When news of Pakistan's clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations blueprints for building an atom bomb was uncovered last month, the world waited to see what type of punishment President Bush would bestow upon President Musharaff.
Bush let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was actually a cover-up designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it.
Bush administration had mountains of evidence on Pakistan's sales of nuclear technology and equipment to nations vilified by the U.S, but turned a blind eye to the threat and allowed it to happen.
In 1989, the first year nuclear secrets were on the black-market, Richard Barlow, an intelligence analyst working for the Pentagon prepared a shocking report for Cheney, who was then working as Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush administration: Pakistan built an atomic bomb and was selling its nuclear equipment to countries the U.S. said was sponsoring terrorism.
A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, a key ally in the CIA's efforts to support Afghan rebels fighting a pro-Soviet government. It also would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad.
Cheney dismissed Barlow's report because he desperately wanted to sell Pakistan the F-16 fighter planes. Several months later, a Pentagon official was told by Cheney to downplay Pakistan's nuclear capabilities when he testified on the threat before Congress. Barlow complained to his bosses at the Pentagon and was fired.
See entire story here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03082004.htmlI posted this on a forum inhabited by a few republican strong-mouths. We must stop preaching to the choir, and take the battle into the trenches. Republicans must become informed by all means.
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