He said,“They’ve been caught with their nuclear pants down.”
I am glad to report that the USA was not red faced when Israel had its fly open. Mordecai Vanunu the whistle blower cried out,”Your fly is open!” For his pains he was bundled up on charges of treason among other things(18 years of prison). Now Mr. Sick has said of Iran’s pants being down. All that the US and others will do is stare at it long and hard. Would it not have been better for them to rid themselves of their nuclear arsenals that are poorly hung?
2.
This Iran issue shall certainly cause great ripples of unrest. Households of Israel shall spend many a sleepless night as the USA during the cold war did. It was an age of mass hysteria but of their own making.  Did it not play a part in loosening up moral restraints all around, thereby creating its own group waves that changed the outlook of the world forever?
Looking back we see Einstein was clueless as FDR to go on with the Manhattan project. Oppenheimer more of a savant than a cold-eyed scientist later admitted his error and for his pains he was hounded as a Pariah by his own countrymen. The Israeli who made the world know of the Dimona bomb actually did a great service to his nation. As always no nation or individual know what effect an individual will have, for good or evil.
We have not yet plumbed the end of this mischief. Who can ever tell if some ragtag terrorist group will not get hold of nuclear secrets? They may go nuclear and peddle their weapons from nation to nation to stoke disaffection in every part and create hotspots everywhere. Nations shall be too busy to contain them than work for the good of the people. The terrorist groups may want nothing to achieve except see a great conflagration as Hitler wanted to set the world on fire to the strains of the last act of Götterdämmerung.
Hitler revered Wagner too well for his own good. Whereas the Goths of the latter days want to hear or see nothing.

(Ack:news item on Iran secret plant -bloomberg.com Gregory Viscusi and Janine Zacharia – Wed Sep 30)

benny

Meanwhile, Iran’s protestations of innocence have been undercut by Mr Khan’s explanation last month to “Islamabad Tonight”, a television talk show in Pakistan, of how in the 1980s Iran secretly sought his help with nuclear technology. “We” wished Iran to acquire such technology, he said, implying official backing for the deals eventually done through his network. “Iran’s nuclear capability [would] neutralise Israel’s power,” he added.

Similar job-lots of centrifuge equipment for enriching uranium, potentially fissile material for a bomb, delivered by Mr Khan and his associates to Libya had come with the design of a nuclear warhead thrown in. Caught out in 2003, Libya handed over both the design and information that helped expose the Khan network. Had Mr Khan sweetened the deals with Iran and North Korea in the same sort of way? Nobody knows. Arrests of his associates in Switzerland turned up digitised versions of an even more sophisticated warhead than that passed to Libya.

North Korea is now boasting that it has completed experiments to enrich uranium, giving it potentially a second stream of fissile material (it has already tested two plutonium-based bombs). That is discouraging, but hardly a surprise. In 2002 North Korean officials privately admitted to the Americans what they were up to (before later denying it again publicly). But no one knew how far they had got.

Mr Khan would neither confirm nor deny—“maybe” was all he was prepared to say, and “at the moment”—that he had supplied North Korea with such equipment. He implied that whatever he had done anyway had state backing. But General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former president, had already revealed that in the 1990s Mr Khan had supplied North Korea with some 20 of the necessary centrifuge machines, with instructions on running them.

Either way, even with Mr Khan out of the picture and some of his network rolled up, there is scope for mutual help between his customers. North Korea is known to have secretly built a nuclear reactor for Syria, of the sort it used to make the plutonium for its own bomb; that structure was destroyed in an Israeli air raid in 2007.

North Korea’s claim (assuming it is true) that it can now enrich uranium opens up a another dark possibility. Centrifuge machines are hard to operate. North Korea will have needed help in getting them up and running. North Korea and Iran are already known to co-operate intensively in developing nuclear-capable missiles. So what is to stop them helping each other with their nuclear programmes? North Korea has plutonium and warhead-building skills. A master tunneller, it could also help any country wanting to hide its nuclear efforts from satellites. Iran, meanwhile, has the uranium-enrichment skills that North Korea previously lacked. Small wonder Iran thinks it can enrich on happily.

As some might recall, I’ve read and blogged about Khan’s industrious thievery over the years. For all the evil he’s done, he didn’t do it alone. Although I could support any number of possible punishments, A.Q. Khan I fear will continue to annoy because his abettors and bumbling adversaries are keen to avoid the spotlight. But, the grabby doctor should get around to talking about his life, not salvaging his savaged reputation with dumb computer tricks. His friends and enemies could be fickle.

It has now been over a week since the video tape and transcript from the remarkable 8/8/09 deposition of former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds was publicly released. Previously, the Bush Administration invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege” in order to gag Edmonds, in attempting to keep such information from becoming public.

The under-oath, detailed allegations include bribery, blackmail, espionage and infiltration of the U.S. government of, and by current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and agents of the government of Turkey. The broad criminal conspiracy is said to have resulted in, among other things, the sale of nuclear weapons technology to black market interests including Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Libya and others.

Even as many of these allegations had been previously corroborated to varying extents, by a number of official government reports, documents and independent media outlets (largely overseas), not a single major mainstream media outlet in the U.S. has picked up on Edmonds’ startling claims since her deposition has been made fully available.

via The BRAD BLOG : Sibel Edmonds’ Deposition Disclosures: Congressional Bribery, Blackmail and Espionage.

One of the best things concerned Citizens can do to defend the Republic and hold corrupt public officials accountable is simply to share the information; please forward and repost the link, and tell your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers.

It’s also our civic duty to demand that Congress and the DOJ take action to root out and prosecute treason and corruption, and that the media do their job by reporting the news; sure, they don’t care- but we need to let them know WE care.

And by now you’ve probably noticed the many similarities between the Obama and Bush administrations, and the near total failure of both the Democrats and Republicans in Congress to serve the public interest, even though they consistently serve the corporate interests. If you have any ideas for alternatives to the Republocrats, let me know- but voting for the ‘lesser evil’ has not resulted in anything good.

Abdul Qadeer Khan has been under house arrest since 2004

Dr Khan, whose work helped Pakistan become a nuclear state, spent years under house arrest after he admitted selling off nuclear weapons secrets.

In February 2009 most restrictions on him were lifted, but he still had to notify authorities of his movements.

He subsequently filed a petition arguing for further freedoms.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8226124.stm

Published: 2009/08/28 10:03:41 GMT

Pakistan’s nuclear program has been subjected to sustained propaganda by Indo-US-Israeli media and officials since early 1980s. From 2005 onwards, propaganda snipes became more and more razor-sharp and scathing. Main theme revolves around weak security apparatus and nuclear weapons falling into wrong hands.

Possibility of Islamists seizing power and taking control of nukes was repeatedly drummed up. It was also said that Taliban sympathisers within Pak army could help terrorist organisations acquire some of the nukes. When representative of Afghanistan was elected to the board of IAEA in October last; first thing he did was to urge IAEA to press Pakistan tackle AQ Khan led ring responsible for spread of atom-bomb know-how. He wanted Khan to be interrogated and expressed fears that Afghan Taliban insurgents sheltering in border areas of Pakistan might one day grab off one of those bombs which will have grave ramifications for world security. According to recent Wall Street Journal, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are unstable and to save South Asia from any nuclear crisis, US should take steps.

Israel fears that Pakistan may transfer nuclear technology to any of its Arab neighbours. It has placed Pakistan on top of hit list since it considers nuclear Pakistan a threat to its existence. Israeli first Prime Minister Ben Gurion had stated, “It is essential that we strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism”. Indian concerns emanate from Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence which has forestalled Indian aggressive designs. Israel and India therefore wants liquidation of Pakistan. Since USA is guardian of these two states, it considers itself morally bound to not only allay their worries but also to ensure denuclearization of Pakistan. US officials have been exerting all sorts of pressures on Pakistani leaders to find out the location of all the nukes since without this basic data it becomes difficult for them to mount an attack to either hijack or destroy the nukes in situ.

Bruce Riedel, well-known for his anti-Pakistan feelings, said in early May, “A Jihadist state in Pakistan is neither imminent nor inevitable; it may not be likely, but it is a real possibility”. He warned that a Jihadist Pakistan would be a strategic nightmare for USA, South Asia and the world. In his view, a Jihadist takeover would make NATO mission in Afghanistan increasingly untenable and encourage Iran to accelerate its nuclear program. Michael E. O’Hanlon working in Washington Brookings Institution queried, “What could we do if Pakistan collapsed and security of roughly 100 nuclear weapons could no longer be vouched for”? He recommended unilateral American action.

Riedel distorted the news of a suicide attack on a bus carrying KRL employees moving through a densely populated and busy patch of Rawalpindi along Peshawar road near Westridge in first week of July killing six persons. Despite the fact that site of incident was about 40 km away from Kahuta, he wrote that Pakistani nuclear sites are already under attack. Earlier on, Riedel had urged the US government to work even with Israel to isolate Pakistan and ultimately end Pak nuclear capabilities. During his visit to Islamabad in May 1998, he along with Strobe Talbot had exerted maximum pressure on Nawaz government not to respond to Indian nuclear tests. I am sure he must be carrying a grudge since Pakistan refused to come under pressure and gave a tit-for-tat response to silence noisy India. He is a great Indian lover and from his uttering and writings it appears he is a hired Indian spokesman.

In his last large-sized article appearing in New York Times in July titled “˜Armageddon in Islamabad’, he has tried to undermine Pakistan military by overplaying same old card of Taliban threat. Besides saying that the military had responded against militants reluctantly, he says that none should be misled by recent positive developments since threat of takeover by Taliban in Pakistan is a distinct possibility. He alleges many within Pak Army having soft corner for Jihadists and prone to marrying up with Taliban. He stretches his imaginations to limits by conjecturing that conservative elements within PML-N and PPP favorable towards Taliban movement with the support of religious minded army officers would form Islamic Emirate of Pakistan and welcome Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Zawahiri in Pakistan. Gazing through his crystal ball, he postulates purging of army, nuclear set ups and ISI of secularists and forcing them to flee to western countries.

Climax of his diatribe is explained in the last part of his article in which he goes berserk in describing a doomsday scenario. He says that religious ministers equipped with nukes would go bonkers and fire nuclear warheads on Israel, India and American bases in Afghanistan and Gulf countries. He says that since Pakistan does not have delivery means to hit US mainland, some other means would be evolved to do so. To prevent such a horrific outcome he suggests outright military invasion, naval blockade, military coup or reins of power given to MQM. What more proof do our rulers need than this damning evidence of US intentions and US double game?

In continuation of malicious campaign highlighting vulnerability of our nuclear assets, another bizarre story has been floated by a UK national Dr. Shaun Gregory. After describing the robustness of Pakistan nuclear program, he contradicts himself by claiming that militants had attacked nuclear and missile sites at Kamra Airbase, Sargodha Airbase in 2007 and at POF Wah (an ammunition manufacturing factory) in August 2008. Hollowness of the claim can be gauged from the fact that none of the mentioned sites have anything to do with nuclear weapons. Suicide attacks had taken place on the buses of air force in the vicinity of Kamra and Sargodha airbases; in first case a children bus plying on Kamra-Attock road and in second case airmen bus plying on Sargodha-Faisalabad road. In each case, the attacker was no not even near the outer most boundary walls of the bases. Likewise, suicide attack took place at a distance from one of the gates of POF Wah and not within. So how come security was breached as claimed by Gregory? These incidents were reported in the world press and widely condemned. Facilitators of the crimes were traced and nabbed. None of prowling intelligence agencies or media persons linked the three areas with nuclear components storage sites.

The good old professor woke up from his slumber after a lapse of two years and for reasons best known to him decided to add nukes and missiles to the three sites to make his story sensational. It can be safely assumed that Gregory teaching in Bradford University and located eight-hour crow flight away from Pakistan has no means to acquire trans-frontier information. It is therefore logical to conclude that he has either lost his marbles or has been fed the information and asked to frame a story. Latter looks plausible, otherwise it was not possible for a prestigious newsletter of Combating Terrorism Centre of US Military Academy at West Point to publish this cockeyed story in July edition.

News have been deliberately spread to keep the issue alive and keep the world informed that concern of nuclear weapons getting stolen is genuine. Unknown Professor must have been paid well for uttering falsehood. Strangely, this news was splashed in media within days of Pentagon issuing a statement expressing complete satisfaction over security arrangements of our nukes. Adm. Mike Mullen, Holbrooke and other senior officials expressed similar sentiments. Is it a coincidence that each time an assurance is given by a US official, it is promptly negated either by a paranoid US think tank or another US official or someone from Britain. I advise Riedel and Gregory to concentrate on their primary works rather than indulging in gossip since they will earn unsavoury reputation rather than fame. Asif H Raja

Every inquiry must start somewhere. We have chosen this inquiry to start in the late eighties when two junior intelligence officers one Pakistani other Indian faced each other on opposite sides of the law. The Pakistani intelligence officer had caught the Indian agent on Pakistani soil with incriminating evidence. Indian agent knew his life had come to an end. However, everything has a price. And his freedom was worth a little less than half a million rupees. A few days later the Indian agent was sitting back at home, free as a bird. And life went on for several more years until the fateful year of 1994 when the two old “chaps” met again. This time officially. The Indian agent had climbed the ladder to an important post in the government. At this side of the border the junior Pakistani agent, against all odds had become one of the top bosses at Federal Investigation Agency. Of course, this was the infamous Rehman Malik.

The Indian side wanted Pakistani Government’s help in reducing cross-border terrorism. But Rehman Malik offered a lot more than mere reduction in “cross-border”. He had been appointed as Additional Director FIA and yielded immense power through the country. Additionally he had become the right-hand-man of Asif Ali Zardari, stashing his looted money all over the world. He offered them direct access to the jihadists which he would capture. Somewhere along the line Israel also became a party to the deal and soon Mossad agents were carrying out investigations of the captured (ISI backed) jihadists on Pakistani soil. There were millions to be made from the deal and of course Rehman Malik was working in tandem with this immediate boss Ghulam Asghar, head of the FIA and under the auspices of Asif Ali Zardari. ISI, Pakistan Military and top brass quietly kept a close watch. Although painful but capture of a few foot soldiers was bearable in the bigger national interest.

By 1995 in a little over a year the Benazir Bhutto government had expelled 2000 Arab mujahidin of the Afghan-Soviet War and imprisoned number of Pakistani mujahidin. Secondly and more significantly, Benazir Bhutto on her official visit to US in April 1995 met in secret with an Israeli delegation. On her return she faced stiff resistance from a block of military and civilian bureaucracy which had generated great suspicions of her dealings with India and Israel. Just four months later she thwarted a coup attempt against her headed by Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi. Director General of Military Intelligence Major General Ali Kuli Khan tipped-off General Abdul Waheed Kakar who immediately ordered Chief of General Staff Lt. General Jehangir Karamat to suppress the coup. A total of 36 army officers and 20 civilians were arrested from Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Then in November 1995 Egyptian Embassy blast occurred. Al-Qaeda was quick to claim it. Although the real reasons of the handlers of bombers remain hidden to this day, but in the next few days a silent but significant event happened. General Abdul Waheed Kakar who was given an extension in his tenure he refused it and Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was appointed as the Army Chief by the then President Farooq Leghari on 18 December, 1995. Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was the senior most general at the time, therefore the least controversial within the military – something which the military desperately needed at the time. The other three generals who were in the position to become COAS were Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt Gen Naseer Akhtar, and Lt Gen Mohammad Tariq. Lt. Gen. Ghulam Muhammad Malik had already retired in October 1995. Maj Gen Naseem Rana was heading the ISI at the time, taken his charge in October 1995. Lt Gen Shujat Ali Khan was heading the ISI’s Internal Wing.

In the backdrop of these events in Pakistan, in March 1995 Israel’s Air Force chief had visited India with an entourage that included key Mossad officials. It was at this point that in a meeting Pakistan’s nuclear program was discussed. A year later Indian nuclear and missile program head, Abdul Kalam had a “top secret” visit of Israel in June 1996. It was “top secret” because no one knew about it. As it turned out, everyone knew about it even before he left India. All the much publicized secrecy and visit of such a top level official achieved the aim and nearly nobody bothered with the entourage which included a manager from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) – Alok Tiwari. The “top secret” meetings between Abdul Kalam and his Israeli counterparts were related to purchase of UAVs. However, in every single one of those “top secret” meetings Alok Tiwari was missing. With all the attention was focused on Abdul Kalam and his “top secret” meetings no one noticed the odd thing.
Just a few days later, after coming back to India Tiwari accompanied Air Chief Marshal S. K. Sareen to Israel in Israel in July 1996. In fact this was his third trip. He had also visited Israel in April 1996 along with India’s first Defence Attaché to Israel.

First Wave

The effect was immediate. In late July 1996 MQM organized a province wide strike. Simultaneously a large bomb exploded at Lahore airport and a second at Faisalabad railway station. On 14th August 1996 12 SSP activists were gunned down during an Independence Rally by unidentified gunmen. By end August Punjab had been engulfed in sectarian violence, Shias and Sunnis were being gunned down in broad daylight. The political and security situation worsened by the murder of Murtaza Bhutto and reinstatement of Manzoor Wattoo as Chief Minister of Punjab. The country seemed in a political and economic turmoil with violence erupting throughout the country. At the same time, out of blue Ataullah Mengal returned from his self-imposed exile.

While everyone was busy with the current crisis a team of agents working directly under Rehman Malik were gathering information on Kahuta and A.Q. Khan. Beginning November 1996 ISI saw an increase in Indian troops movement, which finally sent alarm bells ringing through the echelons of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Suddenly, all the pieces fell in place and Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik’s shenanigans seemed a lot deeper than mere money grabbing tactics. By fourth of November a thick load of evidence had been gathered on Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik working with the consent of Asif Ali Zardari towards gathering information on the progress of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

On 5th November 1996, Farooq Leghari dissolved Benazir Bhutto’s government. At the other side of the border, this caused the immediate visit of Israeli naval chief Vice-Admiral Alex Tal to India. Back at home, Ghulam Asghar and Rehman Malik were imprisoned on undisclosed charges. Pakistan had narrowly escaped the storm that was brewing in its mists.

Second Wave

In February 1997, Indian Defence Secretary T. K. Banerji led a high level defence delegation to Israel to discuss the “exchange of technology” between two countries. Other than the official purpose the most important topic was Pakistan’s nuclear program. By the end of the visit the two countries had decided to do “whatever” it takes to neutralize the threat.

In March next year the BJP won Indian elections and one of the immediate policies adopted was to tackle Pakistan’s nuclear issue by any means possible. With such enthusiastic approach the government even decided to take the most extreme measures if needed. In the next two months the official and diplomatic delegations between India and Israel came to a halt, however, there was a sudden rise in non-diplomatic delegations between the two countries. The last official visit was of Gen. Prakash Malik to Israel in March 1998, who was also the first serving Indian Chief of Army Staff to visit Israel since normalization. In April 1998 two out-of-the ordinary incidents happened. Air India announced its discontinuation of Tel Aviv flight on 1 April 1998 and early April the Confederation of Indian Industry announced an unplanned “Study Mission” to Israel. This was the prelude to the second wave which officially started on 11th May 1998 when India exploded its nuclear bombs.

Night of 27-28 May

Pakistan resisted testing its nuclear bombs for nearly two weeks until 27th May 1998. On 27 May 1998 in a top level meeting Lt. Gen. [[[Naseem Rana]] (DG ISIP briefed the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief of the increasing intelligence reports of possible Indian attack on Pakistan’s nuclear installations. However, the panic this created was nothing compared to the next two meetings. The first report pertained to the sighting of an unidentified F-16 aircraft at the periphery of Pakistan’s airspace on 27th May. Knowing India did not have F-16, the obvious suggestion was presence of Israeli Air Force in the area (especially with the reports of Indian COAS visiting Israel just a month ago). And the second report coming just before 1am on 28th May recorded unusual movements of Indian aircrafts just across the border which suggested India was preparing for preventive airstrikes against Pakistan. The obvious response of nuclear tests on 28th May.

The tests confirmed once and for all that Pakistan has nuclear capability.

Deduction

It seemed probable that BJP Government had decided to fire its nuclear bombs to force Pakistan into test firing its – if it has any. After a delay of two weeks, doubts had started rising in nearly every analytical discourse that Pakistan did not have the nuclear capability otherwise it would have responded. This was the golden opportunity to take out Pakistan/Pakistan’s nuclear installations before that Pakistan got the capability. The important visit of Indian COAS to Israel in March – in the light of proceeding events – could only be regarding Israel’s support for the planned attack. Whatever, the reasons and aims, the end result was establishment of Pakistan as a nuclear state, which completely changed the Great Nuclear Game.

Third Wave

Pakistan’s test firing of nuclear bombs was a shock for the rest of the world. No one expected, in the first place for Pakistan to have the capability and secondly to fire them if it had. For India and Israel, who were two top most interested parties in destroying Pakistan’s nuclear assets, this meant a complete overhaul of their strategy.

A year later Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra came to meet Barak in September 1999 and this time he was accompanied with a familiar face – Alok Tiwari. Within a year, Alok Tiwari and another security analyst finalized a document based on their discussion the preceding year.
In June 2000 L. K. Advani visited Israel in which new deals related to Mossad and Shabak espionage and cooperation with R&AW are finalized and as a result Israel was allowed to establish its own network to operate from India. Also, L.K. Advani discussed Pakistan’s nuclear program and coordination between the two countries on an operation for disarming Pakistan. During the visit, Alok Tiwari’s report was also discussed.

By July 2000 a heavy deployment of Israeli agents in Indian Occupied Kashmir was reported. Near the end of 2000 Israel’s top intelligence officers were reported to have visited India and discussed amongst other issues, Kashmir and Pakistan’s nuclear assets. One of the meetings on the agenda was regarding the report Alok Tilwar had prepared which had gone through considerable changes in Israel. By the end of the visit the top spies of the two country had agreed to cooperate on the operation detailed inside the thick volume titled: “Operation Blue Tulsi”.

Operation Blue Tulsi by Xavia: Part II

Operation Blue Tulsi: Preparation

We do not know what is written inside the report Operation BlueTulsi. But we can ascertain some of it by the events it had led to beginning 2001. Preparation for the mega Operation Blue Tulsi began fervently in early 2001. By mid 2001 eyebrows were being raised over R&AW and Mossad’s cooperation and in July 2001 Janes Information Group reported that RAW and Mossad are cooperating to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. At the same time the Balouchistan Liberation Army rose out of dead like a second incarnation and Balach Marri a Moscow graduate declares himself as the leader of BLA. Within weeks in Balochistan numerous training camps sprouted with each camp reported to be training up to a 100 militants. Intelligence of RAW, Mossad and CIA agents operating in Balochistan started coming in.

In mid 2001 reports appeared that Special Operations Division of Mossad, also known as Metsada, specializing in assassinations and sabotage have been based in India since May 2001 to train RAW operatives and Mossad and Shin Bet or Shabak were operating a number of teams in Indian Held Kashmir and were also operating a delicate spy network from Indian soil. In July 2001 RAW increased its budget for Indian consulates in Afghanistan by nearly 10 times.

Within days after Sep 11, a story was leaked into press that Pakistan is dismantling and spreading its nuclear assets to safer places implying that it would be much more difficult to pinpoint them and much more easier for extremists to get hold of. These news stories were shortly followed by another piece on 28 October 2001 which stated that Pentagon was looking into plans to dispatch an elite unit into the Pakistan to disarm its nuclear arsenal. The special unit which was trained to slip into foreign countries to ferret out and disarm nuclear weapons and operated under Pentagon control with CIA assistance and would be getting special help from Israel’s Sayeret Matkal also known as Unit 262.

On 22 December 2001 C. Raja Mohan wrote, “There is a growing belief in New Delhi that the time has come to call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff. If it does not, India places itself in permanent vulnerability to cross-border terrorism from Pakistan… India is now confronted with the possibility that its restraint in the face of nuclear escalation is taken as a fundamental weakness. India must deal with the possible assessment in Pakistan that its nuclear capability has foreclosed all conventional military options.” Same time at the other side of the globe Prof. Stephen P Cohen was saying, “South Asia may have reached a point where the two countries (India and Pakistan) are really bent on hurting each other one way or another and it may be time to consider more unilateral, more forceful American steps – diplomatically and economically forceful – to get compliance from India and Pakistan separately on some vital concerns. Clearly, we may have reached a point where the peace process is simply too little, too late, and we may have to turn to other forms of diplomacy.”

These two writers one from US and other from India very implicitly had voiced their respective governments’ policies towards Pakistan’s nuclear assets.
In December 2001 Indian PM, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while addressing the parliament said, “the question was not whether there should be or should not be a war, [the question was] under what circumstances there will be war … and whether there will be a war.”
Of course the underlying message was, whether India should attack a nuclear armed country or a country which has lost its nuclear capabilities.
In December 2001 Benazir Bhutto while visiting India said in her interviews, “President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as an army general, had planned the Kargil invasion in Jammu and Kashmir while I was the Prime Minister.” Later she also said, “Pakistan army as an institution had brought back Osama bin Laden”.

This rhetoric of Benazir Bhutto was perfectly in line with the agreement signed by US and India in 2002. Late in 2002 US and India signed an agreement on cooperation in disarming Pakistan’s nuclear assets and the two player offensive team of OperationBlueTulsi found a third partner in the form of CIA. As a result of this deal Abdullah Mehsud was freed from Guantanamo Bay and returned to Pakistan with millions in cash.
Benazir Bhutto’s statements in India were the major reason Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of Benazir Bhutto as a “security risk” during a chat with Pakistan’s leading editors and correspondents in April 2002. Pakistani security agencies already had a great deal of intelligence regarding Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Rehman Malik’s involvement with Mossad and India in 1995-96 and their collaboration against Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

In January 2002 under orders from L. K. Advani R&AW and other intelligence agencies submited a detailed report on military options for solving Kashmir issue and in case of a full-fledged war, for neutralizing Pakistan’s nuclear assets. One major outcome of the report was creation of Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in March 2002 with the authority to conduct external operations supported by a huge budget.

Also, a Lawyers’ Struggle surfaced in October 2003 under the leadership of Hamid Ali Khan (now drowned under the infamous Lawyers’ Movement). The first prominent protest of the “struggle” was held on 15 October 2003 in which the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Hamid Ali Khan said, “Musharraf’s very presence within the army and holding of other important offices and Shaikh Riaz Ahmad’s continuation as chief justice after his retirement are undoubtedly illegal and unconstitutional… Let’s think collectively, move forward collectively and act collectively to outs usurper generals and judges (who had collaborated with Pervez Musharraf including Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry). However, like a B-grade movie twist, four years later Iftikhar Chaudry becomes the hero to these same lawyers who wanted to oust him. Like a script from past, this protest had followed a “Long March”. And the “struggle” then moved to other cities one by one asking Musharraf, Riaz Ahamad and among others Iftikhar Chaudhry’s removal from office. At this point along with Hamid Ali Khan, Kazim Khan was at the forefront. Lacking the charisma and cunning of their successors, assassination of a leader, and shortage of “unlimited” billions of rupees their names and their Lawyers’ Struggles has been confined to the dusty pages of history with their names ascribed against the words, “traitors”. Also, there is no evidence to support that assassination attempts on Pervez Musharraf were somehow related to the timing of the Lawyers’ Struggle.

By mid 2004 the government had ample evidence that BLA and some Baloch leaders were conspiring against the government, aided by foreign countries.
On 13th August 2004 the Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Jam Muhammad Yousaf is quoted by The Herald (Sep 2004-Karachi): “Indian secret services (RAW) are maintaining 40 terrorist camps all over the Baluch territory”. While this was happening on ground, there was talk of “Peace Talks” everywhere in the air. And Jan Muhammad Jamali had become a laughing stock of the media for his suggestion of foreign agents operating in Balochistan, which despite the ground facts forcefully opposed such thoughts.

However, he was already too late. The preparation for the Operation Blue Tulsi were nearly complete and the Government of Pakistan had wasted all opportunities for stopping the inevitable.

Operation Blue Tulsi: Start

1st January 2005 was the starting date. The local agents got the signal and the operation started with the ominous rape of a female doctor in Sui on 2nd January 2005. As expected the incident created headlines all round and culprits not being found created a much supported backlash. This was shortly followed by rocketing of gas installation at Sui on 7th January which put a hole in Pakistan’s gas supply for nearly a week.
2005 was a busy year with Baloch terrorists continuously creating havoc in Balochistan and adjacent areas and ended with assassination attempts on Musharraf in December. After President Gen Pervez Musharraf escapes a rocket attack on his life in December 2005 and the Inspector General Frontier Corps survives an assassination attempt, Navtej Sarna, the Indian External Affairs Ministry’s spokesman said, “The Government of India has been watching with concern the spiralling violence in Balochistan and the heavy military action, including use of helicopter gun-ships and jet fighters by the Government of Pakistan to quell it… We hope the Government of Pakistan will exercise restraint and take recourse to peaceful discussions to address the grievances of the people of Balochistan”.
The Indian Government had realized that the two assassination attempts would surely result in backfire on the Indian assets in Balochistan, which it needed to safeguard for its final aim, especially Akbar Bugti. Just as suspected, the Government of Pakistan intensifies its operation against Baloch militants.

And in April 2006 Government of Balochistan is setup with its offices in Jerusalem under Azaad Khan Baloch. In a laughingly stupid mistake, Azaad Khan Baloch who is representing Balochis of Pakistan decided to spell his name according to Hindi transliteration with double “a” in Az”aa”d, rather than a single “a” as used in Pakistan, i.e. Azad. Or more probable, “Azad Khan Baloch” is not a Pakistani.

Meanwhile in Balochistan the government operation against Akbar Bugti intensified who took shelter in the rugged mountain range and coordinated the activities of his militants from there. Ultimately the military found him and during the process of capture Akbar Bugti died because of cave-roof collapse on 26 August 2006.

This proved a minor setback in the overall plans. However, beginning 2007 events in the country took a completely different turn. Starting March 2007, every incident occurring in the country was tied to the aim of ousting Pervez Musharraf, including the much profitable Lawyers’ Movement. Intelligence agencies were having a field-day bringing in pile after pile of reports proving involvement of CIA, RAW, Mossad and MI6 towards Musharraf’s ouster. True to some extent but unlike analyzed, ouster of Pervez Musharraf was just one milestone towards the main goal, which every agency completely missed. Thus, all their efforts went into controlling the situation to secure Musharraf, while in the backdrop, silently the wheels kept turning. While Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan were burning Swat was sitting quietly, unnoticed and out of radar. Within a period of few months, the numbers of “Pakistani Taliban” in Swat surged and just as well their ammunition, latest military equipment a country like Pakistan would dream of. A portion of this ended up in the ill-fated Lal Masjid. While intelligence and military were busy keeping Musharraf’s seat safe in Pakistan, a new political game started in UAE. Rehman Malik enthusiastically started pursuing the goal of National Reconciliation Ordinance. He became instrumental in the final deal between Benazir Bhutto, US and Pervez Musharraf and NRO. Since Benazir Bhutto did not have much to lose without NRO she was never very interested in it. That was the reason two options were thrown at Musharraf, i.e. either eliminating the two term condition or NRO. Rehman Malik on the other hand was vehemently pursuing NRO, as of the three (Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto and Rehman Malik) the Government of Pakistan only had clear evidence against Rehman Malik and it was enough to put him in jail for life (i.e. involvement in espionage and working with Mossad and RAW). However, at that point no one knew the real motivations of Rehman Malik other than that he was working to get the path clear for Benazir’s return. Amazingly, FBI also was putting its weight behind NRO rather than eliminating the two term condition. While, if US had really wanted Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister of Pakistan, logic dictates that they would want the two term condition eliminated to assure her easy succession to the premiership. It needs to be noted here that Rehman Malik had also tried to do a similar deal in 2005, which never materialized. This time it did.

Near the end of 2007, intelligence and military were convinced that a conspiracy had been hatched in the country with the sole aim of removing Musharraf from power. Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, simultaneous rioting throughout the country, terrorist activities occurring in every province had considerable similarities to the Bush Administration backed Color Revolutions. In order to keep Musharraf in power the government kept giving into one demand after the other. As a result Rehman Malik becomes head of Interior Ministry, Yusuf Raza Gilani becomes the Prime Minister of Pakistan and sweeping changes are made in the security and intelligence community. Still, the government saw the war finally over when in one move Gilani puts ISI under Interior Minister on 27 July 2008. Until that time ISI and top brass had thought all Rehman Malik wanted was to get-rid of extremist elements from ISI and Pakistan’s establishment.

It was the end of July 2008 when the alarm bells started ringing again in the high echelons. Intelligence machinery went into extra high gear and millions later it came back with the name: Operation Blue Tulsi.

Operation Blue Tulsi: the Revelation

The Establishment, only now realized the full extent of the operation which they had been witnessing since the beginning of 2000. More worryingly, the current operation had eerily similar modus operandi to the 1995-96 debacle – which left the country tethering onto its nuclear assets – just that this time it was vastly more sophisticated and greater in size. In matter of hours the priorities changed. Keeping Pervez Musharraf in power suddenly paled in comparison to the real threat. As the agencies reopened recent reports, reading them in the light of newest finding all the pieces fell in place. It was a disastrous lapse on behalf of the multibillion dollar strong organizations. Overnight the report was prepared and the summary was sent to President Pervez Musharraf next morning.

In 1995-96 India came up with a plan to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear facilities before that Pakistan developed a nuclear capability. The plan was prepared by a RAW agent Alok Tiwari (who has recently been compromised). At that time Mossad was already active in Pakistan and once it heard about the project for elimination of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities jumped in by first streamlining the project further and then using its assets in Pakistan. Somewhere in early 1996 the operation was given go-ahead. At that point FIA Director General Ghulam Asghar and his ADG Rehman Malik in a deal with India and Israel were hunting down Pakistan based Kashmiri and Arab militants. These two proved to be the front line in the operation and when contacted by Indian agents fully agreed to supply all the necessary information regarding Kahuta and A. Q. Khan’s operations. Towards mid 96 demonstrations and chaos erupted throughout the country. The aim was to destabilize the country enough that when the two confirmed Pakistan did not have any nuclear capabilities India would go-ahead with all out assault. General Jehangir Karamat who was already weary of the two chaps and Asif Ali Zardari’s complicity took immediate action and Benazir Bhutto’s government was dissolved. The duo of Asghar and Malik and Zardari had already come into military’s radar the year before when they tried to lure General Abdul Wahed Kakar.

Then five years later, Alok Tiwari submited an updated version of his older report. Israel was again consulted and this time L. K. Advani vehemently pursued it. Towards the end of 2000 a delegation of top Mossad brass visited India and the combined operation titled: Operation Blue Tulsi was finalized and put into operation which had only one aim:

Destroy Pakistan’s nuclear assets followed by its Balkanization.

Approach:

1. Resurrect Baloch insurgency. Pakistan was fine with it, as it had thirty years of experience with it, starting with the Afghan-Soviet War.
2. Buy officials in military, bureaucracy, politics and law. ISI was fine with it, as it had sixty years of experience in dealing with traitors.
3. Plant agents in top positions in Taliban, FATA and NWFP. A shocker for everyone.

Taliban were the foster child of ISI and the agency had no contingency for enemy agents in top positions. The best option they came up with was to buy back the agents with more money and as a result they were deceived time and again and again. Top on the list, Baitullah Mehsud. The twenty million dollars he got in suitcases was one of the stupidest moves in the world espionage history and ISI top brass to this day are vengefully pursuing him.

Milestones:

1. Friendly political government. Asif Zardari in place, Aslam Raisani in Balochistan (though first choice Akbar Bugti unfortunately dead, MQM’s omnipresence in Sindh, Fazlur Rehman and ANP in NWFP)
2. Friendly judiciay. Iftikhar Chaudhry, Munir A. Malik, Atizaz Ahsan
3. Friendly secretaries. ??
4. Friendly Civil Society. Ansar Burney, Asma Jehangir
5. Friendly Generals. ??
6. Unrest in NWFP and immediate threat of Taliban taking control of Islamabad. Back in 2002 US had agreed with India that if ever Pakistan seemed to destabilize or falling into the hands of extremists, it would help India in destroying Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. The situation they agreed upon is well defined by the Pakistani media’s current theme song of “Taliban are coming to Islamabad”

Immediate Countermeasures

By August 2008 the operation was too deep rooted and it was clear if attention was diverted towards saving Musharraf there was more than a probability of loosing nuclear capability in near future. With Musharraf gone, ISI estimated a window of opportunity of 18 to 20 months before either Taliban or Asif Zardari with his shenanigans destabilized Pakistan. In the greater interest Musharraf decided to step down peacefully.

Operation Blue Tulsi: In Operation

Musharraf stepped down and Asif Ali Zardari took over, but by then the order had been sent and the agents in Swat Valley and FATA who had been preparing for the day for the last eight years launched an all out assault on the military with a single aim of destabilizing Pakistan. In the eventful month of December 2007 Baitullah Mehsud had already announced officially the formation of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Although right after the victory of PPP Baitullah Mehsud has negotiated peace with the government which led to the great debacle of US$ 20 million by August 2008 he was again involved with the military in a full on battle. ISI and military by this time had realized the foremost importance of ridding the Taliban off foreign agents and assets by any means and costs.

At one end Pakistan military still is trying to safeguard its own assets while tracing out and eliminating foreign agents, while at the other end US is trying its best to safeguard its prime asset of Baitullah Meshud who had taken over after the death of Abullah Mehsud. Until very recently, there had been not a single drone attack on Baitullah Mehsud, while ISI aligned Taliban had been bombed repeatedly, as a result of which many have turned their backs against Pakistan. Only in the recent months four drone attacks on Baitullah Mehsud’s territory have been reported.

Operation Blue Tulsi and Future

Currently the entire country is gripped by the ongoing operations of military against the Taliban. Media which once championed itself as the sympathizers of the Taliban and were chanting “Taliban are coming to Islamabad” have suddenly changed their tunes, especially after being declared by the Taliban as kafirs and thus “killable”.

The economy is in doldrums and corruption is rampantly high but the top brass knows Pakistan is first and for Pakistan nuclear assets come first. Thus, until the country is cleansed of all the foreign agents in FATA and Taliban, the military and intelligence has only one goal, to stop Operation Blue Tulsi at this stage, making sure it never goes into Phase TWO – attacking and destroying Pakistan’s nuclear assets because extremist elements have destabilized Pakistan.

A report by Xavia

Copied and pasted here (from http://xavia.vim.im/xavia:2) without any modification as per permission.

Still dealing with the AQ Khan Network: Switzerland destroys nuclear documents from the illicit nuclear ring.

The Taliban have abrogated all peace deals with Pakistan. And C. Christine Fair insists that the key to stability in Iraq is an effective Pakistani police-force: “[T]he army can’t fix what ails the nation…The army’s past and recent track record in clearing and holding territory is not encouraging.”

Reuters probes China’s rhetorical shift on North Korea. Don’t expect any big policy changes, but China could be laying the ground work for bigger changes down the road: “…the overt expression of disenchantment suggests the Chinese government wants to prepare public opinion for harsher policies toward a country long lauded as a plucky communist friend.”

PONI launches Fissile Material—and today’s round-up is a must-read. Particular thanks for highlighting former UN inspector Charles A. Duelfer’s editorial on weapons inspections and the nuclear dilemmas of North Korea and Iran: “From the experience in Iraq, we have seen the ability of the international community to hide behind inspectors in some circumstances and to expect too much from them in others.”

Peter Wehner slams Obama for contradictory responses to developments in Honduras and Iran.

And check out Foreign Policy’s 2009 Failed State Index.

This American money had been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.

This is now evident, as they used the American money to enrich their goal of making improvised Islamic nuclear bomb with the help of china. They succeeded in their plans, they made nuclear bombs, proliferated the nuclear technology to terrorist states like North Korea in exchange of missile technology and still harboring global terroirsts and reaping money.

But US strategists and law makers are still sleeping, they are not understand the pakistan is making fool of them and reaping US tax payers money for their own cause of developing  weapons of mass destruction. Recently, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States would provide $100 million to Pakistan in humanitarian aid such as food, tents, radios, generators and other items and that the U.S. Defense Department would give a further $10 million in unspecified assistance. After announcing this huge money of $110 million to Pakistan, she said that “Providing this assistance is not only the right thing to do but we believe it is essential to global security and the security of the United States and we are prepared to do more as the situation demands,” .

Clinton also described the last three decades of U.S. policy toward Pakistan as “incoherent,” saying that the United States had worked with Pakistan to arm the Mujahideen fighters who helped drive the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in the 1980s only to effectively abandon both countries.

She needs to understand that they shake hands with US for their own strategic interests and they got huge money in return of their grey support to US during these years.

They are now a bigger threat than afganistan and long time enemy Russia…as it is now starkly evident that they are the biggest nuclear proliferator regime in the world.

A recent Congressional report has told US lawmakers that North Korea received designs for uranium enrichment centrifuges from Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan in return for its long range missiles.

I don’t understand the use of AQ khan instead of Pakistan because North Korea has provided missiles to Pakistan not to AQ Khan. North Korea has been exporting missiles to countries in the Middle East and South Asia and has had joint collaboration in development of missiles with Iran and Pakistan, it said.

In the 1990s, North Korea exported Scud and Nodong missiles to Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Syria and reportedly Egypt. It entered into joint development programmes with both Pakistan and Iran.

Pyongyang received designs for uranium enrichment centrifuges from Pakistan nuclear “czar” A Q Khan and has attempted to purchase overseas key components for uranium enrichment centrifuges, but some of these purchases have been blocked, according to the report.

Even after so many reports were declassified to US law makers they are still providing hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan and they in turn are conspiring with Iran and North Korea to design new power corridor by developing weapons of mass destruction. I am not a strategic analyst, nor I am a defense person…  I am just a common citizen but still I wish to know from our responsible / sensible government, why they are directly/ indirectly supporting terrorist nations.

As Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari huddled with President Barack Hussein Obama at the White House last week, Taliban jihadis extended their inexorable advance into Pakistani territory. General David Petraeus was quoted as warning that Pakistan could be mere weeks from falling to their onslaught.

What nobody seems willing to say out loud, however, is that Pakistan was created to be an Islamic state governed by Shari’a and dedicated to the objectives of jihad. Its 20-year quest for the first Islamic bomb ended in success largely because the U.S. and rest of the Western world allowed it to happen. Three decades of American administrations enabled Pakistan to arm itself, train thousands of youngsters to terrorism, and then export those weapons, jihadis, and ideology to its neighbors. That the forces of Islamic jihad should now be mounting what may be a final assault for domination of the nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Pakistan should surprise no one.

Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, the 20th century founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami (the Islamic Congregation), urged his followers to “seize power by the use of all available means and equipment” in order to establish Islamic rule and instill an “Islamic way of life and morality” — in other words, impose Shari’a on Pakistan. Neither did Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Father of modern-day Pakistan, leave any doubt about what was intended when he addressed the All-India Muslim League in 1946: “If we fail to realise our duty today, you will be reduced to the status of Sudras (low castes) and Islam will be vanquished from India. I shall never allow Muslims to be slaves of Hindus.”Born the following year in a bloodbath of religious hatred, Pakistan has always been ruled by its army and intelligence service, which enjoyed the virtually automatic support of its ally in Washington for the next 60 years even as they increasingly identified with hardline Islamists. Today, that army and its Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are so thoroughly infused with jihadist sympathies that their will to win against Muslim co-religionists is in serious question. The U.S. seemed not to notice when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto made Islam the state religion of Pakistan in 1973 or when his successor General Zia ul-Haq Islamicized Pakistani courts and the economy, turned Pakistani madrassas into jihad factories, and demoted women to second-class status. Neither did the Pentagon pay the slightest attention when Brigadier S.K. Malik wrote “The Qur’anic Concept of War” in 1979, revealing Pakistan’s unswerving dedication to the doctrinal aspects of Qur’anic warfare (jihad). Malik stated unequivocally, “Jihad is a continuous and never-ending struggle waged on all fronts including political, economic, social, psychological, domestic, moral and spiritual to attain the object of policy. It aims at attaining the overall mission assigned to the Islamic state…” Gen. Zia ul-Haq wrote the forward to Malik’s book — which to this day is virtually unknown at U.S. national war colleges. Because the U.S. needed Pakistan to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, our government turned a blind eye not only to Zia’s Islamicization of Pakistani society, but also to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. As meticulously documented in the 2007 book, “Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons”, three decades of American presidents ignored, destroyed, and misrepresented to Congress and the American people the evidence provided by U.S. and other Western intelligence services about the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan. Pakistan’s nuclear intentions and developing capabilities were known and understood by every president from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush as was the fact that Pakistan’s military-dominated governments were deeply involved in AQ Khan’s activities. Then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto herself acceded to AQ Khan’s request to travel to North Korea in December 1995. There she took delivery of a bagful of computer disks and other materials containing the blueprints for the advanced ballistic missiles Pakistan needed for its nuclear weapons delivery system. Husain Haqqani, the current Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S., reportedly met Bhutto at the Islamabad airport upon her return and later described his horror at the realization that what she had brought back was a direct delivery from Pyongyang to the Pakistani military. After a decade of disastrous disinterest, 9/11 renewed U.S. attention to Pakistan, but the ISI’s continuing deep involvement with its creation, the Afghan Taliban, was somehow overlooked. Confident of ISI support and drawing on an apparently endless supply of Pakistani madrassa graduates, the Taliban methodically established an intelligence, support, and training network throughout Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and beyond. Despite the veneer of its Westernized elite, Pakistan is home to millions of Muslims who know exactly what liberal democracy is and firmly reject it. It’s these decades of failure to deal with an ostensible ally that proliferated both jihad and centrifuges that have brought us to today’s panic over the Taliban’s 2009 blitzkrieg through the SWAT Valley. Failure to absorb the lessons of Malik’s “Quranic Concept of War” and ignorance of Islamic history are the only possible explanations for any expectations that the Taliban would abide by the Malakand Accord, the agreement reached in February 2009 between the jihadis and the Pakistani government that ceded the SWAT Valley to Shari’a. Now observers are trying to come to grips with the possibility that the center of gravity for the international jihad, this nuclear-armed country of 170 million people that harbors al-Qa’eda and Taliban leaders, provides safe havens for terrorist training camps, and runs operations centers for jihadist attacks across the globe, could soon become the nucleus of a new Caliphate. This bad dream becomes a real nightmare when a nuclear Iran run by jihadi-minded mullahs is factored in. Usama bin-Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and their al-Qa’eda cohorts are in Iran and Pakistan because they feel safe there. They didn’t bring the ideology of Islamic Jihad with them — the ideology welcomed them. It’s not likely that the Taliban will long be halted by Pakistan’s half-hearted counteroffensive. It is the nature and the imperative of jihad to expand “till Allah’s word is supreme” (Q 8:39) or until it is halted by force. U.S. aid to Pakistan this year is no more likely to result in a redeployment of Pakistan’s military away from the Indian border or a housecleaning at the ISI than the billions already spent were. While Ralph Peters’ recent call to “Dump Pakistan” is probably unrealistic, his bottom line to “Let India deal with Pakistan” does not make sense. Much more sense than continuing to aid and abet the forces of terror by writing blank checks to a regime with no accountability, whose real interests are antithetical to America’s own.

Ms. Lopez is the Vice President of the Intelligence Summit and a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.

Obama said he’s “gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan.” But he said, “I’m confident that we can make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure.”

Todd followed up by asking about the worst-case scenario and whether the US military could secure Pakistani nuclear weapons if need be. Obama said he didn’t want to engage in hypotheticals, but that, “I feel confident that that nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands.”

I called up Matthew Bunn to get a reality check on this and he said he doesn’t share the president’s confidence. Bunn is an expert on nuclear theft, terrorism and proliferation.

“Certainly, Pakistan has taken extensive measures to improve security for its nuclear weapons,” Bunn said. “Those nuclear weapons are very heavily defended, we believe.” He added that they are stored in parts, at separate locations. But the risks are still too high, Bunn said. First, there’s the militant threat from Taliban and like-minded armed jihadi-types. Then, there’s the issue of Pakistani officials – in the security and possibly in the nuclear establishment – who’ve had connections in the past with black market nuclear activities.

Stay tuned… I’ll include my interview with Bunn in the next American Influence podcast episode.

On Friday, Pakistan – the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. aid – released from house arrest Abdul Qadeer Khan, the nuclear scientist who for two decades ran a black market that sold nuclear-weapons technology to U.S. adversaries including Iran and Libya.

By Eli Lake
The Washington Times

Two days earlier, Kyrgyzstan announced that it would not renew a U.S. lease at the Manas air base, a critical transshipment point in the Afghanistan war. Meanwhile, the Russians – who offered Kyrgyzstan $2 billion in cash and loans to oust the Americans – said that they intend to establish a new base in a breakaway enclave of Georgia, the country Moscow invaded over the summer in response to a Georgian assault on another enclave.

If this were not enough, Iran last week launched a crude satellite into space, suggesting that the Islamic regime has mastered at least some of the technology for multistage, long-range missiles.

Finally, Yemen on Sunday announced that it had released 170 men arrested on suspicion of having ties to al Qaeda. Just two weeks earlier, the terrorist group called Yemen its base for the entire Arabian Peninsula.

While none of these events amounts to the foreign policy crisis that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said during the campaign would test the new president in his opening months, Mr. Obama’s reaction will shape foreign perceptions of the new U.S. leader’s mettle.

Read the rest:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/
feb/09/overseas-challenges-cascading-on-obama/

Volumes have been written on A.Q. Khan’s illicit activities and nuclear proliferating; a comprehensive work is Shopping for Bombs by Gordon Corera.  However, the story received little critical attention in the media, as the economic stimulus package continued to dominate the coverage.  A brief synopsis of Khan’s activities illustrate why this is an important issue.  While working as a metallurgical scientist in the Netherlands in the 1970s, Khan stole plans and blueprints for centrifuge equipment (used for enriching uranium) and brought it back to Pakistan.  During the rest of that decade and the 1980s, he worked on building a nuclear bomb for Pakistan using the technical data he had stolen, contacts he had made with businesses that manufactured the specialized equipment that he needed, and uranium and a nuclear warhead design imported from China.  During the 1980s and 1990s he turned entrepreneur and began exporting this technology and organizing sales of specialized equipments to countries that were willing to pay the price.  Because of the extent and capabilities of the A.Q. Khan Network, North Korea was able to develop nuclear weapons and Iran is well on the way to achieving the same feat.  Libya was also on the path to this capability until it turned over its nuclear program to the US and UK in 2003 (which included the blueprints for a nuclear warhead obtained from Khan as a “bonus” to a sale of 20,000 centrifuges).

The A.Q. Khan Network thus become known as the Wal-Mart of nuclear technology.

The damage this network did to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime and arms control is virtually irreversible.  Taking full advantage of the globalized world, it exported nuclear technology and equipment to any nation that could pay the price, and suffered almost no punitive consequences (it was, after all, not a state).  It almost single-handedly added two new nuclear-weapons states to the international system (three if Libya had not given up its program when it did), and allegedly had contacts with many more nations that may be going nuclear (Saudi Arabia, Egypt).  We now live in a much more dangerous world due to the activities of this group, driven by ideological and monetary motives.

Pakistan’s weak punishment to the center of this network is indicative of the growing influence of Islamists in the country.  A.Q. Khan is heralded by many of them as the “Father of the Islamic Bomb” and, as such, is considered a national hero.  It is perhaps a warning sign that Islamabad will not remain friendly to the US for long.  Pakistan is increasingly becoming a dysfunctional democracy, with little control over most of its territory, that is on the brink of either collapse or internal regime change.  It is time the US move closer to India and Iran to try to limit the damage that may be caused when this nuclear-weapons state simply implodes or changes governments.  Tragically, it could become a failed state with nuclear weapons, much more dangerous than Iran to US interests.