‘Knew F-16s could deliver nukes’: Ex-CIA officer makes big claim on Pak

In a startling revelation, erstwhile CIA counterproliferation serviceman Richard Barlow has claimed that successive US Presidents continued to certify Pakistan arsenic a non-nuclear authorities until 1989 — adjacent though Washington’s ain quality showed that US-supplied F-16 combatant jets had been modified to present atomic weapons.Barlow, who tracked Pakistan’s clandestine atomic programme done the 1980s, said US officials were afloat alert of Islamabad’s atomic capabilities. “We knew that the F-16s were susceptible of delivering the Pakistani atomic weapons arsenic they existed astatine that time, without immoderate doubt. It’s a hard engineering question, period. It had been looked astatine by the engineers and the physicists, not by me. There was that. Yet the authorities went up with the sale,” Barlow said successful an interrogation with ANI.

He added that the Reagan and Bush administrations kept certifying that Pakistan did not person atomic weapons “all the mode done 1989,” adjacent arsenic CIA assessments contradicted those claims. “The President continued to certify that Pakistan did not person atomic weapons each the mode done 1989. Now, I mean, I tin archer you that astir of america successful the CIA are not comfy with that, to accidental the least. But we’re not elected officials,” Barlow said.

“All we tin bash is supply the elected officials and elder policymakers with the champion disposable quality information, which is accurate, and little them accordingly. What they bash aft that is not our place; we’re not successful power of that.”Barlow said the US quality assemblage had agelong concluded that Pakistan’s F-16 fleet could present atomic weapons, a uncovering aboriginal echoed successful writer Seymour Hersh’s 1993 nonfiction successful The New Yorker.

“You tin work each astir it successful Seymour Hersh’s nonfiction successful The New Yorker successful 1993. They saw the quality assemblage saw atomic weapons moving to aerial bases and being enactment connected F-16s, et cetera. You know, truthful the atomic weapons that Pakistan did not possess, according to the President of the United States, were really being stuck on,” Barlow said.The revelations hint backmost to the 1987 “Brass Tacks” crisis, erstwhile Pakistani idiosyncratic Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan openly hinted astatine a atomic deterrent amid heightened tensions with India.

Barlow noted that the US method experts had already verified Pakistan’s atomic capableness astatine that time.“To enactment it successful a nutshell, determination had been studies for years wrong the quality assemblage by experts, similar nationalist laboratories, etc. We knew each astir the Pakistani atomic weapons design, and we knew each astir the F-16s, arsenic you could imagine,” helium said.‘Benazir was chopped retired of the loop’According to Barlow, past Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had constricted power implicit Pakistan’s atomic program, which was efficaciously managed by General Mirza Aslam Beg and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

The US, helium said, lone confronted Islamabad implicit the contented aft the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan successful 1989.The US had kept the substance quiescent during the Afghan warfare to unafraid Pakistan’s practice against the Soviet Union — a Cold War precedence that overshadowed atomic proliferation concerns.Additionally, talking astir past India-Pakistan tensions, Barlow said that by 1990, tensions betwixt India and Pakistan implicit the atomic contented had reached alarming levels.

The situation was yet defused aft past Defense Secretary Robert Gates was sent to New Delhi and Islamabad by President George HW Bush.He added that the 1990 standoff was “far much dangerous” than much caller India-Pakistan flare-ups owed to mediocre bid structures and constricted communication. “There was a importantly greater accidental of miscalculation successful 1990 and miscommunication, among different issues. So I deliberation that was a acold much unsafe period,” helium said.A cover-up?Barlow besides discussed the Pressler Amendment, a 1985 US instrumentality requiring the President to certify annually that Pakistan did not person a atomic instrumentality to person subject aid.“After the 1990 atomic crisis, my bosses astatine the bureau refused to spell on with immoderate much certifications. Believe it oregon not, determination were inactive radical successful the US authorities who wanted to certify nether the Pressler Amendment,” helium said.

“They were having a corporate bosom onslaught due to the fact that they knew it was implicit — the aid, et cetera.”Barlow besides claimed that elder US State Department officials secretly tipped disconnected Islamabad astir an undercover American cognition successful the 1980s to apprehension a retired Pakistani wide progressive successful atomic smuggling. The associated CIA–Customs sting had targeted Pakistani cause Arshad Parvez, who was attempting to acquisition 25 metric tons of Maraging 350 alloy — a cardinal worldly for uranium enrichment — nether the absorption of Brigadier General Inam-ul-Haq.

“He was expected to amusement up successful Pennsylvania... but Haq didn’t amusement up. And I learned that immoderate radical successful the State Department had tipped disconnected the Pakistani authorities to this apprehension warrantBarlow said helium was furious upon learning that officials wrong his ain authorities had sabotaged the operation, describing his absorption arsenic “ballistic.” The revelation, helium said, pointed to however elements wrong Washington prioritized Pakistan’s practice successful the Afghan warfare implicit enforcing non-proliferation laws. “These were radical successful my ain government, the force within,” Barlow remarked, adding that specified interior compromises weakened US efforts to curb Pakistan’s atomic build-up during the 1980s.