21 November 2004
Pakistan: questions abroad
By A.R. Siddiqi
Six weeks in England and America on a recent private visit Permitted little time for matters of professional interest. However, even limited interaction with friends in Britain and America - Pakistani as well as local - and routine exposure to the print and electronic media helped one to gain perhaps a clearer view of perceptions abroad about our country.
Whereas in Britain the focus stays largely on Pakistan's limping democracy under a military ruler, in the US, we appear to figure as the hub of the world's largest known nuclear network alongside our role - as America's principal partner in the global war against terrorism. President General Musharraf's name alone appears in a relatively kindly light as the pillar of stability in Pakistan and much of the region, especially the turbulent north-west. In fact one hears so much of Dr. A.Q. Khan's nuclear network and Pakistan's proactive, 'offensively' oriented role against Al Qaeda terrorists that one may, at times, be left wondering about its very status as a sovereign country with its own national agenda.
A third element figuring in Pakistan-US ties remains the erratic calculus of the on-going peace process in the subcontinent. The US administration and the media, by the large, look up to Pakistan for a positive outcome. In other words, India, rather than Pakistan, would be viewed as the villain of the piece if the process ever came up against a stumbling block. Even now, the US media keep highlighting the continuing existence of (Mujahideen) training camps on the Pakistan side of the LoC to arm and train Kashmiri freedom fighters.
The limelight, however, stays on Dr. Khan's nuclear sin. Even if news and comments went down in frequency because of the spate of pre-election coverage, it is projected and attacked with fierce intensity. The very rationale of sustainable ties is at times questioned because Pakistan harbours the worlds' most will known nuclear trafficker.
How and why, it is asked, the official head of Pakistan's nuclear programme was allowed to master-mind and operate his vast network under the nose of a military government? Who is who in Pakistan's ruling group? Dr Khan have his own agents with worldwide links? Do the disclosures so far represent only the thin end of the wedge and are one or more of Dr Khan's agents still at large and linked with Al Qaeda operatives, helping them make a nuclear device, even a crude or a dirty 'radiological' one? The Mullah-Madressah-Taliban troika is seen as posing the 0 - ? greatest threat to the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear assets. What if they ever seized power at the centre? Even without being able to do so, their potential for mischief is considered as a fact of life.
In the course of an informal talk with some scholars of the University of Virginia (UoV) at Charlottesville, Osama bin Laden was repeatedly mentioned as hiding somewhere on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line. What if Osama and his trained band of scientists and engineers ever succeed in laying their hands on Pakistan's nuclear assets?
Humbug! But it is there.
By far the most devastating piece, amongst a sheaf of such, appeared in The New York Times (25.09.2004) 'Twisting Dr Nuke's Arm' by Nicholas Kristof, one of its dedicated columnists, bitterly critical of President Bush searching 'vainly' for Osama while going 'slack' on Pakistan as the hub of nuclear proliferation. "The biggest challenge to civilization in recent years came not from Osama or Saddam Hussein, but from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb. Dr Khan definitely sold nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, and, officials believe to several more nations as well. "But, amazingly, eight months after Dr Khan publicly confessed, we still don't know who the rest of the customers were. Mr Musharraf acknowledged as much in an interview." Pushing his perceptions almost to the lunatic fringe of paranoia, Kristof hypothesizes: "If a nuclear weapon destroys the US Capitol in coming years, it will probably be based on in part on Pakistani technology".
It is impossible to 'overstate' the risks if a country is like Saudi Arabia or Syria ever develops nuclear weapons because of Dr Khan's help. "Mr Bush portrays himself as Mr Security, defending America from terrorism, but the paramount security threat we face is a nuclear 9/11, which could kill half a million American in one explosion.... the White House simply can't be complacent about tracking down Dr Khan's other nuclear clients."
The point for us to ponder and debate, even if purely academically, is, first, how a clandestine network as wide as Dr Khan's could go undetected for ever so long? Second, could all that be possible at all without some measure of connivance on the part of some officials? Lastly and more importantly, we need to undertake a critical analysis of the role of nuclear power in a country with a disturbed political base and a less than robust economy.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2004