Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 27. April
2012 / Time Line April 27, 2012
Version 3.0
26. April 2012, 28. April 2012
04/27/2012
Nye dokumenter sætter søgelyset på Reagan-æraen
spændinger over det tidlige pakistanske atomprogram /
New Documents Spotlight Reagan-era Tensions over Early Pakistani Nuclear
Program
Perceptions that General Zia Had "Lied" About Pakistani Nuclear
Activities Raised Conflicts with U.S. Afghanistan Priority
General Vernon Walters: Zia May Be "The Most Superb and Patriotic
Liar I Have Ever Met"
Reagan Administration Supported Sale of F-16s with Advanced Radar
Technology on Nonproliferation Grounds Despite CIA Warnings that
Pakistan Would Share it with China
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 377
- http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb377/
Washington, D.C., April 27, 2012 -- Tensions between the United
States and Pakistan rose through the 1980s over intelligence
reports that suggested to U.S. officials that Pakistani leader Zia
ul-Haq had repeatedly lied to them about his country's nuclear
program, according to recently declassified records obtained by the
National Security Archive. Zia's apparent mendacity posed an
immediate challenge to U.S. nonproliferation goals, but also
threatened the even higher priority of providing aid to Islamabad
and to the Mujahedin resistance fighting Soviet forces in
Afghanistan.
Concerned by the Pakistani nuclear program, in July 1982, the
Reagan administration sent former CIA deputy director General
Vernon Walters to meet secretly with Pakistani dictator General
Zia. U.S. intelligence had detected an upswing of clandestine
Pakistani efforts to procure nuclear weapons-related technology and
unwanted publicity could jeopardize U.S. government economic and
military aid to Pakistan, a key partner in the secret war against
Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
According to documents published today for the first time by the
National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation
International History Project, Walters told Zia that Washington had
"incontrovertible intelligence" that Pakistani representatives had
"transferred designs and specifications for nuclear weapons
components to purchasing agents in several countries for the
purpose of having these nuclear weapons components fabricated for
Pakistan."
Confronted with the evidence, Zia acknowledged that the information
"must be true," but then denied everything, leading Walters to
conclude that either Zia "did not know the facts" or was the "most
superb and patriotic liar I have ever met." While Zia restated
earlier promises not to develop a nuclear weapon and made pledges
to avoid specific nuclear "firebreaks," officials from Secretary of
State George Shultz on down would conclude time and time again,
that Zia was breaking his word.
In 1986, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) director
Kenneth Adelman wrote in a memorandum to the White House that Zia
"has lied to us again," and warned that failure to act would lead
the General to conclude that he can "lie to us with impunity."
While the Reagan administration was concerned about nuclear
proliferation, it gave a greater priority to securing aid to
Pakistan so it could support the Afghan anti-Soviet insurgency. The
White House and the State Department leadership hoped that building
a strong bilateral relationship would dissuade Pakistan from
building nuclear weapons.
Top levels of the U.S. government let relations with a friendly
government supersede nonproliferation goals as long as there was no
public controversy that could "embarrass" the President the
documents show. Indeed, Reagan administration officials feared that
if the Pakistanis had told them the "truth" about the purpose and
scope of their nuclear activities, it would have made it impossible
for the administration to certify to Congress that Pakistan was not
developing nuclear weapons. On that certification rode the
continued flow of aid to assist the Afghanistan resistance. For the
sake of that aid, senior Reagan administration officials gave
Pakistan much slack by obscuring its nuclear activities, but that
they wrote about lying and "breaking ... assurances" suggests that
lack of trust and confidence was an important element in the
U.S.-Pakistan relationship, as it is today.
Among the disclosures in today's publication:
- By the early summer of 1981, State Department intelligence
estimated that the Pakistanis were "probably capable of producing a
workable device at this time," although the Kahuta enrichment plant
was unlikely to produce enough fissile material for a test until
1983.
- A few months later, U.S. officials began to worry that India
might take preventive action against the Pakistani nuclear program,
especially because Pakistan was slated to acquire F-16
fighter-bombers from the U.S. That prospective sale troubled Indian
leaders because a nuclear Pakistan with advanced fighter bombers
would be a more formidable adversary.
- During the spring of 1982 U.S. diplomats and intelligence
collectors found that Pakistani agents were trying to acquire
"fabricated shapes" (metal hemispheres for producing nuclear
explosive devices) and other sensitive technology for a nuclear
program. Suggesting that Pakistan was starting to cross the line by
building a nuclear weapon, these discoveries contributed to the
decision to send former CIA deputy director Vernon Walters to meet
secretly with General Zia in July and October 1982.
- During Walters' October 1982 visit, Zia told him of his meeting
with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd who had told him that agents from an
unspecified country had attempted to sell him a nuclear device for
$250 million. Zia advised Fahd not to "touch the offer with a barge
pole."
- A controversial element in the F-16 sale was whether the U.S.
would comply with Pakistani requests that it include the same radar
system as the most advanced U.S. model. While top CIA officials
warned that the Pakistanis were likely to share the technology with
China, Secretary of State George Shultz and other officials
believed, ironically, that denying Pakistani requests would make
that country less responsive to U.S. nonproliferation goals.
- With Pakistan's efforts to acquire sensitive technology
continuing, in December 1982 Secretary of State Shultz warned
President Reagan of the "overwhelming evidence that Zia has been
breaking his assurances." He also expressed concern that Pakistan
would make sensitive nuclear technology available to "unstable Arab
countries."
- In June 1986 ACDA director Kenneth Adelman wrote that Zia has
"lied to us again" about violations of agreements not to produce
highly-enriched uranium above a five-percent level. If Washington
did not apply real pressure it would reinforce Zia's belief "that
he can lie to us with impunity."
- In the spring of 1987, senior State Department officials wrote
that Pakistani nuclear development activities were proceeding apace
and that General Zia was approaching a "threshold which he cannot
cross without blatantly violating his pledge not to embarrass the
President."
This is the third in a series of Electronic Briefing Books on
U.S. policy toward the Pakistani nuclear program. The first was on
the Carter administration's
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb333/index.htm policy; the
second was on the efforts to work with allies to prevent the export
of sensitive technology
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb352/index.htm to
Pakistan. The National Security Archive has filed numerous
declassification requests to U.S. government agencies on important
developments during the 1970s, 80s, and early 1990s, and as
significant material becomes declassified the Archive and the NPIHP
will update this series of EBBs.
04/27/2012
Crunching the Numbers on the Rate of Suicide Among Veterans
Posted by Matt Wood on April 27, 2012 in Epidemiology
In a recent column in the New York Times, Nick Kristof pointed out a startling statistic: for every American soldier killed in combat this year, 25 will commit suicide. A report from the Center for a New American Security says that from 2005 to 2010, service members took their own lives at a rate of one every 36 hours, and the Department of Veterans Affairs says that 18 veterans commit suicide every day.
Further analysis of this epidemic uncovers even more troublesome data. In a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health, a statistician from the University of Chicago Center for Health Statistics found that the youngest group of veterans, ages 17-24, were almost four times as likely to commit suicide than nonveterans...
04/27/2012
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