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When did Pakistan go nuclear?
Whether Pakistan had become an Atomic power before August 17, 1988 during the lives of Gen. Zia Ul Haq and the then ISI chief Gen. Akhtar Abdur Rahman is a crucial question that has long been debated in the international and national media. CIA's secret documents related to this question, recently declassified, indicate that Pakistan had acquired nuclear capability between 1986 and 1987.
In response to a request by the George Washington University's National Security Archive project, on December 18, 2012 CIA released a classified document 'The Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case: A Damage Assessment'. It has been reproduced by the press in the wake of recent Iran-Israel and Pakistan - India wars. The document contains previously classified information about Jonathan Jay Pollard's activities as an Israeli mole in the US intelligence system. One of the major tasks of Jonathan Pollard was to collect information about Pakistan's nuclear programme and plutonium reprocessing facility near Islamabad.
There are ten references to Pakistan and its nuclear facilities in the document. It shows that by the 1980s the Americans knew that Pakistan had a fairly advanced nuclear programme but Islamabad's support for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan prevented them from taking any serious action. In July 1982, the Reagan administration sent former CIA deputy director General Vernon Walters to meet Gen. Zia with US intelligence reports about 'an upswing of clandestine Pakistani efforts' to produce nuclear weapons.
Confronted with the evidence, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq restated earlier promises not to develop a nuclear weapon and made pledges to avoid specific nuclear 'firebreaks'.
In 1986, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director Kenneth Adelman also warned the White House that Pakistan was secretly enhancing its nuclear capability but top levels of the US government let relations with a friendly government supersede non-proliferation goals as long as there was no public controversy.
One document claims that the Reagan administration did not even want the Pakistanis to share information with them because they feared that the truth would have made it impossible for them to certify to the Congress that Pakistan was not developing nuclear weapons. And on that certification rode the continued flow of aid to assist the Afghanistan resistance, the document adds. In the spring of 1987, senior State Department officials wrote that Pakistani nuclear development activities were proceeding apace and that Gen. Zia was approaching a threshold which he cannot cross without blatantly violating his pledge not to embarrass the President.
Jonathan Jay Pollard had been passing this information to Israel, but the question arises why and for whom Israel was accumulating this information about Pakistan's Atomic programme. The US State Department documents, declassified some years ago, throw some light on the issue as they divulge that the US had warned Pakistan in 1984 that India was planning to attack its nuclear installations in a manner similar to the Israeli attack on Iraq's Osirak facility.
This information was conveyed to Gen. Zia in a confidential letter written by President Ronald Reagan delivered by Ambassador Hinton, US Ambassador in Islamabad. Reagan's fear was based on a CIA analysis which had noted in July 1984 that some sections of the Indian government viewed a Pakistani nuclear threat imminent.
The CIA analysis also noted that an Indian attack on Pakistani nuclear facilities would almost certainly prompt retaliatory strikes against Indian nuclear facilities and probably lead to a full scale war. The US also wanted Pakistan to restrict its uranium enrichment to a maximum of five per cent, a breach of which would trigger sanctions on Pakistan. Gen. Zia is said to have sent for Gen. Akhtar and they decided to beef up security.
In reply to Reagan's letter, Gen Zia did not mention his request to limit uranium enrichment. Instead, he flatly denied Pakistan having uranium enrichment capability. 'Pakistan has no intention whatsoever to manufacture or detonate a nuclear device,' the general told the American president. Given Pakistan's awareness and full capability to defend its nuclear facilities, and to retaliate as well, India did not dare attack.
A serious crisis between India and Pakistan erupted between November 1986 and March 1987 when India launched the largest-ever military exercise in the subcontinent called Operation Brass Tack. The exercise took place a few hundred miles from India-Pakistan border. With Indian troops amassed along the border, on February 21, 1987 a Pakistan Air Force jet landed at Delhi airport with the visitor none other than Pakistan's President Zia ul Haq.
The general had flown to Delhi on the pretext of watching a cricket match between Pakistan and India in Jaipur. In an article published by India Today, Behramnam, special adviser to Rajiv Gandhi, states: 'Before departure for Chennai, General Zia, while saying goodbye to Gandhi said, 'Mr. Rajiv, you want to attack Pakistan, do it. But keep in mind that this world will forget Halaku Khan and Changez Khan and will remember only Zia and Rajiv, because this will not be a conventional war but a nuclear war, as Pakistan is now an atomic power.'
The next day, Rajiv met Zia for dinner. They spoke briefly but with definite intention of reducing tensions at the border. They agreed that in the first phase, both countries would withdraw 80,000 troops from each side. To discuss the mechanics of further withdrawals, an Indian team would visit Pakistan and carry talks. If there were still any doubts in India's mind regarding Pakistan's full nuclear capability they were subsequently dismissed by Pakistan's leading scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. He was quoted as saying in March 1987, without mincing words that Pakistan had a nuclear bomb.
Having conveyed to India of Pakistan's nuclear capability, on March 29, 1987, while acknowledging Gen. Akhtar's role in the protection of Pakistan nuclear programme as well as his role in the covert war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Zia elevated him to the position of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), the highest-rank in the Pakistan Armed Forces at that time. After the takeover in 1977, Gen. Zia had placed Pakistan's nuclear programme under military control, disbanding the previous civilian directorate, and thereafter since June, 1979, when Gen. Akhtar got appointed as ISI chief, he was a key figure in the protection of Pakistan's nuclear assets.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
