Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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Rogue in the Ranks<br />
hardware for building an enrichment plant in Kahuta. Dr Khan had built<br />
up an elaborate network in the West for the procurement of centrifuge<br />
enrichment information. Most of the equipment was acquired from<br />
Western European countries. From 1977 to 1980, <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> smuggled<br />
an entire plant for converting uranium powder into hex fluoride, the<br />
gas-fired material used as feed for the Kahuta plant. 12 <strong>The</strong> classified<br />
information, smuggled out by Dr Khan during his employment in<br />
Europe, helped develop those contacts. In a later interview with<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s Defence Journal, Dr Khan proudly recounted how his team<br />
openly procured key components from western companies. ‘Many<br />
suppliers approached us with the details of the machinery and with<br />
figures and numbers of instruments and materials,’ he said. ‘<strong>The</strong>y<br />
begged us to purchase their goods.’<br />
<strong>The</strong> 1978 communist revolution and subsequent invasion of<br />
Afghanistan by the Soviet forces brought about a profound geostrategic<br />
change in the region. <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> became a crucial frontline<br />
state for the West. To win <strong>Islam</strong>abad’s support against the perceived<br />
Soviet expansionism, the USA lifted the sanctions against it. <strong>The</strong> USA<br />
needed <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> more than <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> needed the USA. <strong>The</strong> Reagan<br />
administration decided to shut its eyes to <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s nuclear weapons<br />
programme, which had earlier caused serious strains in <strong>Pak</strong>-US relations.<br />
General Zia’s military regime fully exploited <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s emerging geostrategic<br />
importance to the West and accelerated the country’s nuclear<br />
programme. According to a former senior <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i official who was<br />
associated with the country’s nuclear programme from its inception,<br />
by 1983 <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> had achieved full nuclear capability and could have<br />
conducted a test explosion. 13 In an interview after the 28 May nuclear<br />
tests, Dr Khan told me that his organization had conducted several<br />
cold tests in 1983 and 1984. He said that he informed General Zia in<br />
December 1984 that, if he wanted to test the device, a weeks’ notice<br />
would be more than enough. But General Zia was not willing to take<br />
the risk.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is strong evidence to suggest that, by 1984, <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> had<br />
crossed ‘the red line’ in uranium enrichment to more than five per<br />
cent. That was the period when <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> feared an imminent attack by<br />
India for allegedly supporting the Sikh insurgency in Indian Punjab.<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> accelerated its nuclear weapons programme as the threat<br />
of war loomed large. In an interview with Nawai Waqt, a respected<br />
Urdu-language national daily, in February 1984, Dr Khan declared that<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> was on the verge of achieving nuclear capability. 14 That was<br />
1