Pakistan

Living with a Nuclear Monkey

Musa Khan Jalalzai

• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9789386457929
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique

"Pakistan is teetering on the brink. The country's staggering and lurching foreign policy has failed to evolve with changing political and geopolitical developments. The army and ISI lack coherent and long-term national security approach. The prolixity of the Afghan war and participation of Pakistan's jihadist black-water in it has blighted its social and political stratification. Its domestic policies are in a grief-stricken state. The two states (Islamic Republic and Military Establishment) have adopted different foreign, domestic and economic policies, and view neighbouring states with different glasses. The gradual radicalization of Pakistan army and its links with worldwide terrorist organizations over the last 70 years, poses a grave danger to the country's nuclear installations in terms of insider attacks. The spectrum of rogue and radicalized elements range from military officers to employees of Strategic Planning Division and officers of nuclear force. These aspects have been elaborated by the author in this book. The book can be an essential reading for every reader interested in Pakistan's nuclear program and its threat of falling into hands of rogue elements."

Chapter 1

Pakistan’s Miltablishment,
Abdul Qadeer Khan’s Nuclear
Smuggling Networks and the
Threat of Nuclear Terrorism in
South Asia

The US President Donald Trump’s strategy for South Asia noted that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands. “We are particularly concerned by the development of tactical nuclear weapons that are designed for use in battlefield. We believe that these systems are more susceptible to terrorist theft and increase the likelihood of nuclear exchange in the region,” the Trump administration warned.¹ Pakistan tested its nuclear bomb (28 May 1998) in Chaghi Hills of Baluchistan Province. The test ceremony was arranged in a poor and agonized province, where Pakistani intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces kidnapped and disappeared 25,000 Baloch men, women and children in so-called military operations during the last two decades. Both poor and rich Pakistanis do not support miltablishment’s illegal nuclear black marketing of GHQ and its associates. They need peace, food, security and justice, they do not need nuclear or truck bomb that prompts fatalities, death and destruction. After the test, military establishment started incapacitating residents of Afghanistan’s border provinces by dumping nuclear waste inside the country.² Researcher Iram Khalid and Zakia Bano in their research papers highlighted Pakistan’s resolve as a nuclear state:

Pakistan exploded nuclear test on 28 May 1998 in the Chaghi Hills which is a long the Western border of the province of Baluchistan, Many personalities and organizations were involved in developing the bomb against a backdrop of political, security and economic constraints, as well as opportunities. Pakistan decided to fulfill almost accurately its promise to “eat grass or go hungry” in its mission for the development of nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear program started under severely complex and challenging security dilemmas and circumstances. Historical experience, a blend of cultural nuances, idiosyncrasies of personalities, and domestic politics existed throughout the nuclear development.³

In 1950s, Pakistan started discussion on retrieving nuclear weapons to respond to the Indian efforts of destabilizing the country. India dismembered Pakistan in 1971, and continued to challenge the existence of the country by developing nuclear and biological weapons.⁴ Pakistani business firms in Europe and the United States invested in the development of Islamic Bomb. In their Congressional Research Report, Paul K. Kerr and Marry Beth Nikitin (2012) noted important points about Pakistan’s nuclear journey through different phases:

Pakistan’s nuclear energy program dates back to the 1950s, but it was the loss of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in a war with India that probably triggered a January 1972 political decision (just one month later) to begin a secret nuclear program. Deterring India’s nuclear weapons and augmenting Pakistan’s inferior conventional forces are widely believed to be the primary missions for Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal........Highly-enriched Uranium (HEU) is one of two types of fissile materials used in nuclear weapons; the other is plutonium. The country’s main enrichment facility is a centrifuge plant located at Kahuta; Pakistan may have other enrichment sites. Islamabad gained enrichment-related technology from many sources..........Pakistan produced fissile material for its nuclear weapons using gas-centrifuge-based uranium enrichment technology, which it mastered by the mid-1980s. Highly-enriched uranium (HEU) is one of two types of fissile material used in nuclear weapons; the other is plutonium. The county’s main enrichment facility is a centrifuge plant located at Kahuta; Pakistan may have other enrichment sites. Islamabad gained enrichment-related technology from many sources. This extensive assistance is reported to have included uranium enrichment technology from Europe, blueprints for a small nuclear weapon from China, and missile technology from China”. The United States had information during the 1970s that Pakistan was constructing uranium facility. Abdul Qadeer Khan has stated that Pakistan begin enriching uranium in 1979 and produced HEU in 1983. Although Pakistan subsequently told the United Stated that it would produce only low-enriched uranium (Which is not used as fissile material in nuclear weapons).⁵

On 01 May 1983, General Zia-ul-Haq visited Dr. Khan’s Laboratory, and directed Engineering Research Laboratories, to pursue a nuclear bomb design for a cold test.⁶ After the death of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1988, cooperation with Iran and North Korea on nuclear missile was expedited but Miltablishment never allowed civilian Prime Ministers a single visit to nuclear plants. Iram Khalid and Zakia Bano spotlighted Pakistan’s efforts in developing nuclear weapons:

Dr. Khan was doing the whole task under General Zia. Mr. Zia encouraged both labs, for if one of them was destroyed by the enemy action or sabotage, then the other would continue to manufacture nuclear weapons. This strategy would save nuclearization from being halted completely. Extraction of national uranium was done at Dera Ghazi Khan. Designing and production of fuel was being done at the PAEC. Pakistan Ordinance Factory (POF) was performing the function of fabrication and the machining of the weapons. KRL was running the task of enriching the uranium.........Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in December 1988. She won the election that was held after Zia’s death in an air crash. She demanded a reconsideration of Pakistan’s nuclear program. She expressed her views in an interview to the Indian Express; ‘we only want nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and we are prepared to set all doubts at rest on this score because it has undermined our relations with other countries and has complicated matters for Pakistan.⁷

Pakistan continued its efforts of developing nuclear weapons program and succeeded to test its bomb in 1998. There was news in international press that Pakistan developed more than 100 to 200 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in 1998, but military establishment denied and said Pakistan believe in peace and stability of the region, the fact is the country’s nuclear program is both civil and military in nature. Former Defense Minister Mr. Khawaja Muhammad Asif warned that if India use nuclear weapons against Pakistan, his country would also use nuclear weapons against it.⁸ This statement raised many questions including Pakistan’s intention about the use of nuclear weapons against its neighbours. Press reports identified Pakistan’s 15 nuclear sites located in different parts of the country. The Project Alpha (2016), in its recent report highlights evolution of Pakistan nuclear bomb efforts:

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are fuelled by both weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. Both routes of fissile material production are controlled largely by the PAEC facilities across the nuclear fuel cycle being used for the purposes of producing nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s fissile material is mined, converted, and processed in a series of non-safeguarded PAEC facilities, which are described below. Pakistan has at least three operational uranium mines. Pakistan’s first uranium mine, built at Baghalchur along with a uranium mill in the 1970s, is now reportedly no longer in operation. [The Baghalchur mine (BC-I) forms the basis of a major nuclear complex at Dera Ghazi Khan, which is described below.] Additional uranium mines have since been built at Qabul Khel, Nangar Nal and Taunsa. All three mines use the in-situ leaching process. Pakistan has also received uranium compounds from abroad. In the late 1970s, it obtained 110-150 tones of yellowcake (uranium oxide) from Niger, which was put under IAEA safeguards; and then purchased 450 tones of Niger-origin yellowcake from Libya, which was not safeguarded and used to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6).⁹

Between 1970s and 2008, several Arab and non-Arab states contributed into Pakistan’s nuclear program on the pretext that they will also receive their share in the Islamic bomb. Military Generals and Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan shared information with Iran, Libya, North Korea, China and Saudi Arabia, and received billion dollars in cash. Saudi Arabia financially backed Pakistan’s Islamic bomb in 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In 1999, Prince Sultan visited the country’s uranium enrichment facility. In 1993, the New Yorker in its report noted Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan’s remarks:

Western Countries had never imagined that a poor and backward country like Pakistan would end their (nuclear) monopoly in such a short time……As soon as they realized that Pakistan dashed their dream to the ground, they pounced at Pakistan and me like hungry jackals and began attacking us with all kinds of accusations and falsehoods…….How could they tolerate a Muslim country becoming their equal in this field……All western countries including Israel are not only the enemies of Pakistan but in fact of Islam.¹⁰

Pakistan nuclear material smugglers were also in the field to collect bomb related information from across the globe. Most of Pakistan’s nuclear smuggling networks were comprised of businessmen and middle class smugglers headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan and Miltablishment (GHQ). Before the fall of the Taliban regime in Kabul, Pakistan offered services to al Qaeda for developing its non-conventional capabilities. In 2001, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Choudhry Abdul Majeed visited Osama bin Laden in Kabul. Over the course of three days of intense conversation, they finally reached a conclusion that Pakistan will help Osama in developing weapons of mass destruction in Afghanistan. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood had as a uranium expert served in Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission for 30 year.¹¹

After the fall of Taliban government in Kabul in 2001, Pakistani politicians and miltablishment faced deep crisis when the United States focused its intelligence surveillance on the country’s nuclear weapons security. President Mushraf hammered Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and forced him to immediately respond to international community concerns, but never asked his warlords on their illegal nuclear black marketing across the globe. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was viewed as the founder of Pakistan nuclear Islamic bomb. He was arrested by General Musharraf in January 2004 for his controversial role in nuclear smuggling, and clandestine relationship with North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, Libya and Taliban.¹² As a matter of fact, the army was behind all these illegal nuclear black marketing, but General Musharraf tried to protect military generals by making Dr. Khan a scapegoat. Former Army Chief General Mirza Aslam Baig was widely criticized for his alleged involvement with the nuclear program of Iran.¹³ As a Chief of Army Staff, General Baig had initiated lectureship programs to have better understanding on nuclear policy matters and policy development.¹⁴ General Baig had calculated that such cooperation with Iran was popular and that, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf were less popular as American clients in the region.¹⁵

Pakistan’s nuclear program, however, was essentially intended to counter its conventional forces inferiority vis-a-vis India.¹⁶ After the Pokhran II test in 1998, and the Kargil episode, the real nature of nuclear weapons was emphasized, and the imperative of military involvement dawned on the establishment.¹⁷ In 1999, during the Kargil war, Pakistan’s military establishment readied Islamic bomb to attack India while its forces were defeated by Indian army. After this irresponsible act of intervention, the threat of nuclear terrorism in South Asia became real, because measures to secure these weapons were unprofessional and weak as the news of differences between the democratic government and strategic planning division over the security plan, recruitment of nuclear forces, and policy of good and bad Taliban appeared in some sections of print media.

Pakistani journalist Khaled Ahmad in his article noted General Baig’s encouragement of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan to proliferate technology to Iran and North Korea. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was shocked when enlightened of General Baig secret nuclear deal with Iran.¹⁸ In 1990, Pakistan army contacted Iraqi regime for nuclear business. In 1990, United Nations found a memo with details of Pakistani weapons inspectors meeting with Iraqi secret agents asking price of five million dollars for the network’s assistance plus an additional ten percent commission for all procurement.¹⁹ Later on, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan expanded his network to Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tunisia, which caused deep concern for the CIA and MI6 leadership.²⁰ Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Pakistan’s military established a network of nuclear weapons in Middle East and South East Asia to establish its political and military influence there. Journalist F.M Shakil reported Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan’s laboratory in Karachi provided foreign states with the designs for Pakistan’s older centrifuges, as well as more advanced and efficient models:

Khan and his associates used a factory in Malaysia to manufacture key parts for their centrifuges. The other necessary parts were purchased through network operatives in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. His main beneficiaries were the North Koreans, who were using plutonium as early as the 1980s before Khan started sending them equipment for uranium enrichment, as well as designs and lists of materials for centrifuges. After 11 September, 2001, the world’s focus was on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, but nuclear proliferation was going on in Pakistan, where Khan stood at the heart of an intricate worldwide network. Babar did not divulge the identities of those he believed were involved in the transfer of nuclear technology – but it is well understood he was alluding to Pakistan’s army.²¹

Terrorist networks of Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Islamic State in Pakistan had put the security of nuclear weapon at spike. In 2009, Gen Pervez Musharraf said his government adopted professional security measures, but from 2009 to 2011, terrorists attempted several times to destroy nuclear weapons or obtain it through their networks. Non-proliferation expert, Mr. Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin (2016) explain these measures in their recent research paper:

Pakistani efforts to improve the security of its nuclear weapons have been ongoing and have included some cooperation with the United States; former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told a journalist in 2009 that Islamabad has “given State Department non-proliferation experts insight into the command and control of the Pakistani arsenal and its on-site safety and security procedures.” Moreover, following the 2004 revelations of an extensive international nuclear proliferation network run by Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan, as well as possible connections between Pakistani nuclear scientists and Al Qaeda, Islamabad has made additional efforts to improve export controls and monitor nuclear personnel. The main security challenges for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal are keeping the integrity of the command structure, ensuring physical security, and preventing illicit proliferation from insiders. Some observers are also concerned about the risk of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The two countries most recently came to the brink of full-scale war in 1999 and 2002, and, realizing the dangers, have developed some risk reduction measures to prevent accidental nuclear war. Nevertheless, Pakistan continues to produce fissile material for weapons and appears to be augmenting its weapons production facilities as well as deploying additional delivery vehicles—steps that will enable both quantitative and qualitative improvements in Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal.²²

The country is now in deep crisis to maintain the security of it military installation in the presence of widespread terrorist networks. As terrorist organizations established their networks within the armed forces, the fear of theft exacerbated, and the army set up screening procedures. Nuclear expert, Mr. Bruno Tertrais has elucidated the screening process in his recent paper:

Two different programmes exist: a Human Reliability Program for civ...