U.S. Says It Knew of Pakistani Reactor Plan

[Rose Siding]

Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it had long known about Pakistan's plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor, but said the White House was working to dissuade Pakistan from using the plant to expand its nuclear arsenal....

The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm about a possible escalation of South Asia's arms race. Some also sharply criticized the administration for failing to disclose the existence of a facility that could influence an upcoming congressional debate over U.S. nuclear policy toward India and Pakistan.
...
Henry D. Sokolski, the Defense Department's top nonproliferation official during the George H.W. Bush administration, said he was most surprised by the way news of the reactor in Pakistan became known.

"What is baffling is that this information -- which was surely information that our own intelligence agencies had -- was kept from Congress," said Sokolski, now director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. "We lack imagination if we think that this is no big deal."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400995.html

[smacky44]

1. So why jump on Iran?

What happens if our friends in Pakistan are overthrown by their own people and a new regime takes over?

[Jersey Ginny]

2. Who is the member of OPEC?

That is the answer.

[cliss]

3. Pakistan....

a powder Keg ready to blow. That's how I see it. In more ways than one. Bush being the proverbial fuel to the fire, sells aircraft to Pak (I think he even GAVE them the aircraft), forgives about $4 billion dollars worth of debt. To boot, he helps them with nuclear technology. Naturally, this pushes neighboring India to the brink of nervousness.

I don't blame them one bit for feeling nervous.

Bush = worldwide chaos

[saigon68]

7. No their Quisling president won't allow that to happen

Presidents Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and George W. Bush hold a joint press conference at Camp David Tuesday, June 24, 2003. "Greater economic development is also critical to fulfilling the hopes of the Pakistani people," said President Bush. "Since we met last year, the United States has cancelled $1 billion of debt Pakistan owed our country. And today I'm pleased to announce that our nations are signing a trade and investment framework agreement, which creates a formal structure for expanding our economic partnership." White House photo by David Bohrer.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Didn't tell Congress -- more secrecy, and deceit. nt

[Orangepeel]

5. Pakistan good, Syria bad. Saudia Arabia good, Iran bad.

It all seems so arbitrary.

[Oak2004]

9. What's going to be really fun is when in a few years

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia become "the enemy".

I can't wait.

[Orangepeel]

10. and they won't even be able to say that it's because they found Jesus

which is the usual excuse for why you should trust a fundie that's screwed you over six times before

[WePurrsevere]

6. WTH? There are times when I wonder if there's enough coffee in the world

to get me awake enough to understand BushCo's foreign policy. :hangover: If there's a speck of "logic" to it I can't find it.

[Oak2004]

8. Who the hell has their hands on the steering wheel in Washington?

Aren't there any right wingers with a mind for strategy sufficient to clue Bush and the State Department in on how not to create a catastrophe?

Sometimes I think there's nothing the busheviks can do anymore that will shock me. Then I get shocked again. They are not just true believers in a false ideology. They are breathtakingly incompetent true believers in a false ideology.

What GD moron thought it was a good idea to help proliferate the Islamic bomb in the country that helped to create Al Qaeda??!!??!!!

[Octafish]

11. AQ Khan points to Sneer, Rumsferatu and Henry the Killer.

It's a miracle the story saw print, it's that important.

Sibel Edmonds' spring 2005 offensive

FBI shields Pakistan/Turkey nuclear weapons development, drug trade, Cheney, Rumsfeld

By John Stanton
Online Journal Contributing Writer

March 9, 2005—With Sibel Edmonds once again in the news, and with media interest in her case increasing, it's worth speculating, again*, about her knowledge by attempting to connect some of the many dots found in a public record that stretches back into the Ford Administration and that culminates, in part, with Pakistan's nuclear tests in 1998. The story has so many dots and cross currents that it's easy to miss the more salient items.

But it's not too much of a stretch to say that the FBI's interest in asserting a "State Secrets" privilege begins way back in 1972 at which time Pakistan decided to begin development of a nuclear weapons program that would culminate in the detonation of a nuclear weapon in 1998 (Turkey can't be far behind in 2005), and successful US weapons sales of helicopters, fighter aircraft, missile guidance software, combat vehicles and parts to both Turkey and Pakistan over the same 1972 to 1998 timeframe, despite US arms strictures on sales of US weapons technology. In the seven years since 1998, matters have gotten worse.

It really is the same old story we've all read about for so many decades and features these recurring themes: the black market for nuclear weapons technology, drug trade and money laundering, lobbyists housed in powerful organization, espionage and bribes, and big political and business names. These murky matters are always classified by governments and business groups as Top Secret or Proprietary and always involve criminal activity on behalf of national security. Unfortunately, criminal, classified and business/national security interests have always managed to find their way into the same bed whether here in the USA or abroad.

It would be nice to say that the black market for nuclear weapons had its zenith in 1998. But that's not the case. It is larger and more daring with more economic clout and political cover than ever. Not a bad development for a network created on the back of a drug trafficking network established long before there was a Cold War. And with the current US administration implementing a "new" counterintelligence directorate, seemingly to trump the bad stuff that Sibel Edmonds' litigation might produce, it all seems to make some sense that in 2005 the US government and industry would be in preemptive/recreate threat mode.

Exorcise Me!

Religious types like to say that "God/Allah works in mysterious ways." Interestingly, thanks to September 11, 2001, it appears that such a God/Allah may have been at work to expose some of the demons in American government and business, and their counterparts at work around the world. Who would have thought that Sibel Edmonds would encounter a lot of archived and/or then current documentation flowing through the intelligence pipeline that exposed criminal activity across the board by an array of conniving characters. American, Turkish and Pakistani operations (and history), planned and unplanned, were, perhaps, uncovered by her in the brief but heady days of worldwide cross-intelligence agency sharing following 9-11. Imagine the treasure trove of finds!

CONTINUED...

"WHADDABOUDME?"