Author: Editorial
Publication: The New York Times
Date: December 4, 2002
Few countries have improved their
standing in American eyes as dramatically as Pakistan has in the past two
years. Long shunned by Washington for its links to terrorism, its nuclear
weapons program and autocratic military rule, Pakistan became a valued
ally, mainly by abandoning its support of the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan
after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Now Pakistan's reputation
is threatened once again. American intelligence agencies have recently
confirmed that Islamabad provided indispensable help to North Korea's secret
nuclear weapons program. That program threatens 100,000 American troops
in Asia along with the people of Japan and South Korea.
Pakistan secretly developed nuclear
weapons in the 1980's and 90's, but lacked the longer-range missiles required
to threaten India's main cities and military bases with nuclear attack.
North Korea had such missiles, but it needed nuclear bomb-making technology
that could be easily concealed underground to prevent American satellite
detection.
Pakistan provided Pyongyang with
the perfect solution by sharing design plans of the uranium enrichment
technology it had stolen from the West and used in its own secret nuclear
program. In exchange, Pakistan got North Korean missile components, which
Pyongyang also ships to Iran, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Egypt.
Neither country has shown the least
hesitation about placing unconventional weapons in the hands of dangerous
dictators. Pakistan claims to have ended its exchanges with North Korea,
but the United States spotted a Pakistani plane picking up North Korean
missile parts as recently as last summer. The Bush administration has warned
Islamabad of unspecified "consequences" of this reckless traffic.
Pakistan's actions are not those
of a reliable partner. Washington must make plain to its leader, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, that continued behavior of this sort will not be tolerated.
