10-19-2006, 01:41 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>AQ Khan/[Paki Army]-kind of work global crime: Carnegie forum expert </b>
Pioneer.com
Arun Kumar | Washington
A top US expert has suggested international criminalisation of the kind of activities indulged in by AQ Khan to give Pakistan its atomic bomb as a handle to solve the proliferation problem.
While Libya's dramatic exposure of the dangers and scope of Khan's infamous network in 2003 forced a reluctant Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to take him out of commission, the basic dilemmas raised by Pakistan remain relevant for Iran and other future flashpoints, George Perkovich, vice-president for studies of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said late on Tuesday.
"Is combating proliferation more important than hunting terrorists or promoting regime change? If bombing, invading or sanctioning a country - whether Pakistan or Iran - cannot solve the proliferation problem, what levers can compel changes in nuclear policy?" asked the author of India's Nuclear Bomb in a book review in the Washington Post.
"International criminalisation of activities described so cogently by Corera certainly wouldn't hurt," Perkovich himself answered in reviewing BBC journalist Gordon Corera's new book, Shopping for Bombs - Nuclear Prolif-eration, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network.
The book offers a fascinating, detailed account of how Libya surprised the world with its undetected nuclear acquisitions and how the US and UK secretly persuaded Libya leader Gaddafi to verifiably give them up.
<b>That proved to be a major turning point for Khan. Washington and London had started getting detailed intelligence on the surprising extent of his network's activities in 2000.</b>
But before taking action against it, US and British intelligence agencies wanted to learn more "to be sure that all the tentacles were under surveillance. Otherwise they could simply go underground and emerge soon after in a new-and unknown-form." (IANS)
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Pioneer.com
Arun Kumar | Washington
A top US expert has suggested international criminalisation of the kind of activities indulged in by AQ Khan to give Pakistan its atomic bomb as a handle to solve the proliferation problem.
While Libya's dramatic exposure of the dangers and scope of Khan's infamous network in 2003 forced a reluctant Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to take him out of commission, the basic dilemmas raised by Pakistan remain relevant for Iran and other future flashpoints, George Perkovich, vice-president for studies of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said late on Tuesday.
"Is combating proliferation more important than hunting terrorists or promoting regime change? If bombing, invading or sanctioning a country - whether Pakistan or Iran - cannot solve the proliferation problem, what levers can compel changes in nuclear policy?" asked the author of India's Nuclear Bomb in a book review in the Washington Post.
"International criminalisation of activities described so cogently by Corera certainly wouldn't hurt," Perkovich himself answered in reviewing BBC journalist Gordon Corera's new book, Shopping for Bombs - Nuclear Prolif-eration, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network.
The book offers a fascinating, detailed account of how Libya surprised the world with its undetected nuclear acquisitions and how the US and UK secretly persuaded Libya leader Gaddafi to verifiably give them up.
<b>That proved to be a major turning point for Khan. Washington and London had started getting detailed intelligence on the surprising extent of his network's activities in 2000.</b>
But before taking action against it, US and British intelligence agencies wanted to learn more "to be sure that all the tentacles were under surveillance. Otherwise they could simply go underground and emerge soon after in a new-and unknown-form." (IANS)
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