Some dim bulbs were demanding – before the dust even settled at the World Trade Center – that we immediately bomb Iraq. It seems a little bird had whispered – on condition of anonymity – that the Iraqis were building nukes at secret labs.
Failing to get President Bush’s ear on Iraq, the anonymous birds are now whispering that Islamic terrorists may be trying to build nukes at secret labs in Afghanistan.
Nonsense.
Little birds to the contrary, building a nuke from scratch is not easy. Islamic terrorists won’t launch multi-billion-dollar, decade-long Manhattan Projects. They will use what’s already available. Like, for example, an airliner full of jet fuel. Or cheap, shoulder-mounted, heat-seeking missiles like those manufactured in Pakistan by the laboratory named after Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program.
Now, face reality: We can’t prevent Islamic terrorists from shooting down American airliners on final approach to Reagan National with such missiles. But we can do something to prevent Pakistan’s nukes from getting loose.
Proud Pakistan is the only country among the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to not only have a nuke arsenal, but to have developed from scratch a complete nuke weapons infrastructure, including state-of-the-art weapons-grade uranium enrichment, plutonium and tritium production facilities.
Pakistan currently produces enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to make nine or 10 nukes each year. Furthermore, since 1998, they could have been producing 10 to 15 kilograms of Plutonium in their heavy-water, natural-uranium reactor at Kushab.
But, the Kushab reactor can be used to produce tritium – rather than Plutonium – to be used in “boosted” weapons. If you know what that means, keep it to yourself. If you don’t, it means the Pakistanis know how to make very sophisticated fission nukes. The Kushab reactor – if used to produce tritium – would produce enough to boost perhaps 20 or so small sophisticated fission weapons, with design yields of up to 100KT. According to Dr. Khan, most of the Pakistani devices tested in 1998 were “boosted” nuke designs.
Pakistan is also manufacturing very pure reactor-grade graphite and has its own heavy-water plant. Hence, Pakistan apparently has the capability to build additional plutonium-tritium production reactors, for themselves or others.
Unlike Iraq, none of the Pakistani nuke infrastructure is subject to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and security regime. Pakistan is not a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory.
Why did Pakistan – which is not a rich country – spend many billions of dollars developing its own nuke arsenal and infrastructure? Because in 1974, its next door neighbor and enemy, India – also not an NPT signatory – had tested its plutonium nukes. Dr. Khan, who had been working at the European uranium enrichment corporation (Urenco), came back to Pakistan to head its nuke weapons development project. Khan decided to use commercially available European technology to make a highly-enriched uranium (HEU) bomb.
The United States did try to stop them. For example, the 1976 Symington Amendment cut off all U.S. assistance to any country that imported – albeit perfectly legally – uranium enrichment technology.
But then – on Jimmy Carter’s watch – Russia invaded Afghanistan.
Carter immediately declared Pakistan a “frontline state” against Soviet aggression and overrode the sanctions just imposed. Reagan then upped the ante substantially, providing Pakistan billions of dollars in military and economic assistance, including thousands of cheap, reliable heat-seeking missiles – Stingers – for the Afghan freedom fighters.
The Soviet Union exited Afghanistan in 1989. The dim bulbs that are insisting on re-opening Reagan National airport should note that the Soviets lost more than 500 aircraft in Afghanistan to shoulder-fired Stingers.
Then – surprise, surprise – the Pakistanis tested their nukes in 1998. President Clinton immediately slapped sanctions back on, again.
Now, the World Trade Center is gone, Pakistan is once again a “frontline state” in the war against terrorism and President Bush has lifted the sanctions yet again.
Days after President Bush declared war on terrorism a bunch of “concerned scientists” – that is to say, the nuke-disarmament crowd – met at the United Nations in New York. They opined that it would be a Good Thing if Pakistan would subject its nuke arsenal and all infrastructure to the IAEA-NPT safeguards and security regime. That is, they want Pakistan to turn over all its nukes to them.
Fat chance!
Here is what Pakistani president – General Pervez Musharraf – had to say last year, in an awards ceremony for Dr. Khan.
Our strategy rests on minimum credible (nuclear) deterrence. Our force goals are well defined. The quality and quantity of these goals is to be maintained at all cost, at all times, under all circumstances. There never has been and there never will be, any compromises in this resolve, come what may.
I would like to reiterate this resolve on this occasion, loud and clear in military terms: Death before dishonour.
I would also like to say to you, the new custodians of the nation’s nuclear capability, that my government will provide you with every possible political and financial support. We will take whatever pressures come. We will do whatever it takes to ward off such pressures. We will find the resources to back your work. The nation is united on this issue. There are no ambiguities whatsoever here.
Now, Pakistan has made it clear that their nukes are “Islamic” nukes. They are ready to share their nuke technical knowledge and experience with other OIC members. So, maybe bombing OIC members Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria is not such a great idea after all. Little birds to the contrary, none of them have nukes, as of today. But tomorrow?
Maybe the assembling by Secretary of State Colin Powell of U.S.-led coalitions of OIC members to fight the war on terrorism isn’t such a bad idea, after all. Fighting that way, maybe the Islamic nukes won’t get loose.
