AP: Pakistan Threatened to Give Iran Nukes (During Bush 1)

[Khephra]

WASHINGTON -- Although the Bush administration reacted with surprise to Pakistan's nuclear assistance to Iran, the Islamabad government warned the United States that such technology transfers might occur as long as 14 years ago, two former Pentagon officials say.

The threat was conveyed in January 1990 from Pakistan's top general to the administration of President Bush's father, but the information doesn't appear to have made its way to the Clinton administration when it took office three years later, according to interviews by The Associated Press.

In recent weeks, evidence has emerged that Pakistani nuclear aid to Iran began in the mid-1980s but accelerated after 1990 and included transfer of some of Pakistan's most advanced nuclear technology.

The former Pentagon officials' accounts suggest the United States may have missed an early opportunity to thwart some of those transfers.

more................

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-pakistan-nuclear,0,6642614.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[varun]

1. So now the world's only superpower...

...is being blackmailed by a dictator?

And the current administration is hushing up any news that USA's most trusted "ally" is the one with WMD, and the biggest proliferator EVER...

...proliferating WMD to N. Korea, Iran, Libya...the "Axis of Evil"?

[varun]

2. Senators criticize pardon for Pakistan nuclear scientist

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/02/26/national1755EST0796.DTL

PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, February 26, 2004


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(02-26) 14:55 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

Senators complained to Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday about Pakistan's decision not to punish "the worst proliferator ever," nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

"We have a guy in Pakistan that 10 years ago, if you would have found him selling that stuff, you'd have hung him in the marketplace," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, was pardoned by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf after confessing to leaking nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Calling Khan "the worst proliferator ever," Domenici made his comments as Powell testified before the Senate Budget Committee on his department's 2005 budget request...