Citizen diplomat Mansoor Ijaz has a personal connection to the nuclear proliferation activities of "rogue" Pakistani scientists: his own father. The difference is that Dr. Mujaddid Ahmed Ijaz was involved in peaceful applications of nuclear power. Mansoor takes a tough stance on Pakistan today.
Whitewashing Pakistan's official complicity in such activities, as the Bush administration seems to be doing, will only result in rogue proliferators sprouting up everywhere. But if making Khan the scapegoat protects Pakistan's military and intelligence institutions so they can earnestly - albeit secretly - debrief international investigators about which other countries and terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, have received Pakistani nuclear materials and technologies, so be it. Dismantling the threat is more important than assigning blame if we are to prevent a dirty bomb from going off in Los Angeles or New York.Posted by Alan at February 14, 2004 11:04 AMTo ensure such transgressions are not repeated, however, the Bush administration should tell Congress it is making all US taxpayer aid to Pakistan contingent immediately on Pakistan's acceptance of verifiable nuclear safeguards.
If, as the weekend's news reports suggested, a secret US antiproliferation team is already in the process of taking control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal by installing safekeeping vaults, tamperproof coded entry systems, sensors, alarms, closed-circuit cameras, and other technologies that give President Musharraf the ability to internally monitor and track nuclear materials and prevent their unauthorized use, then a key first step has been taken. But much more needs to be done.
Pakistan has a right to maintain its nuclear deterrent. It does not have the right to hide from the world how many nuclear monsters it created in our midst, a fact that the real heroes of Pakistan's nuclear program - like my father - understood all too well.
Via the Christian Science Monitor