WP deliberately recycles old news

ISLAMABAD The US media and Establishment never tire of using every opportunity to target Pakistans nuclear programme and all those associated with it. If China can be dragged in, the situation is exploited to the hilt. Now with Obama all set for his China visit, the waters are being muddied by dragging in old news regarding Pakistan-China cooperation in the nuclear field. Most of the nuclear weapons cooperation between China and Pakistan happened before China was accepted as a member of the IAEA in 1984 and before it acceded to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992. Pakistan still is not party to the NPT. So neither state broke any international law commitments in this cooperation. After China became a party to the NPT, it only offered Pakistan civilian nuclear cooperation and under full IAEA safeguards.
The other interesting development right now in terms of the latest Washington Post story on Pakistan-China nuclear cooperation is the pattern coming into play. Connect the dots between the Hersh story, which was published four months after his visit to Pakistan, and The Washington Post story that has followed within days, and the mala fide intent becomes clearer.
Our Special Correspondent from Washington adds: On the eve of President Barack Obamas visit to China, a leading American newspaper reported Friday that Beijing provided Pakistan with weapons grade uranium for two bombs in 1982, citing notes written by Dr. A. Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.
The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by (Chairman) Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (in 1976) ..., according to what the Washington Post described as the accounts by the Pakistan nuclear scientist.
The delivery culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, The Post said. Most observers here believe that story about Sino-Pakistan cooperation is designed to put pressure on China. Obama is to raise nuclear proliferation issues when he visits Beijing on Tuesday.
But experts here say that the United States own record on non-proliferation is highly questionable, citing its recent nuclear deal with India, a nuclear-weapon state. Not only that, Washington turned a blind eye to the development of nuclear weapons by Israel, its closest ally which defies all international norms and principles.
They say the Indo-US nuclear deal undermined global nonproliferation efforts, giving New Delhi huge nuclear benefits without requiring comprehensive safeguards to the entire Indian nuclear programme. Further, it does not bring limitations or transparency to the Indian nuclear weapons programme.
In the written accounts cited by the newspaper, Abdul Qadeer Khan said China also supplied a blueprint for a simple bomb that significantly speeded Pakistans nuclear weapon programme. But the question being asked here how and from where The Washington Post received the so-called A.Q. Khan papers.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington declined to comment for this article.
Upon my personal request, the Chinese Minister ... had gifted us 50 kg [kilograms] of weapon-grade enriched uranium, enough for two weapons, Khan wrote in what the Post said was a previously undisclosed 11-page narrative of the Pakistani bomb programme.
Khan prepared the narrative for Pakistani intelligence officers after his January 2004 detention for unauthorized nuclear commerce. He is still under house arrest.
In a separate account sent to his wife several months earlier, he wrote, The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us kg50 enriched uranium.
The Post said China has long denied helping any other nation acquire nuclear weapons, but that Khans accounts confirm the long-held conclusion of US intelligence that China provided such assistance.
US President Barack Obama is expected to raise nuclear proliferation issues with China when he visits Beijing on Tuesday.
Khan, the alleged mastermind of a nuclear proliferation network that stretched to Libya and possibly Iran, stated that top politicians and military officers were immersed in Pakistans foreign nuclear dealings, the Post said.
The speed of our work and our achievements surprised our worst enemies and adversaries and the West stood helplessly by to see a Third World nation, unable even to produce bicycle chains or sewing needles, mastering the most advanced nuclear technology in the shortest possible span of time, Khan said.
Chinas Foreign Ministry last week declined to address Dr. Khans specific assertions, but it said that as a member of the global Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1992, China strictly adheres to the international duty of prevention of proliferation it shoulders and strongly opposes . . . proliferation of nuclear weapons in any forms.
Asked why the U.S. government has never publicly confronted China over the uranium transfer, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, The United States has worked diligently and made progress with China over the past 25 years. As to what was or wasnt done during the Reagan administration, I cant say.