The Pakistani Spectator

Washington, D.C. “Every Nuclear Expert we met says there is going to be nuclear terrorist attack in the States, but no one knows when”, says Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, the authors of new book named The Nuclear Jihadist. Addressing over several dozen people at the Politics and Pros book store, Frantz said he does not ascribe to Islam being seen as a dangerous religion and, as a matter of fact, one of his brother-in laws is a Muslim.

Apparently, Frantz and Collins don’t seem to have the intense kind of bias against Muslim which is very common among some mainstream journalists in Washington. However, the topic of the book and some of the content in it attracts the kind of crowd who love to listen and spread the fear of an exploding Islamic bomb in the heart of Washington, New York, or London.

To her fairness to Islam, Collins said that the term Islamic bomb is overused. The authors kind of objected to this term by saying since people don’t use terms like Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist bomb, why should they use the term Islamic bomb?

Talking about the recently-released movie named Charlie Wilson’s War, the authors said the movie romanticized the Afghan Jihad against USSR, especially because U.S paid very high price for supporting Mujaheddin against Russians in Afghanistan. According to Frantz, the Sep. 11’s jets crashing into the World Trade Center and Pentagon was part of that cost.

On the one hand, the authors criticized the CIA’s laziness by saying it had recruited a mole in Khan’s network and inner-most circle, but the agency didn’t act against the network in a timely fashion.

Then they justified the CIA’s hesitation by saying that the U.S. acquiesce toward Pakistan’s nuclear advancement was a bipartisan mistake, which means both Democrats and Republicans didn’t want to take any serious and particular action against Pakistan.

It’s a known fact that Pakistan made its most aggressive efforts to gain its nuclear technology during General Zia Ul-Haq regime. According to the authors, Reagan administration didn’t want to irritate General Zia, because he was very instrumental giving the Russians a bloody nose in Afghanistan, thus making Russian Vietnam in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, the authors said, in 1979 the U.S. lost its moral authority of preventing Pakistan from developing nuclear bomb by not going after India when she tested the nuclear bomb.

The authors said that Khan took the advantage of President Reagan’s obsession of defeating Russians and sold nuclear technology to many states unfavored by the States, including North Korea, Libya, and Iran. Some members of Pakistani establishment were aware of Khan’s nuclear link with Iran, but they didn’t want to provoke pro-Iranian lobby in Pakistan by exposing Khan’s link with Iran.

Before getting into nuclear Wal Mart business, Dr. A. Q. Khan used to be a relatively poor man, but now– besides owning seven houses in Islamabad and two in England– he has huge financial assets. He had hired several journalists to lobby on his behalf without making the hiring process public.

In 1947 while migrating from India to Pakistan as an 11 year old boy, Dr. Khan observed the massacre of Muslims, which had long term traumatic effects on his psychology. It was partially his insecurity that resulted from his migration observation that made Dr. Khan determined to have formidable defense of Pakistan against India, which developed a nuclear bomb to counter China.

The authors revealed that in 1999 after the creation of National Accountability Bureau (NAB,) General Mohammad Amjad was supposed to investigate Dr. A.Q. Khan’s nuclear business activities, but after looking into the extent of Dr. Khan’s business, General Amjad realized Khan’s illegal business was too strong and too extended internationally and NAB was too new and too weak to go after Dr. Khan.

According to the authors, having made several misleading changes in the book Islamic Bomb, the ISI distributed thousands of its copies among the libraries around the world. Even today, most people don’t know the corruption in the books made by the Pakistani agency.

Responding to a question to a Pakistan-American, named Ubaid Khan, about much harsher American scrutiny of Pakistan compared to that of India, Frantz said that comparing to the Pakistani bomb the Indian bomb is very indigenous and U.S. and other Western country didn’t have much power in India.

Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries because it has between 52 to 100 nuclear bombs and it has some Islamic fundamentalists who want to control the country, and the country has becomes closer to chaos after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the authors claimed.

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