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Posted on 10/28/2007 11:56:43 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
India, Israel planned to hit Kahuta in early ‘80s
NEW DELHI Oct. 28 (APP): India and Israel had secretly planned to hit Pakistan’s nuclear facility in Kahuta near Islamabad in 1983-84, but backed off when the CIA in 1984 tipped off then President General Zia-ul Haq.
“The Asian Age” reported this in its report published on Sunday from London quoting details revealed by investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark in their new book, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Weapons Conspiracy.
The authors also revealed details about India’s secret intelligence links with Israel at the time when officially the two countries did not have any diplomatic contacts. “In February 1983, with the strike plan at an advanced stage, Indian military officials had travelled secretly to Israel, which had a common interest in eliminating (A.Q.) Khan, to buy electronic warfare equipment to neutralise Kahuta’s air defences,” the book said.
Indian put its plans on hold after Raja Ramanna, then director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, was warned by the then Chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Munir Ahmed Khan in Vienna in the autumn of 1983 that Islamabad would attack Trombay, if its facilities in Kahuta were attacked.
At this juncture, the book said, Israel suggested that they would carry out the raid on Kahuta using the Indian Jamnagar base in Gujarat to launch its jets and another IAF base in northern India to refuel. “In March 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed off (on) the Israeli-led operation, bringing India, Pakistan and Israel to within a hair’s breadth of a nuclear conflagration.”
However, the authors said India and Israel backed off from the plan after the CIA tipped off President Zia ul Haq and the US state department warned India that “the US will be responsive if India persists.”
The book further said Prime Minister Indira Gandhi then aborted the operation despite protests from military planners in New Delhi and Jerusalem. The authors quoting Gen. K.M. Arif, who was at the time Vice Chief of Pakistan Army as saying: “Our friends had let us know what the Israelis and Indians intended to do, and so we let them know how we would respond. Both sides were harrying the other and were absolutely aware of the consequences of every move. In the end, it was India that blinked.”
Not good. Not at all. India back then was a bit cozy to the Soviets, and we favored the Pakis. But letting them go nuclear will be a growing problem.
Ah, the father of Pakistan's Islamofascist Movement.
Is there any verification for any of this or is this yet another example of a supposed “Journalists” reporting rumor and innuendo as “news” and demanding the accused prove themselves innocent?
There have been several articles for years about India planning to strike Pakistan’s N-facilities in the 80s(after the Osiraq attack) on it’s own or with Israel’s alleged help.This is not the first one.
The CIA at the time was operating under severe restraints placed upon them by the Church Amendment, which was designed to hobble and handicap all these “adventures” by the “spooks” over at the Company. But even then, that was not as bad as it got later on under the regime of the “Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001”.
Since I am tired of educating other people's children, I will let you determine who was the president then!
1984 was a different era, confronting communism was more important than islamofascism.
If Al-Qaeda ever manages to set off a nuclear device in the US, it’s likely to have come from Pakistan. This one could really end up biting us.
But India was an ally of the Soviet Union (and is still an ally of Russia), and so using the adage 'the enemy of your enemy is your friend,' and maybe a corollary 'the friend of your enemy is your enemy' for both Pakistan and India, can see where the government was figuratively coming from.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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If true, too bad.
Consider what was going on in Afghanistan at the time. Pakistan was our base for supplying the Mujahadeen against the Soviets. I agree that in retrospect it looks bad, but at the time India bombing Pakistan would have really been to the Soviet’s benefit since it probably would have touched off another Indo-Pakistani War leaving the Soviets a freer hand in Afghanistan.
Whats you and most Americans forget...... the adage applies both ways. Pakistan was an ally of the US ..........and still is. Which is why US came to their rescue.
The CIA and the State Department. The gifts that just keep on giving...
Remember well, the term, 'ally' isn't in the same as in the usual context. India never is, and never has been, an "ally" of anyone except herself. Tell me one base in the vast Indian expanse, that's operated by a foreign power?
As for the US, India did have a decent relationship with the US for most of the time, if not all. India even sponsored spying missions with the US against China, at a time that India was also the closest with Russia.
The Russian relationship was out of sheer necessity. The US wasn't willing to support a post-Independence India that seemed too large and too unstable compared to Pakistan (a big folly to assume) and they even prevented the British, who have always been key weapons supplier to India from selling advanced jets. That was the time when the Russians stepped in with offers of not just selling planes, but even establishing manufacturing lines for them, in India. It was an offer that was too hard to refuse. Besides, the Russians even helped the Indians drive off the USS Enterprise that had maintained a threatening posture off the Bay of Bengal, against India, in the 1971-72 Indo-Pakistan War.
And after all that, not a single Soviet base on Indian soil. So much for "alliance".
“But India was an ally of the Soviet Union (and is still an ally of Russia), and so using the adage ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend,’ “
There is a flaw in that logic. The enemy of your enemy may actually also be your enemy. As you can see in this situation, the friend(India) of the enemy (USSR) was also a friend of a friend(Israel). And the so called friend (Pak) was also the enemy of a Friend (Isreal).
This is how life is. Maybe US needs to learn to think more.
1984 was a different era, confronting communism was more important than islamofascism.
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and in the future, china and north korea will be more important than islamofascism
“And after all that, not a single Soviet base on Indian soil. So much for “alliance”.”
Fiancee unit reported seeing lots of old Soviet era red stars and Stalin photos/statues in south India - but also noted that they seemed old and dejected. It was a different era, for sure.
Why should India let anyone else have bases there? They have a lot of landmass and they can protect it themselves. We don’t give other countries basing rights, either. India sees themselves as achieving Superpower status at some point. Not this decade, but it’s a possibility.
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