Posted on 05/16/2005 10:58:32 AM PDT by ekidsohbelaas
A Wall Street financier who helped expose Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear network said that contrary to public perception that Pakistan exposed Iran's nuclear acquisition it was Tehran that allowed weapons inspectors to connect the dots between its nuclear programme and Pakistan's.
This sparked the unravelling of Khan's illicit nuclear smuggling ring.
Mansoor Ijaz, who has worked behind the scenes in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, told Gulf News: "When Iran agreed to inspections of its nuclear sites, the centrifuges 'discovered' by the inspectors contained incontrovertible evidence of originating in Pakistan."
Khan's black market network sold Iran everything from Krytron switches used to spherically detonate nuclear bombs to Chinese designed shell casings for the construction of bombs, to simulator software to theoretically test bomb yields, he said.
The MIT and Harvard-trained nuclear scientist who helped track Khan's signature on weapons proliferated to Iran, Libya and North Korea said "the larger strategic design in Khan's scheme was to put Pakistan at the centre of a pan-Islamist nuclear umbrella that stretched from Libya and Egypt in the west to Malaysia in the East."
He said Iran's expose stemmed from growing frustration with Khan, who for years sold countries keen to develop their own nuclear arsenal just enough information to string them along; but not enough to have a fully developed nuke programme.
"The Iranians called Khan's and Pakistan's bluff and brought the entire nuclear black market edifice down just as the US was coincidentally tracking down a ship smuggling nuclear weapons to Libya, also traced back to Khan," the Pakistani-American said.
Ijaz, who has won respect in the Bush camp for his hardline views on nuclear proliferation and anti-terrorism efforts also implicates a powerful Pakistani general as the real architect of the nuclear network that Khan has been publicly pilloried for.
While refusing to name the general or his sales emissaries, Ijaz remains steadfast that "powerful, even rogue elements of Pakistan's intelligence and military knew full well what Khan was doing or being asked to do."
It is the first public indication of how closely Khan and the Pakistan military-intelligence complex were connected.
"A former intelligence chief was the real brains behind Khan's maniacal dreams. Emissaries sent by him negotiated through Khan with those who wanted to buy nuclear hardware."
He said the US administration put pressure on Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to sideline the general as early as 2001 when moles within the network exposed the rogue general.
In fact, sources say that it was Ijaz who first brought Musharraf's attention to the ambitious intelligence chief's role during a little known meeting between the two at Musharraf's private residence as he was crafting the 2000 ceasefire between Kashmiri militants and India.
Ijaz said he had sat in on a number of early negotiations on foreign privatisation schemes in Pakistan.
These would swiftly descend into hard bargaining on the best price for "khilonay" or toys, a euphemism used by Khan's emissaries for pieces of the nuclear arsenal.
"In some cases, the emissaries were openly carrying brochures listing the kind of equipment they were willing to sell and for what price," Ijaz said.
He says while the general has since been eclipsed for his role in nurturing the nuke network and his dubious links to Al Qaida (the general allegedly warned Taliban chief Mulla Omar of US plans to attack Afghan strongholds rather than hand over Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks) as well as his ambitions to topple Musharraf, these emissaries have grown in political stature.
They could pose a threat to Pakistan's future as a stable, democratic entity.
Musharraf's move to rehabilitate previously discredited opposition figures is meant to offset the rise of Islamist parties that share the discredited general's aims of establishing a pan-Islamist nuclear power.
Pakistan's newfound behaviour as a responsible global citizen is in Ijaz's view without doubt a direct result of pressure from Washington.
"It was because Pakistan was caught with its hands in the nuclear cookie jar, that it is making the right moves at home and with India over Kashmir. By being a global citizen, there are many more carrots like the F16s on the table."
He said that Pakistan's cooperation has since been vital in tracking down Al Qaida and Taliban remnants on the Pakistan-Afghan border, and on what nuclear components have been sold to Iran and North Korea.
It's cooperation with the UN and IAEA weapons inspectors may provide the final link needed to determine how far Tehran has progressed in its ambitions to develop a nuclear bomb and unleash electromagnetic pulse warfare.
This is a NIGHTMARE
Stay tuned for Hillary, She'll make the world safe from everything!
Mansoor Ijaz is full of it and has made a living making predictions that don't come true.
He was involved in a biotech company and his involvement led to losses of millions of dollars to investors (lied about his ability to raise capital).
He has is finger on the pulse of nothing and is one of the biggest sacm artists around.
Mansoor Ijaz is full of it and has made a living making predictions that don't come true.
He was involved in a biotech company and his involvement led to losses of millions of dollars to investors (lied about his ability to raise capital).
He has is finger on the pulse of nothing and is one of the biggest sacm artists around.
Can the Iranian yeild programs be traced back to Los Alamos?
He's stating information that's already been published (see December 2003 article http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/henderson200312110800.asp) ... almost seems as if he's taking credit for the discovery of the link.
Next time you see him on the news, make note of his dire predictions and then note how they never materialize.
I agree. Ijaz is a BS artist.
So Iran getting caught with Paki equpiment is the moral equivalent of Iran "outing" the Paki nuke scientist?
That is like saying that camp commandant at Aushwitz should be commended for outing Eichmann.
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