There was a time not very long ago when �transportation� of criminals from petty thieves to murders, was frequent to the British Colony in America now known as United States. The US joined the WWII right at the very end but if you see Hollywood movies one feel as if they librated the whole World. That mentality Hollywood is still continued even today. Some of the US publications and writers have started a campaign against Pakistan and its nuclear program. The US writers and journalists must read history of the people of this region, which is much older than 60 years. They must understand that people of Pakistan have thousands of year�s glorious history and civilisations behind them. People of Pakistan have no history of genocide, slavery and criminality.
Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state and they know how to defend its assets. On the other hand US must review its policy of leaving Pakistan in the lurch and join the enemies of Pakistan. I must say those who signed the one-sided CETO and CENTO agreements must be hanged for treason and those who are jumping by becoming a non-NATO ally must be imprisoned. This membership does not worth more than leisure centre membership. They think every thing they say is gospel. US must come out of its criminal past because its policies always back fire and hurt innocent Americans. Though British Empire has shrunken yet they are smart and clever.
A British think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) published a dossier about the Dr AQ Khan and nuclear proliferation. I mentioned to Mark Fitzpatrick before the launch that word �dossier� is associated with lies, deception and dodgy in the context of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs). I told him that more than 170 British companies were involved in the Iraqi chemical and biological weapons program according to Channel 4. When journalist presented the list of the companies supplied chemical and biological material to Saddam Hussein regime to Ministry of Defence, the response was something like �list is correct�. The moral of the story is that people don�t trust the dodgy dossiers and biased reports.
I asked Dr John Chipman director general of the IISS and Mark Fitzpatrick editor of dossier Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, AQ Khan and the rise of proliferation networks, in the Q&A: (a) Is there any nuclear program in the world, in which human and material proliferations were not involved? (b) your report seems unfair because you have not mentioned anything about the Israeli nuclear program, proliferation and illegal assistance by the US and Western countries.? Two paragraphs about Israeli Nuclear program in 176-page document. (c) What national and international law Dr A Q Khan has violated and what should be his punishment.
Mark Fitzpatrick agreed that there is no nuclear program in the world where proliferation did not happened; US program was based on proliferation i.e. technical and material knowledge of the German Nazi scientist. He agreed that Israelis were involved in proliferation in a round about way. He stated that Israeli program was assisted by the states than private individuals. It is like saying if an individual is involved in terrorism he or she should brought to justice but if a state is involved in state terrorism that�s OK.
According to my knowledge Dr Khan has not violated any national or international law. He could be charged with smuggling or illegal trading like British use to trade in drugs (opium) with China in the past. We should not make a moral issue of things, which are strategic or related to security of small insecure countries.
If Israel who is not NPT signatory can be allowed to have nuclear weapons and program because it is �surrounded by hostile neighbours� why cant Iran who is NPT signatory allowed to have a peaceful nuclear program under IAEA safe guards. What is the point on signing NPT when one cannot benefit of it? I think its time that NPT should be reviewed if it is not serving the purpose.
J Wilkerson former chief of staff of Colin Powel said something like, �what we know now is that sources of the intelligence on Iraqi WMDS were not credible and Colin Powel was probably misled and deliberately sent to the UN Security Council with false or half true information. The name �Chelabi� an Iraqi exile seems central to most of the information US had on biological, chemical and nuclear programs.
In the current scenario Benazir Bhutto is doing exactly what Chelabi did. She is misleading the westerns by saying something like that �mullahs� are going to take control of �Pakistani Nukes� as if they are lying in some fruit market. One doesn�t expect these types of irresponsible comments from some one who has been Prime Minister twice. Pakistanis are smart enough to look after their nuclear assets. It seems Benzair Bhutto has commissioned herself with tasks like �de-Islamisation, de-nuclearisation, and de commissioning of Pakistan�s armed forces.
On 25th October 2007 in a joint press conference at No.10 Doweing Street official residence of British Prime Minsiter, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai the British Prime Minsiter Gordon Brown did not answer my question, �British People expect high standards both moraly and integrity from their politicians. Many Pakistanis are asking than why Britain is supporting Benzair Bhutto who created and supprted Taliban and also involved in corrptuion mounting wealth of $2 bilion?
People of Pakistan are competent and talented. They don�t need lecturing from outside those who do must have compromised them. A painting in the reception lobby of NASA's flight facility at Wallop Island shows Tipu Sultan�s soldiers launching rockets attacks against the British. He was the first Muslim rocketry warfare hero. The current Pakistani nuclear and missile program seems a revival of the 18th century dream of Tipu Sultan'.
The British captured more than 700 rockets and subsystems of 900 rockets in the battle of Turukhanahally in 1799. Tipu Sultan�s army had 27 brigades called Kushoons, and each brigade had a company of rocket men, called Jourks. These rockets had been taken to England by William Congreve and were subjected by the British to what we call "reverse engineering" today.
Tipu Sultan was the only ruler in the world who died in the battlefield fighting the enemy according to a French scholar. Tipu Sultan reigned 1782-1799 and died in May 1799, fighting the combined forces of British and collaborators, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the Marhattas. He lost the battle because of deceit and treachery by collaborators. Iraqis and Pakistanis have learnt how to deal with occupiers and invaders i.e. �kill the collaborators first�. Pakistanis are keeping close eyes on their collaborators living both in and outside of Pakistan.
US must check its own back yard as far as nuclear safety is concerned. Its own pilots have been sacked for flying around with live nuclear warheads for hours and claimed �they thought it was dummy� not very long ago. How irresponsible and dangerous is that?
(Dr Shahid Qureshi is senior award wining investigative journalist and writer on security, foreign policy, and terrorism based in London)
