A. Q. Khan question - Democratic Underground

sandnsea

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Mon May-11-09 06:57 PM
Original message

A. Q. Khan question

When did the connections between him and money laundering and nuclear weapons first turn up? I thought it was back in the 90s.

Thanks!

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ProSense

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Mon May-11-09 07:02 PM
Response to Original message

1. There is a

timeline posted here.

Hope it helps.

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karynnj

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Mon May-11-09 08:37 PM
Response to Reply #1

2. That is a wonderful post in the link

It is very sad that the entire Bush Justice department was stonewalling Kerry on BCCI. Imagine if BCCI was shut down before funding AQ Kahn. It would have been a safer world.

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sandnsea

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Mon May-11-09 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. I'm trying to figure out that specific connection

When was the very first inkling of BCCI & Khan, when should we have known, when was there warnings, did JK make any warnings about Khan in the 90s. I thought there was but I'm only finding what looks like retrospect.

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ProSense

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Mon May-11-09 10:12 PM
Response to Reply #3

4. Kerry issued his report in 1992.

The relationship between BCCI, the Pakistani government, and the BCCI Foundation had been deeply entangled from the start. As in the Bangladesh version of the BCCI Foundation, the Pakistani BCCI Foundation was created as a means of sheltering BCCI profits from taxation. In 1981, it received tax-free status while Ishaq Khan was Pakistan's minister of finance. In turn, the foundation received BCCI's profits from Pakistani operations, and then used some of those profits to finance projects the Pakistani government wanted and could not pay for itself. For example, BCCI provided $10 million in grants in the late 1980's to finance an officially "private" science and technology institute named for Pakistani President Ishaq Khan, whose director, A. Qadir Khan, has been closely associated with Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb. The institute is believed by some experts to be the headquarters for Pakistan's efforts to build an Islamic bomb. In the same period, other BCCI officials were assisting Pakistanis in purchasing nuclear technologies paid for by Pakistani-front companies through BCCI-Canada.(94)

Are you looking for something earlier or more specific?

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sandnsea

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Mon May-11-09 10:32 PM
Response to Reply #4

5. Cheney's interview yesterday

Part of his defense of using torture. The implication is that they found out about the Khan network through torture, or they needed to torture people to get details. This is complete garbage, afaik, they knew about Khan for years, or should have known. Why are they willing to tell so many blatant lies to justify invading Iraq and everything that went along with that?

"In the aftermath of 9/11, we had all of these questions about who Al Qaida was, where they were operating and so forth. We didn’t know nearly as much as we know today. We were faced with a very real possibility -- we had reporting that said Al Qaida is trying to acquire nuclear capabilities. We had the A.Q. Khan network out there, a black-market operator selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran. We had the anthrax attack within a matter of weeks after 9/11. We had the kind of situation that meant that we were absolutely convinced, the country was convinced, that there was a very high likelihood of a follow-on attack, a mass casualty attack against the United States."

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karynnj

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Tue May-12-09 07:36 AM
Response to Reply #5

6. Nice catch - as Secretary of Defense in Bush 1's admininistration

he likely was in a better position to know about this than Senator Kerry. Senator Kerry had to break through all their stone walling to get the documents he needed to unravel what was going on with BCCI. Not to mention, Kerry took everything he had to the Justice Department when his committee was ended. They proceeded to do nothing.

Though Bill Clinton should have picked the action items Kerry enumerated, this is a threat that Bush 1 ignored and it has come back to haunt us. Maybe instead of signaling to Saddam that we didn't really care if he invaded Kuwait, he should have addressed Pakistan. Ironic that, like with his son, he ignored the real threat and attacked Iraq.

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