In an article, published in Israel’s Haaretz, renowned researcher Ayesha Siddiqa Agha has flogged a dead horse, Dr. AQ Khan, dubbed the father of Pakistan’s “Islamic bomb”. Siddiqa, is author of magnum opus, Military, Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy. She is very objective in her writings. But, in the Harretz article she appears to have overlooked many facts. She pilloried Dr. AQ Khan for clandestinely procuring the blueprints of the German-designed G-1 and G-2 centrifuges from his workplace at Almello, Holland. She accuses Dr. Khan also of “technology swap” with North Korea and diversifying strategic partnerships with other states in West Asia and Europe”.
What Siddiqa overlooked:
India’s hostility: India has toujours been at daggers drawn with Pakistan. Before his final flight (Aug 7, 1947) from Delhi to Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam sent a message to the Indian government: “the past must be buried and let us start as two independent sovereign states of Hindustan and Pakistan, I wish Hindustan prosperity and peace.” But, India’s strongman Vallabhbhai Patel replied from Delhi: “the poison has been removed from the body of India. (Maleeha Lodhi (ed.), Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State)”.
Even Nehru, an ostensibly liberal leader, regarded the creation of Pakistan as a blunder. His rancor against Pakistan reaches a crescendo in his remarks: “I shall not have that carbuncle on my back.” (D. H. Bhutani, The Future of Pakistan, page 14).
Ayesha Jalal says: `Just before his own death, Jinnah proposed a joint defence with India as the Cold War started to shape the world and the two power blocs began to form. Jinnah was still thinking as a South Asian nationalist…had Jinnah’s vision prevailed and found an echo in India, we would have seen a very different South Asia…there would have been no crippling defence expenditures’(Ayesha Jalal, Why Jinnah Matters, a paper in Maleeha Lodhi (ed.), Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State). India’s jingoistic military expenditure ratchets up Pakistan’s defence outlays.
India threatens Pakistan: In the guise of Operation parakram (valour), India intended to walk over Pakistan. India conducted another military exercise Ashwamedha, along Pakistan’s borders from April 29-May 3, 2007. Ashwamedha connotes a “horse sacrifice ritual for acquisition of power and glory through subjugation of one’s neighbours”.
Pakistan’s military ruler Ziaul Haq indirectly conveyed to India that Pakistan, too, was nuclear-capable. The USA came to know that Pakistan, in self-defence, had stored at least eight A-bombs in mated form near an airbase. And, it exerted pressure on Pakistan to put PALs (permissive action links) on the bombs to avoid their accidental detonation.
Qadeer was forced by the UCN to translate documents relating to German designs of G-1 and G-2 centrifuges. Why did the Dutch authorities sheepishly comply with ‘CIA advice’ not to arrest Dr Qadeer? At a belated stage, Dr Qadeer was sentenced in absentia by a Dutch court to four years’ imprisonment.
What motivated Pakistan to go nuclear? International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) published a “research” dossier titled “Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks”. However, it would be unfair not to look at the silver linings in the dossier.
The dossier is accompanied with a prefatory statement by Dr Johan Chipman, Director General of the IISS. This statement gives a fair opinion of Pakistan’s motivation to go nuclear.
Dr Chipman points out, ‘Pakistan’s motivation to acquire nuclear weapons was sparked in large part by competition with India. .. the major boost [to Pakistan’s weapons programme] came in December 1971 after Pakistan’s traumatic defeat by India.
Embitterment over the loss of East Pakistan also provided a psychological motivation to Dr A.Q. Khan offers his services to his home country by stealing enrichment technology from his workplace in the Netherlands. With that boost, it took Pakistan only ten years to reach the point where it could produce a nuclear weapon, despite the withdrawal of nuclear assistance from Western countries’.
No military or governmental involvement: Despite its pro-India bias, the dossier admits “Khan may have acted largely on his own volition, for his own profit” (page 2, ibid.). “Khan’s nuclear activities were largely unsupervised by Pakistani governmental authorities and his orders of many more components, than Pakistan’s own enrichment programme required, apparently went undetected”(p. 66, ibid.). “Most of Khan’s dealings were carried out on his own initiative” (DG, IISS, press statement dated May 2, 2007).
“A.Q. Khan and his known cohorts are out of business”. The dossier also notes that “A new defence policy was adopted in March 2004. This policy reportedly intended to “further strengthen institutionalization of control of strategic assets”, and “turn all policies and decisions from an invisible secrecy into solid documentary form following recent proliferation scandal” (p. 36, ibid.).
Nuclear espionage by other countries: The dossier observes ‘Pakistan was not the only country to evade nuclear export controls to further a covert nuclear weapons programme (page 7, ibid.). ‘Almost all of the countries that have pursued nuclear weapons programmes obtained at least some of the necessary technologies, tools and materials from suppliers in other countries. Even the United States (which detonated the first nuclear weapon in 1945) utilized refugees and other European scientists for the Manhattan Project and the subsequent development of its nascent nuclear arsenal. The Soviet Union (which first tested an atomic bomb in 1949) acquired its technological foundations through espionage. The United Kingdom (1952) received a technological boost through its involvement in the Manhattan Project. France (1960) discovered the secret solvent for plutonium reprocessing by combing through open-source US literature. China (1964) received extensive technical assistance from the USSR’.
Black-market linchpins: From the dossier, one gets to know that Asher Karni, an Israeli businessman, and Alfred Hempel, an ex-Nazi who died in 1989, are co-fathers of India’s “indigenous” bombs. Hempel, a German nuclear entrepreneur, helped India overcome difficulties of heavy–water shortage by organising illicit delivery of a consignment of over 250 tonnes of heavy water to India’s Madras-I reactor, via China, Norway and the USSR. The duo also arranged transfers to India of sensitive nuclear components.
Is Pakistan the sole proliferator? Qadeer was forced by the UCN to translate documents relating to German designs of G-1 and G-2 centrifuges. Why did the Dutch authorities sheepishly comply with ‘CIA advice’ not to arrest Dr Qadeer? At a belated stage, Dr Qadeer was sentenced in absentia by a Dutch court to four years’ imprisonment. The sentence was withdrawn. But, why did the Swiss prosecution not appeal against that decision?
Interestingly, the erudite Dr. Siddiqa does not say a word about misuse by India of Cyrus reactor and know-how acquired from Norway, Russia, China France and Canada to make her A-bombs and probably H-bombs (India is believed to have now developed a neutron bomb). The documentary keeps mum about the role played by USA’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ programme as precursors to ‘Atoms for War’. What were the USA’s policy motivations for blinking at bomb-oriented “peaceful” nuclear research in several countries?
Kashmir nuclear tinderbox: Talks on outstanding issues Kashmir, Sir Creek and Junagadh are stalled. Instead of discussing Kashmir, the most intractable dispute, India carried out surgical strikes at about 25 targets deep within Azad Kashmir. Later it carried out an air strike at Balakot. In an editorial, Hindustan Times dated January 28, commented that army-chief’s statements `provided Pakistan with an excuse to build short range, nuclear-capable missiles, like Nasr, to target Indian formations undertaking conventional strikes’. ` India is unmindful of possibility that his strikes could lead to a nuclear confrontation.
But, John Thomson, in his article ‘Kashmir: the most dangerous place in the world’ warns of a nuclear war (Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, Bushra Asif and Cyrus Samii (eds), ‘Kashmir: New Voices, New Approaches’). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has, inter alia, pointed out that ‘avoiding nuclear war in South Asia will require political breakthroughs in India-Pakistan’.
Concluding remarks: Dr. Khan, if anything, was a retail merchant to the international nuclear black-market including some Israeli businessmen. But, international media keeps bashing AQ Khan. All states should aspire to bring about a nuclear-free world.
Kashmir is a nuclear tinderbox. It may lead to a nuclear Armageddon. Nuclear victory would at best be pyrrhic.
We know how the Bay of Pigs missile crisis pulled down nuclear threshold. It’s time the world community took notice of military preparation and belligerent statements from Pakistan’s next-door neighbour, India.
