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Abdul Qadeer Khan: We've not yet seen all the fallout of Pakistan's nuclear proliferation.
Wall St Journal ^ | 2-17-04 | BERNARD HENRI LEVY

Posted on 02/17/2004 5:27:19 AM PST by SJackson

Edited on 04/22/2004 11:51:07 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

PARIS -- We observed the Abdul Qadeer Khan affair, the incredible story of this Pakistani nuclear scientist who delivered over 15 years -- freely and with impunity -- his most sensitive secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Then we learned that President Musharraf in person, after an interview from which little or nothing has been divulged, ended up granting Khan his "pardon." Case closed? End of story? That's what the American administration, falling oddly in step with the official Pakistani doctrine, would have us believe. But knowing something of the case -- and being the first French observer, to my knowledge, to have tried to alert public opinion to the extreme gravity of the situation -- I believe that we are only at the very beginning this story.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: abdulqadeerkhan; nuclearsecrets; nukes; pakistan; proliferation
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1 posted on 02/17/2004 5:27:21 AM PST by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
2 posted on 02/17/2004 5:29:04 AM PST by SJackson (Visit http://www.JewPoint.blogspot.com)
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To: Atlantic Friend
Levy bump. I don't always agree with him, but he makes another admirable spokesman for France. He was on Charlie Rose quite a while back and his positive comments for Americans softened up my attitudes quite a bit.
3 posted on 02/17/2004 5:32:57 AM PST by risk (Democracy. Whiskey. And sexy!)
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To: SJackson
I was hoping you were going to post this one!

Pakistan-not-our-friend bump.
4 posted on 02/17/2004 5:35:21 AM PST by livius
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To: SJackson
It's not as if Kahn miraculously came under the microscope just a month or two ago. In fact he's been well-known to international intelligence agencies for well over a decade. And Pakistan's two-decade history of fanaticism, money laundering, heroin dealing, arms smuggling, and terrorist harboring goes on and on.

BTW, Kahn's expertise is theft, not engineering. Kahn himself does and did not have the technical skills to actually lead the nuclear engineering efforts.

The following quotes are from Rachel Ehrenfeld's Evil Money, HarperCollins, 1992):

"In 1983 a Dutch court convicted Dr. Abdul Qader Khan, head of Pakistan's nuclear program, on charges of stealing the blueprints for a uranium enrichment factory. . . . Kahn's lawyer was paid by BCCI.

"In 1984, three Pakistani nationals were indicted in Houston for attempting to buy and ship to Pakistan, high-speed switches designed to trigger nuclear weapons. The trio offered to pay in gold supplied by BCCI.

"In 1987 two Americans, Rita and Arnold Mandel, together with Hong Kong businessman Leung Yu Hung, were indicted by the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento, California, on charges of illegal importations of $1 billion worth of oscilloscopes and computer equipment for Pakistan's nuclear program. . . . BCCI facilitated [some of the shipments]"

"In 1987 in Philadelphia, Ashad Pervez, a Pakistani-born Canadian, was indicted for conspiring to export restricted specialty steel and metal used to enhance nuclear explosions. ... He . . . paid high prices with money delivered to the Toronto BCCI branch from BCCI London"

5 posted on 02/17/2004 6:09:16 AM PST by angkor
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To: SJackson
I am waiting for the Dems to sieze on the Musharaff connection and juxtapose that with the lack of WMD we have found in Iraq as a way of trying to undermine the effort made in the War on Terror. This discrepancy (No WMD found in the country we went to war with and admitted nuclear proliferation from the country we give aid to.) looks like a "soft white underbelly" in today's envronment of sound-bites and media spinning.
6 posted on 02/17/2004 6:23:22 AM PST by stilts
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To: stilts
But they have not touched it. Why? The day that GWB made his speech about WMD and nonproliferation (11 Feb as I recall) Kerry "issued a statement" in response (meaning he had some staff flunky put out some words). It was boilerplate, about internationalizing blah, blah, blah.
7 posted on 02/17/2004 6:28:38 AM PST by Cap Huff
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To: angkor
I wonder why we have nothing more (or at any rate, nothing I've seen) on the BCCI connections.
8 posted on 02/17/2004 7:19:07 AM PST by livius
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To: livius
Dunno. It's strange.

Kerry was co-chair of the committee that investigated BCCI, and here's what his final report had to say, in the appendix "Matters For Further Investigation":

1. The extent of BCCI's involvement in Pakistan's nuclear program. As set forth in the chapter on BCCI in foreign countries, there is good reason to conclude that BCCI did finance Pakistan's nuclear program through the BCCI Foundation in Pakistan, as well as through BCCI-Canada in the Parvez case. However, details on BCCI's involvement remain unavailable. Further investigation is needed to understand the extent to which BCCI and Pakistan were able to evade U.S. and international nuclear non-proliferation regimes to acquire nuclear technologies.

9 posted on 02/17/2004 7:38:14 AM PST by angkor
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To: Cap Huff; Boot Hill
What does Khan know of what Gen. Musharraf knows? And what does Khan's daughter, Dina, who announced in London that she has suitcases of compromising files, know

And why did Tenet pay an unannounced visit to Pakistan last week?

Something very heavy is about to come down..

10 posted on 02/17/2004 7:44:11 AM PST by Dog
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To: angkor
My bet is that there is a direct link from Saddam's WMD programs after the first gulf war to BCCI. I bet not only did Saddam's enriched French Uranium end up there, but also funding from the UN Oil for fools funding of Saddam's rebuilding efforts.

I think the foundation of Pakistan's nuclear program is based on Saddam's "generosity" with goods, scientists and funding.
11 posted on 02/17/2004 7:59:07 AM PST by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
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To: SJackson
TRUTH!!!!!
12 posted on 02/17/2004 8:02:24 AM PST by dennisw ("Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass it's the American way" - Toby Keith)
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To: Dog
Here's something you may not have seen:

"Senior US official to visit Pakistan"
From Iftikhar Ali

NEW YORK-A senior State Department Official, who deals with arms control and missile defence, will visit Pakistan next week for talks with Pakistani officials, a Department official told The Nation.

Assistant Secretary of State Steve Rademaker will arrive in Islamabad on February 19 and will stay there for a couple of days, the official, who asked not be named, said.

>>snip<<

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Feb-2004/14/MAIN/top11.asp
13 posted on 02/17/2004 8:02:44 AM PST by Cap Huff
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To: angkor
And that is why you will stay in the USA. You understand too much and it's too interesting to connect the dots.
14 posted on 02/17/2004 8:04:53 AM PST by dennisw ("Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass it's the American way" - Toby Keith)
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To: American in Israel; livius
Some others here on FR have also been asking about the BCCI mess, and Kerry's part in it:

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1072559/posts

"There is good reason to ask Mr. Kerry some tough questions about his own involvement in the BCCI scandal - questions he has not yet answered satisfactorily. Mr. Kerry had started the investigation that led to BCCI long ago, when he decided to scrutinize drug money-laundering in Central America. That investigation was begun, according to congressional staffers involved in the probe, in the hope that some tie to George Bush, via the dealings of the CIA, could be found to implicate the president in the drug trade. Instead, as the inquiry progressed, it was Democratic icon Clark Clifford who was implicated.

"Mr. Clifford, adviser to presidents and his party's eminence grise, is accused of having been the front man for BCCI when the bank stealthily and illegally bought First American through proxies. Jack Blum, at the time Mr. Kerry's chief investigator, learned of Mr. Clifford's BCCI connection way back in June 1988. Yet months later, in September 1988, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Blum met with Mr. Clifford, who at the time was serving not only as head of First American but as a lawyer for BCCI as well, to discuss some documents that the senator's subcommittee wanted from BCCI. At that meeting Mr. Clifford told Mr. Blum and Mr. Kerry that acquiring the documents wouldn't be necessary because BCCI was on the up and up.
15 posted on 02/17/2004 8:07:05 AM PST by angkor
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To: angkor
Forgive my ignorance, what exactly is BCCI?
16 posted on 02/17/2004 8:33:31 AM PST by blanknoone
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To: angkor
Its personal with me. The Pakistani bast**ds ran off with 20K GBP of my savings. The Pak government refused to extradite the ring leader to face a proper trial. Unfinished business. I'd like to see the lot of them hang.
17 posted on 02/17/2004 8:35:05 AM PST by 5050 no line
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To: blanknoone
Bank of Crooks & Criminals International, aka Bank Of Credit & Commerce International.

A Pakistani operation, involved in everything from arms to drugs to bribery to money laundering. Financiers of "the Muslim bomb."

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/

The BCCI Affair
A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate
by
Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown
December 1992
102d Congress 2d Session Senate Print 102-140
18 posted on 02/17/2004 8:38:40 AM PST by angkor
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To: 5050 no line
"Its personal with me. The Pakistani bast**ds ran off with 20K GBP of my savings."

Ask Kerry and Bill Clinton, they probably know where your money went.

19 posted on 02/17/2004 8:40:17 AM PST by angkor
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To: dennisw
"And that is why you will stay in the USA."

Hah. Maybe.

20 posted on 02/17/2004 8:55:51 AM PST by angkor
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