PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Pakistan - backed by the US - may have drawn the line under its revered nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan's selling nuclear secrets and equipment to Iran, Libya and North Korea by pardoning him and moved on. But indications are that in doing so Pakistan may have compromised its atomic weapons programme.
Security sources claim it is "likely" that Washington's quiet acquiescence to President Pervez Musharraf accepting Khan's apology and forgiving him last week for leaking nuclear secrets may have stemmed from a deal that accepts US control over the country's atomic weapons.
Over the past decade the US has wanted Pakistan to freeze its uranium enrichment programme as a precursor to capping and eventually rolling back its nuclear weapons programme.
"We can only hope that the administration has cut a quiet deal to shut down Pakistan's network of nuclear spies and detain its participants," The New York Times declared at the weekend.
Alongside, NBC television has claimed that the US liaison committee of nuclear experts had been "working" secretly with Pakistan since 9/11 to prevent its atomic weapons falling into extremist or rogue hands.
The network claimed that the committee, meeting every two months, had spent millions of dollars to "safeguard" more than 40 atomic warheads that form the nucleus of the Pakistani arsenal. It was also reportedly helping Pakistan develop state of the art security, including secret authorisation codes for the weapons cache.
Security sources said these could be permissive action links (PALs) or coded devices attached to Pakistani nuclear warheads. The US had offered to install PALs soon after 9/11, but Islamabad had reportedly declined the proposal, fearing Washington would retain a crucial part of the code, effectively neutralising Islamabad's atomic independence.
But Pakistan denies abdicating control over its nuclear weapons programme. It has opposed all demands to allow outside inspection of its atomic facilities or to provide documents relating to the Khan episode to any foreign agency.
Mr Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, at the weekend said his country had to "safeguard" its nuclear and strategic interests, which were not open to inspection. Pakistan not being a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) also obviated outside inspections and interference, Mr Munir added.
The US has maintained an ambiguity over the scandal, with Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell expressing his "appreciation" in a telephone call to Gen Musharraf over the investigation into Khan's activities. Mr Powell said he planned to visit Pakistan soon.
But a host of questions about the Pakistani military's involvement in Khan's activities that surfaced throughout the two-month long investigation into the proliferation remain unanswered.
Leading Pakistani nuclear physicist and nuclear disarmament activist Mr Pervez Hoodbhoy asserts that the country's atomic weapons programme had "been squarely under army supervision". A multi-tiered security system headed by a lieutenant general surrounded the nuclear installations, with their personnel kept under the tightest possible control.
"Diplomatic immunity was insufficient to prevent a physical roughing up of the French ambassador to Pakistan some years ago when he journeyed to a point several miles from the Kahuta enrichment facility [near Islamabad]," Mr Hoodbhoy states. Even former prime minister Ms Benazir Bhutto claims that whilst in office, she would not receive clearance to visit the nuclear laboratories.
"In such an extreme security environment it would be amazing to miss the travel abroad of senior scientists, engineers and administrators, their meetings with foreign nationals and the transport and transfer of classified technical documents and components, if not whole centrifuges," Mr Hoodbhoy incredulously declared.