Hi,
After the 2002 scenario Musharraf stated that pak had no delievery system in place for the nukes---and that is on record---a big surprise to everyone---the nuke would have been buried under dirt enroute of advancing indian army---or on a flat bed of a truck.
His statement can be found. That was seemingly one of the biggest bluffs that pak played on the world.
The pressler amendment had been presented to the president Reagan many a times---pushed hard by the indian lobby congressman Steven Solariz was with Pressler and was firmly behind this issue---everyone remembers Pressler---but no one knows Steven Solariz---the real poison---in control by the indian lobby and openly working for the indian lobby.
Any way---when the amendment would came to Reagan---he would ask---does pakistan has anything that says atom bomb on the side----the reply would be no----the amendment would be squashed---Reagan had enough political clout to take out any challenge from any senator or congresssman---when Bush came into power---he was cornered---he didnot have the same savy as that of Reagan---got cornered and had to sign.
Paks knew the sanctions were coming---but didnot want to believe it---fatalism.
About the A Q Khan issue---Pak got cocky after 9/11and forgot what india was feeling about this new found relation of U S and pak---india was left down---but incidently not out.
If pak could have understood this loneliness of india after 9/11 and taken care of the business properly and handled itself better and acted upon the issues pro-actively---A Q Khan would have been a dead issue---.
Strategically pakistan failed one more time in analysing the situation properly---playing america for a fool---in the earlly years of the war---trying to milk america for weapons systems and trade---pakistan went for the deception---fake millitary / frontier corps strikes against the al qaeda----two days war and twenty day peace---letting the terrorists escape----pak millitary generals making a piece meal out of their soldiers and oficers---playing games over the slaughtered bodies of their soldiers---.
What a price to pay for pakistan----if they would have understood the game right from day one and done their job that they chose to---pakistan would have been in a totally different position than where it is today---.
Lesson learnt if there is any---do not sell your enemy short---dodnot take india for granted---if you agree to---then do the bidding with a 110% efficiency.
You have no idea how political games work. The type of statement by Musharraf you are referring too was a political statement and was mean't to cool down things and distract attention. The reality is the Pakistan had a device ready in 1987 but its existence was not announced until 1998. Following is an section written on Pakistan nuclear program based on publically available information. It was published in Defence Journal in 2004. Since then lot of water as flowed under the brideg. It clearly states that a deliverable device was ready before 1990. I know for a fact that PAF A5s were practising toss bombing techniques for nuclear weapons delivery way back in the 80s. By 2002, the year you quote we had even developed missile delvery capability.
Problem with you is that you have very little knowledge on the subject you pretend to be an expert on. I suggest you should be a little more humble and stop pretending.
"Preparing to Build the Bomb
Pakistani work on weapon design began even before the start of work on uranium enrichment, under the auspices of the PAEC. Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC called a meeting, in March, 1974, to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Among those attending the meeting were Hafeez Qureshi, head of the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at PINSTECH (later to become Member Technical, PAEC), Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC. The PAEC Chairman informed Qureshi that he was to work on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO). The word bomb was never used in the meeting but Qureshi exactly understood the objective. Their task would be to develop the design of a weapon implosion system. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), in the North West Frontier Province and conveniently close to Islamabad.
The work at Wah began under the undescriptive codename Research and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as The Wah Group. Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosive lenses to be used in the nuclear device. This expanded, however to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering of the system and the triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment where it could and developed its own technology where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment.
The first preparations for eventual nuclear tests also started early - in 1976. Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, and Member (Technical) and Dr. Samar Mubarak of the PAEC were dispatched to Balochistan to conduct helicopter reconnaissance of potential test sites with the assistance of the army 5 Corps located at Quetta. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khuzdar in the south and Naukundi-Kharan in the east.
The PAEC requirement was for a mountain with a completely dry interior capable of withstanding an internal 20 kt nuclear explosion. A likely site was found in the form of a several hundred-metre tall granite mountain Koh Kambaran in the Ras Koh range (also referred to as the Ras Koh Hills). The Ras Koh in the Chagai Division of Balochistan rise at their highest point to 3009 metres. After a one-year survey of the site, completed in 1977, plans were finalized for driving a horizontal tunnel under Koh Kambaran for a future test. (Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who had provided support to the PAEC survey team, was tasked by (now) President Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 with creating and leading the Special Development Works (SDW), which was entrusted, with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites. The SDW was formally subordinate to the PAEC but directly reported to the Chief of the Army Staff. Meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and Zia-ul-Haq led to the decision to prepare a second site for a horizontal shaft. The site selected was located at Kharan, in a desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public.
The Wah Group had a weapon design - an implosion system using the powerful but sensitive HMX as the principal explosive - ready for testing in 1983. The first cold test of a weapon (i.e. a test of the implosion using inert natural uranium instead of highly enriched uranium) took place on March 11, 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed of the PAEC. This test was conducted in tunnels bored in the Kirana Hills near Sargodha, home of the Pakistan Air Force's main air base and the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD).
The Kirana Hills test tunnels were reportedly bored by the SDW after the Chagai nuclear test sites, i.e. sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the tunnels had been sealed after construction to await tests. As Prior to the cold tests, an advance team opened and cleaned the tunnels.
After clearing the tunnels, a PAEC diagnostic team headed by Dr. Mubarakmand arrived on the scene with trailers fitted with computers and diagnostic equipment. This was followed by the arrival of the Wah Group with the nuclear device, in sub-assembly form. This was assembled and then placed inside the tunnel. A monitoring system was set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills.
One of the principal objectives of the test was to determine whether the neutron initiator (probably a polonium beryllium design similar to those used in the first US, USSR, UK, and Indian bombs) to reliably start a fission chain reaction in the real bomb. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscilloscopes were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables. At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscilloscopes confirmed that the neutrons had indeed been produced. A second cold test was undertaken soon afterwards which was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Lt. Gen. K.M. Arif and Munir Ahmed Khan.
Between 1983 and 1990, the Wah Group developed an air deliverable bomb and conducted more than 24 cold tests of nuclear devices with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100-150 feet (30-50 m) in length which were bored inside the Kirana Hills. Later due to excessive US intelligence and satellite attention on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and the cold test facility was shifted to the Kala-Chitta Range. The bomb was small enough to be carried under the wing of a fighter/bomber such as the F-16 which Pakistan had obtained from the US. The Wah Group worked alongside the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to evolve and perfect delivery techniques of the nuclear bomb using combat aircraft including conventional freefall, loft bombing, toss bombing and low-level laydown attack techniques, the latter requiring a sophisticated high speed parachute system. Today, the PAF has perfected all four techniques of nuclear weapons delivery using F-16, Mirage-V and A-5 combat aircraft."
This one is from a speech give my Dr Samar Mabarek Mund
For every country in the world, which produces this bomb, the first one is very large and very unwieldy and not suitable for deliverable weapons. So the miniaturization or the quantisation of the weapon, should we do it now or wait for a hot test? We went to the Government and said we are ready and we want to do a hot test. The then President said no, it is not the right time and so we had to abide by that decision.
We decided to keep on working on better and better designs and since 1983, over the last 15 years, I must really confess and congratulate the theoretical physicists at PAEC, lead by Dr. Masud, in that they designed one sample after the other. After every 18 months or 2 years or so, we would have a new design and would perform a cold test on that. The success rate in every cold test was 100 percent. Sometimes we started thinking that our diagnostic people are giving us positive results all the time. At least we should fail some time.
Maybe our electronics are faulty and giving us detected neutrons. Probably they are spurious counts but the success was so consistent that we started disbelieving our diagnostic people. Anyway, one design after the other kept coming out, we manufactured the bombs, tested them and were successful.
We came through a series of 4 or 5 designs and then we came up with a model, which we would say, and our generation of people in the PAEC would claim that is the state-of-the-art.
Pakistan Military Consortium :: www.PakDef.info
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