Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto personally smuggled nuclear information to North Korea in 1993, according to a new book by an author respected by proliferation experts, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, May 28).
The transfer of detailed information about uranium enrichment came as part of a trade for ballistic missile technology, badly wanted by Pakistani military leaders to balance Indian missile advantages, according to the book Goodbye, Shahzadi by Shyam Bhatia.
“Before leaving Islamabad she shopped for an overcoat with the 'deepest possible pockets' into which she transferred CDs containing the scientific data about uranium enrichment that the North Koreans wanted,” Bhatia says in the book. “She implied with a glint in her eye that she had acted as a two-way courier, bringing North Korea's missile information on CDs back with her on the return journey.” (((Okay, now I want antiproliferation experts to explain how they plan to stop CDs in the jackets of heads of state.)))
Bhatia said Bhutto told him the story under promise that he not report it while she was alive. She was assassinated in Pakistan last December (see GSN, Jan. 2).
The story, she said, was “so significant that I had to promise never to reveal it, at least not during her lifetime,” Bhatia says in the book.
The Pakistani Embassy in Washington said there was “no iota of truth” in the “absurd and baseless claim.” (((Fellas, if your national government had even a little more dignity and if the Bhuttos, father and daughter, hadn't both died violently, I might believe this protestation. But the more you dig down, the more plausible this sounds. Of course she flew to Pyongyang with the Bomb in her overcoat. Nowadays she coulda stuffed it in a thumb drive.)))
However, the story “makes sense,” said nuclear expert David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security. Albright said the timing of the data transfer would correspond to other information suggesting North Korean interest in acquiring uranium enrichment technology.
Bhatia, the author of four earlier books including one on India’s nuclear history, received praise from two other nuclear experts.
“He is very smart, a serious guy, and the work he did on the Indian nuclear program has held up really well,” said George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The author is “credible on Bhutto,” added Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy. “He knew her very well and is a reputable Indian journalist” (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, June 1).
Meanwhile, U.S. officials dismissed statements by former Pakistani top nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan recanting his 2004 public confession to leading an international nuclear smuggling network. Khan has recently given interviews saying he delivered the confession under pressure from Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf (see GSN, May 30).
U.S. officials, however, did not accept the turnabout....
