India/Pakistan

[vector7]

Chinese secret intelligence involved in helping Pakistan in Mumbai massacre?

Ishant Joshi
Jan. 1, 2009

Sources in China are eager not to call Pakistan any culprit. The shadow ISI (the unofficial intelligence militia of Kiani) may have received direct help and intelligence from Chinese secret military intelligence in carrying out the Mumbai massacre.

Beijing: Xinhua, the Chinese government run news agency, has blamed the "Deccan Mujahideen" for the attack on Mumbai that killed 172 people and injured nearly 300 others. It made no mention of India's insistence that the terrorists came from Pakistan and were supported by forces in the neighboring country Pakistan.

The description of the incident fits in with the overall attitude of the Chinese official media to spare Pakistan of any blame for the incident. The local media has been giving a lot of play to defensive statements from Pakistani leaders while underplaying the charges made by India.

Chinese made advanced arms and ammunitions were used in carrying out the heinous act. There are indirect indications that Chinese military intelligence in India may have helped the rubber rafts coming into the Indian shore. India Navy is looking into the means these terrorists used to fool Indian coast guard deterrents.

Some very advanced intelligence organization helped the terrorists and their sponsors to cause maximum panic and destruction with a limited resource. Pakistan’s ISI is not that capable just alone working with its mediocre intelligence and espionage personnel.
China’s eagerness to protect Kiani of Pakistan raises some serious questions about Chinese involvement in Mumbai massacre. Sooner or later RAW and CBI will find out the secret Chinese connections but Indian public will be kept in the dark for international political reasons.

[vector7]

Saturday, January 3, 2009

China tested first nuke-bomb for Pak in 1990

China had tested for Pakistan its first nuclear bomb as early as in 1990, enabling Islamabad to respond within weeks to the Indian atomic tests eight years later, a top US nuclear expert has claimed.

Former U.S. Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed knows nuclear bombs better than most people. For starters, he designed two of them when he worked at the Livermore National Laboratory as a weapons designer.

“The Chinese did a massive training of Pakistani scientists, brought them to China for lectures, even gave them the design of the CHIC-4 device, which was a weapon that was easy to build a model for export,” former US Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed told American news magazine ‘US News and World Report’.

Reed, who worked at Livermore National Laboratory as weapons designer, had co-authored a book — The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation — with Danny Stillman, the former director of technical intelligence division at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Excerpts:

How has the Chinese government reacted to the allegations in your book?
At first, they objected to some of this reporting, which was first published in Physics Today, but they later withdrew all objections. The Chinese experts in the weapons labs were probably surprised that we found out all this information and were able to put it all together. In public they say one thing, but behind closed doors and after hours, they are more open. All scientists want the credit for having solved certain problems by themselves without outside help. In fact, in 1949 Klaus Fuchs spied for the Soviets at Los Alamos and when he was released from prison in 1959, fled to East Germany where he met China's chief atomic bomb scientist to whom he explained the inner workings of the Fat Man bomb [which the United States dropped on Nagasaki in 1945].

What was the Chinese strategy behind encouraging proliferation once they had mastered the atomic bomb? The way you describe the Chinese intentionally spreading nuclear technology to countries like Pakistan and North Korea seems both shockingly lax and shortsighted.
Shockingly lax? Yes. Shortsighted I'm not so sure. Think of it as three constituencies: China in about 1982, under Deng Xiaoping, decided to proliferate nuclear technology to communists and Muslims in the third world. They did so deliberately with the theory that if nukes ended up going off in the western world from a Muslim terrorist, well that wasn't all bad. If New York was reduced to rubble without Chinese fingerprints on the attack, that left Beijing as the last man standing. That's what the old timers thought.

The current Chinese government is far more cautious, though it continued to push technology to North Korea. When the North Koreans decided to test, they clearly did so without a Chinese permit and it really frosted the Chinese because it threatened to prompt Japan and South Korea to start their own programs. They didn't worry about terrorism at all.

The younger generation is adamant about keeping a lid on nuclear technology. They don't want to see Los Angeles blown up because they just sold us 10,000 pairs of sneakers. Those last two forces are contending with each other and it remains to be seen what will happen.

Why , as you say in the book, did the Chinese give the technology to Pakistan?
Pakistan can be explained by a balance of power: India was China's enemy and Pakistan was India's enemy. The Chinese did a massive training of Pakistani scientists, (just like the Russians had done for them) brought them to China for lectures, even gave them the design of the CHIC-4 device, which was a weapon that was easy to build a model for export. There is evidence that A.Q. Khan used Chinese designs in his nuclear designs. Notes from those lectures later turned up in Libya, for instance. And the Chinese did similar things for the Saudis, North Koreans, and the Algerians.

Did the Chinese further assist in the Pakistan program?
Under Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto, the country built its first functioning nuclear weapon. We believe that during Bhutto's term in office, the People's Republic of China tested Pakistan's first bomb for her in 1990.There are numerous reasons why we believe this to be true, including the design of the weapon and information gathered from discussions with Chinese nuclear experts. That's why the Pakistanis were so quick to respond to the Indian nuclear tests in 1998. It only took them two weeks and three days. When the Soviet Union took the United States by surprise with a test in 1961, it took the U.S. seventeen days to prepare and test, a device that had been on hand for years. The Pakistani response makes it clear that the gadget tested in May 1998 was a carefully engineered device in which they had great confidence.

Is sharing nuclear tests common?
The United States conducted nuclear tests in Nevada openly and with full disclosure in the 1990s on behalf of our U.K. allies. We speculate on Israeli access to the U.S. test results. For their part, the Chinese admitted to having conducted hydronuclear and radiation effects tests for France, but most tellingly they also implied—they certainly did not deny—the test of a Pakistani device. The South Africans also apparently worked with the Israelis on a nuclear test in the South Pacific in 1979.

Are Chinese proliferation programs ongoing?
Since 1991, China has been assisting the raw-materials side of the Iranian nuclear program with shipments of uranium, instructions on the design of a conversion facility in Eshfahan, and an enrichment facility at Karaj. China has been using North Korea as the re-transfer point for the sale of nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.

You also write that Israel was given assistance in developing their bomb while the United States looked the other way.
In the wake of the Suez crisis in 1956, the French and the Israelis initiated a joint nuclear weapons program that resulted in a test in the Algerian desert. At that test in 1960, two countries went nuclear with one shot.

Is the world safer or more dangerous with all these powers?
The world is safer for having all the permanent UN Security Council members possess nuclear weapons. I think having North Korea, Pakistan, and India is probably not a good idea. Nuclear proliferation, above all, is not inevitable as many thought at the dawn of the nuclear age. (us news)

[vector7]

Chidambaram seeks “cast iron guarantees” from Pakistan

New Delhi: Home Minister P. Chidambaram has said Pakistan will have to give “cast iron guarantees” that its soil will not be used to launch a terror attack like the Mumbai carnage and it will have to pay an “enormous price” if such a strike is repeated.

“What we now want are cast iron guarantees” that no state actors or non-state ones will be allowed to use Pakistani soil or sources to launch an attack on India,” he told NDTV.

“Guarantees have to come from those who control the levers of power and that means, the elected civilian government, plus the army. These are not guarantees that you can execute on a piece of paper. These are guarantees that have to be given to the international community,” he said.
Asked whether Islamabad is capable of honouring such guarantees, he said: “I think so, if all the power centres of Pakistan genuinely get together and guarantee that this will not be repeated. See, the price they will pay if this is repeated, I think [it] will be an enormous price.”

To a question if a terrorist in Pakistan takes this as an opportunity that in case he does a strike, India goes to war, he said: “I don’t think we would be talking about war now. I think war is not the word I used.”

“I don’t know the mind of a terrorist but as I said a crime of this scale and size cannot be committed without active help. That is, I am entitled to presume that. And therefore, repetition of a crime of this size and scale means that aid and help continue to flow from the state.”

Pakistan’s offer of a joint investigation would be relevant only when it admitted that Ajmal Amir ‘Kasab,’ the lone terrorist caught during the Mumbai attacks, is a Pakistani citizen.

Mr. Chidambaram, who is to visit the U.S. next week, said: “Pakistan’s offer of joint investigation is a meaningless offer. It is relevant only when it admits that Ajmal is a Pakistani citizen and his handlers are Pakistanis.They have never admitted that. Why do you want to jointly investigate something with which you say your citizens have no connection at all?”

The Minister said:
“Somebody who is familiar with intelligence and who is familiar with commando operation has directed this [Mumbai] operation. And that cannot entirely be a non-state actor.

“In fact, I presume they are state actors or state- assisted actors unless the contrary is proved. It is too enormous a crime and required elaborate planning, communication networks and financial backing. It was a very, very sophisticated operation.”

On the evidence in the form of Ajmal’s DNA, the Minister said, “his DNA is available ... Now there is a person in Faridkot village in Pakistan who says he is his father. His DNA is available in Pakistan. So if somebody matches the DNA, we will know who is right and who is wrong.”

Pakistan, he pointed out, knew the kind of evidence which India had on Mumbai strikes.

“In total denial”
“Pakistan is in total denial because it knows that it will be completely embarrassed if the truth comes out and the truth will come out, whether Pakistan likes it or not. Denials are getting weaker and denials are becoming hollow now.” — PTI