Pak nuke scientist A Q Khan met Osama: Report

SIFY ^

[milestogo]

Pak nuke scientist A Q Khan met Osama: Report

Sunday, 03 April , 2005, 12:24

New Delhi: Pakistani scientists Abdul Qadeer Khan and Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood had held meetings with Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders, exchanged letters with militant organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and attended their gatherings and rallies, a media report said.

"When the CIA searched (Sultan Bashiruddin) Mehmood’s UTN (Umma Tameere-Nau) office in Kabul, they found large amounts of data on the construction and maintenance of nuclear weapons from the Kahuta laboratories. It also found letters exchanged between the UTN and Islamist extremist organisations including Lashkar-e-Toiba", a report in Pakistani weekly The Friday Times said.

Mehmood, a close confidante of A Q Khan and a former director of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, was arrested on October 23, 2001, at the headquarters of the UTN which he had set up for "humanitarian work in Afghanistan."

Quoting the famed journal Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the article said Khan and Mehmood and other scientists of his organisation "attended Lashkar-e-Toiba gatherings."

[TFine80]

uh..... that's pretty worrying if true.

[CarrotAndStick]

Ping!

[rbg81]

Here's an idea: lets find an un-inhabited, potentially-unstable planet in another star system and maroon Khan there. Seriously, AQ neds to be caged or worse--with extreme prejudice.

[softwarecreator]

uh..... that's pretty worrying if true.

Appears our Mr. Khan has been a very busy lad. With Pakistan's protection of him, we may not find out the full impact of his endeavors until it is way too late

[worst-case scenario]

I find it impossible to believe that Khan carried on this nuke-tech-exporting business from government-controlled labs without the cognizance of the Musharef government. Certainly the lackadaisical way that Prez. M. handled the "discipline" of Khan indicates that they were in cahoots. And now there is evidence that Khan met with bin Laden. And we're supposed to be relying on Pakistani input and troops to find bin Laden somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistan border? Yeah, I bet Musharef is in a big fat hurry to find him. And we put our brave soldiers into potentially fatal situations, removing them from their families and jobs state-side, to engage in this wild goose chase? But at least we got Pakistan's business for our F-16s! Good for the Texas economy..... Grrrr!

[FreeReign]

Appears our Mr. Khan has been a very busy lad. With Pakistan's protection of him, we may not find out the full impact of his endeavors until it is way too late

US not finished with Pakistan yet:KARACHI - The United States is exerting maximum pressure on Pakistan to provide a detailed and "authentic" list of all of its nuclear cooperation with Iran over the years.

Contacts in the highest echelon of Pakistan's strategic quarters tell Asia Times Online that during her visit to Islamabad on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appraised Pakistan of the latest - and strong - US demands.

atimes.com

[FreeReign]

I find it impossible to believe that Khan carried on this nuke-tech-exporting business from government-controlled labs without the cognizance of the Musharef government.

Why? If you've got the evidence and if you wish to make a point, then you should post such evidence.

[expatguy]

There is a lot more to the story! Dr. Khan is not the only one.

The Pakistan Connection Part 1 - Part 2 today hopefully

Click and scroll down

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[SevenMinusOne]

I find it impossible to believe that Khan carried on this nuke-tech-exporting business from government-controlled labs without the cognizance of the Musharef government. Certainly the lackadaisical way that Prez. M. handled the "discipline" of Khan indicates that they were in cahoots. And now there is evidence that Khan met with bin Laden. And we're supposed to be relying on Pakistani input and troops to find bin Laden somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistan border? Yeah, I bet Musharef is in a big fat hurry to find him. And we put our brave soldiers into potentially fatal situations, removing them from their families and jobs state-side, to engage in this wild goose chase? But at least we got Pakistan's business for our F-16s! Good for the Texas economy..... Grrrr!

The situation is much more complex than you are understanding - First off Musaraff has been a very solid ally to us (America) since Sept 11th (more so than practically any other leader throughout the Middle East...and to a large extent even European Countries!).

Musaraff is simply dealing with a tremendously difficult situation - He is trying to stay alive, keep his Gov't afloat while at the same time weeding out the al Qeade type sympathizers in both the Pak military as well as the Pak ISI - (he has done about as well as can be expected).

Also it is naive to suggest Khan couldn't have been carrying out "talks" with one group or another without Musaraff having known (That is like saying GWB had to know what was going on at Abu Ghraib.....simply not true) Especially in a Country like Pakistan where many (many) sympathizers against Musaraff still exist throughout the Gov't -

Moving onto Khan....understand it was through cooperation with US (America, GWB Admin) that the "discipline" for Khan was agreed to! (now does that give you at least a heads-up to what the ramifications of his worth to the Pak citizens must be and the consequences of overt actions)

Lastly regarding the hung for UBL - The fact is we know he has been ekking out a survival in the Pak border region - The problem is there is no good options for pin pointing exactly where! - Nor are there many good options for trying to track him in this region -

Though finding a way to have US SOF operate independently is going to have to be the answer (only way to stop leaks) - Though are JAGs kill our OODA thus about he equivalent to "leaks" anyway - (and US SOF in Pak border region have all sorts of logistic type nightmares, etc).

[SevenMinusOne]

Lastly, also understand that many of Khan's talks with Iran, Libya and possibly even al Qeade (though I doubt this one very much!) - These took place long before Musaraff was in power (he came into power in 1999) - These meetings with Iran, Libya and others happened well before this (though, they could have continued talks up to 2001).

[econ_grad]

Time to transfer him to Gitmo.

[worst-case scenario]

The actual report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that this news article refers to has much more evidence about Musharef's awareness than I can restate here. That evidence is one reason that I maintain the opinion that I do. A.Q. Khan is presently running the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories in Rawalpindi, offering for sale both equipment and assistance spun off from the Pakistani gas centrifuge program - the program that made possible Pakistan's enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons. The author of the Bulletin report has a copy of Khan's sales brochure! If Musharef wants to help us out, closing down Khan's shop is a good way to start. Maybe I feel nervous about the US exporting F-16s to a country that doesn't seem able to control the sale of such sensitive military technology. Will we see the blueprints for this fighter offered to the highest foreign bidder by some other "rogue" Pakistani scientist?

[worst-case scenario]

According to the Bulletin report, which is much more detailed and evidenced than the brief news squib, the meetings began after June 2000.

[SevenMinusOne]

According to the Bulletin report, which is much more detailed and evidenced than the brief news squib, the meetings began after June 2000.

irregardless - The fact is Khan could have very well had certain talks with one group or another outside of Musraff's knowing (he had just come into power less than a year earlier) - And there is no dispute that Musraff has done a lot for us (America) since Sept 11th (again, more than perhaps any other Middle East Country and more so than many European Countries....this with putting his life at risk!).

Also, one needs to question very hardly any supposed connections between Khan and al Qeade (in that Khan was used to dealing with Countries with huge budgets who had the needed equipment and manufacturing facilities to do anything with his "knowledge" - al Qeade had neither of these things).

[SevenMinusOne]

Maybe I feel nervous about the US exporting F-16s to a country that doesn't seem able to control the sale of such sensitive military technology. Will we see the blueprints for this fighter offered to the highest foreign bidder by some other "rogue" Pakistani scientist?

The F-16 is not in the class of sensitive military technology (anymore) - and those F-16 we sell to Pak will certainly be tweaked (nor do they have the needed technology for Nuclear delivery) - (and for the record Israel sold F-16's to China long ago )

Selling a limited number of F-16's to Pak made a tremendous about of since - Thank God for the leadership of GWB and Rumsfeld in office right now -

[sukhoi-30mki]

Umm,Care to provide any proof that Israel sold F-16s to China???They did provide help from their Lavi fighter,but F-16s??There is plenty of resources on the net about Pakistan leasing F-16s to China in the late 80s.

About not having the technology to deliver nukes,well most nations can give their fighters the capability to deliver gravity nukes on visually acquired targets & moreover there is proof that Pakistan did exactly the same with their earlier generation F-16s.

[SevenMinusOne]

well most nations can give their fighters the capability to deliver gravity nukes on visually acquired targets

Exactly, thus the current F-16's being sold to Pak give no added threat (that does not already exist) - Pakistan has many other jets capable of delivering via sight / gravity acquisition -

The fact is the F-16 sale to Pak does nothing to jeopardize National Security....but could go a long way towards helping to continue to move Pak toward our needs / goals - (this is called making an adult decision in the adult real world....and GWB/Cheney and Rumsfeld are all willing to make these adult type decisions).

[sukhoi-30mki]

The difference between the F-16 & other Pakistani N-capable jets(Mirage-5 & Chinese A-5) is that the latter 2 are useless in any air to air role,unlike the F-16.So any Falcon equipped with a nuke has a greater chance to fight it's way past Indian jets.That threat gets amplified if Pakistan get's what it wants ie F-16 Blk 52s with AMRAAMs.

[worst-case scenario]

DevSix, since you are interested in this issue, ExpressIndia has a longer explanation of the original story regarding Khan and Mehmood's meetings with bin Laden. (The Friday Times, which originally published the story on Friday, is a subscription-only site, so I've had to rely on news articles which cover it.) Khan himself may have been mainly interested in dealing with nation-states, but Mehmood is reportedly a religious fanatic who wanted Al-Qaeda to have this technology. That is why he met with bin Laden. According to ExpressIndia, "The weekly said, "this time he (Mehmood) disclosed that he discussed the bombing of an American city with nuclear weapons. He told the CIA that Osama had obtained fissile material from the islamic movement of Uzbekistan of Tahir Yuldashev, recently said to be in hiding in South Waziristan. Mehmood said he had passed on information on nuclear technology to Osama, but had not discussed creating a Hiroshima-like nuclear blast in America." I would love to share your optimism regarding Musharef's loyalty to us. I would also love to believe that he is able to control the scientists in his country that can sell nuclear secrets. If you can reassure me with factual proof that Musharef is actually able to stop such technology from leaving his nation - and has done so - then I will feel a lot more comfortable about the whole situation.