secretive Council for National Policy. She was also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Centre for Religious Freedom, an outfit of the Freedom House.
11. According to media reports, the Warsaw meeting, which decided to set up the Community of Democracies, was jointly funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation of Poland, founded in 1998 by Mr. George Soros to counter the resurgence of communism in East Europe, and the Freedom House of the US, which was founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie to oppose Nazism and Communism in Europe.
12. The Freedom House was a strong supporter of the NATO and worked in close co-operation with the CIA and Col. North’s clandestine cell in the Reagan White House in carrying on psywar against the USSR and other communist countries and in funneling assistance to the Afghan Mujahideen and the Arab mercenaries, including Osama bin Laden, through various front organisations such as the Afghanistan Information Centre, the Afghanistan Relief Committee, the Committee for a Free Afghanistan, the American Friends of Afghanistan etc. The Freedom House received its funding from the USIA, the Agency For International Development (AID), the NED and a number of ostensibly private foundations, one of which was the Soros Foundation. It is alleged that the sister of Maj. Rabinder Singh, the CIA’s mole in the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) who fled to the US in 2004, used to work in AID.
13. The late William Casey, the Director of the CIA under Mr. Reagan, and Col. North, whom Casey used to call “my son”, encouraged the setting-up of a network of so-called non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to be used for covert political activities abroad without the direct involvement of the CIA, on the model of the Freedom House and the foundations set up much later by the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (the Federal Information Service), the West German external intelligence agency, to funnel financial assistance to the anti-communist elements in the then East Germany, the anti-Salazar forces in Portugal, the anti-Franco forces in Spain and the Eurocommunist elements in France and Italy. A common name occurring in the lists of money-givers of almost all these organisations was the Soros Foundation.
14. In an article written on April 20, 2000, on the so-called Community of Democracies, I had written as follows: “There is no harm in India participating in the forthcoming Warsaw conference on the Community of Democracies, but keeping in mind the worrisome aspects of some of the dramatis personae and the birth of the idea itself from the USA’s post-Cold War national security strategy to promote US strategic objectives, a cautious approach is called for. Over-enthusiasm and wishful-thinking that India is now an equal partner of the US in a new jihad for democracy would be unwise. The USA is advancing the idea from behind the scene with the help of some NGOs and personalities of Cold War parentage to promote its strategic interests. The mask is that of Warsaw, but the face behind the mask is that of Washington. We should avoid letting ourselves be used by Washington in this venture to advance its interests unless there is a genuine convergence of the interests of the US and India. “
15. But the Government of Shri A. B. Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister, became an enthusiastic supporter of this initiative in the expectation that its support for this initiative would make the US remove its economic sanctions imposed against India after its 1998 nuclear tests. An immediate outcome of this initiative was destabilisation in Georgia and Ukraine by pro-US elements with financial and other assistance provided by the various shady organisations, which were associated with this intiative.
16. Simultaneously, the attention of the American jihadists for democracy turned to Asia in order to build a similar community or concert of democracies which can undertake covert operations against China and Myanmar in the name of spreading and strengthening democracy. Even earlier, during the Clinton Administration, the US had started a Radio Free Asia, similar to Radio Free Europe which was run by the CIA during the cold war from Munich, to make broadcasts to the people of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia in China, Myanmar and North Korea. Many of the Pax Democratica assets of the US intelligence community were transferred to Asia.
17. Since the visit of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, to the US in July, 2005, there has been concern not only in China, but also in military circles in Myanmar that as a quid pro quo for the USA’s civilian nuclear co-operation with India, the latter has agreed to help the US in its Pax Democratica initiative in Asia. These concerns were strengthened by the following observations of President Bush in his address at a restricted public meeting at Purana Qila in Delhi on March 3, 2006: “The world has benefited from the example of India’s democracy, and now the world needs India’s leadership in freedom’s cause. As a global power, India has an historic duty to support democracy around the world......India is also showing its leadership in the cause of democracy by co-founding the Global Democracy Initiative. Prime Minister Singh and I were proud to be the first two contributors to this initiative to promote democracy and development across the world. Now India can build on this commitment by working directly with nations where democracy is just beginning to emerge. As the world’s young democracies take shape, India offers a compelling example of how to preserve a country’s unique culture and history while guaranteeing the universal freedoms that are the foundation of genuine democracies. India’s leadership is needed in a world that is hungry for freedom. Men and women from North Korea to Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe to Cuba yearn for their liberty. In Iran, a proud people is held hostage by a small clerical elite that denies basic liberties, sponsors terrorism, and pursues nuclear weapons. Our nations must not pretend that the people of these countries prefer their own enslavement. We must stand with reformers and dissidents and civil society organizations, and hasten the day when the people of these nations can determine their own future and choose their own leaders. These people may not gain their liberty overnight, but history is on their side.”
18. Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan from December 13 to 16, 2006, at the invitation of Mr. Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minster, caused concern in China, which tended to see an American nudge behind the sustained attempts since April, 2005, to bring India and Japan closer together. The Chinese did not see it as a natural corollary of India’s Look East Policy. Instead, they saw in it the thin edge of the wedge in what they apprehended as an American attempt to contain China.
19. In my article on Dr. Singh’s visit to Japan, I had stated as follows: “The Chinese look upon Western-style democracy as a potentially subversive force, which could have a disintegrating influence in China-—particularly in its peripheral regions such as Tibet. Talk of democracy as a uniting force brings to their mind the idea of the community of democracies floated by the Bill Clinton Administration, India’s association with it and visions of what happened in Georgia and Ukraine. The Chinese fear not so much the military strengths of India and Japan despite their strong military capabilities, as their ideological strengths arising from their democratic roots. In his address to the Japanese Parliament, Dr. Singh spoke of India’s vision of an “arc of prosperity’ extending from India to Japan. Is there a well-concealed additional vision of an “arc of democracy”? That is the nagging question in the Chinese mind. It will nag even more after they have read Dr. Singh’s positive reaction to the idea of “closer co-operation among the major democracies of the region”. “
20. Indian leaders and policy makers have been repeatedly stressing that India’s developing relations with the US, Japan and Australia are not directed against China or any other country. This has not satisfied the Chinese because they see quite the opposite being said by analysts in the US. They saw and continue to see the agreement in principle on Indo-US Civil Nuclear Co-operation reached by President Bush and Dr.Manmohan Singh during the latter’s visit to Washington in July, 2005, as an American quid pro quo for India agreeing to be a US surrogate against Iran and China. The expected role of India against Iran finds mention in the Hyde Act, but not its expected role against China.
21. Similar concerns are nursed by the military junta in Myanmar since the visit of Mr. Bush to India in March,2006. This should explain their reported post—March 2006 decline in enthusiasm for the sale of gas to India from the gas fields in the Arakan area. It is even alleged by some sources that there has also been a decline in enthusiasm for energy co-operation with the military junta of Myanmar in New Delhi after the visit of Mr. Bush to India.
22. The forthcoming joint naval exercise by the navies of India, the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore in the Bay of Bengal in the beginning of September has added to the concerns in China as well as Myanmar. The exercise has been projected partly as humanitarian to improve their co-ordination for disaster relief and partly as to test their capabilities for joint or co-ordinated action against non-State actors such as pirates, maritime terrorists and maritime smugglers of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction material.
23. This projection has not carried conviction to Beijing and the Myanmar military junta. China tends to see it as one more step in the US designs to contain the Chinese naval power. Myanmar sees it as a US attempt to pep up the morale of the pro-democracy elements in Myanmar. For the first time in recent months, there were demonstrations by pro-democracy elements in Rangoon and some other parts of Myanmar on August 19 and 22, 2007. The demonstrations were ostensibly against the recent increase in fuel prices and the economic hardships of the people. The military junta seems to see a link between the recrudescence of unrest by pro-democracy elements loyal to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and the forthcoming naval exercise. Their fears may be imaginary, but may result in a further suppression of political dissidents.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/sabotaging-peaceful-nuclear-deal.html
August 23, 2007
Sabotaging the Peaceful Nuclear Deal Another Case of China’s Assassin’s Mace?
Source: SAAG
Guest Column by Bhaskar Roy
Leaving aside for a moment the merits and demerits of the Hyde Act and the ‘123’ Peaceful Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement, a close look at the Chinese machinations to derail this one vital part of a growing India-US strategic cooperation is imperative.
It may be recalled that in 1985 a somewhat similar nuclear cooperation agreement between China and the US under the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954, Section 123 was signed. China received special status and privileges in the Additional Protocol on the agreement as it was already one of the five recognised nuclear powers, or ‘N-5’. Briefly, China could pull out of the restrictions of this treaty at any time if it felt its national security interests so demanded. There was no penalty attached.
The 1980s was a period of close US-China-Pakistan cooperation against the Soviet Union which ultimately ended with the collapse of the communist giant. That was also a period of China’s illegal transfer of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to Pakistan, while Washington looked away benignly. Periodically, the Americans would place one Chinese entity or the other under temporary sanction for proliferation. For the Chinese proliferations, such sanctions were nothing more than a pinch. The USA had to save some face since it was the country in the forefront supposedly fighting proliferation, by proforma sanctions!
The 1989 Tien Anmen massacre by the Chinese army, the PLA, of pro-democracy students put a block in Sino-US relations. But interestingly, Chinese proliferation was hardly affected. The human rights establishment was working at one level against China, while covert relations relating to the Soviet Union and (later Russia) was hardly affected. The Americans knew well enough that China was arming Pakistan with strategic weapons to counter India. India was still perceived to be in the Soviet (Russia camp).
The Tien Anmen Square incident brought one of the worst periods of bilateral relations between Beijing and Washington. Both USA and the European Union imposed sanctions on China especially in the defence area. Some of these sanctions still exit. But this has not prevented the Chinese from procuring high technology from the west both overtly and covertly. Therefore, it took till 1997 for the US-China nuclear agreement to be ratified by the US Congress, but not without a good fight from opponents in the Congress.
American reactions to two widely known and proved cases of Chinese proliferation to Pakistan is interesting. One was the 199-92 transfer of Chinese made M-11 nuclear capable missiles to Pakistan. The missiles were photographed by US satellites lying in cases at Pakistan’s Sargoda air base. There was other evidence, too. The US President, however, refused to make a determination – that is, did not accept the information as credible and did not allow sanction against China.
The other case was the supply of 5000 ring magnets to a Pakistani nuclear facility in 1995 by a Chinese entity for enrichment technology. This was such an open and blatant a case that the Chinese found it difficult to deny. India had protested in 1996 during Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s visit.
It is also well known that Pakistani nuclear missiles like the Ghauri and the later Hatf series are based on North Korean and Chinese designs and components. Pakistan’s indigenous missiles programmes, the Hatf-I and Hatf-II are yet to prove successful in test flights. The cruise missile they displayed recently is also said to be a carbon copy of Chinese DH-10.
It may be interesting to recall that in the first week of May 1998, a high level team from the US State Department visited India, and then went on to Pakistan with a wide agenda on arms control, Afghanistan etc. Pakistan test fired the nuclear capable Ghauri during the American visit claiming it could hit any part of India. Unfortunately, instead of condemning their test during this presence on Pakistani soil and the attendant official Pakistani statement, Pakistan’s contribution to Afghanistan was praised by the American delegation.
India tested its nuclear weapons in May 1998 followed by Pakistan. Here were Pakistan nuclear weapons armed by China to threaten India. There was very little outrage from some political sections in India. Was it because China and its surrogate were involved?
In its efforts to placate China, Beijing’s anti-India regional and global strategies have largely been brushed under the carpet in India. On the last day of Prime Minister Vajpayee visit to China in June, 2003, Chinese soldiers look into custody a group of Indian border patrol guards along the LAC in the Eastern Sector, disarmed and roundly insulted them. The incident was almost blacked out in the Indian media, though a couple of newspapers exposed it. It would be embarrassing for the responsible Indian authorities to explain away the incident as a minor localised one. The Chinese action was deliberate and contravened the 1993 Peace and Tranquillity (P&T) Treaty on the border, and the 1996 Confidence Building Measures (CBM) agreement. The Chinese basically told us not to get carried away by the ‘success’ of Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit. The border issue was far from being resolved and the bilateral relations were largely deficient of political and strategic substance.
There was little or no sound from those who regularly visit fraternal China or the Community Party of China.
The issue of the India-US peaceful nuclear agreement transcends most of the other recent issues between India and China either bilaterally or multilaterally. Notwithstanding the prospects and consequences of the agreement and the overarching Hyde Act, there is a need to understand that we are no longer in the Cold War fringes of the later 20th century. The world has moved into the 21st century with the signature of ‘9/11’. The Asia Pacific region has replaced the importance of Europe for most of the 20th century. In this region India and China are critical players along with Japan.
It is common understanding that the Indo-US deal is not simply a nuclear energy issue. Its ambit covers a much larger bilateral and multilateral relationship between India and other countries, especially the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
It is expected to be another step in India’s full integration with the entire spectrum of globalisation and would allow it to participate more effectively in the international coalition against proliferation and terrorism. There is no reason why India should remain outside the global nuclear arrangement.
China is still banking on Japan’s pacifist constitution which is just beginning to show some stirring. This does not mean a nuclear path. The Asian countries which suffered under Japanese occupation during World War-II will definitely close ranks against Japan. But China is paranoid about Japan, given the history between the two countries. Further, Japan’s military relation with the USA has been expanding rather rapidly in the 21st century, especially the expanded US-Japan security cooperation agreement. There is also a strong Chinese apprehension, not entirely misplaced, that Tokyo is an encouragement for Taiwan’s defiance of the mainland.
India is a different calculation for China altogether. India has all the attributes and potential to challenge Beijing’s unipolar domination of Asia ambition. Beijing is constantly reviewing the Comprehensive National Strength (CNP) between the two countries. CNP is a measure formulated by the Chinese in the 1980s to measure the actual strength of a country. It takes into account size, population, technological and scientific development, economy, etc. of a particular country..
The Indian parameters in the CNP is warning China somewhat. The skyscrapers of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong with their glittering lights is not the real China. The huge foreign exchange reserves of $1.5 trillion and the FDI are matters not of total faith. One has also to look at the officially recorded 85 thousand labour strikes in 2005, environmental degradation, energy crunch, and the aging factor of the majority of working population in China which will start peaking from 2020 that may quickly eat into some of the impressive statistics.
China opposed the nuclear agreement from the very beginning. In recent weeks, this opposition through the official media has become uncharacteristically sharp. The main mouthpieces of the Communist Party, the People’s Daily, and of the armed forces, the Liberation Army Daily (LAD) have been employed to attack the agreement.
Both the Chinese Communist Party constitution and the State construction make it clear that the media is not independent. The People’s Daily and the LAD project the views for the party and the PLA at the highest level.
The Chinese media primarily attacked the USA trying to sabotage India’s sovereignty and foreign policy, an unequal agreement leaving Pakistan out, demolishing the NPT and other non-proliferation regimes, etc. They also praise the BJP for rising to protect India from US imperialism. No mention of the leading opponents to the deal, the CPM and the Left front is made. This is an omission to be taken seriously. The Chinese are masters in making very serious statements through omission.
On the other hand these Chinese articles state that the agreement will help India’s nuclear weapon’s programme, suggesting the US will covertly allow development of India’s nuclear programme. Also stated was, this development would give countries like Iran the legitimate right to embark on the nuclear weapons path. The implication is obvious.
The articles under reference are far more serious than the regular criticism of India in the Chinese media. Supporting an opposition party against the legitimate government of a country openly and democratically elected is rare especially in the post–Mao Zedong generation. This is not only a serious interference in the internal affairs of another country, especially a ‘friendly’ country. This is tantamount to encouraging an opposition party in India to topple the government – a very unfriendly act and a non-traditional security threat to India. Nothing less than sabotage.
The Chinese military and intelligence strategic experts have been studying for sometime an ancient non-traditional warfare strategy called the ‘Assassin’s Mace’ (Sho Shou Jian). Briefly, the strategy is either plant an agent inside the court of the opponent King or Chief with a silent weapon – the mace. The assassin is to strike when he receives the signal from his masters. Or else, win over an important member of the opponent’s court to do the same job. The assassin’s name or identity is never be mentioned and the action is one of common cause. Of course, it benefits the controller most.
The post American track record obviously raises questions about their motives. The Chinese track record, past and present, has many more questions. The only interest for us is India’s interest. While chasing the eagle in the sky, let us not forget the tiger at the door.
(The author is an eminent China analyst with many years of experience of study on the developments in China. The views expressed by the author are his own. He can be reached at grouchohart@yahoo.com)
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/international-terrorism-in-canada-is.html
August 23, 2007
International terrorism in Canada: Is the Canadian police doing its job?
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=81562
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Ozay MEHMET
On August 27, 2007, Turkish Canadians will hold a memorial service in Ottawa to remember the killing of Colonel Attila Alt;kat by Armenian terrorists exactly a quarter of a century ago. The killers remain free at large. Canadian justice is yet to be served.
Many are asking whether the Canadian police are doing their job?
International terrorism has found a fertile ground in Canada long before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Two notable cases are: (1) the downing on June 19, 1985 of Air India flight 182 by Sikh terrorists; and, (2) the assassination of a Turkish diplomat three years earlier by Armenian terrorists in the Canadian national capital.
The Air India inquiry, set up by the Harper government, to ease the mind of a justifiably skeptical public has revealed some disturbing facts, notably the communication disconnect that seems to exist between intelligence and police/security systems. Top security experts giving evidence at the public inquiry stated that, just days prior to the bombing of flight 182, the then director general of counter-terrorism had come into possession of intelligence that Sikh terrorists would indeed bring down a plane.
Similar information was transmitted to security officials – as became known in the inquiry later - in the case of the Armenian terrorist attack on the Turkish embassy in 1982. No follow-up action was taken and the terrorists carried out their bloody schemes with relative impunity.
In 1985, 329 innocent people died when AI flight 182 was downed off the coast of Ireland by a Sikh terrorist bomb. Two Sikh nationalists, Parmar and Reyat, were given light five-year sentences when they confessed their role in the bombing. However, it is not certain whether they were the real masterminds of the bombing and whether the Canadian police and security services were as diligent and efficient as they should have been. The on-going public inquiry on the AI terrorism is turning up amazing revelations.
Thus, when Graham Pinos, a former justice department lawyer and later a terrorism expert in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, first heard of the plane bombing, he revealed his thoughts at the public inquiry in the following terms: I was greatly upset. I said: ‘Holy expletive, they knew, they knew.’ I had a distinct impression that they knew something was going to happen.
25 year on, assassins remain at large
The same sad reality is valid in the case of the murder of the Turkish diplomat, Attila Alt;kat. Twenty-five years ago, this innocent person was murdered in a cold-blooded attack at the intersection of Champlain Bridge in downtown Ottawa as he was driving to work. The sketch of the Armenian terrorist who carried out this murder was published on the local TV broadcast on August 28, 2006. The reporter, Charlie Greenwell, has unearthed an incredible set of information about this case, including information about the car (a yellow 1970 Citroen) rented in Montreal ostensibly for the contract killing in Ottawa. Even more astonishing, the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa had, days before the murder, conveyed an official warning of impending terrorist action to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Affairs in Ottowa and was requesting protection; the warning fell on deaf ears.
The police and security remained inactive, in effect providing international terrorism a free hand for their dastardly activities on Canadian soil.
Even now, after so many years, there are huge problems with the Canadian police and security services when it comes to protection against international terrorism in Canada, especially in the national capital. First of all, there is the age-old Canadian problem of divided jurisdiction and responsibility. As happened in the 1982 murder of diplomat Alt;kat, there was a significant delay in response on the part of the Canadian police as the question of who should respond (whether the federal Royal Mounted Canadian Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the City of Ottawa Police) was taken up. As the police and security forces discussed possible responses, the murderer literally got away.
More significantly, as Charlie Greenwell of the Ottawa TV Channel CJOH has indicated, the Alt;kat case has languished in police hands as a cold file case. In other words, the police have done precious little to trace and arrest the murderer and his terrorist team.
Canadian justice has failed miserably in both the Air India and the Alt;kat cases. The war against international terrorism is being lost in Canada.
Turkish Canadians remember on August 27th not only the innocent Turkish diplomat Alt;kat, but at the same time they mourn the miscarriage of Canadian justice.
Ironically, the Harper government has suddenly decided to recognize the so-called Armenian “genocide” and the Canadian Parliament has adopted pro-Armenian resolutions. Turkish Canadians are left wondering whether the miscarriage of Canadian justice is part of a political strategy of rewarding Armenian terrorism.
Ozay Mehmet, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ont., CANADA. He can be reached at mehmet5010@rogers.com
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2007/Aug/tertraisAug07.asp
Not a ‘Wal-Mart’, but an ‘Imports-Exports Enterprise’: Understanding the Nature of the A.Q. Khan Network
Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 5 (August 2007)
by Bruno Tertrais
Strategic Insights is a bi-monthly electronic journal produced by the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NPS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
For a PDF version of this article, click here.
Introduction
Much has been written about the A.Q. Khan network since the Libyan “coming out” of December 2003. However, most analysts have focused on the exports made by Pakistan without attempting to relate them to Pakistani imports. To understand the very nature of the network, it is necessary to go back to its “roots,” that is, the beginnings of the Pakistani nuclear program in the early 1970s, and then to the transformation of the network during the early 1980s. Only then does it appear clearly that the comparison to a “Wal-Mart” (the famous expression used by IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei) is not an appropriate description. The Khan network was in fact a privatized subsidiary of a larger, State-based network originally dedicated to the Pakistani nuclear program. It would be much better characterized as an “imports-exports enterprise.”
I. Creating the Network: Pakistani Nuclear Imports
Pakistan originally developed its nuclear complex out in the open, through major State-approved contracts. Reprocessing technology was sought even before the launching of the military program: in 1971, an experimental facility was sold by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) in 1971. In 1974, Pakistan signed a contract with the French company Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) for the sale of a large reprocessing plant at Chashma, which was to use the fuel irradiated at KANUPP.[1] Nonproliferation concerns led the French to suggest a change in the design that would make Pakistan unable to produce weapon-grade plutonium. Islamabad’s refusal led Paris to stop the execution of the contract in 1978. This did not prevent European firms to participate in the Pakistani nuclear program. In fact, SGN engineered the pilot reprocessing plant at PINSTECH (“New Labs”), while Belgonucléaire designed the overall building and built a fuel refabrication laboratory.[2] However, the 1974 Indian test led Western countries to be much more cautious about their nuclear exports to Pakistan.
This is one of the reasons why Islamabad launched a second, secret nuclear program in the mid-1970s which was to use the HEU route. The launching of this program saw the beginning of a massive campaign of imports from Western firms. Equipment sought by Pakistan included key elements for centrifuges (maraging steel, high-frequency inverters, high-vacuum valves, scoops pre-forms, bottom bearing pre-forms…). But the imports network also sought many elements for the plutonium program (hot cell manipulators, reprocessing equipment), as well as components meant for the nuclear weapons themselves (high-speed electronic switches). Measuring equipment was also actively sought. Pakistani imports also included nuclear materials and metals. Imports ranged from full-scale installations to subcomponents.
Some of the most significant of these imports included uranium conversion facilities (CES Kalthof GmbH, Germany, late 1970s); several thousands tubes of maraging steel (Van Doorne Transmissie, Netherlands, late 1970s); a yellowcake production unit (Société d’études et de travaux pour l’uranium, France, late 1970s) ; a reprocessing facility (Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles, France, and Belgonucléaire, Belgium, late 1970s); a heavy water production facility (Belgonucléaire, late 1970s); and a tritium production facility (Nukleartechnik GmbH, Germany, late 1980s).
At the same time, Pakistan resorted to China as an alternate source of imports. Chinese assistance developed after ZA Bhutto signed a bilateral agreement to that effect at the occasion of a visit to Beijing in late May 1976. China helped Pakistan overcoming some of the difficulties they had in mastering enrichment technology. It supplied uranium hexafluoride to Pakistan, as well as a HEU-based nuclear weapons design.
The imports network was originally a “Khan network,” but not in reference to A.Q. Khan. A different individual was running the show: most imports from the West were supervised by Munir Ahmad Khan, the head of the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission and arguably the true “father” of Pakistan’s bomb. One of the network’s key operatives, and probably its chief operating officer for Europe was SA Butt, a physicist turned diplomat, who was assigned to various embassies. The network began operating in earnest in 1976. Having just returned from the Netherlands, A.Q. Khan soon played a crucial role, but only in the management of imports related to the centrifugation technology. SA Butt managed both the uranium-related and plutonium-related imports.[3] He remained in charge at least until the late 1980s.
The imports network’s modus operandi included a combination of several elements that ensured its success and longevity. Pakistan resorted systematically to the use of its embassies abroad, and often to Pakistani-born foreign nationals. It paid more than the market value of the items purchased. The Pakistanis played smart and were always one step ahead of the legality. As exports controls began to be reinforced in the late 1970s, they purchased individual components rather than entire units. After, they often learned how to reproduce the parts. Pakistan also sought to import “pre-forms,” which are not necessarily covered by exports controls. Besides classic tricks such as multiple buyers, multiple intermediaries, front companies and false end-user certificates, Pakistan used more imaginative tactics: for instance, it sometimes hid a critical component in a long list of useless material. It also often limited its “shopping lists” to a few samples, in order to learn how to reproduce them. A British intelligence report stated in 2003 that no less than 95 Pakistani organizations and government bodies, including diplomatic posts abroad, had assisted in the country’s nuclear imports.[4]
The Pakistani modus operandi was very similar from the one used by Iraq in the 1980s. Baghdad then resorted to an increasingly refined imports strategy which heavily relied on multiple fake companies, and sought at least two sources for any given material it needed. Iraqi embassies were heavily involved. Note also that several individuals and companies (German and Swiss in particular) were selling to both countries. One difference, however, is that the Pakistani network was more centralized than the Iraqi one.
The success of the imports network was not only due to the high degree of Pakistani know-how, but also to the active cooperation of Western firms. Pakistan took advantage of inadequate exports control in light of the appetite of Western firms to sell technology abroad. The first IAEA guidelines published in 1974 were very limited. It was a grey market rather than a black one. Many industrialists reasoned that “if we do not do it, others will” and deliberately violated the law. Others believe that Pakistan would not be able to use the components for military usage. Many just did not realize that they were helping Islamabad to get the Bomb—or did not want to know.[5] Finally, some of the main figures involved in Pakistani imports have stated that they were very deliberately helping the spread of nuclear technology, arguing that it would make the world more secure.[6]
European firms were particularly targeted. Pakistan also took advantage of the existence of liberal trade policies among European Community members, which allowed Pakistan to hide the final destination of a given equipment. But the most important reason was that despite the wake-up call of the Indian test, many European countries in the 1970s were not entirely committed to the best nonproliferation efforts. Proliferation was not yet much of a concern, and exports controls were particularly weak. There was also a political element. There was resistance to U.S. pressures, either because of some countries’ independent political stance vis-à-vis the United States, such as France or Switzerland, or because of their desire to promote national products: as an observer puts it, “West Germany and the Netherlands made a national priority of promoting manufactured exports, particularly when they involved precision engineering, and they viewed some of the American lobbying about exports to Pakistan as just another form of trade competition.”[7] Also, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, the three URENCO countries, were overtly promoting an open enrichment market. Along with other European countries, they worried about a U.S. domination of the nuclear market: the formation of URENCO was “an act of resistance.”[8] Finally, the bureaucracies would not always implement political guidance. Attitudes would change only slowly.
In sum, three words can help understanding the attitudes of European firms and individuals involved in Pakistani nuclear imports: denial, delusion, and defiance.
Finally, there was the extent of A.Q. Khan’s personal contacts on the continent. A.Q. Khan’s personal contribution was to bring back a long list of companies and of individuals he personally knew, who could be helpful for Pakistani imports. After returning to Pakistan in December 1975, he wrote to several former colleagues to get specific technical information.[9] He relied on long-time acquaintances such as Henk Slebos, a Dutch metallurgist he met in 1964; Peter Griffin, a British engineer he met in 1976; Friedrich Tinner, a Swiss engineer and long-time associate; Gotthard Lerch, a German engineer met in the 1970s; and Abdus Salam, a British national and another personal friend.
The high number of German companies involved in Pakistani nuclear imports can be explained by several factors. The know-how of this country in machine-tools, engineering and precision mechanics is well-known. Germany was also involved in the nuclear enrichment business through URENCO. Not being a nuclear power, its exports controls in this field were even less efficient than those of France and the United Kingdom for reasons of expertise. For the same reason, scientists and engineers with nuclear expertise from these two countries were likely to be involved in national nuclear programs. German nuclear exports controls were for a long time notoriously weaker than those of major other European States; this reflected a deliberate policy of self-assertiveness in the face of U.S. pressures.[10] Finally, A.Q. Khan had extensive contacts in Germany dating from his stay in Europe. As a result, in 1990, a member of the German Parliament could say that the country’s export controllers motto was still “you never hear anything, you never see anything—and, in particular, you never block anything.”[11] In 1989, the Stern magazine reported that throughout the 1980s, no less than 70 German firms had sold nuclear-related goods to enterprises known to be associated with the Pakistani program.[12]
Some of these explanations also apply to Switzerland. Early Swiss nuclear exports restrictions were strictly respected even if it meant that a proliferation risk might be taken. As a commentator puts it, “rules are rules, especially to the Swiss.”[13] As in the case of Germany, the legalist stance of Berne was “part of a strategy to promote the interests of the Swiss industry.”[14] More specifically, in the case of Switzerland, some have perceived for a long time “a divergence between the Swiss ideal of neutrality that include freedom of trade and the concept of nonproliferation.”[15] These attitudes may have persisted. As late as 2004, the Malaysian police report about the network was seen in some federal circles as “a possible attempt to damage the image of Switzerland abroad and the competitiveness of Swiss exports.”[16]
But U.S. exports were far from being immune to criticism. As late as 1994, a U.S. General Accounting Office report stated that they were still woefully inadequate.[17] Between 1998 and 1992, more than 80% applications for exports of nuclear-related equipment to Pakistan were approved (650 out of 808), including three to sensitive end-users (out of nine applications).[18] Pakistan actively sought materials and equipment from the United States. There is, in fact, a high number of documented “failures” by Pakistan to import nuclear-related material from the United States. This indicates either that the United States was particularly targeted, or that U.S. exports controls were more efficient—or a little bit of both, as is probable.
II. Reversing the Flow? Pakistani Nuclear Exports
Starting somewhere around the mid 1980s, Pakistan began to export its nuclear technology and know-how. However, the known cases of Pakistani exports are fairly different one from another. An in-depth examination of the four documented country cases (Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Libya) is necessary to understand the complexity of the Khan affair.
The Iranian case
Exports to Iran are a complex story. In fact, there seem to have been three different phases in the decade-long history of Pakistani transfers to Iran.
First, there was a period of limited cooperation probably approved by general Zia-ul-Haq himself, which began in 1987. A secret bilateral agreement was reportedly signed in 1987, which included provisions for training of Iranian scientists.[19] A negotiation took place in Dubai of the selling of P1 centrifuge diagrams, an enrichment plant diagram, and spare parts for at least one P1 machine.[20] Zia had, it seems, had authorized the initiation of a bilateral nuclear cooperation while asking for it to remain limited.[21] He did not want Iran to get the Bomb. Meanwhile, Khan was reportedly telling military authorities that the transfers were of very limited importance, since they concerned only used and or obsolete equipments.[22] He probably felt “covered” by Zia’s approval for technology transfers to Tehran. But he may also have been encouraged by general Mirza Aslam Beg, in his capacity of Army Vice-Chief of Army staff, who was ready to do more. MA Beg reports that emissaries from Iran first approached Pakistan near the end of the Iran–Iraq war, with broad requests of military sales, which were according to him denied by President Zia. This is consistent with what a former Pakistani ambassador to Iran reported, namely that Zia refused to abide by an Iranian request for mastery of the fuel cycle, made in Tehran in January 1988.[23]
After Zia’s death, the two parties may have envisioned a more complete cooperation, under pressure from general Beg, but probably with the knowledge of political authorities. A.Q. Khan was certainly encouraged to act in this direction by Beg and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan when they abruptly came to power after Zia’s death in August 1988. According to a Pakistani account, A.Q. Khan’s first move when Benazir Bhutto came to power (December 1988) was to ask her to make him PAEC director; when she refused, he chose to place his loyalty with MA Beg and GI Khan.[24] Beg has consistently denied having approved such transfers, but has confirmed the scope of nuclear discussions between Tehran and Islamabad at the time, at Iran’s initiative. But he and Benazir Bhutto were constantly telling them to go and see the other party.[25] A former U.S. administration official, Henry Rowen, says that Beg threatened in January 1990 to transfer military usage nuclear technology should Washington stopped arms sales to Pakistan.[26] There is evidence that Benazir Bhutto’s government knew about this cooperation. She was told in 1989 by Hashemi Rafsandjani that the Pakistani military had offered nuclear technology to Iran.[27] A.Q. Khan has said that the transfers were encouraged by the military adviser to Mrs. Bhutto, general Imtiaz Ali, and explicitly authorized by Beg.[28]
In a third phase, the two countries seem to have begun a closer cooperation, in line with a growing convergence of interests. Two events changed the Pakistani perspective. One was the invasion of Kuwait. The other was the imposition of U.S. sanctions under the Pressler amendment. An Iranian-Pakistani nuclear cooperation was coherent with general Beg’s strategic choices. Beg initially approved Pakistan’s participation in the coalition against Iraq; but by the end of 1990 he changed his mind.[29] He actively sought a partnership with Iran to protect against the United States.[30] Political reasons were not the only ones at play: general Beg thought it was a good way to finance the defense budget, especially in the light of coming U.S. sanctions. There were high-level contacts to that effect between the two governments during the year 1991. Envoys of Hashemi Rafsanjani visited Sharif in February and July 1991. It is difficult to know with certainty what became of these projects. Some claim that Pakistan and Iran did agree on nuclear cooperation and discussed the possibility of mutual defense treaty.[31] What is clear is that the bilateral cooperation that was envisioned by the two countries was a two-way street: it did not concern only nuclear technology, but also conventional arms, probably oil, as well as mutual political support. The nuclear transfers of that period involved diagrams for P1 and P2 centrifuges, 500 used P1 centrifuges in a disassembled form—all delivered in the years 1994-1995; as well as a document describing “the casting of enriched and depleted uranium metal into hemispheres, related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons components.”[32] Some shipments reportedly took place after 1995, perhaps as late as 2000.[33] This second influx of Pakistani technology to Iran took place during Mrs. Bhutto’s second mandate. Given the extent of government-to-government contacts, it certainly took place with the knowledge of several key authorities.
The North Korean case
The Pakistan-North Korea strategic connection was established in 1971, when ZA Bhutto made Pyongyang a major source of conventional arms procurement. The Iraq-Iran war cemented the partnership between the two countries, who both aided Tehran’s missile program.[34] A defense cooperation package was agreed upon at the occasion of Benazir Bhutto’s December 1993 visit to Pyongyang. The precise role of A.Q. Khan remains unclear. He travelled several times to North Korea, and he may very well have been the initiator of the missile deal. He was given a tour of Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities in 1999.[35] It is possible that he felt that he was “covered” by the military authorities because of the Iran precedent. In any case, it seems likely that the military knew about the nuclear exports. General Jehangir Karamat (chief of Army staff from 1996 to 1998) seems to have played a significant role in the DPRK-Pakistan connection.[36]
Known transfers lasted until around July 2002. According to Musharraf, “probably a dozen” centrifuges were sold.[37] Most available sources refer to P-1 technology, but some have suggested they may have included P-2 centrifuges.[38] There are also allegations of a broader cooperation in the nuclear area.[39]
The most likely explanation of what happened with North Korea is that it was a quid pro quo. This is what the U.S. government believed in the late 1990s.[40] However, the story may be more complex. Nuclear exports began much later than missile imports. Bhutto is on the record for stating that her 1993 deal involved paying for the missiles in cash. Well-informed analysts have stated that the latter were financed by “money and rice.”[41] The Pakistani “reserve crunch” might have prompted Pakistan to turn from cash to nuclear technology in return for missile technology.[42] The most detailed studies about the DPRK-Pakistan relationship have refrained from drawing definitive conclusions about its nature, especially given the uncertainties about the exact scope of the nuclear relationship.[43]
The Iraqi case
Available sources indicate that the initial contact with Iraq was made just a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait. A note from the Iraqi intelligence services, dated October 6, reports that A.Q. Khan was ready to help Baghdad to “establish a project to enrich uranium and manufacture a nuclear weapon.” It reported that A.Q. Khan was prepared to give Iraq “project designs for a nuclear bomb.” Equipments were to be transferred from European companies to Iraq via a Dubai-based company.[44] The Iraqi government, however, feared that it was a sting operation.[45]
Such a gesture would have been consisted with general Beg’s opposition to Pakistani participation in the international coalition. At the same time, however, if Beg was keen to help Iran, it would have been illogical for him to support the development of an Iraqi bomb at the same time. Helping Saddam Hussein, Iran’s mortal enemy, to get nuclear weapons might have been consistent with Beg’s political preferences (a staunch opponent of U.S. influence in the region), but completely at odds with his personal culture (a Shi’a with strong admiration for Iran).
The Libyan case
While the nuclear relationship with Libya began in the mid-1970s, concrete transfers took place only after the reinvigoration of Libya’s program in 1995. Contact was made the Khan network at that time.[46] In 1997, Libya received 20 complete L1 centrifuges and most of the components for another 200. In 2000, it received two complete but “second-hand” L2 centrifuges, as well as one cylinder containing 1,7 ton of UF6. In late 2001 or early 2002, documentation on nuclear weapon design, including the “Chinese blueprint,” was transferred. In late 2002, components for a large number of L2 began to arrive.[47]
The reasons behind the Libya transfers remain unclear. Personal greed, and perhaps a temptation to give the Bomb to a Muslim country that had helped so much Pakistan in the past were in all likelihood the determining factors. But one has to wonder how it was possible that transfers of nuclear technology to Libya could have taken place after 2001. It seems that A.Q. Khan was allowed to continue his travels even after he was ousted of KRL in March 2001.[48] The reason may be that he had the keys to the imports network, still vital for the Pakistani nuclear program. (He remained “Special Adviser to the Chief Executive on Strategic and KRL Affairs” after his dismissal.)
III. Understanding the Nature of the Network
Different cases, different responsibilities
Pakistani nuclear exports were probably, to a significant extent, an individual initiative. Most knowledgeable observers of the Pakistani scene agree that A.Q. Khan had an important degree of autonomy. If nuclear exports had been a consistent State policy, then it would have been logical that PAEC had a role in it too, which does not seem to have been the case. This does not exonerate Pakistani authorities but, as an observer put it, “Khan likely exceeded whatever mandate he received from the Pakistani leadership.”[49] He may have felt that he was “covered” for whatever he did by the large amount of trust and autonomy he was enticed with. It seems in fact that A.Q. Khan was able to manipulate the government and the Pakistani authorities did not want to know what was going on. For instance, he would tell the Prime minister that he needed to Iran for reasons of national security, and that would be enough. “As long as Khan’s group delivered the goods, no state authority questioned his tactics.”[50] Khan’s personal profits were reportedly known by the ISI since 1988, but Pakistan’s military authorities refused to act.[51] Such moves were made easy by the secrecy and compartmentalization of Pakistan’s program until the late 1990s, which did not create the best conditions for oversight.
Three events changed the picture: the 1998 tests, the 1999 coup, the 2001 attacks and their aftermath. There was a progressive reorganization of Pakistan’s nuclear program between 1998 and 2001. The nuclear laboratories were reined in and A.Q. Khan was forced to retire. Several explanations exist as per the reasons of this decision. Some U.S. officials have said that this was an American request.[52] It may also have been Musharraf’s own initiative—or a combination of both. After the 1998 tests, Pakistan was under strong pressure from the United States to show responsible behaviour, and in dire need of Western assistance. An inquiry by the newly-created National Accountancy Bureau had revealed unapproved financial transactions; it was not pursued due to the sensitivity of the matter.[53] According to several sources, the ISI followed A.Q. Khan to Dubai in the fall of 2000. When asked for an explanation by Musharraf, who was concerned about financial improprieties, he complained about the surveillance, gave false excuses and continued his travels.[54] The same thing happened when he was asked by Musharraf to explain an aircraft landing in Iran.[55] A.Q. Khan was clearly reluctant to abide by the new rules, which included a better oversight of nuclear officials. He was making it known that he disapproved the reorganization of Pakistani nuclear policy.[56]
To understand the complexity of the case, and the reasons why it remains difficult, to this day, to distinguish the various responsibilities, it is important to note that most known exports happened between 1988 (the death of Zia) and 1999 (the Musharraf takeover). In August 1988, the program came into the hands of President chairman GI Khan and chief of Army staff Mirza Aslam Beg. In the ensuing decade, the structure of Pakistani power was complex, and divided amongst three individuals: the President, the Prime Minister, and the chief of Army staff. For this reason, it is obviously difficult to answer to the question “who knew what?.”
What seems clear is twofold. First, the Prime Ministers during that period (Bhutto and Sharif in particular) were not completely out of the loop. Indeed, the Pakistani government openly acknowledges the role of two individuals close to the Bhutto family: general Imtiaz Ali, military secretary to ZA Bhutto and defense adviser to his daughter Benazir, and family dentist (sic) Zafar Niazi.[57] Second, a handful of Pakistani leaders seem to have played a key role. One was general MA Beg. There is ample evidence of his involvement in Iranian-Pakistani nuclear cooperation. As stated above, his personal background and political preferences led him to take a consistent pro-Iranian, anti-American stance. Another key individual may have been president GI Khan. One source reported Khan as being actually in charge of the nuclear program from 1975 until 1991.[58] As defense minister, he was involved in the decision to make Kahuta a separate entity under A.Q. Khan.[59] He was a member of the three-men KRL coordination board when it was created in 1976.[60] As finance minister, he was present at the first 1983 cold tests.[61] He also gave tax-free status to the BCCI, which was used as a conduit for Pakistani nuclear imports and exports.[62] Finally, it is hardly conceivable that successors to MA Beg as chiefs of Army staff (generals Nawaz, Kakar, Karamat, and Musharraf) were unaware of any transfers of nuclear technology. At the very least, they proved unwilling to ensure that A.Q. Khan was not able to proceed with unsanctioned exports. A.Q. Khan has reportedly admitted that both Kakar and Karamat knew and approved of his dealings with North Korea.[63] Finally, during the period 1987-1999, A.Q. Khan, who was certainly good at manipulating the system, may have been himself manipulated as to ensure “plausible deniability.”
Pakistani nuclear exports were thus partly a personal initiative, partly a State policy, in various proportions according to the circumstances. Different transfers probably reflected different situations. The apparent quid pro quo with North Korea may have been a State policy made with knowledge of most high-level Pakistani authorities, including Bhutto and Sharif. Of course, no element of Islamic solidarity was present there. Rather, it was the need to ensure the continued development and reliability of the liquid-fuel Pakistani missiles. The case of Libya was probably an A.Q. Khan initiative. However, this may also have been “payback time”: when Tripoli agreed to give financial support for the Pakistani program in the early 1970s, it asked for nuclear technology in return. ZA Bhutto never committed himself to go that far.[64] But he may have created expectations in Ghaddafi’s mind. The offer to Iraq was probably A.Q. Khan’s own initiative. Iran is the most complex case. The launching of a military-oriented nuclear cooperation was probably not sanctioned by President Zia ul-Haq. However, in the period 1988-1995, exports to Iran were known by most Pakistani leaders, including Prime Ministers Bhutto and Sharif, and deliberately encouraged by some, such as MA Beg and GI Khan.
It seems that there was no constant and consistent State policy governing the nuclear exports made, or sanctioned, by Pakistani officials in the past 30 years. Concrete interests, personal and national, seem to have been the primary driver behind these exports. They were made possible by the large freedom of manoeuvre given to A.Q. Khan’s activities until the end of the 1990s. But there was, at least in one instance, in the late 1980s, an attempt to make nuclear exports part of a broader national strategic orientation.
Not a Wal-Mart, but an imports-exports enterprise
Pakistani nuclear-related exports began about a decade after their imports network was set up in the mid-1970s. The Pakistanis thus had acquired a very significant experience in dealing with nuclear transfers, legal and illegal. Contacts and procedures used for Pakistani imports were sometimes of direct use to exports when they involved transfers from Western firms, intermediaries and shell companies.
Once fully matured, it comprised several main nodes: the UAE (the company’s headquarters), Malaysia, Turkey, South Africa—not including various personal properties around the world. There were half a dozen workshops around the globe, with Dubai serving as the main platform for re-exporting. A.Q. Khan set up dozens of shell companies to that effect, sometimes just for one-time use. A total of about 50 people were actively involved in the network.[65] But A.Q. Khan operated with a dozen of key close associates. It was in more than one respect a family business. Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan national, was the chief operating officer of the exports network. His headquarters were the Dubai-based firm SMB Computers. His uncle, S.M. Farouq, was another key operative. Peter Griffin designed the Libyan Machine Shop 1001, and imported machines from Spain and other European countries for that project.[66] Mohammed Farooq was a KRL official in charge of procurement and sales abroad.[67] Paul Griffin (son of Peter Griffin), operated Gulf Technical Industries, one of the main Dubai-based front companies. Urs Tinner, a Swiss national and long-time associate of A.Q. Khan, as well as his father Friedrich and his brother Marco, were involved in both the Iran and Libya enterprises. Heinz Mebus, an old college classmate, was involve in sales to Iran. Gotthard Lerch, another long-time associate, has been described as the “division manager for the Libya business” and Tahir’s “main contractor.” He was in particular in charge of the South African node.[68] He involved Gerhard Wisser (a German mechanical engineer) in the Libya operation, who in turned involved Daniel Geiges (a Swiss mechanical engineer) and Johan Meyer (a South African engineer).[69]
The main companies reportedly involved in centrifuges exports were: Khan Research Laboratories (Pakistan): ring magnets, aluminium and maraging steel, flow-forming and balancing equipment, vacuum pumps, non-corrosive pipes and valves, end-caps and baffles, power supply; Scomi Precision Engineering (Malaysia): aluminium and maraging steel, end-caps and baffles; SMB Computers (UAE): non-corrosive pipes and valves, end-caps and baffles, power supply; ETI Elektroteknik (Turkey): aluminium and maraging steel, power supply; and Trade Fin (South Africa): flow-forming and balancing equipment, vacuum pumps, non-corrosive pipes and valves.[70] Other companies involved included Bikar Mettale Asia (Singapore), Hanbando Balance Inc. (South Korea), Krisch Engineering (South Africa), CETEC (Switzerland), Traco (Switzerland), and EKA (Turkey).[71] Equipments for Libya were imported by the Tinner family from Spain (vacuum pumps, flow-forming machines), Italy (special furnaces), France, the United Kingdom and Taiwan (machine-tools), as well as Japan (a 3-D measuring tool).[72]
The story cannot be reduced to a mere “reversal of the flow.” Most of the imports network remained insulated from the exports. And the North Korean deal does not seem to have implicated the network: it was a State-to-State enterprise, which may have included a personal initiative by A.Q. Khan with support from military authorities. By contrast, Libya, which was by far the biggest known A.Q. Khan operation, was an ad hoc project which fully involved Khan’s associates, and was probably hidden from the political authorities.
But there were clear links between the imports and exports networks. Some of the components that A.Q. Khan exported were also components he needed for the national program; thus, starting in the mid-1980s, he reportedly began to order more components than necessary for the national program.[73] Some of the network’s customers, such as Iran, received “second-hand” centrifuges—those which were replaced by newer models for Pakistan’s national programs. Several key individuals involved in Pakistani exports were also involved in the imports. Mohammed Farooq, A.Q. Khan’s principal deputy, was reportedly in charge of overseas procurement for KRL.[74] Others were long-time associates, who he had met in the 1960s and 1970s. They included Peter Griffin (who was involved in early imports of inverters from the UK); Gotthard Lerch (who used to work at Leybold Heraeus, which was to become a key contractor of Pakistan); Otto Heilingbrunner (same); Henk Slebos (who studied with A.Q. Khan, used to work at Explosive Metal Works Holland and sold various equipment to Pakistan over the years); Friedrich Tinner (who used to work at Vacuum Apparate Technik, a firm who sold equipment to Pakistan in the 1970s); and Heinz Mebus (who was involved in the first centrifuge transfers to Iran in the mid-1980s). Other elements of commonality exist between the two networks. Tactics designed to fool Western exports controls were learned for imports and used for exports. States such as the UAE and Turkey were major platforms for both imports and exports. And the BCCI was, it seems, one of the conduits used (until its demise in 1991) for payments made to Pakistani officials.[75]
Thus the network was not a “Wal-Mart,” as IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei wrongly characterized it. Rather, it was an “Imports-Exports Enterprise.” From the initial import-oriented network under the direction of MA Khan, a separate, export-oriented branch developed under the direction of A.Q. Khan, starting in the mid-1980s. In the late 1990s, it became more decentralized as A.Q. Khan realized he was under surveillance. It became a “privatized subsidiary” of the imports network.
Also, the network did not export the whole range of Pakistani technology. It sold or gave know-how on uranium enrichment and weapons design, and centrifugation technology. Again, the “Wal-Mart” comparison goes too far.
IV. Learning from the Pakistani Experience
Two additional conclusions can be drawn from this brief survey for the future study and understanding of proliferation networks.
The first one is that we should not be surprised that the uncovering of A.Q. Khan’s activities did not kill the network. This is only logical since the exports was only one part of the Pakistani machinery, loosely affiliated with the rest or the network. Recent developments show that Pakistan has indeed continued to seek nuclear imports after 2003.[76] In August 2005, Asher Karni, an Israeli businessman, arrested in January 2004, was condemned in the United States to have exported or attempted to export, via South Africa and the UAE, 200 triggered spark gaps as well as high-tech oscilloscopes to Pakistan.[77] In November, Rainer Vollmerich, a German businessman, was condemned for having exported to Pakistan, until 2004, mechanical and electronic equipment with military nuclear use.[78] In May 2005, Swiss federal police stated it had precluded two attempts at exporting aluminium tubes of Russian origin to KRL.[79] In July, an European confidential report stated that Pakistan was still “shopping” for high-grade aluminium, ring magnets, and machine-tools that could be useful for its nuclear program. The document reportedly listed 20 Pakistani institutions involved in such imports.[80] Finally, in 2006, the Russian government revealed that Pakistan had been actively searching for nuclear-related technology in the country.[81] Some Pakistani officials have argued that Pakistani needs to continue buying abroad because of damage done to key installations by the October 2005 earthquake.[82] While this rationale may be overstated, it seems that Pakistan will continue to import foreign components as spare parts and and upgrades for the modernization of its facilities and weapons. The construction of a second heavy-water reactor at Khushab, which is currently underway, may also imply additional imports.
The second conclusion, and perhaps the most important one, is that the A.Q. Khan network is probably unique. Its efficiency can be explained by the fact that it was based on a State network. Creating a nuclear exports enterprise is easier than it was 20 or 30 years ago. For instance, as an observer puts it, “computers now can do the work that in the past only very sophisticated engineers could do. In the past, making the parts required extraordinary skill in hand-machining. Now poorer countries with weaker industrial bases can essentially download the software, plug it into a machine, and cut rare metal alloys as well as a Swiss craftsman could thirty years ago.”[83] But it is hardly conceivable that another Khan-like network could exist without being the offspring of a State machinery. In other words, the “next A.Q. Khan,” if there is one, will not be an isolated individual but somebody with access and experience drawn from a country’s national nuclear program. In sum, the “next A.Q. Khan” could only be, for instance, Iranian or North Korean.
About the Author
Along with being a Senior Research Fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), Dr. Tertrais is also a Lecturer in World Politics at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris. Dr. Tertrais graduated from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris in 1984. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Law of the University of Paris (1985), and a Doctorate in Political Science of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (1994).
Between 1990 and 1993, he was the Director of the Civilian Affairs Committee, NATO Assembly, Brussels. In 1993, he joined the Délégation aux Affaires stratégiques (Policy Division) of the French Ministry of Defense as an analyst (European affairs). In 1995-1996, he was a Visiting Fellow at the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica. From October 1996 until September 2001, he was Special Assistant to the Director of Strategic Affairs at the French Ministry of Defense. His recent publications include Nuclear Policies in Europe (Oxford University Press, 1999) ; US Missile Defence : Strategically Sound, Politically Questionable (London : Center for European Reform, 2001) ; L’Asie nucléaire (Paris : Institut français de relations internationales, 2001). Dr. Tertrais specialties are: US strategy , nuclear issues, defense and military, policies, transatlantic relations and Asian security.
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References
1. Herbert Krosney and Steve Weissman, The Islamic Bomb (New York: Times Books, 1981), 75.
2. Ibid., 81-83.
3. Usman Shabbir, “Remembering Unsung Heroes: Munir Ahmad Khan,” Defence Journal, May 2004.
4. Ian Cobain and Ewen MacAskill, “MI5 unmasks covert arms programmes,” The Guardian, 8 October 2005.
5. See Krosney and Weissman, Op. Cit.; and William Langewiesche, “The Wrath of Khan,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 2005.
6. This is the case for instance of Peter Griffin. See Blake Eskin, “Blueprints for Disaster,” The New Yorker, 7 August 2006.
7. Steve Coll, “The Atomic Emporium,” The New Yorker, 7 and 14 August 2006, 56.
8. Langewiesche, Op. Cit.
9. David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Pakistan’s bomb: Out of the closet,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 48, no. 6, July-August 1992.
10. Joachim Krause, “German Nuclear Export Policy and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons—Another Sonderweg?,” Nonproliferation Education Center, February 26, 2005.
11. Quoted in “Nuclear Exports to Pakistan Reported,” Der Spiegel, February 20, 1989.
12. Quoted in John Wilson, “Much Noise over Full Drums,” The Pioneer, February 4, 2004.
13. Frederick Lamy, Export controls violations and illicit trafficking by Swiss companies and individuals in the case of A.Q. Khan network, Geneva Center for Security Policy, August 19, 2004, 8.
14. Ibid., 9.
15. Ibid., 11.
16. Ibid., 10.
17. General Accounting Office, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Export Licensing Procedures for Dual-Use Items Need to Be Strenghtened, NSIAD-94-119, April 26, 1994.
18. Ibid., 25, 28.
19. Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, “Schooling Iran’s Atom Squad,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May-June 2004.
20. IAEA, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2006/15, February 27, 2006, 3.
21. John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Pakistanis Say Nuclear Scientists Aided Iran,” Washington Post, January 24, 2004; John Wilson, “Iran, Pakistan and Nukes,” Observer Research Foundation, 2005.
22. John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe,” Washington Post, February 3, 2004; Mubashir Zaidi, “Scientist Claimed Nuclear Equipment Was Old, Official Says,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2004.
23. Kathy Gannon, “Iran Sought Advice in Pakistan on Attack,” Associated Press, May 12, 2006.
24. MA Chaudhri, “Pakistan’s Nuclear History: Separating Myth from Reality,” Defence Journal, May 2006.
25. Kathy Gannon, “Explosive Secrets from Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2004.
26. Matt Kelley, “Pakistan Threatened to Give Iran Nukes,” Associated Press, February 27, 2004; and Douglas Frantz, “Pakistan’s Role in Scientist’s Nuclear Trafficking Debated,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2005.
27. Frantz, Ibid.
28. David Rhode, “Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers,” New York Times, February 3, 2004; Lancaster and Khan, “Musharraf Named...,” Op. Cit.; David Armstrong, “Khan Man,” The New Republic, 9 November 2004.
29. Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 313.
30. See John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Pakistanis Say...,” Op. Cit.
31. Kenneth R. Timmerman, Countdown to Crisis. The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (New York: Crown Forum, 2005), 101-107.
32. IAEA, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2006/15, February 27, 2006, 5.
33. William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “New Worry Rises after Iran Claims Nuclear Steps,” New York Times, as published by the International Herald Tribune, April 17, 2006.
34. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., DPRK-Pakistan Ghauri Missile Cooperation, Federation of American Scientists, 21, 1998.
35. Bill Powell and Rim McGirk, “The Man Who Sold The Bomb,” Time, February 6, 2005.
36. David Armstrong, “Khan Man,” Op. Cit.; Lancaster and Khan, “Musharraf Named…,” Op. Cit.
37. “President’s Interview with The New York Times,” Website of the President of Pakistan, September 12, 2005.
38. Mubashir Zaidi, “Scientist Claimed Nuclear Equipment Was Old, Official Say,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2004; Broad and Sanger, Op. Cit.
39. Christopher O. Clary, The A.Q. Khan Network: Causes and Implications, Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, December 2005, 62-71.
40. Strobe Talbott, Engaging India. Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004), 150-151.
41. Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 206.
42. Sharon A. Squassoni, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Trade Between North Korea and Pakistan, Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, March 11, 2004; Frantz, Op. Cit.
43. Clary, Op. Cit., 62-71.
44. “Memo # 78m, Subject: Proposal,” Iraqi Intelligence Document, October 6, 1990.
45. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “The A.Q. Khan Illicit Nuclear Trade Network and Implications for Nonproliferation Efforts,” Strategic Insights V, no. 6 (July 2006).
46. Wyn Q. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation. Stepping Back from the Brink, Adelphi Paper no. 380 (New York: Routledge/International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006), 30-43.
47. IAEA, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, GOV/2004/12, February 20, 2004, 5.
48. David Sanger, “The Khan Network,” Conference on South Asia and the Nuclear Future, Stanford University, June 4-5, 2004; Edward Harris, “Khan Visited Uranium-rich African Nations,” Associated Press, April 19, 2004.
49. Clary, Op. Cit., 89.
50. Peter Lavoy and Feroz Hassan Khan, “Rogue or Responsible Nuclear Power? Making Sense of Pakistan’s Nuclear Practices,” Strategic Insights III, no. 2 (February 2004).
51. John Wilson, “Notes from the Nuclear Underground,” The Pioneer, June 9, 2006.
52. Sanger, “The Khan Network,” Op. Cit.
53. Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror (New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2005), 231.
54. Frantz, Op. Cit.; William Langewiesche, “The Point of No Return,” The Atlantic Monthly, January-February 2006.
55. Interview on Nuclear Jihad, Discovery Times (TV channel), April 17, 2006.
56. These events followed the restructuration of the NCA announced in February 2000. See “Dr. Qadeer Khan Bids Farewell to KRL,” Dawn, April 2, 2001.
57. NTI Global Security Newswire, “Pakistan Military Distances Itself From Khan,” July 10, 2006.
58. Mushahid Hussain, “Media Off Target with Pakistan Nuclear Scare,” Asia Times, November 7, 2001.
59. Chaudhri, Op. Cit.
60. Shahid ur-Rehman, Long Road to Chagai (Islamabad: Print Wise Publications), 53; S. Shabbir Hussain and Mujahid Kamran, Dr. A. Q. Khan on Science and Education (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1997), 212.
61. Usman Shabbir, “Remembering Unsung Heroes: Munir Ahmad Khan,” Defence Journal, May 2004; Chaudhri, Op. Cit.
62. Clary, Op. Cit., 44.
63. Lancaster and Khan, “Musharraf Named…,” Op. Cit.
64. Herbert Krosney and Steve Weissman, The Islamic Bomb (New York: Times Books, 1981), 65.
65. David Albright, “A.Q. Khan Network: The Case Is Not Closed,” Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, May 25, 2006.
66. Polis Dijara Malaysia, Press Release by Inspector General of Police In Relation to Investigation on the Alleged Production of Components for Libya’s Uranium Enrichment Program, February 20, 2004.
67. Simon Henderson, “Nuclear Spinning: The Iran-Pakistan Link,” National Review Online, December 11, 2003; John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Pakistanis Say...,” Op. Cit..
68. Details on the South Africa operation are contained in High Court of Transvaal, The State vs. 1. Daniel Geiges 2. Gerhard Wisser (undated document, 2006).
69. Juergen Dahlkamp, Georg Mascolo, and Holger Stark, “Network of Death on Trial,” Der Spiegel, March 13, 2006.
70. Leonard S. Spector, Nilsu Goren, and Sammy Salama of the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies, “Special Report: The A.Q. Khan Network: Crime… And Punishment?,” WMD Insights, no. 3 (March 2006).
71. Ibid.
72. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Uncovering the Nuclear Black Market: Working Toward Closing Gaps in the International Nonproliferation Regime, Institute for Science and International Security, July 2, 2004; Polis Dijara Malaysia, Op. Cit.; “Nuke Trail Traced to M’sia, Pakistan, Libya,” Korea Herald, February 16, 2006.
73. William J. Broad, David E. Sanger, and Raymond Bonner, “A Tale of Nuclear Proliferation,” New York Times, February 12, 2004.
74. See Lancaster and Khan, “Pakistanis Say…,” Op. Cit.
75. Stephen Fidler and Farhan Bokhari, “Pakistan investigates BCCI role in sale of nuclear know-how,” Financial Times, February 4, 2004.
76. Louis Charbonneau, “Pakistan Reviving Nuclear Black Market, Experts Say,” Reuters, March 15, 2005.
77. Associated Press, “Israeli Businessman Sentenced in Plot to Ship Nuclear Detonation Devices,” Associated Press, August 6, 2005.
78. Agence France Presse, “German businessman accused of passing nuclear material to Pakistan,” Agence France Presse, September 25, 2005.
79. Rapport sur la sécurité intérieure de la Suisse, Office fédéral de la Police, Berne, May 2005, 47-48.
80. Leonard Weiss, “Testimony on the A.Q. Khan Network,” Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, May 25, 2006.
81. “Pak Had Tried to Illegally Acquire Russian Missile, Nuke Ttech,” The Hindustan Times, July 16, 2006.
82. Andrew Koch, “AQ Khan Network: Case Closed?” Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, May 25, 2006.
83. “Blueprints for Disaster,” Op. Cit.
2003 report:
http://www.iranwatch.org/privateviews/WINEP/perspex-winep-iranpakistanlink.htm
NUCLEAR SPINNING: THE IRAN-PAKISTAN LINK
BY SIMON HENDERSON
THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
December 11, 2003
Forget, for the moment, Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction — or lack thereof. Consider instead the other WMD conundrum: Iran. Events in Pakistan, where two nuclear scientists were arrested last week, suggest the whole issue is about to blow. (Figuratively, that is.)
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, declared, implausibly, that there was no evidence of Iran’s trying to build an atomic bomb. Washington was gob-smacked. As with the proverbial duck, Iran’s efforts looked like a nuclear-weapons program and sounded like a nuclear-weapons program. The trouble was the lack of proof sufficient to convince the pedants of the IAEA (which, incidentally, has never by itself discovered a clandestine nuclear-weapons program).
The Pakistani link is crucial to showing Iran’s true motives. Pakistan, which tested two nuclear bombs in 1998, used centrifuges to make “highly” enriched (i.e., bomb-grade) uranium. Iran also has centrifuges. The IAEA discovered traces of highly enriched uranium on some of them. Tehran’s reported explanation? “They came like that.” From where? “We bought the equipment from a middleman.”
The gossip is that Pakistan sold, directly or indirectly, the centrifuge equipment to Iran. The technology involves aluminum tubes — confusingly, the same technology that Saddam Hussein was reported to be interested in, although, to the glee of the war doubters, aluminum tubes found in Iraq so far have proved to be nothing more dangerous than casings for battlefield rockets. Aluminum tubes for centrifuges are decidedly “old-tech” but, in the absence of an alternative, can do the job, given enough time.
Officially, Pakistan denies it transferred centrifuge technology to Iran. But that still leaves open the possibility that Pakistani scientists did a private deal with Tehran, for money or mischief. The suspect in the frame? Dr. Abdul Qader Khan, who retired nearly three years ago as head of the eponymous Khan Research Laboratory (KRL). But despite Khan’s background, there is evidence that he is being set up and is, on this issue, innocent.
The current state of the friendship between the U.S. and Pakistan is complicated at best, as American soldiers being shot at from Pakistani positions along the border with Afghanistan will testify. Osama bin Laden was reportedly sighted in the remote north-Pakistani town of Chitral recently. A more likely lair is somewhere in the vast, sprawling townships that make up Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city on the Arabian Sea coast. President Musharraf, who retains the army uniform he was wearing when a 1999 coup brought him to power, juggles these tensions with Washington. Last month he was reported in the Los Angeles Times as saying that a trip by Khan to Iran had been about short-range missiles rather than nuclear issues. And, earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times quoted former Iranian diplomats as saying that Khan made several trips to Iran, beginning in 1987, and was given a villa on the Caspian Sea coast in return for his assistance.
This last report caught my eye as I once asked Khan whether he had ever been to Iran. I can remember his reply clearly: “Never.” I have spoken with Khan or exchanged letters with him frequently over the years. He is often evasive but I think I can tell when he is telling a diplomatic lie. For the rest of the time, I think he is straightforward with me. I understand he stands by his claim of never having visited Iran.
The two nuclear scientists arrested last week were departmental directors at KRL. Dr. Mohammed Farooq and Dr. Yassin Chowhan were picked up at 10 P.M. on the night of December 1. They were taken away by Pakistani intelligence agents, accompanied, it is alleged, by English-speaking men, apparently CIA officers. Their homes in Rawalpindi, the city which merges into the capital, Islamabad, are reportedly under surveillance.
Dr. Farooq was in charge of the section at KRL that dealt with ties to foreign suppliers and customers for KRL products. KRL also makes a range of battlefield products for the Pakistani army, such as a version of a Chinese handheld antiaircraft missile. (It also makes the Pakistani version of the North Korean nuclear-capable Nodong missile.) Dr. Chowhan ran one of the assembly lines at KRL.
The assumption is that the two men will be held until they confess to assisting Dr. Khan in supplying centrifuges to Iran. Dr. Khan, now retired, is nominally an adviser to President Musharraf, but there is little evidence to show that his advice is sought very often. In the bitchy world of Pakistani politics, there is resentment that Dr. Khan is popularly considered “the father of the Islamic bomb.”
So if Dr. Khan or some other Pakistani scientist did not supply centrifuge technology to Iran, who did? Suspicion falls on a Sri Lankan merchant formally based in Dubai, a member of his country’s Muslim minority who has now returned home. The businessman acted as a conduit for Pakistan’s orders of components and manufacturing equipment. Using that knowledge, he put in for extra orders of equipment and arranged a side deal with Iran. This scenario dates the start of Iran’s centrifuge project to 1979, eight years earlier than the IAEA’s assessment. Iran has refused to tell the IAEA the identity of this middleman.
But what about the traces of highly enriched uranium the IAEA found on the equipment in Iran? KRL apparently still uses some of its aluminum centrifuges alongside the later and more efficient ones made out of special steel. Others have been “scrapped and crushed.” None has been exported. Perhaps Iran has been more successful at enrichment than it wants to admit.
Washington’s motives are reasonably clear, even if not fully explained in public. Relations with Pakistan are very important. Iran’s nuclear ambitions must be curtailed. Presumably if Dr. Khan is blamed, President Musharraf is forced, through embarrassment, into more cooperation with the U.S. But Iran’s nuclear progress might be understated, and activities of an unscrupulous middleman might escape closer inspection. As with centrifuges themselves, there is a lot of spin.
Simon Henderson is an energy consultant and a London-based associate of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which recently published his The New Pillar: Conservative Arab Gulf States and US Strategy. He wrote this commentary for the National Review.
[2006 report to the Gov.]
http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/archives/109/27811.pdf
“The A.Q. Khan network: Case closed?”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,405847-2,00.html
Above link, has a link to related articles and Part 1.....
DER SPIEGEL 11/2006 - March 13, 2006
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,405847,00.html
A.Q. KHAN’S NUCLEAR MAFIA
Network of Death on Trial
By Juergen Dahlkamp, Georg Mascolo and Holger Stark
The world’s first-ever court case against a presumed member of Khan’s global nuclear weapons bazaar is beginning on Friday. The German defendant may have helped Libya acquire nuclear weapons technology. Iran is implicated too.
http://www.wmdinsights.com/I3/G1_SR_AQK_Network.htm
SPECIAL REPORT:
THE A.Q. KHAN NETWORK: CRIME… AND PUNISHMENT?
March 2006 Issue
This article is based on research conducted by Sammy Salama and Nilsu Goren at the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
In the two years since the operations of the nuclear smuggling network led by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan were publicly revealed, law enforcement agencies around the globe have pursued investigations and prosecutions against more than thirty individuals involved in the illicit trafficking effort. Results have varied widely, with a seven-year prison term meted out by a German court being the most severe punishment imposed to date. Most alleged participants in the enterprise, however, have suffered limited penalties, if any, for their efforts to provide assistance to nuclear weapon programs in Pakistan, Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
Secret Imports, Then Exports
The network was built upon a set of contacts and clandestine smuggling operations that Khan had developed since 1976, after he returned to Pakistan from the Netherlands. With him, he brought plans for uranium centrifuges used at a Dutch enrichment facility at Almelo and lists of component suppliers for that installation. PakistanÂ’s nuclear weapons production capability is based on this Dutch centrifuge technology. [1]
By 1987, Khan, relying on equipment and materials provided by his “incoming” nuclear smuggling network, had succeeded in producing highly enriched uranium for the Pakistani nuclear weapon program and began to exploit the same channels to establish an “outgoing” network to support nuclear weapon programs elsewhere. Equipment provided by the network, apparently beginning with shipments to Iran in 1987, included designs for uranium enrichment centrifuges; obsolete equipment from Pakistan’s own enrichment program; components for the manufacture of large numbers of centrifuges; and the design of a nuclear weapon (purportedly provided to Pakistan by China), along with detailed notations on how to machine and assemble its parts. [2] Uranium enrichment centrifuges can be used to produce low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plant fuel, but can also be used to produce highly enriched uranium suitable for use in nuclear weapons.
Although many details remain unclear, Khan appears to have gradually modified the range of matriel provided in order to suit the needs of his customers. According to published sources, Khan sold Iran a basic package of centrifuge blueprints and sample pieces of obsolete equipment from the Pakistani program, along with the nuclear weapon design. He then provided at least comparable assistance to North Korea, probably beginning sometime in the mid- to late-1990s. In 2000 or shortly thereafter, he also offered Libya a nearly complete uranium enrichment plant, fabricated abroad, together with the weapon design. (The scale of the assistance to Libya was exposed with the September 2003 detaining in Italy of the BCC China, en route to Libya, which carried much of this equipment.) Meanwhile, Khan continued to utilize the incoming operations of his smuggling effort to maintain and expand Pakistan’s own enrichment capabilities.
Geographic Scope
Over time, Khan also expanded his network geographically. During the initial incoming phase, its hub was at KhanÂ’s headquarters near Islamabad, with the major spokes radiating to Western European equipment producers through trusted European go-betweens, including those in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. Turkey and a number of other locales served as intermediate transshipping points. As the outgoing network grew, the hub appears to have divided, with important financing and organizational operations established in Dubai. From here, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman, arranged acquisitions for and transfers to KhanÂ’s new customers. Pre-existing connections to Europe were maintained, those in Turkey were expanded, and new spokes were added to South Africa and Malaysia, where, as in Turkey, Khan’s intermediaries arranged for certain components to be manufactured. South Africa and Turkey also served as transshipment points for items acquired from the United States. In East Asia, firms in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore contributed high-tech equipment to the enterprise, in some cases without knowing its ultimate purpose or destination.
Alleged Perpetrators and Law Enforcement Results
Khan’s efforts to jump-start nuclear weapon programs in three new states involved numerous actors in a wide range of countries.
Pakistan
At the core of Khan’s dealings with Iran, North Korea, and Libya was the transfer of technology that comprised the essence of PakistanÂ’s nuclear deterrent capability, presumably some of that countryÂ’s most prized and closely guarded state secrets. Several levels of officials in the Pakistani nuclear and military hierarchy have been investigated by Pakistani authorities. No prosecutions are known to have been brought, but a number of individuals, some of whom were held for “debriefings” for as long as six months, remain under house arrest and one appears to be in the indefinite custody of Pakistani authorities.
A.Q. Khan
Khan is believed to be under house arrest in Islamabad, following his detailed disclosures in early 2004 to Pakistani authorities regarding his activities, his public apology on February 4 of that year, and his pardon immediately afterwards by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Khan’s immediate subordinates at the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL)
At least 15 officials linked to KRL were questioned by Pakistani authorities in early 2004. Most were released in several weeks or less, but three were held in custody for six months and then placed under house arrest, Maj. (ret.) Islam al-Haq (Khan’s personal staff officer), Nazeer Ahmed (Director-General of Science and Technology at KRL), and Brig. General (ret.) Sajawal Khan Malik (head of security at KRL). Only one KRL official, Mohammed Farooq, A.Q. KhanÂ’s principal deputy, is thought to remain in detention at this time. [3]
Senior members of the Pakistan military
Three former Chiefs of Army Staff (COAS), Mirza Aslam Beg (COAS from August 1988 to August 1991), Abdul Wahid Kakar (COAS from January 1993-January 1996) and Jehangir Karamat (COAS from January 1996 to October 1998), have been accused in various reports of being involved in the affair, as either knowledgeable of and acquiescing in Khan’s activities, or actively facilitating them. [4] Beg and Karamat were reportedly questioned by Pakistani authorities but were not charged with any wrong-doing. Karamat is currently PakistanÂ’s ambassador to the United States. President Pervez Musharraf, who has served as COAS since October 1998, is also alleged to have been knowledgeable about the Khan network, but denies this was the case. [5]
Malaysia
This was the site of SCOPE, a subsidiary of the SCOMI Group BHD, one of the Khan network’s off-shore machining and manufacturing shops, which produced an array of aluminum components for the Libyan centrifuge enrichment program, including casings, end-caps, and baffles. The unit was set up by Tahir, but owned by a company controlled by Kamaluddin Abdullah, son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. [6] Presumably a number of other business persons and technicians would have been involved in the effort.
Buhary Syed Abu Tahir
After being cleared of violating Malaysian criminal law, Tahir was arrested on May 28, 2004, under Malaysia’s internal security law, and remains in detention. [7]
Kamaluddin Abdullah, and other officers/employees of SCOPE
No charges are known to have been filed against these individuals.
Western Europe
At least nine individuals from Western European states have been identified in press accounts or official sources as assisting in illicit procurement activities in support of A.Q. Khan’s efforts to assist Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and/or nuclear programs elsewhere. Several of these individuals participated by assisting manufacturing and machining operations in Malaysia, South Africa, or Turkey relevant to the production of uranium enrichment equipment. The group includes three Swiss citizens, Friederich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco; a Dutch citizen, Henk Slebos; a citizen of unidentified nationality, Zoran Filipovic; a British citizen, Abu Siddiqui; and German citizens Gotthard Lerch, Rainer Vollmerich, and Heinz Mebus (deceased). The Tinners, personnally and through companies they owned or operated in Europe (including CETEC and Traco), are alleged to have provided technical support in setting up and operating production lines for SCOPE in Malaysia. Marco Tinner is alleged to have used Turkish firms to manufacture centrifuge parts, which were then exported to SCOPE for further modification. Henk Slebos is reported to have sent dual-use equipment to Pakistan and to be part owner of ETI Elektroteknik, a Turkish firm that also allegedly supported the Khan network (see below). Zoran Filipovic is said to have worked with Slebos, helping to smuggle nuclear relevant dual-use goods out of the Netherlands. Abu Siddiqui did the same from England. Gotthard Lerch is reported to have assisted Libya in developing an advanced machine shop to support its planned uranium enrichment activities and to have arranged for the production of centrifuge parts in South Africa for the Libyan program. (Another individual, Peter Griffin, is said to have supported the outfitting of the Libyan machine shop; he successfully sued the Guardian (London) for libel for falsely alleging that Malaysian authorities found him guilty of providing assistance to Libya’s nuclear program. His son Paul Griffin is discussed below.) Rainer Vollmerich procured items related to uranium enrichment for nuclear facilities in Pakistan.
Friederich Tinner
In custody of Swiss authorities. [8]
Urs Tinner
In custody of Swiss authorities, since November 2005, awaiting trial. [9]
Marco Tinner
In custody of Swiss authorities; under investigation in Turkey. [10]
Henk Slebos
Convicted in the Netherlands on charges related to smuggling nuclear components to Pakistan. Received 12 month sentence, (8 months suspended, 4 months served); ordered to personally pay a fine of 100,000 euros (US$120,000). [11]
Zoran Filipovic
Convicted in the Netherlands of exporting controlled items to Pakistan. Sentenced to 180 days of community service and fine of 5,000 euro. [12]
Abu Siddiqui
Convicted in the UK of illegally evading British export laws by shipping nuclear dual-use items to Khan’s lab in Pakistan. Received a 12-month suspended sentence and a £6,000 fine. [13]
Gotthard Lerch
Charged with violating German export laws; arrested in November 2005, but not currently in custody. [14]
Rainer Vollmerich
Convicted of illegally procuring and exporting controlled nuclear materials to Pakistan. Sentenced to prison term of 7 years and three months. [15]
Investigations in France and Spain
According to two leading U.S. experts on the Khan affair, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, investigations are also being pursued in France and Spain. None has resulted in arrests or prosecutions as of this writing. It has not been possible to obtain additional details of these developments.
South Africa
Johan Meyer, founder of Trade Fin Engineering, and Gerhard Wisser, owner of Kirsch Engineering, are alleged to have supported the Khan enterprise along two tracks, reportedly working with Tahir. First, they received and transshipped sensitive goods needed for Libya’s uranium enrichment program and, second, engaged in the manufacture of components for that program, in particular, vacuum pumps and equipment for handling uranium in gaseous form.
Johan Meyer
South African authorities indicted Meyer, but dismissed the charges against him after he agreed to testify against Wisser. [16]
Gerhard Wisser (and his employee Daniel Geiges)
Awaiting trial in Pretoria. [17]
Turkey
Khan’s network operated in Turkey along the same tracks as in South Africa, with several key firms supporting Khan’s sale of a uranium enrichment plant to Libya by receiving and transshipping dual-use goods and by manufacturing components needed in the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment process, in particular electronic components. The key individuals and firms alleged to be involved are Gunes Cire (sometimes, spelled Gunas Jireh), director of ETI Elektroteknik, and Selim Alguadis, President of EKA, also a firm specializing in electronics, as well as several of Alguadis’s business partners.
Gunes Cire
Arrested and detained in Turkey. Died in 2004. [18]
Selim Alguadis
Under investigation by Turkish authorities; potential penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment.
Zubeyir Baybars Cayci, Ertugrul Sonmez
Turkish authorities said to be seeking indictments against these individuals who are partners of Alguadis; potential penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment. [19]
Dubai
Tahir worked out of Dubai, where he was Managing Director of SMB Group, and Freiderich Tinner, Peter Griffin, and others are alleged to have used this locale extensively as a transshipment point to disguise the ultimate destination of sensitive equipment. Griffin’s son, Paul, managed the Dubai-based company Gulf Technical Industries (GTI), reported to be a frequently used cut-out for the network. [20] The co-director of GTI, Ahmad Hassan Rashid Ahmad al Abbar, was the local sponsor of the company. [21] It does not appear that authorities in Dubai are pursuing charges against any individuals associated with the Khan network.
Paul Griffin
Not known to be currently the subject of investigation; has denied allegations of wrong-doing.
Ahmad Hassan Rashid Ahmad al Abbar
Not known to be the subject of investigation.
Singapore
Some of the materials used by SCOPE to manufacture 300 metric tons of aluminum tubing were purchased from Bikar Metalle Asia, a Singapore subsidiary of the German company Bikar Metalle. This tubing was sent through Dubai. There is no indication that Bikar Metalle Asia was aware of the purpose to which the material was to be used. [22]
Bikar Metalle Asia
Management was not prosecuted; found not to have committed a crime or to have hidden its involvement. [23]
South Korea
The Khan network acquired specialized balancing machines from South Korea. The manufacturer of the machines, Hanbando, Inc., has not been accused of wrong-doing, but the exporting company, known in court records only as “D” was the subject of law enforcement efforts.
“D” Corporation
Prosecuted in late 2004 and acquitted by a South Korean court because of lack of evidence of intent to break South Korean export control laws. Prosecuted for a second violation and acquitted on the same grounds. South Korean Ministry of Commerce and Industry, however, imposed a one-year ban on import and export activities by the organization. [24]
Japan
Specialized Japanese three-dimensional measuring machines, needed to build uranium enrichment centrifuges with the necessary precision, were found by the IAEA in Libya during inspections as that country dismantled its nuclear weapons program. On February 13, 2006, Japanese authorities raided the Mitutoyo Corp., outside Tokyo, manufacturer of the machines, which were shipped to Tripoli via Dubai by Scomi Precision Engineering. [25]
Mitutoyo Corp.
Under investigation.
Patterns of Punishment
With a number of investigations and prosecutions still pending and others possibly in the planning stage, it is premature to draw firm conclusions regarding the international response to A.Q. Khan’s illicit nuclear trafficking. Nonetheless, certain patterns appear to be emerging.
First, it appears that political realities in Pakistan, Malaysia, and, possibly Dubai have shaped
decisions regarding which actors to pursue and how to punish them. Even in these settings, however, penalties of some severity have been meted out. A.Q. Khan is under indefinite house arrest, disgraced, deprived of his ability to speak publicly, and deprived of enjoyment of the fortune he built from his crimes. His principal deputies, Mohammed Farooq and B.S.A. Tahir, are in custody, indefinitely, without the benefit of trial. Three Khan KRL subordinates were held for “debriefings” that lasted six months and then placed under house arrest. However, other figures in these countries, some of whom may have played important roles in the Khan enterprise, have avoided prosecution and penalties of any kind.
Second, in Western Europe, prosecutions have had uneven success. Rainer Vollmerich’s seven-year prison sentence imposed by a German court is substantial, but the light punishments meted out in the Netherlands to Henk Slebos and Zoran Filipovic seem unlikely to serve as a deterrent to future export control violations. It remains to be seen how South African, Swiss, and Turkish courts will deal with individuals facing charges for nuclear export control violations in those countries.
As in combating international terrorism, it is likely that in seeking to thwart A.Q. Khan’s activities, interested governments have confronted difficult choices between pursuing intelligence gathering opportunities and bringing individuals to justice. Former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, for example, has stated that in 1975 and 1986, the CIA requested that Dutch authorities not detain A.Q. Khan so that his activities could be monitored and other elements of this network, and their customers, identified. [26] Similarly, the presence of Dutch intelligence officers at the search of the offices of Henk Slebos is said to have tainted his prosecution and led to a reduced sentence. [27] In addition, the need to protect intelligence-gathering sources and methods can preclude the use of certain evidence in criminal proceedings, increasing challenges for prosecutors.
Finally, interested governments have yet to take action against freight forwarders, financial institutions, and other facilitators of Khan’s nuclear smuggling operations. [28] Many such parties were likely innocent of any knowledge of the transactions they were assisting, but others may have been fully cognizant of the role they were playing and deserve to be pursued by the appropriate authorities.
Despite the on-going efforts to roll up the A.Q. Khan network, smuggling in support of nuclear weapon programs continues. Iran may well have developed its own network independent of Khan – and Pakistan, itself, can be expected to continue to import sensitive goods for its nuclear deterrent. [29] [30] Aggressive pursuit and prosecution of wrong-doers and more substantial penalties for those convicted may help to deter future smuggling operations, but the erratic record to date, with its strong tilt towards leniency, suggests that much remains to be done to achieve such results.
Leonard S. Spector, Nilsu Goren, Sammy Salama – Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies
SOURCES:
[1] For overviews of the Khan network, see, e.g., David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “Unraveling the A. Q. Khan and Future Proliferation Networks,” Washington Quarterly (Spring 2005), p. 111-128; Sammy Salama and Lydia Hansell, “Companies Reported to Have Sold or Attempted to Sell Libya Gas Centrifuge Components,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, March 2005, http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_60a.html; [View Article] “Press Release by Inspector General of Police in Relation to Investigation on the Alleged Production of Components for Libya’s Uranium Enrichment Programme,” Polis Diraja Malaysia, February 20, 2004, http://www.rmp.gov.my/rmp03/040220scomi_eng.htm. [View Article]
[2] U.S. Embassy China, “Remarks By the Vice President At Fudan University, Followed By Student Body Q&A, Fudan University, Shanghai, China,” April 15, 2004,
http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/shanghai/temp/0415vpfudan.htm. [View Article] On the origin of the nuclear weapon design provided by Khan, see Joby Warrick and Peter Slevin, “Libyan Arms Designs Traced Back to China,” Washington Post, February 15, 2004,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42692-2004Feb14?language=printer. [View Article]
[3] “Arbitrary Arrest of Pakistani Officials of the Nuclear Research Laboratory in Kahuta,” February 3, 2004, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa330032004. [View Article]
[4] “Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe,” Washington Post, February 3, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6884-2004Feb2?language=printer. [View Article] Beg has denied allegations that he proposed to transfer nuclear weapons technology to Iran. See: “Beg Reveals Decision On Non-Proliferation,” Dawn, January 25, 2004, http://www.dawn.com/2004/01/26/top2.htm. [View Article]
[5] It is possible that the most senior officials of Pakistan’s government were also knowledgeable about Khan’s activities. Benazir Bhutto, who served as Prime Minister from December 1988 to October 1990 and from October 1993 to November 1996, is believed to have traveled to North Korea in December 1993 to pursue negotiations on Pakistan’s acquisition of the Ghauri missile. “Pakistan Helped North Korea Make Bomb,” Guardian, October 19, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,815196,00.html. [View Article] It has been suggested that part of the deal included Pakistani support for the North Korean uranium enrichment program, although Ms. Bhutto has denied the charge, stating that Pakistan paid for the missiles in cash. Ibid. No action in conjunction with the Khan affair has been taken against Bhutto or against Nawaz Sharif, who served as prime minister from November 1990 to October 1993 and from February 1997 to October 1999.
[6] “Police: Khan Sold Iran Nuke Equipment for $3M”, Fox News, February 20, 2004, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111980,00.html. [View Article]
[7] “Malaysia Arrests Alleged Black Market Nuclear Agent,” Taipei Times, May 30, 2004, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/30/2003157524; [View Article] “Malaysia Arrests Senior Figure: Sri Lankan Tied to Pakistani Khan’s Network,” May 28, 2004, Nuclear Policy Research Institute website, http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/index.cfm?Page=Article&ID=1619. [View Article]
[8] Personal communication, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, February 28, 2006; see also “Swiss Engineer in Libya Nuclear Probe to be Extradited from Germany,” Swiss Info in English, May 13, 2005; FBIS document EUP20050513950109.
[9] T. Scheuer and M. Wisniewski, “US Sting Said to be Likely Cause for German Pumps at WMD Sites in Libya, Iran,” Munich in Focus, November 21, 2005; FBIS document EUP20051128085002.
[10] Personal communication, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, February 28, 2006; “Turkey a Transit Country in Smuggling Nuclear Parts into Libya,” Ankara Turkish Press in English, Dec 08, 2005; FBIS document GMP20051212025001.
[11] “Disclosure of Illicit Supply Networks Expose Weaknesses in European Export Control Systems,” International Export Control Observer 3, December 2005/January 2006, p.14-18.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Western Intelligence Agencies Missed Link to A.Q. Khan’s Nuclear Proliferation Network,” June 02, 2004, http://www.publicedcenter.org/stories/siddiqui/. [View Article]
[14] “Old Engineer Accused of Helping Libyan Nuclear Program,” Pravda.ru, December 16, 2005, http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/12/16/70009.html; [View Article] David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, February 28, 2006.
[15] “Disclosure of Illicit Supply Networks Expose Weaknesses in European Export Control Systems,” op. cit.
[16] “South Africa Seizes Uranium Enrichment Materials,” September 8, 2004, http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2004nn/0409nn/040908nn.htm. [View Article]
[17] “RSA: Court Resets Trial of Two Men Accused of Nuclear Proliferation to Feb 2006,” Johannesburg SAPA, October 4, 2004; FBIS document AFP20051004505001.
[18] “Nukleer Kacakcilikla Suclanan Iki Turk” [Two Turks Alleged to Nuclear Trafficking], Sabah in Turkish, January 27, 2006, [www.sabah.com.tr]. See also: “Eti Elektroteknik A.S. History,” http://www.cire.com.tr/en/en-hak_tarihce.htm. [View Article]
[19] “Yedi nukleer silahlik malzeme satmslar” [They have sold materials enough for 7 nuclear weapons], Milliyet in Turkish, December 08, 2005, [http://www.milliyet.com.tr].
[20] “Businessman Under Scrutiny 25 Years Ago After Ordering Unusual Supplies,” Guardian, March 05, 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,,1162669,00.html. [View Article]
[21] Ibid.
[22] See Source [1].
[23] “Daily: German Firms Unwittingly Involved in Nuclear Deals With Libya, Pakistan,” FBIS document EUP20040325000341; David Crawford and Steve Stecklow, “How A Nuclear Ring Skirted Export Laws,” Asian Wall Street Journal, http://www.ipweb.jp/news/frame_news.php?nno=2004032221310011. [View Article]
[24] Confidential interviews, February 2006.
[25] Hiroko Tabuchi, “Japanese Firm Raided in Nuclear Probe,” ABC News International, February 13, 2006, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1611490&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312. [View Article]
[26] “CIA Asked Us to Let Nuclear Spy Go, Ruud Lubbers Claims,” ANP (Netherlands National News Agency), August 9, 2005, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050809-khan-cia.htm. [View Article]
[27] “Disclosure of Illicit Supply Networks Expose Weaknesses in European Export Control Systems,” op. cit.
[28] One financial entity is known to have come to the attention of investigators for its possible role in financing illegal nuclear transactions, the Bank of Credit and Commerce, International (BCCI). See “The BCCI Affair: Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations U.S. Senate” by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, December 1992, Appendix “Matters for Further Investigation.” http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/. [View Article] BCCI has since gone out of business after being banned in seven countries.
[29] See story in this issue of WMD Insights on the smuggling of sensitive dual-use goods through Sudan.
[30] “Banned N-tech Went to Pakistan, India: US”, The Nation, April 10, 2005,
http://nation.com.pk/daily/apr-2005/10/index5.php. [View Article] See also:“Pakistani Charged With Export of Devices With Nuclear Uses,”Washington Post, April 9, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38757-2005Apr8?language=printer. [View Article]
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