Pakistan and the True WMD Threat

If it had been even a primitive nuclear weapon that hit the World Trade Center three years ago, hundreds of thousands of people would have died instead of fewer than 3,000, and the free society we enjoy almost certainly would have been a casualty as well. In the shock of that moment, the administration probably would have created a national network of detention camps for suspected terrorists, and military retaliation might have included the launch of nuclear missiles with the capability of killing millions. All of which is exactly why it was so terrifying to read in an investigative article in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday that our "allies" in Pakistan, who have done so much to spread nuclear weapons technology in recent years, are still capable of doing so.

"Senior investigators said they were especially worried that dangerous elements of the illicit network of manufacturers and suppliers would remain undetected and capable of resuming operations once international pressures eased," The Times reported. The article dissected the inability of investigators worldwide to fully penetrate the illicit nuclear weapons bazaar, which was run until last year by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Khan is currently under the protection of Pakistan's military dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, the same man who pardoned Khan and refuses to allow foreign investigators to speak with him. Yet it was Musharraf whom President Bush spent the weekend praising and accommodating.

As The Times article made clear, what "officials call the world's worst case of nuclear proliferation" -- in which sophisticated nuclear technology was supplied to Libya, Iran and other rogue nations -- never would have been possible without the support of the Pakistani military. This is the same complex and powerful organization that made Pakistan a dictatorship in a 1999 coup by Musharraf. Yet within two years of this coup, Bush dropped U.S. sanctions against Pakistan, showing clear disregard for international nonproliferation restraints. The rationale then and now was Pakistan's alleged support in the "war on terrorism" after 9/11.

And despite the exposure of the Khan black market ring, nothing has changed: In a White House meeting Friday, Bush honored Musharraf -- who since seizing power has purged his country's Supreme Court and rewritten its constitution -- as a "courageous leader."