Author: Mansoor Ijaz
Publication: www.weeklystandard.com
Date: January 8, 2004
URL: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/575nerhn.asp
The time has come to find out how
much damage Pakistan's nuclear program has done-- and how many rogue countries
are closing in on the bomb.
India's Prime Minister, Atal Behari
Vajpayee, met Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in Islamabad
on Monday on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation summit. The two erstwhile enemies shook hands and then agreed
to hold formal talks starting next month. The bilateral effort will be
aimed at finally settling a dispute that has long ranked as one of the
world's most dangerous nuclear flashpoints--Kashmir.
But the much-anticipated meeting
took place at an awkward moment for Pakistan, one that could define its
future as a nation in moral, diplomatic, and economic terms more starkly
than any other issue. The conduct of the Pakistani state, ruled for over
half its existence by military governments, is under a microscope as nuclear
watchdogs try to unravel the extent of damage done by Pakistani nuclear
scientists assisting rogue regimes from Tripoli to Tehran to Pyongyang
in building sophisticated uranium enrichment facilities.
Questions raised by Pakistan's nuclear
conduct relegate the future of Kashmir to the sidelines. The burning question
is whether Pakistan has morphed into a rogue nuclear state, or is the unwitting
victim of a handful of deranged army generals, intelligence officers, and
mad nuclear scientists run amok.
RECENT REVELATIONS about the extent
to which Islamabad proliferated its nuclear technology during the past
two decades paint a deeply troubling picture of not just what was happening
without detection of international nuclear monitors, but what may still
be going on--and what must now be stopped if the civilized world is to
prevent tyrannical regimes from developing the capacity
to build and deliver nuclear weapons
into the hands of terrorists.
The Bush and Blair successes in
coercing Libya and Iran, and perhaps soon North Korea, into nuclear compliance
may signal near-term progress in counter- proliferation efforts. But these
victories have come at the price of negligently looking the other way while
Islamabad continued an aggressive program to spread its nuclear expertise
to Muslim countries.
With Pakistan's nuclear genie out
of the bottle, Bush administration officials need to focus on getting Musharraf
to quickly identify the extent of the metastasis, to fully disclose it,
and to prosecute those officials involved no matter who they are or how
high they are in the system. Musharraf must then agree to put verifiable
measures in place to insure there is no possibility Pakistani nuclear technology
will show up next in Jakarta, Riyadh, Cairo, or Beirut.
Chronicling the Evidence
The evidence of Pakistan's complicity
in spreading its nuclear know-how is increasingly undeniable. Saif al-
Islam Ghaddafi, son of Libyan strongman Muammar Ghaddafi, almost gleefully
admitted to London's Sunday Times this weekend that Tripoli had paid $40
million (western intelligence believes the number could be as high as $100
million) to middlemen for a "full bomb dossier" from Pakistan detailing
how to build an atomic weapon. Libya's candor comes as part of its deal
with the United States and Britain to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons
in return for readmission to the community of nations, and western promises
to help rebuild its decrepit oil industry. Intercepting a German-registered
ship in October with thousands of parts for uranium centrifuges also helped
bring the Libyan leader to his senses about his ongoing nuclear cooperation
with Pakistan.
