The Nuclear Axis Of Evil

In articles written since 1998, I have been saying, on the basis of information from reliable Pakistanisources, that North Korea's assistance to Pakistan in the development of its missile capability has been as aquid pro quo for the latter's assistance to North Korea in the development of its military nuclear capability.

After Pakistan's nuclear weapon tests at Chagai in May,1998, my Pakistani sources had claimed that one ofthe nuclear devices tested was of North Korean origin and that North Korean nuclear scientists were presentduring the testing.  As this information was not corroborated by independent  sources, I did notdisseminate it.

In an article on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) disseminated on August 1, 2001, Pakistan'sInvisible Government I had reported as follows on the basis of information from the same sources:

• Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM): Responsible for covert actions in other parts of the world and for the clandestine procurement of nuclear andmissile technologies. 
  
  Maj Gen (retd) Sultan Habib, an operative of this Division, who had distinguished himself in the clandestineprocurement and theft of nuclear material while posted as the Defence Attache in the Pakistani Embassy inMoscow from 1991 to 93, with concurrent accreditation to the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Poland andCzechoslovakia, has recently been posted as Ambassador to North Korea to oversee the clandestine nuclear andmissile co-operation between North Korea and Pakistan. 
  
  After completing his tenure in Moscow, he had co-ordinated the clandestine shipping of missiles from NorthKorea, the training of Pakistani experts in the missile production and testing facilities of North Korea andthe training of North Korean scientists in the nuclear establishments of Pakistan through Capt. (retd)Shafquat Cheema,
  
  Third Secretary and acting head of mission, in the Pakistani Embassy in North Korea, from 1992 to 96. Before Maj.Gen.  Sultan Habib's transfer to ISI headquarters from Moscow, the North Korean missile andnuclear co-operation project was handled by Maj.Gen.Shujjat from the Baluch Regiment, who worked in theclandestine procurement division of the ISI for five years. 
  
  On Capt.Cheema's return to headquarters in 1996, the ISI discovered that in addition to acting as the liaisonofficer of the ISI with the nuclear and missile establishments in North Korea, he was also earning money fromthe Iranian and the Iraqi intelligence by helping them in their clandestine nuclear and missile technology andmaterial procurement not only from North Korea, but also from Russia and the CARs. 
  
  On coming to know of the ISI enquiry into his clandestine assistance to Iran and Iraq, he fled to Xinjiang andsought political asylum there, but the Chinese arrested him and handed him over to the ISI.  Whathappened to him subsequently is not known.  Capt.Cheema initially got into the ISI and got himself postedto the Pakistani Embassy in North Korea with the help of Col.(retd) Ghulam Sarwar Cheema of the PPP (PakistanPeople's Party of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto )".

"The firing on May 25, 2002, of a North Korean made Nodong (I ?) missile, baptised Ghauri by Pakistan in1998 to hoodwink its own population and the international community that the missile was the result ofresearch and development by its own scientists, should be a matter of greater concern to the BushAdministration in the US and Japan than to India because it provides one more piece of evidence, if it wasneeded, of the nexus between Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment and the nuclear-missileestablishment of North Korea, which has been placed by President Bush in what he described in his State of theUnion Message of January, 2002, as the axis of evil.

"This nexus was first established during the second tenure of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto as the PrimeMinister (!993-96) when she made a clandestine visit to Pyongyang and subsequently nursed by the Nawaz SharifGovernment and the Musharraf regime. Pakistan was initially  paying for the missiles and spare partspartly in kind ( Pakistani, US and Australian wheat to meet North Korea's acute food shortage in the 1990s)and partly through supply of nuclear technology to help North Korea in the development of its own militarynuclear capability.

"During the last three or four years, Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineers have been working inNorth Korea and North Korean missile experts in Pakistan.  Since September, 2001, the increased and stillincreasing cash flow into Pakistan from the USA, the European Union and Japan has enabled the military regimeto pay for the North Korean missiles and related technology in hard currency.

"Since the beginning of this year, there has been a large-scale movement of military goods undermilitary escort  to Pakistan from China  along the Karakoram Highway.  While most of thesecontainers were said to contain spare parts and replacements for the Chinese arms and ammunition and aircraftin Pakistan's arsenal, one should not rule out the possibility that the Chinese might have accepted thePakistani request for the movement of the missile-related goods from North Korea by train and road acrossChina and then along the Karakoram Highway.

"This carefully-nursed co-operation between North Korea and Pakistan could not only help North Koreato develop a nuclear capability which could pose a threat to the USA and Japan, but could also make thesemissiles in Pakistan a tempting target for acquisition for the dregs of the present Afghan war from the AlQaeda, the Taliban and the Pakistani jehadi organisations, which have made Pakistan the new staging ground fortheir anti-US and anti-West activities.

"What Pakistan carried out on the morning of May 25, 2002, was not a test firing of a missile underdevelopment through indigenous efforts as projected by Musharraf, but the demonstration firing of aready-to-fire missile acquired clandestinely from Bush's  axis of evil.  It was meant as ademonstration of Pakistan's self-proclaimed capability to the Pakistani public as well as to its Armed Forcesin order to keep up their morale at a time when Pakistan has come under great pressure from the internationalcommunity to stop using terrorism as a weapon against India.

"It was also meant to refurbish Musharraf's image in the eyes of his people at a time when his recentreferendum stands discredited due to large-scale rigging, large sections of the political class have beenquestioning the wisdom of his continuing in power at a time of national crisis and there have been growingsigns of disquiet in the military over his erratic ways of functioning and over his hugging desperately thepost of the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) in the hope of thereby pre-empting any threat to him from insidethe Armed Forces.

"He received a jolt during the recent referendum when more than 20 per cent of the votes cast in themilitary barracks were reportedly against him whereas only about three per cent of the civilian votes wentagainst him.  This would show that the support to him in the military was not as overwhelming as he likedto think.  His colleagues and subordinates might not express their opposition to him in public, but didnot hesitate to do so when they had an opportunity of doing so anonymously during the referendum.

"Musharraf is hoping that his action in carrying out the missile firing would dilute, if not remove,the reservations in their minds about him and about his determination to resist outside pressure vis-a-visIndia.

"While India should take note of the firing, there is no reason to be concerned.  India wasalready aware of Musharraf's nexus with the axis of evil and of Pakistan's possession of the North Koreanmissiles under the camouflage of indigenous missiles and one can be certain that this must have been factoredinto our thinking and planning.

"This was essentially an exercise of whistling in the dark by Musharraf.  What is important isthat India should highlight to the US, Japan and other countries the nuclear-missile nexus between Pakistanand North Korea and the threat that this could pose to them and to international peace and security."

Quoting from an article carried by the New York Times on October 18, 2002, the Hindu, theprestigious daily of Chennai, India, reported as follows on October 19, 2002:

" The New York Times cites American intelligence officials as coming to the conclusion thatIslamabad was a major supplier for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons' programme; and that this was more of a barterdeal that involved North Korea supplying Pakistan with missiles to counter the nuclear arsenal of India. Whatwe have here is a perfect meeting of interests---the North Koreans had what the Pakistanis needed and thePakistanis had a way for Kim Jong Il to restart a nuclear programme we had stopped, the Times quotes anofficial familiar with intelligence matters."

The American surprise at the recent North Korean admission of its nuclear weapon programme and the role ofPakistan in assisting North Korea in the implementation of this programme would show, firstly, that the USintelligence community is not as well-informed as it should be over developments in Pakistan and North Koreaand, secondly, that even when it gets intelligence about Pakistan's perfidy either in assisting North Korea indeveloping its military nuclear capability or in assisting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups evade capture,the State Department and the US political leadership, for reasons not at all clear, choose to turn a blind eyeto it.

As I have been reporting repeatedly, Omar Sheikh, presently under detention in connection with thekidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, had told the Karachi Police during his interrogationthat during one of his visits to Kandahar last year he had come to know of the plans of Al Qaeda to launch theterrorist strikes of 9/11 against the US and had mentioned this to Lt. Gen.Ehsanul-Haq, the presentDirector-General of the ISI, who was then Corps Commander, Peshawar. Gen.Pervez Musharraf and Ehsanul-Haq arevery close personal friends.  It is, therefore, inconceivable that Haq would not have mentioned this toMusharraf.  Why did Haq and Musharraf keep silent on the information and did not immediately warn the USabout it?

Nobody in the US seems to have gone into it just as they had not gone deeper into Pakistan's nuclearassistance to North Korea.  For how long is the US going to close its eyes to Pakistan's perfidies and atwhat cost to innocent American lives and interests? 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)