PAKISTAN'S NUKES GRAVE CAUSE FOR CONCERN

In the wake of an increased threat from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as growing skirmishes between militants and the Pakistani military, it has been revealed that Pakistan raised security levels at all its nuclear facilities in the past year.
In a rare public statement Pakistani general, Khalid Kidwai, recently confirmed that the “level of alertness” at nuclear facilities was raised and the military was more than capable of dealing with “all kinds of threats.” He did not reveal how many nuclear weapons his country’s possessed though it is believed to be anywhere between 50 and one hundred, with an ongoing program of uranium enrichment for the building of more. He was careful to avoid mentioning the fact that some of the country’s nuclear missile sites were in Western provinces in order to have more warning time should India launch an attack. That means, however, some sites containing nukes are located in tribal areas controlled by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
One of the threats to Pakistan’s nuclear security that is rarely mentioned in Washington is one that could come from that country’s military, which has total control of the nation’s arsenal. A chilling report by the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford University in England last year hinted at the growing role of Islamists with lower ranks of the military. In a briefing paper entitled: “Pakistan- The Threat from Within,” one of the Research Unit’s experts, Pervez Hoodbhoy, had this warning about the Pakistan army:
“Musharraf and his corps commanders well know that they cannot afford to sleep too well. It is in the lower ranks that the Islamists are busily establishing bases. A mass of junior officers and low-ranking soldiers – whose world view is similar to that of the Taliban in most respects – feels resentful of being used as cannon fodder for fighting America’s “war on terror”. It is they who die, not their senior officers. So far, army discipline has successfully squelched dissent and forced it underground. But this sleeping giant can – if and when it wakes up – tear asunder the Pakistan Army, and shake the Pakistani state from its very foundations. “

It is worth noting that the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was arrested in Rawlpindi in 2002 in a safe house provided by a serving army officer. The officer, like many of his military contemporaries, was a member of Jamaat-i-Islami, an Islamic party that wants Pakistan to end its secularism and become an Islamic state.
Since 9/11 the United States has given Pakistan more than $100 million to Pakistan’s military towards the cost of securing its nuclear arsenal. Now, members of homeland security committees on Capitol Hill have taken a greater interest in the issue. In June 2008, Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute, who has written several books about Pakistan’s military, told a Senate committee that Pakistan had become “virulently anti-American” and its role as a member of the nuclear club presented challenges for the U.S.
In his opinion, if Pakistan fell into serious internal strife, elements of the military, not necessarily aligned with the US could seize parts of the nuclear arsenal as a political bargaining chip. Another risk, he found “hard to qualify,” was the country’s nuclear industry being penetrated by conspirators determined to steal a nuclear weapon or nuclear materials.
His antidote was for the US to engage more fully with India and Pakistan and use increased targeted funding to gain a greater role in shaping Pakistan’s nuclear security policy. But for all his optimism about finding a way to keep Pakistan’s nukes out of the hands of the bad guys, he worried that it might not be possible. He accepted Pakistan “may yet fail comprehensively” and it was not outside the realm of possibility that a “truly authoritarian leader” would emerge.
Cohen’s risk analysis of a conspiracy to penetrate Pakistan’s nuclear security has added emphasis when one looks at what has happened since 2,000. The former CIA chief, George Tenet admitted in his memoirs that Osama Bin Laden made approaches to the now disgraced nuclear proliferator, Dr. A. Q. Khan, who has been described as the “Father of the Islamic Bomb.” Of course, there is also the case of the two Pakistani nuclear energy officials, Sultan Bashiruddin and Chaudry Abdul Majeed, who discussed nuclear issues with Al Qaeda in two meetings in Afghanistan between before and after 9/11. They were retired at the time and were working in Afghanistan for a non-profit group called UTN. It was later established that UTN had an interest in bio-weapons, a fact that was discovered when US Special Forces came across a hoard of documents in Afghanistan. As a consequence, the Pakistani authorities arrested and questioned members of the Board of UTN, who turned out to be former army officers and nuclear scientists. None was charged with an offense.
The exposure of UTN connections to Al Qaeda and the Taliban clearly illustrated that within the Pakistani military and nuclear industry there were people with ideological links to dangerous militants. There is no reason to assume that people of that ilk do not still exist within, or on the fringes of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment programs. It is especially disturbing if such people exist within the military responsible for guarding nuclear all sites.
According to Pakistan’s foreign ministry, nukes are “kept under multiple custody” implying three layers of security before a nuclear weapon can be assembled, moved or fired. It is believed US has the most advanced command and control system for its nuclear arsenal, using computers, secret codes and a multi-layered chain of command. In the U.S nuclear arsenal, nukes are on site to be fired within a very short time of a presidential order to strike at an enemy. Yet, despite the sophistication of US security a B52 flew six armed nukes from Dakota to Louisiana in September 2007. Apparently someone at an air force base in Dakota had forgotten to remove the warheads from the Cruise missiles while they were being loaded onto the B52.
Given that Pakistan’s system is nowhere near as hi-tech as the one used by the US it is should come as no surprise there is a genuine fear in Washington about Pakistan’s nuclear security. After 9/11 the US offered to install a hi-tech system like its own to protect Pakistan’s nukes but the country’s military turned down the offer, presumably on the basis that the US would have had joint control of nuclear triggers. Instead, Pakistan got $100 million to upgrade its security and received the most advanced helicopters and night vision technology to protect vulnerable sites.
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons security is probably based on practices used by India and several others members of the nuclear club. That involves separating warheads, trigger mechanisms and delivery vehicles so that one individual cannot readily assemble a nuke. But the fact that Pakistan is known to be able to assemble a nuke within 30 minutes means it maintains all the elements of each weapon within a given location. The only insight into the storage and security of nuclear weapons was revealed years ago and it related to the South African arsenal. That country’s nukes were kept within a vault system in which individual components were stored in different vaults that could only be accessed with codes provided by senior political and military figures, including the country’s president. But, because Pakistan sees India as an ever present threat it has nukes on constant standby, resulting in less stringent levels of security because of the perceived need to assemble and fire the weapons within the 30 minute window.
For anyone worried about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, it is worth taking note of a sober assessment of that nation's military by The Bradford Pakistan Research Unit:
“There are the deeply rooted and widespread links between some in Pakistan’s military and intelligence communities and extremist/terrorist groups. Allied to the proven intent of groups like al-Qaeda to gain access to nuclear weapons technology24, these relations are a cause for concern.”

TURKEY - A NATION ON THE EDGE

Turkey, a member of NATO since 1952, has been making impressive economic strides of late but behind the feel good factor and the booming tourist industry seventy million people are torn between western-style secularism and the demands of Islam.
In the coming weeks, the Turkish courts will have to decide if they should try 86 Turks, some of them former senior army officers, for plotting to overthrow the Islamic government of the country. The recent indictment of the 89 reflects a serious power struggle between the Islamic administration of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and groupings who believe the secular Turkey of its founder, Kemal Ataturk is under threat from a government that is cleverly seeking to introduce Sharia Law and establish a theocracy of the type ruling Iran.
Ironically the same courts may also have to rule on whether the Prime Minister and 70 members of his ruling party should be banned from holding office for five years for trying to overturn laws banning the wearing of head scarves at universities. Erdogan was a former leader of the country Islamic movement but now denied his government is trying to undermine Turkey’s secularism system. In an effort to show he does not intent to promote Islamic ideals he constantly points to his efforts to have Turkey accepted into the EU. That plan has so far been put on the long finger by EU members like France and Germany, who fear that admitting Turkey would be tantamount to increasing the Islamic population of the EU.
Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, who took office in 2007, also has a history in Islamic politics and was a leading figure in a party that was once banned by the State. He subsequently became one of the founders of the governing AK Party and has also been prominent in advocating EU membership. Many secularists see the AK party as a Trojan horse, formed for the sole purpose of eroding western values and shaping a nation based on Islamic principles.
While the debate goes on between secularists and AK supporters, nothing is as black and white as it seems in this complex nation. Straddling the politics of the country is its military, which believes it is the true guardian of the secular principles of Kemal Ataturk. In 2007, it showed it had little respect for Abdullah Gul when it boycotted his swearing in-ceremony. It is more closely aligned with the strict nationalist, Republic People’s Party.
In the months before Gul and Erdogan took over the reins of power the army warned it would not hesitate to defend the country’s secular values. That was intended to be a shot across the vows of the AK party and its followers. With that in mind, some observers wonder if it is wise for Gul and Erdogan to proceed with a trial of the 89 alleged plotters because it could lead to a witch hunt that might raise questions about whether the military knew about the alleged plot.
For all its claims to be a modern European nation, Turkey falls far short on several levels. First, while there is a vast media, it is generally unwise for journalists or editors to encourage debate about the military, Islamic issues or unsavory aspects of the country’s past. There have been numerous examples of journalists being imprisoned for daring to question the status quo.
Second, the role of the army bears no resemblance to any EU nation. In 1960, the army overthrew the government and hanged the prime minister and two of his colleagues. In 1971, 1980 and 1997, the army again intervened. In 1997, it threw out an Islamist administration and installed pro-western secular leaders.
The US and its NATO allies rarely criticize the Turkish military though Washington has on several occasions persuaded it to adopt a less confrontational approach to Turkish politics. Turkey as an important ally and its geographical importance cannot be underestimated. It is a strategic link to Asia and Europe and is also a gateway to the Black Sea, which is one of the most important bodies of water in the world through which trade in oil, gas and many other commodities links many nations from East and West. It also borders hot spots like Iraq, Syria and Iran. For those reasons alone, what happens in Turkey is closely scrutinized in Washington and at NATO HQ.
Observers in western capitals will be closely watching how the ruling AK party deals with the planned prosecution of the 89 alleged plotters and what impact it will have on the country’s military. Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan has warned that he intends to destroy what he calls “a deep state network” comprising members of the military, police, business, press and ultra nationalist organizations. Such a move could open up a can of worms in a country like Turkey and lead to yet another military coup.

DANGEROUS TALK AND RISKY CALCULATIONS

Recent reports that the Israeli air force carried out a massive exercise in the Mediterranean as a dry run for an attack on Iran has heightened the rhetoric on all sides and produced risky calculations about the potential success of such a strike and how Iran might react to it.
The Israeli exercise involved as many as 100 aircraft and was widely reported to have been a blue print for a massive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, as well as some of its military-industrial sites.
In Iran, where there is a widely held belief that the US would not only approve an Israeli strike but also lead it, there was strong reaction. A senior Iranian general said US involvement would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. A leader of Iran’s Republican Guard Corps warned that “martyrdom units” across the globe would strike at American and Israeli interests in a war of terror that could last years. Other threats included targeting the Israeli Dimona nuclear plant and causing havoc in the Straits of Hormuz that sees the flow of 20 million barrels of oil a day. According to some experts, the loss of that amount of oil for even a short period would drive the price to over $500 a barrel.
Many Israeli experts who would want the US to go to war with Iran argue that Iran does not have the military capabilities to fend off sustained US attacks from sea and air. That ignores the fact that Iran possesses the means to attack US forces throughout the region, using its special units and surrogates such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Shiite sympathizers in Arab states. In Iraq, it could generate untold chaos with the backing of the Madhi Army of Muqtada al Sadr who has already pledged that his militia would support Iran. Many Shiite elements within the Iraqi army might turn on US troops that they work closely with. Iran might even do a deal with the Taliban and Al Qaeda by supplying them with chemical or biological weapons to attack US troops in Afghanistan.
Iran also has the capability to strike Israel cities with long range missiles, carrying conventional or biological/chemical warheads and to attack US shipping in the gulf. While its air power and air defenses are superior to what Saddam Hussein had they would of course be no match for the US. However, Israel is concerned that if Russia sells Iran a new air defense missile system the deal could seriously hamper an air attack, especially if the Israeli air force acted alone.
Many pro-Israel figures in the United States have been lobbying for years for the US to launch a sustained attack on Iran. In Israeli newspaper and in selected journals in the US they continue to argue that Iran does not have the capability to retaliate in any significant way against the US. The argument was made recently by Patrick Clawson of the Near East Policy Institute in Washington. He claimed Iran was much too weak to respond to a massive US assault. His view appears to be aimed at trying to convince US policymakers that a strike against Iran would be an easy reach. Behind his rhetoric is a shrewd recognition that that Israel is not capable of delivering a knockout blow to Iran. The Israeli air force would be restricted to one airborne assault and even with 100 aircraft, some of them providing fighter support and refueling, it would not be possible to take out all Iran’s nuclear sites. For the Israelis it would mean a 1,250 mile trip and one they could not repeat without suffering the risk of the loss of much of their aircraft .
Clawson and those like him who want the US to carry the main burden of an attack also know Iran, with help from North Korea, has been creating dummy nuclear sites for years and may have as many as 100. Israeli and US intelligence simply do not have an accurate list of all Iranian nuclear facilities. Some may be buried so deep in hardened mountain locations they may not be vulnerable to the latest bunker busting bombs in the US arsenal.
The pro-Israeli lobby knows the best option is to get the US to force Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Men like Clawson believe that can be done by launching a sustained, possibly ten-day air and sea assault on Iran’s industrial and military infrastructure, thereby damaging the country so much economically it would have to accept a UN brokered ceasefire or the present Iranian regime would collapse. The US could launch several thousand sea, air and land based cruise missiles and also deploy stealth bombers, using the island of Diego Garcia as a staging post. If there was no adequate response from Iran, the bombing could be extended for weeks. In the meantime, Israel would use the opportunity to invade Lebanon to finish off Hezbollah.
The problem with some of these calculations is that they are based on crude assumptions that Iran will capitulate and that it will jettison its nuclear ambitions. They ignore the fact Iran is a nation with a long history of nationalism and it will not be easily intimidated. Israel’s campaign in Lebanon in 2006, when it thought shock and awe tactics would force Hezbollah to back down, fell apart. In the end, Israel withdrew with a bloody nose. Hezbollah and the Iranian military are familiar with the fact that overwhelming force may win battles but may not end wars.
Israel would like the US to attack Iran because it has the military might to set back the Iranian economy for a decade. That fails to take account of the effects such action would have on the Middle East, as well as US troops and interests in the region. It could breed a new generation of terrorists and weaken some of the Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia that would feel the heat of a Muslim backlash if they allowed their air space to be used for an attack on Iran. There can be little doubt Pentagon analysts are familiar with the risks of a war with Iran but the wild card in all of this may be Israel which looks like it is prepared to go it alone.

ATTACK IRAN DRUMBEAT

The recent warning by an Israeli Cabinet Minister that an attack on Iran may be unavoidable sent the price of oil skywards but it may also have been a signal that Israel and the US are contemplating an attack on Iran before the end of the Bush presidency.
The threat of an attack was made by Israeli Transport Minister, Saul Mofaz, who is in line to succeed Ehud Olmert as Israeli prime minister. Mofaz was formerly Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces and is presently a member of his government’s security team that regularly holds classified talks with the US on Middle East strategy. In that role, he has been privy to classified US military thinking about Iran. Therefore, any statement he makes about Iran should be taken seriously. His warning was blunt: “If Iran continues with its program for nuclear weapons development, we will attack it.” He added that such attack would be coordinated with Washington.
The moment he made his remarks the price of oil spiked on global markets, sending shivers through an already weakened US economy. The Israeli government, no doubt under pressure from the White House, played down the threat, coming as it did in the middle of a US presidential campaign in which oil prices remain at the center of the debate between John Mc Cain and Barack Obama. However, the fact Mofaz spoke out at a time of intense Israeli pressure on the US to take tougher action against Iran cannot be easily dismissed. At the same time, Ehud Olmert was meeting President Bush in Washington and the powerful pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC – American Israel Public Affairs Committee - was holding its annual conference in the capitol. Prominent among those who singled out Iran at the AIPAC get-together was Dick Cheney’s daughter, Elizabeth, who has done just as much saber rattling about Iran as her father in the past year. It is rumored she is now his public voice on the issue. Condoleezza Rice, who is no longer a close friend of the Cheney’s, also called for tougher measures against Iran.
AIPAC linked its anti-Iran policy with a plea to members of Congress, many of whom attended the group’s conference, to support a White House promise to award Israel $2.5 billion in security assistance in the 2009 fiscal year. That tax-payer gift would represent part of a ten-year, $30 billion award, which Israel claims it needs and will receive from the US in order to face potential threats from Iran, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Aside from the fact that the perceived threat from Iran will bring billions in aid to Israel, there has been an ongoing Israeli strategy to encourage the US to use launch military strikes against Iran. It has also been a pet project of AIPAC. In 2006, two AIPAC executives were charged with passing classified Pentagon documents concerning America’s Iran policy to a member of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Israel had planned to exploit the documents to influence elements of the US media in a plan to bring US public opinion into line with Israel’s claim that Iran is the major threat to world peace.
Israel’s greatest supporter of launching military strikes against Iran is none other than Vice-President, Dick Cheney, who is doing more than just using surrogates like his daughter to do his saber rattling. He is one of the pro-Israel neocons, who brought us the Iraq war. Privately, he has never wavered in the assertion that Iran is unfinished business. For Israel, Iran is the only country left in the region that might in years to come be able to stand up to it now that Saddam Hussein’s regime is gone and the Iraqi strongman is in an early grave.
Cheney’s proposal last year to strike at Iran’s Revolutionary Guard bases was put on ice because the US Joint Chiefs argued it would open up a new front that the US military would have difficulty handling. There was also the real risk Iran would strike back in a way that would be disastrous for US interests in the region. In particular, the Joint Chiefs envisaged Iran using Hezbollah and Shiite militias to broaden the battle against the US military within Iraq. Cheney was told Iran had probably planned well for strikes against US targets and from a US perspective there was no guarantee strikes against the Revolutionary Guard or nuclear facilities would be successful.
In March 2007, Admiral William Fallon, head of Centcom - Central Command - made it clear to the White House he was opposed to the Cheney plan, which the vice-president continues to advocate behind the scenes. In March this year, Fallon, whose job gave him control of Afghanistan and the Middle East, abruptly resigned. His departure after a year in the post was seen as a move by Dick Cheney to get rid of the most powerful critic of his Iran policy. Cheney already had a new Centcom chief in mind – General David Petraeus, who will replace Fallon later this year. Petraeus is seen as a Cheney-Bush creation and he has voiced many of the sentiments about Iran as Dick Cheney.
On June 6, the same day the Israeli Transport Minister, Saul Mofaz made his threat, Dick Cheney and Israeli president, Ehud Olmert had a private dinner in Washington to discuss what they described as “operational subjects.”
At the same time, Elizabeth Cheney, the vice-president’s daughter, formerly deputy assistant secretary for Near East Affairs ran around the AIPAC conference issuing dire warnings about Iran and calling for immediate action. In her opinion, talking to Iran was a waste of time. The Iranians had to be made to realize they faced military action if they didn’t toe the line on the nuclear issue. She added that “we do not have the luxury of time” to sit back and wait for Iran to comply.
The Israeli, AIPAC and Cheney family scheming, as well as the threat from Saul Mofaz, has raised serious concerns in the corridors of power in Europe where there is no appetite for another war, given that Afghanistan is not going well and Iraq is only relatively stable with the presence of 150,000 US troops and just as many contractors. European nations are also tired of Israel’s tendency to talk about democracy and international law while it continues to defy UN mandates and flouts international court rulings related to its harsh treatment of the Palestinians. It has also ignored pleas from the US and the EU to stop building settlements on Palestinian land. There is a fear within Europe that neocons of the Cheney variety might seek to attack Iran as part of their legacy. One of the outcomes would not only be an expanded Middle East conflict, with oil rising above $200 a barrel, but a more unstable world.

PREDICTING AL QAEDA'S COLLAPSE

There is a growing belief in western security circles that Al Qaeda is being so badly damaged by theological attacks from some of its former allies and mentors that it may self destruct. The real question is how much of that belief is based on wishful thinking rather than hard facts?
It is true there has been a heated theological debate about Al Qaeda on jihadist websites and on major media outlets across the Arab world, including Al Jazeera. Much of it stems from the fact that Al Qaeda has not only brought the US and its allies into wars on Muslim lands in Afghanistan and Iraq, but has engaged in sectarian warfare against Muslims. In Iraq, it has murdered thousands of Shiite Muslims, as well as Sunni Arabs, who have sided with the US. It has also sought weapons of mass destruction to kill tens of thousands innocent people in the United States and Europe.
There is now an open debate in which former Al Qaeda allies and religious mentors have charged that Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Dr. Ayman al –Zawahiri, have strayed from the basic doctrines of Islam by killing Muslims whom they disagree with theologically, particularly Shiites, and also innocent Christians in western countries. The critics have warned Osama Bin Laden that Al Qaeda will bring untold destruction on Muslim lands should it explode a nuclear or biological weapon in an American or European city.
A reformed jihadist leader, who warned Bin Laden before 9/11 that “intimidating” America would lead to the destruction of the Taliban, has asked Al Qaeda to pursue what he has referred to as a different path of Jihad. He is Norman Benotman, now based in London, who was a leader of the “Libyan Islamic fighting Group” until he became disillusioned with the use of terror following the attacks on the World Trade Center. He has successfully encouraged some of his former Libyan terrorist colleagues to break with Al Qaeda.
Benotman has standing in the world of Islamic jihad because he can claim to have attended one of the most important international terrorist conferences before 9/11. It was held in the summer of 2000 in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was presided over by Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. Last November, Benotman was openly critical of the Al Qaeda leaders in a letter published in the Arab media but virtually ignored by the US media. He reminded them of the Kandahar meeting and how he warned them at that time of the potential consequences of their actions. He told them any “non-conventional” attack on America would lead to the occupation of the whole area and not just Afghanistan.
In his letter of last November, he pointed out that when it became apparent to him in 2000 that Al Qaeda was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, he told Bin Laden that using such weapons would bring “more destruction, havoc and humiliation upon the Muslin and Arab worlds.”
He tried to persuade Bin Laden at the time not to attack America but Bin Laden told him there was a pending operation he could not abandon. That operation turned out to be the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In his letter, Benotman informed Al Qaeda that the only distinction between Arabs and non-Arabs was their piety. He was referring to the way Bin Laden, as a Sunni Arab was branding Shiite Muslims with whom he disagreed theologically as apostates who could be killed in accordance with his views of jihad and other tenets of the Koran.
Benotman’s credibility as a critic of Al Qaeda is rooted in the fact that in his letter he did not argue against jihad. In fact, he warned Al Qaeda that its tactics were “fragmenting and internally draining Arab lands” and the outcome would be that Israel would have “control over the future of the region for a hundred years.” Benotman was able to make statements like that in Europe but it is unlikely he would have been able to do so if he had been based in the United States. For example, his letter suggested that Al Qaeda should “dismantle its “Islamic State of Iraq” organisation and fight alongside Sunni insurgents. He pleaded with Bin Laden not to sow dissent among Palestinians and to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan, meaning The Taliban. Despite the fact he offered such inflammatory advice, security experts in the West saw his attacks on Al Qaeda as something they could exploit to damage the Al Qaeda brand name among young people in the Islamic world.
Benotman accused Bin Laden and his deputy of reducing jihad to “mere terrorist and violent attacks, reflecting a state of anger, frustration, impotence and self expression.
Benotman’s views alone would not be considered important if they were not linked to similar denunciations of Al Qaeda by two powerful theological figures who were mentors to Bin Laden’s closest adviser, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. One is Imam al-Sharif, also known as Dr. Fadl, a surgeon who was once imprisoned with al-Zawahiri in Cairo, and still languishes in an Egyptian jail cell. He is believed to have provided Al Qaeda’s with an interpretation of the Koran that it used to justify its actions and recruit followers. In 2007 he challenged Al Qaeda’s basic ethos and condemned the 9/11 attacks. Like Benotman, he made it clear he believed 9/11 was counterproductive. The cumulative effective of the positions adopted by Benotman and Dr. Fadl has been a heightened awareness in the Islamic world of the death and destruction brought to Arab and Muslin lands by Al Qaeda’s obsession with killing innocent people in the west and murdering Shiite Muslims.
It could be argued that this debate would not have taken place in the wake of 9/11, or after the invasion of Iraq, had it not been for Al Qaeda’s killing of innocents in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Aside from Benotman and Dr. Fadl, the powerful Saudi cleric and theologian, Salman al-Oadah, who was once Bin Laden’s spiritual mentor entered the fray in late 2007. He too condemned Bin Laden for killing innocent men, women and children. He stated that the US occupation of Iraq, the invasion of Afghanistan and the expanded western military presence in Arab and Muslim lands, was the fault of Al Qaeda.
The prediction by security experts that these verbal assaults will weaken Al Qaeda, leading to it losing support and imploding, may be wishful thinking. The problem with such a prediction is that it is predicated on what may be prove to be a misconception, namely that Arab youth is sufficiently educated to understand the nuances of the ongoing debate, or that Arabs generally will stop funding extreme versions of Islam that contribute directly to the growth of Al Qaeda. Secondly, if Al Qaeda imploded, it could morph into several smaller bodies that might be difficult to find and eliminate. There is also the issue of Pakistan and the fact that there is little to suggest the Pakistani government and military have the will to move into the tribal lands bordering Afghanistan to wipe out Al Qaeda’s leadership and its bases.
Nevertheless, the debate taking place within the Arab and Muslim world is important because it is forcing people within Islam to look closely at what is in their midst. Over time, it could have a drip, drip impact on Al Qaeda, ultimately limiting its flow of recruits.

PAKISTAN'S DR. STRANGELOVE CHANGES HIS STORY

Dr. A. Q. Khan whose nicknames include Doctor Strangelove, The Merchant of Menace and Father of the Islamic bomb now says he did not sell nuclear bomb parts and design plans to Muslim nations like Iran and Libya.
According to Dr. Kahn, 72, his country’s military dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, forced him to lie in the world in 2004 as part of a deal that guaranteed him immunity from prosecution. Regarded by most Pakistanis as a hero for making his country a nuclear nation, Kahn says the television address he gave in 2004 in which he admitted to nuclear proliferation was written by others. Since he made that admission, he has been under house arrest but in the past year curbs on his movements have been relaxed, allowing him to see friends and make statements to the media. His latest recantation coincided with his claim that it mattered little if countries like Iran joined the nuclear club. In his opinion, it was better for Muslim nations to have nuclear bombs because it contributed to global deterrence, meaning all countries with nukes would not use them for fear of annihilation in a retaliatory nuclear strike.
The most startling thing about Dr. Kahn is that despite the overwhelming evidence of his nuclear smuggling activities over several decades, the Pakistani authorities have never allowed the CIA, Britain’s MI6 or the IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency – to interview him. Kahn has said he will not make himself available to the AIEA because he has not been found guilty of a crime outside Pakistan. He refutes charges that he ever visited Iran or sold nuclear centrifuges to the Iranians.
Since his exposure as the greatest nuclear proliferator in history, he has been insulated from international scrutiny thanks to President Musharraf and his inner circle of advisors, many of them members of the armed forces. Kahn would not be so fortunate had Benazir Bhutto been elected as prime minister. Sadly, she was assassinated while campaigning in December last year. Before her death, she promised if she came to power she would drag Dr. Kahn in front of the IAEA for questioning and would also set up a commission to investigate the true scale of his smuggling network. In her words it was “important to know if other elements were involved.” To date, no one in Pakistan, including Kahn, has been has been charged with nuclear smuggling.
With the ongoing controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, it has been widely reported that the US and Britain have begun to take a second look at the history of the Kahn network. Recently, it was claimed Kahn and his people sold Iran, and possibly other Muslim states, designs for a small nuclear warhead that could be fired from an Iranian missile. On the face of it, a re-investigation of Kahn seems a pointless exercise unless it has some covert political agenda. The fact is that the US and the Europeans dropped the ball on the investigation of Kahn decades ago when it really mattered. Still, they know the reasons why Pakistan has been unwillingly to sacrifice him to its courts or to international investigators. Kahn did not act alone and the nuclear smuggling network he presided over reached into the higher echelons of his country’s military and business classes. In January 2004, following his arrest, he informed President Musharraf and other high ranking military officials that he had sent documents to friends abroad, showing how his nuclear smuggling had the imprimatur of high ranking Pakistani figures. He said his friends had order to make the documents public if Musharraf or his successors tried to prosecute him. In order to fend off an international scandal, Musharraf placed him under house arrest but pardoned him weeks later. The pardon would have meant little had the late Benazir Bhutto become the country’s prime minister in 2008.
From the early 1980s, the CIA and European intelligence services, especially Britain’s MI6, were well briefed on the activities of Dr. Kahn. They knew he had been a nuclear spy from the mid-1970s. While working at Urenco, a European institute, which was creating a new centrifuge to enrich uranium, he stole the plans for the machine. Those plans became the framework for building Pakistan’s first nuclear bomb.
The CIA took its eye off Kahn after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The agency focused instead on helping defeat the Soviets by spending billions of dollars arming and training the Mujahedeen, of which Osama Bin Laden was a member. They did it with the help of Pakistani intelligence and established a close alliance with Pakistan’s government. By the time the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Pakistan was a fully fledged nuclear nation and Kahn had established a sophisticated smuggling network to export nuclear materials to other nations. Today, Pakistan has between 50 and 90 nuclear devices.
During the 1990s, Kahn was busy selling nuclear know-how across the globe yet he did not surface in western intelligence reports. Had the CIA and its European counterparts been doing their jobs that would have been the time to roll up his network. On the other hand, the CIA could argue that the fault lay with the US government, which regarded Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions as a low priority issue since it was an important ally. History may show, however, that Congress was misled by the CIA about the Pakistani nuclear program until the cat was finally out of the bag in 1989 when Pakistan was on the eve of carrying out five nuclear tests.
There is plenty of evidence that Kahn supplied Iran with designs for advanced centrifuges and that his motivation was as much ideological as financial. He wanted Muslim nations to be members of the nuclear club. While he supplied Libya and North Korea with nuclear designs and parts, it is not known how many customers he had in the Arab world, or elsewhere around the globe. In 2003, when Libya decided to come clean about its nuclear ambitions, it exposed Kahn’s proliferation and led to his exposure. Only then did the Bush administration confront President Musharraf.
Suspicion about Kahn’s nuclear network was soon directed at Iran, which vehemently denied it had ever been a Kahn customer. However, a strange thing happened that linked the two. A British IAEA inspector, who had worked alongside Kahn at the Dutch firm, Urenco, in the 1970s, made an interesting discovery during the inspection of an Iranian nuclear site. He spotted centrifuges of the type he remembered from Urenco. Kahn had stolen the plans for those same centrifuges to build the first Islamic bomb for his nation.
The Kahn saga represents a failure by the CIA and its European counterparts to keep their eye on the ball over several decades, as well as reluctance by the US and Britain to confront an ally until it was too late. Kahn has refused to tell what he knows, or to name those who backed him. He has not revealed the identities of his many customers and there is speculation his desire to make Muslim nations part of the nuclear club may have included more than Iran and Libya. The truth will only be revealed when Iran or another Muslim nation carries out a nuclear test.