Cheney Covered-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation

[seemslikeadream]

Cheney Covered-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation
Monday, 8 March 2004, 4:05 pm
Column: Jason Leopold

VP Cheney Helped Cover-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation In '89 So US Could Sell Country Fighter Jets

By Jason Leopold



Cheney went to great lengths to cover-up Pakistan’s nuclear weaponry. In a New Yorker article published on March 29, 1993, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040119fr_archive02 investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted Barlow as saying that some high-ranking members inside the CIA and the Pentagon lied to Congress about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal so as not to sacrifice the sale of the F-16 fighter planes to Islamabad, which was secretly equipped to deliver nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities and the had become so grave by the spring of 1990 that then CIA deputy director Richard Kerr said the Pakistani nuclear threat was worse than the Cuban Missile crisis in the 1

“It was the most dangerous nuclear situation we have ever faced since I’ve been in the U.S. government,” Kerr said in an interview with Hersh. “It may be as close as we’ve come to a nuclear exchange. It was far more frightening than the Cuban missile crisis.”

Presently, Kerr is leading the CIA’s review of prewar intelligence into the Iraqi threat cited by Bush.

Still, in l989 Cheney and others in the Pentagon and the CIA continued to hide the reality of Pakistan’s nuclear threat from members of Congress. Hersh explained in his lengthy New Yorker article that reasons behind the cover-up “revolves around the fact… that the Reagan Administration had dramatically aided Pakistan in its pursuit of the bomb.”

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0403/S00102.htm

[zbdent]

1. Wait, wasn't there some talk a few years ago about how a

cover-up is worse than the crime??

Ah, must have been about a democrat at the time.

[johnny_red]

2. oops

comma on the end of your New Yorker link...

[seemslikeadream]

5. Thanks

If this planet blows to pieces this year, thank Khan Labs' and Bush


You may never have heard of Khan Laboratories, but if this planet blows to pieces this year, it will be thanks to Khan Labs' creating nuclear warheads for Pakistan's military. Because investigators had been tracking the funding for this so-called "Islamic Bomb" back to Saudi Arabia, under Bush security restrictions, the inquiry was stymied. (The restrictions were lifted, the agent told me without a hint of dark humor, on September 11.)

Noam Chomsky, who read the story on page one of the Times of India, has wondered, "Why wasn't it all over US papers?

.. A top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity said that, after Bush took office, "There was a major policy shift" at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to "back off" from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the Bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off limits for investigation.

I probed our CIA contact for specifics of investigations that were hampered by orders to back off of the Saudis. He told us that Khan Laboratories investigation had been effectively put on hold.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0

[bif]

3. What? Cheney Lied?

I'm just shocked.

[davsand]

4. Lemme get THIS straight:

Cheney cooked intel THEN to protect Pakistan--but they are harboring Osama Been Forgotten NOW? They knew THEN that Al Queida has access to nukes and they lied to cover it up?

Just WHO, exactly, is the fucking terrorist here? It sure as hell sounds to me like maybe it isn't JUST some guy in a turban...

My rage grows daily--and I never thought it possible.

Laura

[Fridays Child]

6. I know the feeling well. Surely, these criminals test the...

...limit of every thinking person's capacity for rage.

[indepat]

7. Will mindless criminality to further ideology eventually spell the death

of us all or at least life as we have known it in the Western world? Hopefully we will get lucky.

[Fridays Child]

8. I wonder what the world would be like, today, if Reagan-Bush had...

...declined to prop up Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. What if the Afghans had fought the USSR without our help? What if Iran and Iraq had fought their war without our help? Would the first Gulf War have occurred? Would the twin towers have come down on 9-11?

[varun]

9. At least, Kerry is raising this issue...

...instead of sweepig it under the carpet like Dumbya...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-3-2004_pg1_9


Kerry worried about Pakistan’s proliferation conduct

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential front-runner Senator John Kerry, if elected, will move decisively on the issue of nuclear proliferation, no less than on the question of terrorism.

Going by what he has said on record on these two subjects so far, there is little reason to assume that he would be “more understanding” of Pakistan’s “compulsions” as some people argue.

Sen Kerry said during a debate on National Public Radio in January that Pakistan had “misled the United States and the world with respect to its proliferation responsibilities for years” and he was “convinced we can be tougher with Pakistan.”...

Go Kerry, Go!