Washington Post Omits Fact That Saddam's Nuke Salesman Was Protected By U.S. Government Paul Joseph Watson The Washington Post has completely whitewashed new revelations concerning how close Saddam Hussein came to obtaining a nuclear bomb by failing to mention the fact that the provider, Khan Research Laboratories, was shielded from investigation by the U.S. government for decades. "As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear "package" deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector," reports the Post today. "The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years." However, the report completely fails to even mention the fact that Khan Research Laboratories, the source from which Saddam would have procured a nuclear bomb, was protected from investigation by the U.S. government since at least the mid-1970's, as investigative journalist Greg Palast exposed in a 2001 BBC report. In 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb program, admitted sharing nuclear technology via a worldwide smuggling network that included facilities in Malaysia that manufactured key parts for centrifuges. Khan’s collaborator B.S.A. Tahir ran a front company out of Dubai that shipped centrifuge components to North Korea. Despite Dutch authorities being deeply suspicious of Khan’s activities as far back as 1975, the CIA prevented them from arresting him on two occasions. “The man was followed for almost ten years and obviously he was a serious problem. But again I was told that the secret services could handle it more effectively,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said. “The Hague did not have the final say in the matter. Washington did.” Lubbers stated that Khan was allowed to slip in and out of the Netherlands with the blessing of the CIA, eventually allowing him to become the “primary salesman of an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how,” according to George W. Bush himself, and sell nuclear secrets that allowed North Korea to build nuclear bombs. (ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW) “Lubbers suspects that Washington allowed Khan’s activities because Pakistan was a key ally in the fight against the Soviets,” reports CFP. “At the time, the US government funded and armed mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden. They were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Anwar Iqbal, Washington correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told ISN Security Watch that Lubbers’ assertions may be correct. “This was part of a long-term foolish strategy. The US knew Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but couldn’t care less because it was not going to be used against them. It was a deterrent against India and possibly the Soviets.” In September 2005 it emerged that the Amsterdam court which sentenced Khan to four years imprisonment in 1983 had lost the legal files pertaining to the case. The court’s vice-president, Judge Anita Leeser, accused the CIA of stealing the files. “Something is not right, we just don’t lose things like that,” she told Dutch news show NOVA. “I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of.” In 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea. Having armed once branch of the "axis of evil," it's no surprise that Khan was also used in an attempt to arm Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons, opening up another perfect justification for Iraq to subsequently be invaded and occupied by U.S. forces. Although the 2003 invasion was sold on the lie that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction which proved to be non-existent, it wasn't for the want of trying, since efforts to arm Saddam with nuclear weapons via the Khan network were a mere continuation of the U.S. government's program to provide Saddam with chemical and biological weapons, tools used to commit atrocities that were later cited by the U.S. as one of the primary reasons for the attack. Of course, since the Washington Post is a mouthpiece for the new world order and the Bilderberg Group that owns it, in covering the Khan-Saddam connection writer Joby Warrick knows that his bosses wouldn't be pleased if he actually gave you more than half the story, which is why his article amounts to nothing more than a misleading whitewash. As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear "package" deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector. The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years. But Iraq lost the chance to capitalize when, months later, a multinational force crushed the Iraqi army and forced Hussein to abandon his nuclear ambitions, according to nuclear weapons expert David Albright, who describes the proposed deal in a new book. Iraqi officials at the time appear to have taken the offer seriously and asked the Pakistanis for sample drawings as proof of their ability to deliver, the documents show. "With the assurance of [Iraqi intelligence agency] Mukhabarat . . . the offer is not a sting operation," an Iraqi official scrawls in ink in the margin of one of the papers. Khan's alleged interest in selling nuclear secrets to Hussein has been reported in numerous books and news articles. An internal Mukhabarat memo that surfaced in the late 1990s discussed a secret proposal by one of Khan's agents to sell a nuclear weapons design for an advance payment of $5 million. But the newly uncovered documents suggest that Khan's offer of nuclear assistance was more comprehensive than previously known. A 1990 letter attributed to a Khan business associate offered Iraq a chance to leap past technical hurdles to acquire weapons capability. "Pakistan had to spend a period of 10 years and an amount of 300 million U.S. dollars to get it," begins one of the memos. "Now, with the practical experience and worldwide contacts Pakistan has developed, you could have A.B. in about three years' time and by spending about $150 million." "A.B." was understood to mean "atomic bomb," Albright wrote in "Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies," released this week.At the time of the 1990 offer, Iraq was embarked in a crash program to develop nuclear weapons in the face of a threatened U.S.-led attack over its occupation of Kuwait. By that date, Iraqi scientists had acquired a limited amount of weapons-grade enriched uranium but lacked several key components, including a workable design for a small nuclear warhead. Fears that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program helped propel the United States into a second war with Iraq in 2003, though a U.S. review later determined that Hussein was never able to mount a serious bid for the bomb after 1991. Aid from the Pakistani scientist could have accelerated Iraq's quest for a weapon if the Iraqi leader had not run out of time, writes Albright, a former U.N. inspector who now heads the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security. One memo cited in the book promised to provide "all the vital components and materials" needed to make fissile material, and added that "two to three Pakistani scientists could be persuaded to resign and join the new assignment" in Iraq. Copies of the original Arabic documents -- several with handwritten comments in the margins -- were shown to The Washington Post. The alleged nuclear offer to Iraq is broadly similar to proposals Khan reportedly made to Libya and Iran during the 1980s and 1990s. Khan, who is celebrated in his country as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, was placed under house arrest in 2004 after he acknowledged his role in an international smuggling ring for nuclear technology. Pakistan says Khan acted alone in seeking to sell his country's nuclear secrets. But Khan, in a series of memos and letters obtained by The Post, says he carried out the instructions of senior government and military officials. In his book, Albright argues that Khan could have been stopped if governments and private businesses had been more willing to share intelligence. He cites results of a secret Dutch investigation into Khan's activities in that country in the 1970s, a probe that confirmed Khan's theft of sensitive nuclear blueprints, yet failed to result in a broader inquiry of a serious security breach. "One of the very few early opportunities to stop him was lost," he writes.
Whitewash fails to mention that deal to build nuclear bomb was offered by the Bush administration's favorite peddler of weapons of mass destruction
Propaganda Matrix
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Saddam Hussein weighed nuclear 'package' deal in 1990, documents show
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Iraq President Saddam Hussein, who was later executed, had sought the purchase of a $150 million nuclear "package" deal in 1990. (Darko Bandic/associated Press)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
By Joby Warrick
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