America Allowed The Pakistan Nuclear Horn To Form

‘America went soft on Pakistan’s nuclear smuggling efforts’
14 Oct 2015, 2231 hrs IST , AGENCIES

The US went soft on Pakistan’s nuclear smuggling efforts during former President Ronald Reagan’s administration, fearing that any action would upset their bilateral ties at a critical time of the Afghan war, according to new declassified documents.

The documents were declassified amid reports that the Obama Administration is considering a civil nuclear deal with Pakistan. Declassifying a number of documents, the National Security Archive (NSA) said that the Reagan administration had an internal debate over policy towards Pakistan’s developing nuclear capability.

The debate led to a letter from Reagan to Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, never before published, asking for a commitment to low levels – five per cent – of nuclear enrichment.
Five per cent would amount to a “red line”, which some in Washington believed would trigger sanctions, although Reagan’s letter did not directly threaten to cut aid in the event of non-compliance.
Through the 1980s, the war in Afghanistan had priority over Pakistan’s nuclear programme and Reagan and his top advisors did not want to take any action that would jeopardise Pakistan’s role as a conduit for US aid to the Mujahadin, NSA said in a media release.

In his letter dated September 12, 1984, Reagan wrote of his “appreciation” that Zia had made the assurance on five per cent, further stating that higher levels of enrichment above five per cent “would have the same significance” as the other nuclear activities, such as unsafeguarded reprocessing which “I had personally discussed with you and would have the same implications for our security programme and relationship.”

Reagan said enrichment above five per cent was “no different” from the other activities, but the letter did not make explicit the threat of an aid cut-off. NSA said the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and US support for Pakistan’s aid to the mujahidin, was the context for Reagan’s points on nuclear proliferation.

That Afghanistan was the overwhelming priority was also evident in draft talking points that were prepared for Ambassador Hinton: Washington remained “fully committed to supporting you in our common effort.”

The talking points went on at some length about nuclear issues, including the importance of Pakistani assurances and the need for Indian-Pakistani dialogue, but they included no reference to penalties if Pakistani cooperation was found wanting, NSA said.

Significantly, the talking points refer to Washington’s “judgment” that it is “likely that at some point India will take military action to pre-empt your military programme”. Such a possibility had been discussed in previous national intelligence estimates, NSA said.

Consistent with the allusion to an Indian threat, the talking points included an inducement for Pakistan to adopt safeguards on its nuclear facilities: in light of the threats that Pakistan faced, “we would be prepared to act promptly to discourage or help deter such action as you move toward safeguards”.

Whether this offer, close to a security guarantee, was actually made to General Zia remains to be learned, NSA said.

It added that a wide-ranging 1985 CIA report analysed General Zia’s “gamble” on a close strategic relationship with the US, waged in the face of broad domestic opposition which was deeply suspicious of Washington and fearful that Pakistan would be embroiled in a conflict with the Soviet Union.

To keep India and the Soviet Union at bay, Zia wanted to pursue a close security relationship with Washington and secure increased aid to support military modernisation.

To avoid “pressure” from Moscow, however, Zia opposed any publicity for US indirect aid to the insurgents in Afghanistan, although he wanted it to keep flowing to prevent the Soviets from consolidating their position, it said.

The CIA saw Zia and the Pakistani public generally as deeply committed to a nuclear weapons capability as security against India; accordingly, if Washington cut aid to Pakistan for nonproliferation reasons, CIA analysts argued that Zia would reduce support for the resistance in Afghanistan and intensify work on nuclear weapons development.

An aid cutoff could even lead to Zia’s overthrow or resignation in light of his gamble on close relations with the United States, NSA said referring to the documents.

The Inevitable Revelation (Rev 15:2)

 
AP Investigation: 5 Key Findings on Nuclear Smuggling
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHISINAU, Moldova — Oct 7, 2015, 1:16 AM ET

An Associated Press investigation reveals that a remote corner of eastern Europe has become a thriving marketplace for nuclear material aimed at extremists in the Middle East. Here are five key findings:

———

—Criminal gangs with Russian ties have made repeated attempts in recent years to shop bomb-grade nuclear material in Moldova to Middle Eastern buyers.

—Early this year, a gang specifically sought a buyer from the Islamic State group for highly radioactive cesium. The AP has exclusive details of the previously unpublicized case.

—In 2011, an organized crime ring led by a shadowy Russian nicknamed “the Colonel” tried to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real Middle Eastern buyer, in the most serious of four cases in the past five years.

—Hatred for the United States motivated the middleman in the 2011 case. In his home, police found diagrams on how to make a dirty bomb and a weapons contract made out to the ring’s target buyer.
—The nuclear smugglers are getting off lightly with short prison sentences and resurfacing repeatedly to return to the illicit trade — showing that the trafficking is not under control.

Nuclear Trafficking Is Alive And Well (Revelation 16)

How real is the problem of nuclear trafficking?
In August 1994, German police recovered 12 ounces of plutonium-239, later identified as having originated in Russia, from a Munich train station. The amount of plutonium-239 seized could have been used to poison all the water supply plants in Munich or to make a devastating ‘dirty bomb’

Nuclear Smuggling From Russia

Rizwan Asghar
April 01, 2014

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was a significant event in more ways than one. The Soviet Union, which had opposed the US for more than 40 years, disintegrated virtually overnight. The fears of a global nuclear holocaust hanging like a cloud throughout the Cold War were at last eliminated. However, this was not a moment of unalloyed optimism and there was the danger of an enormous power vacuum in a country that possessed almost 30,000 nuclear weapons spread across its vast territories. Such a political vacuum, coupled with the rising influence of organised criminal syndicates, triggered concerns that fissile materials or even complete nuclear weapons could be stolen and fall into terrorist hands. The reasons that organised criminal mafias were interested in the nuclear black market were the enormous gains for them in smuggling illegal products across international borders. During the 1990s, transnational criminal groups based in Russia and Italy had well-established infrastructure and trafficking channels to smuggle fissile materials or even suitcase-sized nuclear weapons from one country to another. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons and fissile material stockpiles were dispersed in many new countries that faced serious politico-military upheavals. Many people working in the nuclear industry also became involved in nuclear smuggling, making it very difficult to prevent insider theft. Fissile material, generally used for making a nuclear fission explosive device, includes Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and plutonium (plutonium-239). According to the latest estimates, a kilogramme of plutonium can sell for more than $ 500,000 on the nuclear black market. With such high market value, fissile material has been an unsurprisingly hot commodity in the international criminal underworld for the past two decades. In 2012, the US State Department expressed grave concerns that the attempted smuggling of critical nuclear materials in recent years enhanced the risk that terrorist groups could acquire the ingredients for a weapon of mass destruction.

The first confirmed nuclear trafficking case in the former Soviet Union involved the diversion of approximately 15 kilogrammes of HEU allegedly stolen by an employee from the Podolsk nuclear facility in 1992. More than 10 additional high-profile cases of trafficking incidents involving HEU or plutonium occurred in the following two years. In August 1994, German police recovered 12 ounces of plutonium-239, later identified as having originated in Russia, from a Munich train station. The amount of plutonium-239 seized could have been used to poison all the water supply plants in Munich or to make a devastating ‘dirty bomb’ that would disperse radioactive particles in the air. In any case, the amount of plutonium recovered was enough to kill thousands of people but no concrete actions could be taken to stop the leakage of nuclear materials from Russia and cases of trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive material continued to make headlines in Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

Some experts are of the view that most nuclear trafficking cases involve low-grade materials passed off by scam artists as the real thing and journalists generally misconstrue and exaggerate the threat. Admittedly, some analyses might be exaggerated but there is enough evidence available to give credence to a nightmare scenario involving 100 kilogrammes of fissile material stolen from Russia for sale on the nuclear black market. George Tenet, a former CIA director, explained in detail in his book, At the Centre of the Storm, that by 2002 the CIA had reliable information of senior al Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia negotiating for the purchase of three Russian tactical nuclear devices but it remains unclear if those negotiations were successful or not. The collective failure to strengthen export control laws and extremely porous borders of the former Soviet republics further complicate the efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and illicit sale on the black market.

According to confirmed intelligence reports, some of the nuclear materials left Russia on their way to buyers via Georgia, which has emerged as a key transit point for various illegal materials due to its geography, unsecured borders, internal conflict and corruption. Organised and professional criminal groups are also involved in this type of trafficking. In 2006, a group of smugglers from Georgia were arrested attempting to sell HEU. In addition, there is the serious threat that various amounts of uranium and plutonium seized in different countries might be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. No one knows the exact amount of fissile materials that terrorists or criminal syndicates might have succeeded in smuggling to their desired destinations. For instance, in 1994, the Czech police found, during the investigation of a case involving 2.7 kilogrammes of HEU stolen from Russia, that smugglers had promised to deliver to buyers an additional 60 kilogrammes of HEU over the next 12 months. After many years of searching, authorities have remained unable to trace the location of many kilogrammes of critical material in the possession of smugglers.

Nuclear smuggling and illicit proliferation of nuclear weapons pose a dangerous and persistent threat to international security. The 9/11 attacks in the US and successful terrorist incidents in a number of European countries have already demonstrated that al Qaeda is prepared to use indiscriminate means and the most violent force to pursue its aim of global domination. In order to thwart unauthorised use of fissile or radiological materials, it is important to recognise that nuclear trafficking is a global challenge involving a broad spectrum of threats. The responsibility to counter this threat can no longer be left in the hands of individual nations. A retrospective analysis of theft and smuggling cases, and the vast potential of the nuclear black market enable us to understand the extent of proliferation-related damage that has occurred so far and the challenges we could face as a result of it in the years to come.