Oh! Pakistanis WERE working with Al Qaeda to build nukes!

[kurtyboy]

I was perusing the Indian Ministry of External Affairs webpage tonight (Long story) and I found this headline from Friday's Times of India.

http://www.meadev.nic.in/news/clippings/20030704/toi.htm

<snip>
WASHINGTON: The terrorist group al-Qaeda was working with former scientists of Pakistan's nuclear establishment to produce crude weapons of mass destruction, the CIA has said in a new report.

Despite repeated Pakistani denials on the matter and claims that such knowledge is available in public domain, the CIA says in a May 2003 report that handwritten documents uncovered in Afghanistan suggest that the al-Qaeda's specialists did have nuclear physics and weaponisation knowledge that exceeded the type of information available via open and declassified sources.
</snip>

The intelligence report Jane's is quoting doesn't sound very good for Americans, but it'll sure help a sitting pResident retain power if true...

<snip>
The authors of the CIA report, titled Terrorist CBRN: Materials and Effects, believe al-Qaeda and other lesser-known terrorist groups to be capable of making an "improvised nuclear device" that would be "intended to cause a yield-producing nuclear explosion". The report claims that the group's experts could make such a weapon with "diverted nuclear-weapons components", by modifying an already assembled nuclear weapon or by using a self-designed weapon.

The report did not say where the Bush administration believes such an attack might be launched, but that it was "a high probability" that it would be in the next two years, according to Jane's. The US assessment claims that any such CBRN attack would probably be "small-scale", incorporating relatively crude delivery means and easily produced or obtained chemicals, toxins or radiological substances
</snip>

Er, uhmm, shit...

EDIT TO ADD LINK.

[Dehumanizer]

1. Interesting, although I'm a little skeptical

Considering it was from India whose press probably has the same types of objective and subjective forms of media like any other country, I researched the source. My first hit was this site:

http://www.stanford.edu/~zain/publicpapers/fall2002/pwr/paper4.htm

"The Times of India takes a decidedly anti-Pakistani stance in its news coverage to the point of obsession. The front page of the Times of India normally carries anti-Pakistani rhetoric, especially concerning significant events."

This doesn't mean we should disregard the article, I'm just saying we should take it for what it is.

[cosmicaug]

2. Don't like Times of India because of their obvious anti-Pakistani bias?

Don't like Times of India because of their obvious anti-Pakistani bias? How about Jane's, then since it was Times of India's source (and the C.I.A. was apparently Jane's source --O.K. so they haven't covered themselves with glory, as of late)? See http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid030703_1_n.shtml .

In any event, the fact that there are fundy muslim (i.e. Taliban) sympathisers in high places in Pakistan (including I.S.I. & the nuclear program) is hardly a secret. Given this, cooperation with Al-Qaeda is hardly far fetched. So now the difficulty resides on getting the proper materials together (for which Pakistan cannot be ruled out --no matter how much their leaders, who may not be their leaders forever, promise they're not going to be naughty again).

If some terrorists let loose a nuke, the materials will most likely have come from Pakistan, the former Soviet Union or North Korea (in that order).

[RH]

3. Only to be expected.

I rememeber discussions that arose when the Berlin Wall fell and the 'Cold War' seemed to come to an end.

:loveya:

What would the 'security services' find to do now?

:freak:

Nobody said to get rid of them. Already there was talk of terrorism as the requisite entertainment for the 21st century.
Without Al Qaeda they'd have had to invent them.

:evilgrin:

Maybe they ....

:think:

Enough said?