Tasmanian investigative reporter, Luke Ryland, has broken a news story that should shock the West to its core.
While it is hardly old news, intelligence officer Richard Barlow has revealed that certain senior US government members were aware of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, but kept it from Congress while they were contemplating a decision to sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan’s government at the time.
In a series of interviews with RAW STORY conducted over several weeks, the onetime intelligence officer revealed new details about intelligence on Pakistan’s nuclear program—and efforts by the US to quash attempts to stop development. Barlow’s story also casts light on recent efforts by the current administration to keep information from Congress on Iraq and other matters.
US laws would have outlawed the sale of weaponry to any state violating the NPT. Interestingly, his boss at the time, the then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, had interests in General Dynamic (later to become Lockheed Martin on which board his wife sat) and fired Barlow when he raised objections.
“They had nuclear weapons at the time, and we knew they did,” Barlow remarks. “The evidence was unbelievable. I can’t go into it—but on a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of intelligence evidence, it was a 10 or 11. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Barlow asserts that in 1988 and 1989, Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush illegally certified that Pakistan was free of nuclear weapons in order to keep funds flowing.
Another canard this revelation lays to waste is the claim that the pressure on Iraq revelaed the AQ Kahn network of nuclear proliferation black marketing.
In the era of Ronald Reagan, intelligence officer Richard Barlow was an analyst for the CIA, monitoring Pakistan’s nuclear program. In 1989, he moved over to the Pentagon, where he worked for then-Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney. Barlow lost that job when he raised objections to his bosses about senior Pentagon officials allegedly lying to Congress concerning Pakistan’s emerging nuclear program.
In a series of interviews with RAW STORY conducted over several weeks, the onetime intelligence officer revealed new details about intelligence on Pakistan’s nuclear program—and efforts by the US to quash attempts to stop development. Barlow’s story also casts light on recent efforts by the current administration to keep information from Congress on Iraq and other matters.
In 1975, Pakistani scientist AQ Khan “acquired” nuclear blueprints from his Dutch employer and was immediately put in charge of Pakistan’s nuclear program. In 1988, Pakistan would detonate its first atomic bomb.
Former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers has said that the CIA was monitoring Khan from the beginning. He asserts that the US turned down offers to detain Khan in 1975 and 1986 because they wanted to “gain more information” about the scientist’s activities.
In essence, the US has known about the illegal nuclear weapons black market since 1975 and done nothing about it. In fact, Ryland, revealed a few months ago that nuclear weapons parts (including detonators) were being sold on the black market by a New Jersey based company.
While the Bush and Olmert government are manufacturing hysteria over Iran’s non existent nuclear weapons program , the US is complicit in enabling very real dangers.
More on Ryland in a future blog.