From Rogue Nuclear Programs, Web of Trails Leads to Pakistan (NYT)

[pinto]

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD


The Pakistani leaders who denied for years that scientists at the country's secret A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories were peddling advanced nuclear technology must have been averting their eyes from a most conspicuous piece of evidence: the laboratory's own sales brochure, quietly circulated to aspiring nuclear weapons states and a network of nuclear middlemen around the world.


The cover bears an official-looking seal that says "Government of Pakistan" and a photograph of the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan. It promotes components that were spinoffs from Pakistan's three-decade-long project to build a nuclear stockpile of enriched uranium, set in a drawing that bears a striking resemblance to a mushroom cloud.

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President Bush, who regularly talks about nuclear dangers, has never mentioned Pakistan's laboratories or their proliferation in public — probably out of concern of destabilizing President Pervez Musharraf, who has survived two assassination attempts in December.

"He's been a stand-up guy when it comes to dealing with the terrorists," Mr. Bush said of General Musharraf on Thursday. "We are making progress against Al Qaeda because of his cooperation." He dismissed a question about the vulnerability of Pakistan's own nuclear weapons, saying, "Yes, they are secure," then changed the subject.

article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/international/04NUKE.html?ex=1073797200

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