Author: Aziz Haniffa in Washington
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: October 26, 2002
URL: http://rediff.com/us/2002/oct/26us.htm
Frank Pallone, Congressman and New
Jersey Democrat, has slammed the United States administration for ignoring
Pakistan's involvement in supplying North Korea critical equipment that
was used to start a covert nuclear programme by Pyongyang.
The founder and former co-chair
of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans has written to
US President George Bush to reimpose sanctions on Pakistan.
"What I find appalling is that this
nuclear programme that the United States worked tirelessly to halt, was
in fact sustained through the assistance of Pakistan. Not only did the
transfer of critical equipment from Pakistan to North Korea take place
around 1997, but in addition, this relationship has continued even after
[Pakistan] President [Pervez] Musharraf seized power by force in 1999,"
wrote Pallone.
"Pakistan is thought to have provided
technology even after September 11,2001, which is particularly outrageous,"
he wrote.
"Your administration has declined
to discuss Pakistan's involvement in this crucial situation with North
Korea. It is clear that Pakistan most likely exchanged equipment with North
Korea for missiles for the purpose of challenging India.
"The reason why I am writing this
letter is to urge the administration to conduct a full investigation of
Pakistan's role in providing North Korea with nuclear information and equipment,"
he said.
"It is important to fully explore
and disclose particularly to what extent President Musharraf has been involved
with North Korea since his military coup in 1999, and even more important,
to what extent this relationship between the two nations continued after
September 11, 2001," he said.
Pallone also requested Bush to 'take
immediate steps to ban all military sales to Pakistan and to reimpose the
Symington sanctions on that country for assisting a foreign nuclear weapons
programme'.
"I would also urge the administration
to ask our allies that may have arms sales to Pakistan in the pipeline
to also take similar steps and ban those military sales," he added. "Pakistan
cannot be exempted of its responsibility in colluding with North Korea
over a nuclear weapons program. This situation poses a direct threat to
our allies in Asia and to our safety in the United States."
Bush in his State of the Union speech
had called North Korea, Iran and Iraq, the 'axis of evil'. But unlike his
gung-ho attitude to invade Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein and take out
all Iraq's alleged nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programmes,
Washington had decided to use diplomatic and economic pressure to force
North Korea to give up nuclear weapons.
"The discovery that North Korea
has been secretly enriching uranium for the nuclear weapons programme it
promised to freeze in 1994 demonstrates the dangers of putting faith in
a confirmed and practiced liar. So does the news that Pakistan provided
the nuclear technology and perhaps uranium to Kim Jong II's regime," said
The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign affairs columnist
James Hoagland in an article on October 24.
"Pakistan's role as a clandestine
supplier shatters the Bush administration's efforts to paint that country
as a flawed but well-meaning member of the coalition against terror."
"Pakistan today," he said, "is the
most dangerous place on earth, in large part because the administration
does not understand the forces it is dealing with there and has no policy
to contain them."
"Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan is
a base from which nuclear technology, fundamentalist terrorism and life-destroying
heroin are spread around the globe. The past provides no reason to hope
that Musharraf is telling the truth about not helping North Korea now,
either. He has paid no price for lying to Powell about ending terrorism
in Kashmir or cooperating fully in crushing Al Qaeda," he wrote.
Hoagland also slammed the Bush administration
for its economic and military largesse to Islamabad, saying, "The only
consequences for duplicity have been rewards and protection. Why in the
world would he suddenly change an approach that is working on every level
for him?"
