Conned by the confessional?

Washington can ‘‘ill afford to court a showdown with General Musharraf’’ wrote the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Too much pressure could lead to chaos or an ‘‘extremist regime’’ . The DAILY TELEGRAPH even extended sympathy to Washington and allies. The Bush Administration would accept any pardon of Khan ‘‘through gritted teeth’’. Bush, it said, may be in the throes of one of the most striking contradictions post September 11.

But the WASHINGTON POST was fully outraged. Its report denounced the deal through which Khan goes unpunished. Editorials lashed out at Pakistan’s ‘‘Nuclear Crimes’’, and at Washington’s apparent willingness to buy the cover-up. ‘‘Perhaps there is no alternative to a relationship with the general’’, but stopping Pakistan’s proliferation is ‘‘vital to US security’’, it cannot be ‘‘left to Mr Musharraf to decide how or whether it will be done’’.

On cue, Mr Musharraf held a press conference to declare a loud ‘‘Negative to all three’’. He ruled out handing over documents from Pakistan’s investigations to international nuclear inspectors, ordering an independent investigation into the Army’s role, allowing UN supervision of Pak nuclear weapons. The NYT drummed up empathy: Musharraf was clearly playing to his domestic audience — he spoke in Urdu and wore his commando uniform.

‘‘My country’s loose nukes underscore a global danger that may already be out of control’’, despaired Pervez Hoodbhoy, professor of nuclear physics. In the WASHINGTON POST, he wrote Pakistan must put its nuclear house in order and as the world’s only superpower, the US must take the lead — ‘‘by reducing its own nuclear arsenal, as well as dealing with all proliferators, including its ally Israel, at the same level.’’

And the GUARDIAN sent out a bald warning: ‘‘Rogue states everywhere will watch with interest how Washington reacts to this scandal’’.

The other WMDs

• The timing is piquant. Hard evidence of Pakistan’s illicit WMD-related trade comes along at the precise moment when western governments are most starkly confronted by their failure to find WMDs in Iraq.

A media storm has raged on both sides of the Atlantic. Bush and top national security officials are in a desperate scramble to contain the fallout from David Kay’s report. The former chief weapons inspector concluded that Iraq had no WMDs on the eve of the US-led invasion.

In Britain, Blair’s full exoneration by the Hutton report on the charge of ‘‘sexing up’’ intelligence on Iraq hasn’t got him off the hook. There’s a furious newspaper backlash to Hutton.

The GUARDIAN sighted more than just coincidence in the proximity of the two WMD stories. ‘‘Where was the intelligence that should have exposed this incredibly dangerous nukes-for-cash racket?… Where were those political leaders…?’’ They only had eyes for Iraq. Bush and Blair were ‘‘simply looking the wrong way’’.

By all accounts, this storm is only begun.