JANE’S: PAK NUKE SALES OVERT, GOV’T APPROVED

Pakistan’s gov­ern­ment is now try­ing to por­tray the sale of nuclear tech­nol­ogy to Iran, Libya, and North Korea as the cloak-​​and-​​dagger work of a few, iso­lated rogues.
But that’s a lie, says Jane’s Defense Weekly, in a report released today. Nuclear sales were so out in the open that under­lings of Abdul Qadeer Khan — the father of the Pakistani Bomb — were hand­ing out glossy brochures adver­tis­ing their ser­vices at a 2000 arms con­fer­ence.

One of the brochures, a 10-​​page cat­a­logue from A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories’ Directorate of Vacuum Science and Technology, offered vir­tu­ally all the com­po­nents needed to estab­lish a uranium-​​enrichment plant. The spe­cialised cen­trifuge pumps, gauges, valves and other com­po­nents each have civil­ian uses, but together pro­vide the means to enrich the rare uranium-​​235 iso­tope to a par­tic­u­larly pure grade so that it can be used to fuel a nuclear weapon.
If there was any doubt as to what was on offer, a sec­ond accom­pa­ny­ing brochure under the head­ing of “nuclear-​​related prod­ucts” listed “com­plete ultra­cen­trifuge machines” and other com­po­nents needed to build a uranium-​​enrichment plant.
JDW read­ily obtained the brochures on the spot and inquired whether all of the listed items were avail­able for sale. Several KRL offi­cials pro­vided pos­i­tive assur­ances that all had gov­ern­ment approval for export…
KRL was not the only Pakistani organ­i­sa­tion ped­dling wor­ri­some tech­nol­ogy at the Karachi exhi­bi­tion. Its rival lab­o­ra­tory — the National Development Complex — was also hand­ing out mar­ket­ing pack­ages offer­ing a vari­ety of tech­nolo­gies use­ful in the devel­op­ment of long-​​range bal­lis­tic mis­siles. While Pakistan is under no legal inter­na­tional oblig­a­tion to con­trol mis­sile tech­nol­ogy sales, it has often pledged to do so.
Moreover, Khan him­self has alleged that he received approval for the Iranian trans­fers from offi­cers in the Pakistani army. One for­mer senior US intel­li­gence offi­cer agrees with this assess­ment, say­ing that the for­mer Pakistani Chief of the Army Staff, Gen Mirza Aslam Beg, was “a cru­cial fig­ure”. The offi­cial added: “Whatever the net­work is, it has got to envelop part of the [Pakistani] mil­i­tary establishment.” 

THERE’S MORE: Via Cursor, here’s a link to one of Khan’s nuclear brochures.

February 26th, 2004 | Nukes | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.