V. Mohan Narayan
Islamabad, February 17
Questioning President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to grant pardon to Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan in “haste”, Opposition parties have said it raises several doubts about his intentions and asked the government to clarify.
Shooting questions during a debate in the Senate on the nuclear proliferation issue, PPP’s parliamentary leader Raza Rabbani asked why Khan was granted pardon in “such a haste” when government had at that stage stated that investigations have not been completed.
Rabbani’s remarks come close on the heels of comments by party chief Benazir Bhutto in US media that Khan was being made a “scapegoat” and pointed to the involvement of the army top brass in the clandestine transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
Seeking to put the government on the mat, the Opposition members moved 10 adjournment motions on the issue.
Going through the developments following the sensational expose, Rabbani wanted to know why, the President had announced a pardon on February 5, government went about the damage control exercise saying it was conditional. Was it because of a telephone call Musharraf received from US Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 6? he asked.
The Opposition fired pointed queries under what provision of law the President had pardoned the nuclear scientist and why he had firmly declined to permit handing over documentary evidence collected against the scientists, thereby scuttling moves for independent investigation under UN supervision.
Opposition members wanted to know whether the statements made by Khan and others as also the findings of the probe team would be shared with the IAEA.
If the proliferation process was going on for over a decade, why had the USA imposed sanctions on the Kahuta Research Laboratories only last year? they asked.
While it was being made out that Khan and others had acted on financial considerations, the scientist in his televised speech made no reference to this and only spoke of “an error of judgment,” they pointed out.
In the lengthy debate, Rabbani sought the government’s explanation on why the first information report lodged against Khan had been kept in a sealed cover.
The Opposition members said the Government had to clear the air of suspicion both in Parliament and among the people. — PTI
Experts aghast at scale of Khan’s ‘nuke market’
Ashish Kumar Sen
WASHINGTON: It was the International Atomic Energy Agency, rather than the administration of President George W. Bush, that first put pressure on Pakistan to force Abdul Qadeer Khan to reveal his role in the nuclear-weapons proliferation network.
According to Newsweek, which reported the news yesterday, US officials had to swallow hard while Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf only mildly disciplined Dr Khan — dismissing him from his ceremonial role as adviser.
Following Dr Khan’s televised confession of his involvement in the proliferation racket, officials say the disgraced father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme passed on equipment and know-how to Iran and Libya, and made offers to Iraq and most recently, Syria. He also helped advance North Korea’s covert programme.
Nuclear experts are aghast at the magnitude of Dr Khan’s involvement in a nuclear weapons “black market” they believe extends from Switzerland to Japan and Dubai. Over 30 years, Dr Khan strung together what the IAEA Director, Gen Mohammed El Baradei, called “a veritable Wal-Mart” for nuclear-weapons buyers.
Newsweek quoted a senior US official as saying that Dr Khan’s role in destabilising the 21st century would “loom up there” with Hitler and Stalin’s impact on the 20th century. The rogue scientist even held nuclear-related symposiums. “The horse is out of the barn. At this point, we can’t stop the technology from spreading,” former Clinton aide Gary Samore told the magazine.
Earlier this month, Dr El Baradei admitted that considerable light on the global network had come from the IAEA’s ongoing verification of nuclear programmes in Iran and Libya.
“What we are seeing is a very sophisticated and complex underground network of black market operators not much different from organised crime cartels,” he said. “It is vital that we keep making progress in combined efforts against illicit trafficking, and to keep upgrading security to effectively prevent sensitive nuclear material and technology from falling into wrong hands.”
Despite this realisation, officials in Washington concede most of the Khan network’s key operatives are likely to escape punishment, saying that Dr Khan benefits from the delicate politics of the war on terror.
Noting that Pakistan, not Iraq, is probably the world’s most dangerous breeding ground for both weapons of mass destruction and terror, these officials point out that Pakistan is also a key US ally.
Incidentally, on November 7, 2001, BBC TV and the Guardian of London reported that the Bush administration had thwarted investigations of Dr Khan.
According to that report, the National Security Agency stymied the probe of Khan Research Laboratories. The Central Intelligence Agency and other agents could not investigate the spread of Islamic bombs through Pakistan because funding appeared to originate from Saudi Arabia.
Reporter Greg Palast says sources and documents given to him show the Bush administration “spike” of the investigation of Dr Khan’s lab followed from a wider policy of protecting key Saudi Arabians, including Osama bin Laden’s family. “The intelligence agencies had been told to ‘back off’ from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan,” Palast reported in the Guardian in 2001.
Meanwhile, Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan Muslim whom Mr Bush has called the “chief financial officer and money launderer” of Dr Khan’s network, appears to have been given a clean chit by Malaysian authorities.
A Malaysian Government official absolved Kuala Lumpur’s Scomi Precision Engineering plant, supposedly a supplier to Libya’s nuclear-weapons programme, saying that “the parts produced ... were of a generic nature.”
7 girl schools burnt in Pak
Gilgit (Pakistan), February 17
A group of armed men, angered over increasing activities of foreign-funded charity organisations, set fire to seven girls’ schools in northern Pakistan, damaging buildings and furniture, a government official said today.
Saeed Ahmed Khan, Home Secretary in Pakistan’s Northern Areas, said the attack yesterday did not injure anybody in Dyamir district, about 150 km east of Gilgit, because the schools were closed at the time.
“So far we only know that some local clerics incited people for the attack because they think these schools are being funded by foreign charity organisations to harm Islam,” he said.
Saeed gave no other details and only said they were still investigating.
Many hardline clerics in Pakistan’s remote tribal and scenic regions are against girls’ education. They are also against allowing charity organisations to work in their areas. — AP