Something extremely fishy is going on in the US-Pakistan negotiations.
The world press is reporting that when Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte visited with Pakistani President Musharraf Saturday, urging Musharraf to ease off the “state of emergency” and schedule elections under acceptable conditions, Musharraf responded with a threat. Essentially saying, “Nice world you’ve got there, be a shame if anything happened to it,” Musharraf told Negroponte that if the Pakistani Army lost control of the government, nukes could get loose.
This is being reported in The Times of India and the UK Telegraph, for example, as a harsh and decisive rebuke of US interference in Musharraf’s affairs.
However, there is something else going on. Just as word of this remarkable rebuke by Musharraf comes out, we read in The New York Times a new story. The United States, under a secret Bush plan, has been helping Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal for years, with a hidden-budget supply of security equipment.
The fishy thing is that the New York Times has been sitting on this story for three years, at the request of the White House. But we read this sentence in the New York Times story, now: “Early this week, the White House withdrew its request that publication be withheld, though it was unwilling to discuss details of the program.”
What is going on here?
Why would the White House release a hold on this secret information days before Musharraf’s “unexpected” threat to Negroponte that a non-military controlled Pakistan might be unable to secure its nukes?
Is the White House setting-up a reason, in concert with Musharraf, to sustain the state of emergency in Pakistan? Or, on the other hand, is this some sort of move and counter-move by two genuinely adversarial parties, with nuclear weapons as the game pieces?
I’ll run through the info.
First, the world press is initially reporting Negroponte’s visit to Pakistan and President Musharraf as a total failure. Times of India:
Musharraf thumbs his nose at US
17 Nov 2007, 2317 hrs IST,Chidanand Rajghatta,TNNWASHINGTON: The Bush administration has egg on its face after its long favoured military dictator Pervez Musharraf bluntly rejected its demand that he lift Emergency, and instead put the fear of “loose nukes” into Washington if the west pressed too hard.
Musharraf told Washington’s No.2 diplomat John Negroponte on Saturday that the Emergency is meant to reinforce and strengthen the law enforcement apparatus in the fight against militancy and extremism.
— snip —
The UK Telegraph:
Pervez Musharraf ‘protecting nuclear arsenal’
By Colin Freeman, Chief Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:25am GMT 18/11/2007Pakistan’s military ruler defended his iron grip over the country yesterday, saying it was the only way to prevent his nation’s nuclear arsenal from falling into “the wrong hands”.
As he sought to justify continuing the emergency rule that he declared two weeks ago, President Pervez Musharraf raised the nightmare spectre of Islamists getting hold of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
— snip —
This seems to be the common interpretation of Negroponte’s visit. Now, I don’t mean to say that this interpretation is available much in the US press. I haven’t looked extensively, but in the US press all I see is that Negroponte talked tough but got no concessions. No mention of the nuclear threat from Musharraf is made. For example, in a seperate New York Times story, we read, “A Western diplomat declined to provide details on the meeting but said it would take time to determine whether the American message had an impact. “In diplomacy, things don’t happen instantaneously,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He came with a very strong message and he delivered a very strong message.”
This is merely to be expected. The US press might report on Musharraf’s extravagent demonstration of his nuclear trump card in the face of US pressure, but then again the US press might not. Neither would be surprising.
What is very surprising is part two of the “2 and 2” I’m putting together, here.
On this same day, The New York Times runs a story they’ve been sitting on for three years, with White House approval.
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: November 18, 2007WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 – Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million so far on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.
But with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.
— snip —
The White House is feeding a lot of scary-scary to the New York Times, adding to the power of Musharraf’s threat. Details of the publication of this information are:
The New York Times has known details of the secret program for more than three years, based on interviews with a range of American officials and nuclear experts, some of whom were concerned that Pakistan’s arsenal remained vulnerable. The newspaper agreed to delay publication of the article after considering a request from the Bush administration, which argued that premature disclosure could hurt the effort to secure the weapons.
— snip —
The Times told the administration last week that it was reopening its examination of the program in light of those disclosures and the current instability in Pakistan. Early this week, the White House withdrew its request that publication be withheld, though it was unwilling to discuss details of the program.
The New York Times story is fairly long; I am still reading through it. But this coincidence of news events is amazing. Someone is playing a very troubling game of nuclear gotcha, here, and it’s not immediately clear who is playing with whom: the White House vs. Musharraf, or both, in collusion, against the world.
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The Big Orange.
of foreign policy I am guessing. A result of decades of swindling and arms deals.
Pakistani and U.S. covert operatives have been deeply intertwined since the Afghan war. Pakistan has been acting as a middle-man for the U.S. via ISI to “handle” Isalmist forces in conjuction with Saudi Arabia. You have and have had for decades an close association between ISI, Saudi Intelligence, elements of organized crime, “terrorist operatives” and all the usual characters that show up every now and then if there’s a scandal whether it’s BCCI, Iran-Contra or whatever. I’m not speculating on this, if I know anything at all I know this and it is no secret and has been widely reported in the media at one time or another. The alliance between these three countries, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia and the U.S. may be more intimate and interrelated than that between the U.S. and Israel though there is a Mossad factor in all of this but what that is I don’t know.
My point is, basically to avoid beating around the Bush, that the U.S. aided Pakistan in exchange for helping maintain, from an operational perspective, groups like the Taliban and Al-qaida. The U.S. cannot give up on Musharraf of his group because, frankly, they know too much and they may have been a lot clever at manipulating the situation than U.S. agents thought they would be.
9/11 is central to the imperialist wet dreams of the oligarchy. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, in my view, were involved with the operation and, at the very least, had knowledge of U.S. military exercise on that day. The three major actors in the drama are intimately linked and will stay together or go down together.
Clearly I can’t say this on Big Orange.
From Kurdistan to Iran to Pakistan, seemingly conflicting news stories from the WH continue to appear, but its all part of the same competition between the traditional FP establishment headed by Condi and Cheney’s Fourth Branch neo-con hardliners.
Cheney has a big stake in keeping Musharraff in power, so he sends Negroponte out to tell a scary tale of nuclear blackmail to weaken support for Musharraf’s ouster. Condi, who backs a Bhutto take over, then counters by releasing a calming secret report showing that the US knows exactly where the nukes are and how they are secured.
There is no coincidence in these stories. Instead its all part of the same pattern of bureaucratic infighting that typifies the schizophrenic Bush FP in these last days.