Pakistan's nuclear programme is being targeted for more than a decade now, but fresh assaults indicate a change in tact to discredit Pakistani nukes. Once again, R Jeffery Smith and Joby Warrick, Washington Post staff writers, on December 28, hit back with their fresh piece titled: Pakistani scientist depicts more advanced nuclear programme in North Korea in response to an article, Alleging nuclear proliferation, published last week in this paper. The respected columnists, quoting Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan's previously unpublicised account, "reveal" that North Korea has constructed a plant to manufacture gas needed for uranium enrichment. A development that indicates Pyongyang opened a second way to build nuclear weapons as early as the 1990s.
According to scale by 2002, with "maybe 3,000 or even more" centrifuges, and that Pakistan helped the country with vital machinery, drawings and technical advice for at least six years. The writers state that Dr Khan's "revelation" could not be independently corroborated but an American intelligence official and a diplomat jumped on the information, concluding that it adds to their suspicions that North Korea has long pursued the enrichment of uranium in addition to making plutonium for bombs, and that may help explain its assertion in September that it is in the final stages of such enrichment. There are numerous loopholes in the "exposé". Firstly, in an attempt to contradict Pakistan's stand that the government, especially the custodian of Pakistan's nuclear programme, its army was also involved, has been clumsily dealt with by adopting "name-dropping". For example, the authors mention the period of 1990 and name Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, who currently oversees Pakistan's atomic arsenal as the Director General of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), the nucleus of Pakistan's Nuclear Command Authority, for approving the proliferation. I know General Kidwai personally, and can vouch that in 1990; he was only a lieutenant colonel and had nothing to do with Pakistan's nuclear assets; and became associated with the SPD in 1999. Dr Khan's account reveals details of the pilot plant, alleging that North Korea built it without help. He describes that during a visit to North Korea in 1999, he toured a mountain tunnel, where his hosts showed him boxes containing components of three finished nuclear warheads, which he was told could be assembled for use atop missiles within an hour and six boxes containing split cores for the warheads, as well as 64 igniters/detonators per bomb packed in six separate boxes. The authors quote Simon Henderson, Dr Khan's journalist friend for over two and a half decades, who has a rationale for soft-pedalling the Pakistani scientist because he is soliciting his cooperation in inscribing the Khan biography. However, Dr Khan's motive for permitting his name to be used in the "disclosure" is best explained by a quote from Siegfried S Hecker, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory director, who was allowed to see some North Korean plutonium during a visit to its nuclear facilities in January 2004. Hecker said after hearing Khan's description of the trip that he remains unconvinced that the country in 1999 had enough fissile material on hand to make such weapons. He said that Khan may have tried to get himself "off the hook, to say what [he]...did was not that bad because these guys already had nuclear weapons. That's a nice way to cover his own tracks." Smith, Warrick et al quote a rebuttal from Song Ryol Han, the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, who denied that his country had a uranium programme before last spring or that it ever discussed the issue "with Dr Khan in Pakistan." Song said that "only after last April, when the US hostility entered an extremely critical stage" the country did start such a programme as a "nuclear deterrence" measure. However, in the next breath, Smith and Warrick "reveal" quoting Dr Khan that "10 North Korean experts came to Kahuta and were housed within the complex," referring to the city in northeastern Pakistan where his laboratory is situated. They maintain Khan said three army staff chiefs approved the stay of the North Koreans, who "were officially allowed to visit all the workshops and meet and discuss freely with the scientists and engineers." This is not only preposterous but belies reason, since Pakistan has not only shared its findings of the investigations into the case of the "rogue proliferator" with IAEA, but has won accolades internationally for its robust nuclear security protocol. The complicity of any army chief or any other army personnel in the alleged proliferation activity is out of question.
According to scale by 2002, with "maybe 3,000 or even more" centrifuges, and that Pakistan helped the country with vital machinery, drawings and technical advice for at least six years. The writers state that Dr Khan's "revelation" could not be independently corroborated but an American intelligence official and a diplomat jumped on the information, concluding that it adds to their suspicions that North Korea has long pursued the enrichment of uranium in addition to making plutonium for bombs, and that may help explain its assertion in September that it is in the final stages of such enrichment. There are numerous loopholes in the "exposé". Firstly, in an attempt to contradict Pakistan's stand that the government, especially the custodian of Pakistan's nuclear programme, its army was also involved, has been clumsily dealt with by adopting "name-dropping". For example, the authors mention the period of 1990 and name Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai, who currently oversees Pakistan's atomic arsenal as the Director General of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), the nucleus of Pakistan's Nuclear Command Authority, for approving the proliferation. I know General Kidwai personally, and can vouch that in 1990; he was only a lieutenant colonel and had nothing to do with Pakistan's nuclear assets; and became associated with the SPD in 1999. Dr Khan's account reveals details of the pilot plant, alleging that North Korea built it without help. He describes that during a visit to North Korea in 1999, he toured a mountain tunnel, where his hosts showed him boxes containing components of three finished nuclear warheads, which he was told could be assembled for use atop missiles within an hour and six boxes containing split cores for the warheads, as well as 64 igniters/detonators per bomb packed in six separate boxes. The authors quote Simon Henderson, Dr Khan's journalist friend for over two and a half decades, who has a rationale for soft-pedalling the Pakistani scientist because he is soliciting his cooperation in inscribing the Khan biography. However, Dr Khan's motive for permitting his name to be used in the "disclosure" is best explained by a quote from Siegfried S Hecker, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory director, who was allowed to see some North Korean plutonium during a visit to its nuclear facilities in January 2004. Hecker said after hearing Khan's description of the trip that he remains unconvinced that the country in 1999 had enough fissile material on hand to make such weapons. He said that Khan may have tried to get himself "off the hook, to say what [he]...did was not that bad because these guys already had nuclear weapons. That's a nice way to cover his own tracks." Smith, Warrick et al quote a rebuttal from Song Ryol Han, the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, who denied that his country had a uranium programme before last spring or that it ever discussed the issue "with Dr Khan in Pakistan." Song said that "only after last April, when the US hostility entered an extremely critical stage" the country did start such a programme as a "nuclear deterrence" measure. However, in the next breath, Smith and Warrick "reveal" quoting Dr Khan that "10 North Korean experts came to Kahuta and were housed within the complex," referring to the city in northeastern Pakistan where his laboratory is situated. They maintain Khan said three army staff chiefs approved the stay of the North Koreans, who "were officially allowed to visit all the workshops and meet and discuss freely with the scientists and engineers." This is not only preposterous but belies reason, since Pakistan has not only shared its findings of the investigations into the case of the "rogue proliferator" with IAEA, but has won accolades internationally for its robust nuclear security protocol. The complicity of any army chief or any other army personnel in the alleged proliferation activity is out of question.
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