Ex-CIA officer Richard Barlow says the Reagan admin intentionally ignored Pakistan’s 1980s nuclear arms development. It prioritized aiding Afghan mujahideen against Soviets, with top officials misleading Congress despite clear intelligence.
A ‘Policy Issue,’ Not an ‘Intelligence Failure’
“We had quite a bit of intelligence about Pakistan’s nuclear program. Then the Directorate of Intelligence, which is primarily analytical. And we had huge quantities of intelligence about cons networks and the PAC networks. The problem is that nobody was taking action in our government. Both I and my entire chain of command in the directorate of intelligence were very concerned that a country like Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons could pose a very serious threat to US and Western international security. The problem we had was that the Directorate of Operations was in the middle of the first Afghan war, fighting the Soviets with the Mujahideen. They wouldn’t take action against the Pakistani networks. They just weren’t interested,” Barlow said.
According to Barlow, the then-US President Ronald Reagan administration prioritised its Afghan strategy over non-proliferation efforts. He cited former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1980 memo, which stated that, “we cannot let our proliferation policy dictate our foreign policy.” He was the national security adviser in the administration of US President Jimmy Carter, who served as the 39th President from 1977 to 1981.
He said, “Zbigniew Brzezinski is the one who really started this mess, you know, in my opinion. He wrote a very famous memo back around 1980. There was no lack of intelligence. This was not an intelligence failure. This was a policy issue here where the problems arose.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” Barlow said. “The Cold Warriors were in charge. Fighting the Soviets was the number one priority. They were completely clueless as to the threat of Islamism that a country like Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons could pose. They looked at everything through the Cold War Soviet lens.”
Compromised Undercover Operation
Barlow further detailed a 1987 undercover operation against Pakistani agent Arshad Pervez, who attempted to buy 25 tons of maraging steel, critical for uranium enrichment, from a US company. The operation, run jointly by the CIA and US Customs, exposed links to retired Brigadier General Inam-ul-Haq, a known procurement agent for both Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).
“A Pakistani by the name of Arshad Pervez, who lived in Canada, had contacted a U.S. steel company seeking very large quantities, about 25 metric tons of maraging 350 steel. He was being run by a retired Pakistani general named Inam ul Haq and he was supposed to show up in Pennsylvania at the steel company. But some people in the State Department had tipped off the Pakistani government to this arrest warrant.”
However, Barlow said the operation was compromised when senior US State Department officials, including Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Peck, allegedly tipped off Pakistan about Haq’s pending arrest. “I was ballistic. These were people in my own government, the enemy within,” Barlow recalled.
Congressional Outrage and Legal Loopholes
The arrest of Arshad Pervez led to outrage in the US Congress. Lawmakers like Representative Stephen Solarz and Senator Larry Pressler demanded the suspension of all aid to Pakistan under the Solarz and Pressler Amendments, which barred assistance to countries pursuing nuclear weapons through illegal means.
Despite clear violations, Barlow stated that the White House and the State Department found legal loopholes to continue providing aid to Pakistan. “I would agree that there was a time by 86, 87, where most of us believed that Pakistan had manufactured all the parts of a nuclear weapon. The lawyers were looking for every way around this,” he said.
Internal Conflict and Congressional Testimony
Barlow maintained that his counterproliferation efforts had approval from the top levels of the US government, including the White House, the Secretary of Defence, and the CIA Director. Yet, political decisions ensured that Pakistan was not penalised. “There’s no way I could have pulled this off without top-level approval. But despite knowing everything, they still didn’t call out Pakistan,” he said.
Barlow later testified before Congress alongside National Intelligence Officer David Einsel, who, he claimed, had close ties with the White House and was instructed not to jeopardise US aid to the Afghan Mujahideen. “There were grave concerns that Einsel was not being truthful with Congress about Pakistan’s nuclear activities,” Barlow said. His testimony led to tensions within the intelligence community and exposed the deep divide between the CIA’s analytical divisions and political leadership over how to handle Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions. (ANI)
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)