Pakistan Dealt Nuclear Secrets to N. Korea, Book Says
Pastor Dale Morgan
Pakistan Dealt Nuclear Secrets to N. Korea, Book Says*
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 1, 2008; A16
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, on a state visit to
North Korea in 1993, smuggled in critical data on uranium enrichment --
a route to making a nuclear weapon -- to help facilitate a missile deal
with Pyongyang, according to a new book by a journalist who knew the
slain politician well.
The assertion is based on conversations that the author, Shyam Bhatia,
had with Bhutto in 2003, in which she said she would tell him a secret
"so significant that I had to promise never to reveal it, at least not
during her lifetime," Bhatia writes in "Goodbye, Shahzadi," which was
published in India last month.
Bhutto was slain in December while campaigning to win back the prime
minister's post.
The account, if verified, could advance the timeline for North Korea's
interest in uranium enrichment. David Albright, president of the
Institute for Science and International Security, a research
organization on nuclear weapons programs, said the assertion "makes
sense," because there were signs of "funny procurements" in the late
1980s by North Korea that suggested a nascent effort to assemble a
uranium enrichment project.
Pakistan -- and, in particular, a nuclear smuggling ring run by
Pakistani metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was instrumental in
developing a Pakistani nuclear bomb -- has long been suspected as a
source of expertise for North Korea, but such high-level government
involvement always has been denied.
In 2002, after observing a series of suspect North Korean purchases, the
Bush administration accused Pyongyang of having a clandestine program to
produce highly enriched uranium -- a charge that helped sink a
Clinton-era deal that had frozen North Korea's plutonium-based reactor.
North Korea insists that it had no such program, though it recently
agreed to "acknowledge" U.S. concerns as part of an agreement to disable
its nuclear reactor.
Nadeem Kiani, spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy, denounced Bhatia's
account as "an absurd and baseless claim," adding, "It has no iota of
truth and not even worth commenting."
Bhatia is a London-based investigative reporter who has written four
other books, including one of the earliest accounts of India's nuclear
program. Bhatia said he first met Bhutto at Oxford University in 1974
and kept contact with her until just weeks before she was killed.
George Perkovich, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, knows Bhatia and cited his book in Perkovich's own
study of the Indian program. "He is very smart, a serious guy, and the
work he did on the Indian nuclear program has held up really well,"
Perkovich said.
Selig S. Harrison, a specialist on South Asia and North Korea at the
Center for International Policy who has read the book, said Bhatia "is
credible on Bhutto. . . . He knew her very well and is a reputable
Indian journalist."
In his book, Bhatia writes that Bhutto brought up the North Korea visit
during a discussion in 2003 about her difficulties with Pakistan's
military. "Let me tell you something," she declared, before telling
Bhatia to turn off his tape recorder. "I have done more for my country
than all the military chiefs of Pakistan combined."
At the time, Pakistan was in desperate need of new missile technology
that would counter improvements in India's missiles. Bhutto said she was
asked to carry "critical nuclear data" to hand over in Pyongyang as part
of a barter deal.
"Before leaving Islamabad she shopped for an overcoat with the 'deepest
possible pockets' into which she transferred CDs containing the
scientific data about uranium enrichment that the North Koreans wanted,"
Bhatia writes. "She implied with a glint in her eye that she had acted
as a two-way courier, bringing North Korea's missile information on CDs
back with her on the return journey."
Bhatia said Bhutto did not tell him how many CDs she carried or who she
gave them to in Pyongyang. His repeated efforts to persuade her to go on
the record about the story were not successful.
Highly enriched uranium, a fuel for nuclear weapons, is produced by
cascades of centrifuges that spin hot uranium gas. Albright, who has
read Bhatia's account, said the CDs probably contained blueprints of the
more than 100 centrifuge components as well as general assembly
drawings. "It is tricky to assemble a centrifuge," he said.
Bhutto has always publicly said that Pakistan paid cash for the missile
cooperation, though Albright has located one quote by Bhutto in 2004
making reference to computer disks being involved.