Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme

Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme.

Pakistan-Arab countries ambition was to build a nuclear bomb for Islam. A number of intelligence agencies had known about this for years, but first time that the Indian public heard about this development was taken when former foreign Minister Vajpayee quietly revealed in the Lok Sabha in March 1979 that India has verified through independent sources of its own that the Pakistan nuclear programme had acquired “non-peaceful” dimensions.

The Arabs had adequate money. On the conventions front there was no problem in acquiring sophisticated weapons from the west, since the west was only too eager to recycle some of the mounting reserves of petro-dollars by selling back arms.

Two developments turned this dream into a foreseeable reality. One was the emergence of Zulifikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan leader, as a champion of the Islamic cause. It could not have been difficult for the flamboyant Bhutto to convince the leaders of the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia and Libya, that it was possible to develop an Islamic nuclear option. Secondly the Pakistan civilian nuclear programme had by then reached such a level of sophistication that it was possible for Pakistan scientists, with the facilities available to them, to embark on a weapons programme, if only it could be supported financially by the oil rich Arab countries.

There is no direct evidence of either Saudi Arabia or Libya or any other Arab country having actively collaborated with Pakistan on the nuclear project, in any case they posses neither the man power nor the industrial infrastructure to participate directly in a nuclear weapons programme.

However, Saudi Arabia and Libya have been the major financial supporters of Pakistan in this venture. Both countries have a common though nor necessarily a shared interest in nuclearising the Arab world.

The other major development which nurtured the idea of an Islamic bomb was the global proliferation of nuclear technology, materials and components. Most of the components for the fabrication of fissile material are now available in the open market, thanks to the loopholes in the Non Proliferation Treaty in which the sponsors, the nuclear weapon powers exempted themselves from all nuclear safeguards. Pakistan thro its nuclear scientists abroad and its convert industrial connections, and the Arab through their oil and money connections have considerable leverage in the European nuclear markets to get access to the required materials.