| Downloaded on October 22, 2001, from http://www.piads.com.pk/nuke.html. (This article was published in The Nation, Islamabad, on 28 May 2000). Where Mountains Move-III Rai Saleh Azam The Road to Chagai A meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) was convened on the morning of 15 May 1998 at the Prime Minister�s Secretariat, Islamabad to discuss the geo-political situation and strategic crisis arising out of the Indian nuclear tests. The meeting was chaired by the Prime Minister of Pakistan and attended by the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gohar Ayub Khan, the Minister of Finance & Economic Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, the Foreign Secretary, Shamshad Ahmed Khan and the three Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Air Force and Navy, namely General Jehangir Karamat, Air Chief Marshal Pervaiz Mehdi Qureshi and Admiral Fasih Bokhari respectively. Since Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed, Chairman of the PAEC, was on a visit to the United States and Canada the responsibility of giving a technical assessment of the Indian nuclear tests and Pakistan�s preparedness to give a matching response to India fell on the shoulders of Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, Member (Technical), PAEC. Dr. Mubarakmand was in charge of the PAEC�s Directorate of Technical Development (DTD), one of the most secretive organizations in the labyrinth of Pakistan�s nuclear infrastructure, the location of which is still unknown to the world and is one of Pakistan�s best kept secrets. Dr. Mubarakmand had supervised several cold tests since 1983 and was responsible for overseeing all of PAEC�s classified projects. Also, in attendance was Dr. A.Q. Khan, Director of the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Kahuta. There were two points on the DCC�s agenda: Firstly, whether or not Pakistan should carry out nuclear tests in order to respond to India�s nuclear tests? Secondly, if Pakistan does go ahead with the tests then which of the two organizations, PAEC or KRL, should carry out the tests? The discussions went on for a few hours and encompassed the financial, diplomatic, military, geo-political and national security concerns. Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz was the only person who opposed the tests on financial grounds due to the economic recession, the low foreign exchange reserves of the country and the effect of inevitable economic sanctions which would be imposed on Pakistan if it carried out the tests. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif neither opposed nor proposed the tests. The remainder spoke in favour of conducting the tests. While giving his technical assessment on behalf of the PAEC, Dr. Mubarakmand said that Pakistan had a modern state-of-the-art international seismic station near the capital, Islamabad, and also had seismic stations located all over Pakistan including at locations near the Pakistan-India border. He said that these seismic stations had recorded only one nuclear device at Pokhran on 11 May 1998 and not three as India was wrongfully claiming. He said that the remaining two, in all probability, had fizzled out, i.e. were failures. He also said that no thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb test was carried out by the Indians on either 11 or 13 May 1998 as none of the yields were big enough for such a test. In all likelihood, the Indians may have attempted a thermonuclear test, but it too had failed. Dr. Mubarakmand added that if it is decided that Pakistan should go ahead with nuclear tests of its own, then the PAEC is fully prepared and capable of carrying out the nuclear tests within 10 days. Dr. A.Q. Khan, speaking on behalf of KRL, also asserted that KRL was fully prepared and capable of carrying out nuclear tests within 10 days if the orders were given by the DCC. Dr. Khan reminded the DCC that it was KRL which had first enriched uranium, converted it into metal, machined it into semi spheres of metal, designed their own atomic bomb and carried out cold tests on their own. All this was achieved without any help from PAEC. He said that KRL was fully independent in the nuclear field. Dr. Khan went on to say that since it was KRL which first made inroads into the nuclear field, especially in uranium enrichment, for Pakistan, it should, therefore, be given the honour of carrying out Pakistan�s first nuclear tests. He added that KRL would feel let down if wasn�t conferred the privilege of doing so. Thus, both the PAEC and KRL were equal to the task. However, PAEC had two additional advantages over KRL. Firstly, it was PAEC which had constructed Pakistan�s two nuclear test sites at Chagai, Baluchistan. Secondly, PAEC had greater experience than KRL in conducting cold tests. The DCC meeting concluded without any resolution of the two agenda points. For the next part of the article, Click here. |