Book: Propaganda against Pakistan’s ‘Nukes’ Continues

By Sajjad Shaukat

Being the only nuclear country in the Islamic World, Pakistan is on the hit-list of the US, India and Israel, including some Western countries.

Hence, despite the repeated assurances of Pakistan’s military and civil leadership that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are well-protected and are under tight security arrangements, having well-coordinated command and control system, a deliberate propaganda campaign against the safety of these weapons keeps on going particularly by the US, India and some Western countries who are acting upon the Zionist agenda to ‘denuclearize’ Pakistan.

In this regard, on October 25, 2017, a launch-ceremony of the book “Neighbors in Arms: An American Senator Quest for Disarmament on Nuclear Subcontinent”, written by Larry Pressler, former US Senator, was organized at Hudson Institute, Washington DC. The event was moderated by Hussain Haqqani, Director South and Central Asia of Hudson Institute, who has also served as the Pakistani ambassador to USA and the speaker of the event was Larry Pressler.

The speakers predominantly towed anti-Pakistan line throughout the event by saying; “US should declare Pakistan a state sponsoring terrorism; Pakistan is more dangerous country than North Korea; Pakistan does not have a clear nuclear chain of command”; an absurd fictional idea that “Pakistani nuclear weapons can be bought for few million dollars.”

In fact, Larry Pressler is an ex-Republican politician of the US, who well-known for maintaining anti-Pakistan views especially in relation to Pakistan’s nuclear programme. He keeps on maligning Pakistan on alleged nuclear proliferation and weak ambiguous chain of command, whereas, his own country-America (so-called world’s most conscientious nuclear power) had been proliferating nuclear technology, particularly by supplying it to Israel and India. Pressler may also like to focus the US arms sales to Indians and Israelis. However, Pressler has never raised voice against the role of US military industrial complex and lobbies in provision of nuclear technology to various countries.

Hussain Haqqani is part of his on-going campaign to damage Pakistan on the behest of his foreign masters.

As a matter of fact, both Larry Pressler and Hussain Haqqani are reportedly working for similar anti-Pakistan lobbies.

In this respect, as part of the propaganda against Pakistan’s ‘nukes’, this book is a project of Penguin Random House of India and has been purchased by them. Theme and other propaganda material were likely provided by the Indians to Larry Pressler, and financing of this book was done by the Indian intelligence agency RAW. And Hussain Haqqani has been used by the Indians in maligning Pakistan.

It is notable that Indian nuclear weapons and their related-material are unprotected, as various cases of smuggling and theft have verified.
In July 1998, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation seized eight kg. of nuclear material from Arun, an engineer in Chennai, including two other engineers. It was reported that the uranium was stolen from an atomic research center. On November 7, 2000, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated that Indian police had seized 57 pounds of uranium and arrested two men for illicit trafficking of radioactive material. IAEA said that Indian civil nuclear facilities were vulnerable to thefts.

On January 26, 2003, CNN disclosed that Indian company, NEC Engineers Private Ltd. shipped 10 consignments to Iraq, containing highly sensitive equipment including titanium vessels and centrifugal pumps. Indian investigators acknowledged that the company falsified customs documents to get its shipments out of India. On June 12, 2004, Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation, an American company was fined US $ 300,000 for exporting a nuclear component to the Bhaba Atomic Research Center in India.

In December 2005, United States imposed sanctions on two Indian firms for selling missile goods and chemical arms material to a Muslim country in violation of India’s commitment to prevent proliferation. In the same year, Indian scientists, Dr. Surendar and Y S R Prasad had been blacklisted by the US due to their involvement in nuclear theft. In December, 2006, container packed with radioactive material had been stolen from an Indian fortified research atomic facility near Mumbai.

In June 2009, India’s nuclear scientist, Lokanathan Mahalingam missed from the scenario and after a couple of days; his dead body was recovered from the Kali River. Indian police concocted a story that Mahalingam had committed suicide by jumping into the river. It is a big joke to hide some real facts behind his death because wisdom proves that if an educated person decides to commit suicide, he will definitely adopt a soft way to eliminate his life. Afterwards, Dr. Haleema Saadia said that death of the scientist was a conspiracy.

Nevertheless, in collaboration with the officials, proliferation of nuclear components and their related-material have continued from time to time by the Indians.

Recall that on September 25, 2008, the then US President Barack Obama Obama, while accusing President Bush’s policies in the region, offered it as part of his policy to encourage India and Pakistan to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and resolve the Kashmir problem to reduce nuclear dangers in South Asia and militancy in the region.

Quite contrary to his commitments, during his first visit to New Delhi, on November 6, 2010 President Obama announced the measures, America would take regarding removal of Indian space and defence companies from a restricted “entities list”, and supported Indian demand for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, including membership of four key global nuclear nonproliferation regimes.

And as part of the double standards, America set aside the Indian poor record regarding the safety of nuclear weapons and materials. Despite, Indian violations of various international agreements and its refusal to sign Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), CTBT and Additional Protocol with the IAEA, Washington signed a pact of nuclear civil technology with New Delhi in 2008. During American President Barack Obama’s visit to India, on January 25, 2016, the US and India announced a breakthrough on the pact which would allow American companies to supply New Delhi with civilian nuclear technology.

America also pressurized IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to grant a waiver to New Delhi for obtaining civil nuclear trade on larger scale.

Under the pretext of countering China, Washington has continued favouring India’s programme of advancement and modernization of her nuclear weapons.

Evidences indicate that India has not, in reality been compliant with the conditions of the NSG waiver. At least, eight of India’s nuclear reactors are outside safeguards which are a big question mark on the credibility of its nuclear safety and security standards. Two reports from the King’s College–respectively titled ‘India’s Nuclear Exceptionalism’ and ‘India’s Strategic Nuclear and Missile Program’ also claim that India has already accumulated nuclear material for over 2600 nuclear weapons, including all of its unsafe guarded reactor-grade plutonium, which is weapon-usable, and raised concerns over this stockpiling.

As regards the security of Pakistan’s ‘nukes’, Islamabad has adopted potent measures as part of Nuclear Security Action Plan (NSAP), Mobile Expert Support Teams (MEST) and Nuclear Emergency Management System (NEMS) to respond and manage nuclear emergency and securities. Additionally, Strategic Plans Division (SPD has deputed approximately 25,000 personals to secure Pakistan’s nuclear facilities with extensive barriers, detection systems, separate storage of nukes and security system to prevent unauthorized use to meet international standards of the IAEA. The National Command Authority (NCA) of Pakistan has an excellent command and control function.

Notably, Islamabad has substantially strengthened its nuclear security in the past two decades. Pakistan is the only nuclear country with zero incidents of mishap. All other nuclear states have such incident on their credit including US having maximum incidents of nuclear negligence.

Terrorist’s organizations do not have any access to Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Pakistan’s security measures to protect nuclear assets against internal and external threats are among the best in the world. It is mentionable that American and IAEA officials have at number of occasions acknowledged effective command and control mechanism enforced by Pakistan.

In this connection, ex-President Obama and the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have repeatedly expressed confidence in the nuclear security arrangements, managed by Pakistan.

Despite extensive safeguards in place, Pakistan’s nuclear activities are still considered unsafe by the US-Indo-Israeli-Western lobbies which have been propagating that the possibility of nuclear assets could go into the hands of terrorists. It is a pre-planned idea just to target Pakistan national security.

It is of particular attention that before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a deliberate disinformation campaign was launched by the CIA, Mossad and MI6 all over the world that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs). For that sinister aim, these agencies also funded and used some American and Western media. In that context, a self-fabricated report was prepared by CIA about Iraq. Afterwards, Iraq was attacked and occupied by the Anglo-American forces, but no WMDs were found. In fact, under the cover, main aim of the United States was to occupy the oil resources of that country and to obtain the political, economic and religious goals of the Zionist Jews.

Now, without bothering for internal backlash, the Zionist-led America has accelerated its pressure on Islamabad by insisting upon its old maximum to ‘do more’ against the militants of Al Qaeda and Islamic State group (Also known as Daesh, ISIS, ISIL) or Taliban. American President Donald Trump’s recent threats to Islamabad are part of the same scheme, while, based in Afghanistan, American CIA, Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad, including British MI6 which have well-established their covert networks there and are well-penetrated in the militant outfits like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), ISI and their affiliated Taliban groups have been using their terrorists to destabilize Pakistan by arranging the subversive activities such as target killings, suicide attacks and ethnic violence in various regions of the country.

On the other side, Pakistan’s Armed Forces have successfully broken the backbone of the foreign-backed terrorists by the military operations Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fasaad. Army and top intelligence agency ISI have broken the network of these terrorist groups by capturing several militants, while thwarting a number of terror attempts. Peace has been restored in various regions of Pakistan.

But, these Zionist-controlled foreign elements have, again, started terror attacks in Pakistan not only to damage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project (CPEC), but also to show to the Western countries that nuclear weapons of the country are insecure, as the same can fall into the hands of the militants of Al-Qaeda and Taliban or ISIS. They also propagate that these atomic weapons can been stolen. Under the pretext, the US and its Western allies will ask Islamabad to rollback its nuclear programme and to hand over its all nuclear assets to Washington.

Nonetheless, at present, strained relations exists between Islamabad and Washington, as the latter is implementing double game against Pakistan. Hence, Pakistan’s reliable online sources suggest that the US, India and some Western powers who are acting upon the Zionist agenda to denuclearize Pakistan, have revived their propaganda campaign regarding the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

In these terms, the book, “Neighbors in Arms: An American Senator Quest for Disarmament on Nuclear Subcontinent” and during its opening ceremony, anti-Pakistan speeches of the speakers are part of the continued propaganda against Pakistan’s ‘nukes’.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic_pak@hotmail.com