Musharraf govt bought N-tech on the sly: US probe

Even though President Bush has been pushing for an international crackdown on such trafficking, efforts by two US agencies to send investigators to Pakistan to gather more evidence have been stymied for more than a year by other American officials, according to US officials knowledgeable about the case.

The impasse is part of a larger tug-of-war between federal agencies that enforce US non-proliferation laws and policy-makers who consider Pakistan too important to embarrass. The transactions began in early 2003, well after President Pervez Musharraf threw his support to the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and the invasion of neighboring Afghanistan to oust Pakistan’s former Taliban allies.

‘‘This is the age-old problem with Pakistan and the US. Other priorities always trump the United States from coming down hard on Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation. And it goes back 15 to 20 years,’’ said David Albright, director of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. A former UN weapons inspector in Iraq and elsewhere, Albright favours getting tougher with Pakistan.

US and European officials involved in non-proliferation issues say they recently have discovered evidence that Pakistan has begun a push to acquire advanced nuclear components in the black market as it tries to upgrade its 30-year-old nuclear programme.

Current and former US intelligence officials said that the same elements of the Pakistan military that they suspect of orchestrating efforts to buy American-made products also might have worked with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistani nuclear programme, who supplied nuclear weapons know-how and parts to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

The scheme that US investigators are trying to unravel involves Humayun Khan and a South African electronics salesman named Asher Karni, a former Israeli army major.

Aided by Karni, who pleaded guilty to violating export control laws and began cooperating with US authorities shortly after his arrest 15 months ago, investigators have traced at least one shipment of oscilloscopes from Oregon to South Africa and on to Humayun Khan.

But the trail did not end there. According to recently unsealed US Commerce Department documents, agents followed the shipment to the Al-Technique Corporation of Pakistan, which had not been specified on any of the shipping or purchasing documents.

Al-Technique describes itself as a manufacturer of precision lasers and other military-related products. But for federal investigators, ‘‘It was a big red flag,’’ said one US official.

‘‘It’s definitely a front for nuclear weapons, for their WMD project,’’ the US official said. The company is on a US list of companies prohibited from buying equipment such as the special oscilloscopes that can be used in nuclear weapons programmes.

Like other officials interviewed for this article, the official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the political sensitivity of the case, the records of which has been sealed by a federal judge. The judge also imposed a gag order on all participants.

US officials suspect that the Pakistani government was the ultimate buyer behind another purchase Humayun Khan made from Karni, that of 200 US-made precision electronic switches that can be used in detonating nuclear weapons.

US law prohibits the sale of equipment that can be used in nuclear weapons programmes to Pakistan and some other countries as part of the American effort to curb nuclear proliferation. Officials accuse Humayun Khan and Karni of conspiring to break those laws by concealing the true nature of the transactions. Khan has not been charged with any crime in the United States, but the Commerce Department has banned him from doing business in the United States.

Halting illegal transfers of nuclear weapons components is a cornerstone of the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative, and the departments of Commerce and Homeland Security moved quickly to pursue leads after Karni’s arrest.

Karni’s cooperation has allowed US officials to expand their investigation significantly, and officials say as many as several dozen suspects are under scrutiny in Pakistan, India, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

Humayun Khan’s involvement in the deal aroused concern because they have linked him to several militant groups, including the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, a Pakistani opposition party that supports fighters in Kashmir. Last year, federal prosecutors used Karni’s ties to Khan to argue successfully against having Karni released on bond while awaiting trial.

Humayun Khan, in a telephone interview from Islamabad, denied any involvement with the recent shipments, insisting ‘‘someone else’’ ordered the oscilloscopes and the switches, had them shipped to his office, then snatched them somewhere along the way.

‘‘It’s very tragic,’’ Khan declared. ‘‘You don’t know where these things are landing. They come through and they vanish.’’

Khan charged that Washington has allowed dozens of black market companies to flourish in Pakistan and elsewhere by selectively enforcing its non-proliferation laws.

‘‘It’s all about politics,’’ Khan said. ‘‘If they don’t want us to develop these things, they would do everything they can to stop it. … You (the US government) close one eye and open the other at particular times to these things that have been going on.’’ He said dozens of front companies throughout South Asia and the Middle East are procuring such components from US companies for questionable purposes.

Khan said he had emailed detailed information to US investigators about at least 10 other Pakistani companies that he claims routinely engage in illicit schemes to buy goods from US suppliers, including Tektronix, Inc., the Oregon company that sold him the oscilloscopes.

US officials will say only that Khan has provided evasive and contradictory answers about the case. Although they have talked to him by telephone, they say it is critical to confront him in Pakistan, where they can do follow-up investigations.

Khan said he assumed that, because US investigators never showed up, they must have dropped him as a suspect. Pakistani authorities, Khan added, also haven’t questioned because he and his father have done business with the Islamabad’s Defence Ministry for 40 years and would not do anything the government didn’t approve of.

‘‘Nobody came to me. Why? They didn’t bother,’’ Khan said. ‘‘They know us like we were relatives.’’

Alisha Goff, a spokeswoman for Tektronix Inc. said the company was aware of the investigation, including the purchase of its oscilloscopes, but said authorities have not implicated it in any wrongdoing.

She said the company had stopped all shipments to Khan, pending the outcome of the investigation.

‘‘Tektronix is cooperating fully with the government, and as such cannot provide any additional information on this matter,’’ she said.

US investigators have become increasingly frustrated by the lack of support from inside their own government because they say they see rising indications of Pakistani involvement in the nuclear black market. They cite evidence suggesting that Pakistan has increased its already extensive network of agents operating in the global market for nuclear and missile components.

Foreign officials involved with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, say they believe Pakistan has set aside a huge budget for new black market components to upgrade its entire nuclear weapons programme. Some of the illicit equipment is part of a large programme to expand Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal with plutonium-based weapons, which are smaller and far more destructive than weapons using uranium, diplomats and investigators say.

‘‘Pakistan does need nuclear technology,’’ said one European diplomat with ties to Pakistan, noting that Islamabad’s agents have been caught trying to make illicit purchases of specialised steel and aluminum, as well as nuclear trigger called krytrons. ‘‘We have the names of the companies and we have been talking to them,’’ another diplomat said.

Pakistani officials repeatedly have declined to discuss the Karni case and the investigation. One senior Pakistani official said that while his country does not intentionally violate US non-proliferation laws, it will continue to support and improve its nuclear weapons programme as a deterrent to its arch-rival, India.

The Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security and Justice would not permit anyone to discuss the criminal case on the record, and the White House and State Department also had no official comment.

State Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration believes it has few options for pressuring Musharraf when his cooperation is critically important on several other fronts.

‘‘It’s one thing for them to cooperate with us in efforts to stop (nuclear components) from going elsewhere, such as Iran,’’ said one of the officials. ‘‘But they will never cooperate with us on efforts to stop things that they are trying to get. They’ve got their own programme, which they’re trying to keep.’’

– LA Times-Washington Post