President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday pardoned Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man accused of being involved in nuclear proliferation, on the recommendation of the federal cabinet, which met in Islamabad earlier in the day. Speaking at a crowded press conference at the Army House auditorium here, the president announced the decision and, at the same time, vowed to continue the country’s nuclear programme "come what may."
| "The world needs more Islamic nukes..." |
He said that some people in the domestic media were indulging in what he called emotionalism and sensationalism and creating doubts about their country. He said they did not understand what would happen to Pakistan if the government, the army or both were implicated in nuclear proliferation. "The UN Security Council will immediately impose sanctions against us, next we will be asked to sign the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) and roll back, then we will be declared a rogue state and finally our vital interests would come under imminent physical danger," he warned.
| Sounds like a logical progression to me. All reasonable moves, too... |
He said that for him Pakistan came first and everything else was secondary. "In the first place you (the media) should play a more responsible role in this matter and secondly, even if for the sake of argument it is accepted that the government and the army were involved in the affair, do you think it will serve our national interest to shout about it from the roof-top?"
| I don't have the slightest doubt that the government and the army were involved. Except for a few people willing to believe five impossible things before breakfast, I don't think anyone does. The best Perv's going to get is a polite fiction... |
The president responded with an emphatic ’No’ when a foreign correspondent asked him if he was prepared to hand over all the documentary evidence gathered against the scientists, allow a full and independent investigation into allegations of nuclear proliferation and bring Pakistan’s weapons programme under the supervision of the UN. He said Pakistan was a sovereign country and it would not allow any outsider to interfere in "matters that were truly ours, but if anyone from the IAEA comes here we will tell them everything."
| "... that we want them to know. |
He said no government, past or present, and no army chief, past or present, were involved in nuclear proliferation. He said the very nature of the programme was clandestine and, therefore, had to be kept secret even from intelligence agencies. He agreed with a suggestion that intelligence agencies should have investigated Dr Khan when he was spending left and right, "but then, that too had to be ignored because we were ourselves procuring material from the international black market." According to the president, only three persons - the president, the army chief and Dr Khan - were privy to the affairs relating to the nuclear programme between 1988 and 1999. Before that only Dr Khan and president Gen Zia ul-Haq knew what was happening at the KRL and later the then finance minister, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, was brought on board to look after the finances of the programme, he said.
| That's a recipe for feathering one's nest. That's probably why they brought in the finance guy — there probably wasn't enough left after the beaks were wet to actually buy the stuff... |
He said he as the director-general military operations had no idea what was happening at the KRL. However, when he took over as the army chief, he had immediately proposed the setting up of an organization to take over the custodial control of the programme, but the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, ignored the suggestion, he said. He was very harsh on some retired army generals whom he called ’military philosophers’ and ’pseudo-intellectuals’. He, however, absolved former army chiefs Gen Aslam Beg and Gen Jehangir Karamat of any wrongdoings in connection with nuclear proliferation. He said Pakistan was now an overt nuclear power and no pressure could make it give up this capability. He said Pakistan at the moment had 6,500 scientists to carry forward the programmes and there were 45,000 people working on various projects. He assured the nation that neither he nor the country was under any pressure from anywhere to give up the country’s nuclear programme, "we have the best of relations with all, the Europeans, Japan, the US, including now with India, and we are coming very close to the Russians as well."
| "Not as close as we were with Iran, Libya, and North Korea, of course, but we're working on it..." |
Asked if the world would pardon Dr Khan as he had done, the president said: "Leave it to me. I am standing between Dr Khan and the world community. Nothing will happen to him."
| "We're thinking of moving him to a safe place to protect him. By helicopter..." |
About Kashmir, he said he had not agreed to set aside the UN resolutions unilaterally and that he continued to recognize what was happening in the held Kashmir as freedom struggle and not terrorism. He said: "The world has not yet agreed on a universally accepted definition of terrorism."
| What we've got so far, though, includes random violence directed against civilians, to include tossing grenades at them and cutting their heads off... |
Referring to Dr Khan’s fate, he said he (the president) had to fulfil the international requirements and, at the same time, he had also to shield the doctor and "this was the minimum that I could have done to shield him." |