Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

128<strong>Nuclear</strong> <strong>Reset</strong>: Arms Reduction and Nonproliferationship between missile development in Pakistan and North Korea’smilitary nuclear program ever existed, 31 blaming the transfers of nucleartechnology to North Korea on the illegal activities of AbdulQadeer Khan.Pakistan was able to work on its nuclear weapons program byputting its domestic resources under great strain and simultaneouslycutting much of the government’s spending. Zulfikar Ali Bhuttofamously declared that “if India builds the bomb, we will eat grassor leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.” An importantrole in this was played by Abdul Qadeer Khan, who hadworked at URENCO, the European uranium consortium, between1972 and 1975 before returning to Pakistan to head an industrialscaleuranium enrichment project set up in the town of Kakuta (nearIslamabad) under the name of Project 706 (renamed Khan ResearchLaboratories in 1984). By 1987, Pakistan had acquired enoughhighly-enriched uranium to produce a nuclear device. At the endof the 1980s, Pakistan completed its final preparations for a nucleartest (according to some reports, China had given Pakistan the blueprintsfor a nuclear explosive device in 1983-1984.)Pakistan’s success in developing its nuclear technology raisedthe concerns of its chief strategic partner, the United States,where legislators had passed the Glenn Amendment (in 1976),Symington Amendment (in 1977), and Pressler Amendment(in 1985) to the Foreign Assistance Act (in 1994, these amendmentswere also applied to the Arms Export Control Act.) UnlikeIndia, Pakistan lacked the technological base necessary to developa nuclear program, so these amendments struck Pakistan hard (althoughin 1981, Pakistan was granted a six-year immunity fromthe Symington Amendment owing to its role in countering Sovietactivities in Afghanistan). Pakistan solved this problem by smugglingthe required components and nuclear materials into the country.Later, the network that Abdul Qadeer Khan had set up beganarranging the import of these components and materials intoIran, Libya, and North Korea. The heavy veil of secrecy and lackof transparency or any kind of public control over his operationsallowed Abdul Qadeer Khan to continue smuggling for many years,which brought in huge amounts of money. Pakistan’s top militaryofficers supposedly knew about these activities. It could not havebeen otherwise, given the military’s close supervision of the nuclearprogram. 32