[PatrickHenry]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/in...ia/26nuke.html
Or truthout: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122704F.shtml

Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, went to Pakistan soon after the Sept. 11 attacks and raised concerns about Dr. Khan, some of whose scientists were said to have met with Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda's leader. But Mr. Hadley did not ask General Musharraf to take action, according to a senior administration official. He returned to Washington complaining that it was unclear whether the Khan Laboratories were operating with the complicity of the Pakistani military, or were controlled by freelancers, motivated by visions of profit or of spreading the bomb to Islamic nations. The Pakistanis insisted they had no evidence of any proliferation at all, a claim American officials said they found laughable. As evidence grew in 2003, Mr. Bush sent Mr. Tenet to New York to meet with General Musharraf. "We were afraid Khan's operation was entering a new, more dangerous phase," said one top official. Still there was little action. But in late October 2003, the United States and its allies seized the BBC China, a freighter bearing centrifuge parts made in Malaysia, along with other products of Dr. Khan's network, all bound for Libya. Confronted with the evidence, Libya finally agreed to surrender all of its nuclear program. Within weeks, tons of equipment was being dismantled and flown to the Energy Department's nuclear weapons lab at Oak Ridge, Tenn. Pressures mounted on General Musharraf. "I said to him, 'We know so much about this that we're going to go public with it,' " Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told journalists last week. " 'And you need to deal with this before you have to deal with it publicly.' " On television, Dr. Khan was forced to confess but he gave no specifics, and General Musharraf pardoned the scientist. American officials pressed to interview him and his chief lieutenant, Mr. Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman living in Dubai and Malaysia, who was eventually arrested by Malaysian authorities. But the Pakistanis balked, insisting that they would pass questions to Dr. Khan and report back. Little information has been conveyed. "Some questions simply were never answered," said one senior intelligence official. "In other cases, you don't know if you were getting Khan's answer, or the answer the government wanted you to hear." Dr. Khan's silence has extended to the question of what countries, other than Libya, received the bomb design. Intelligence experts say they have no evidence any other nation received the design, although they suspect Iran and perhaps North Korea. But that search has been hampered by lack of hard intelligence. "We strongly believe Iran did," said one American official. "But we need the proof." Dr. Khan has also never discussed his ties with North Korea, a critical issue because the United States has alleged - but cannot prove - that North Korea has two nuclear arms programs, one using Khan technology. "It is an unbelievable story, how this administration has given Pakistan a pass on the single worst case of proliferation in the past half century," said Jack Pritchard, who worked for President Clinton and served as the State Department's special envoy to North Korea until he quit last year, partly in protest over Mr. Bush's Korea policy. "We've given them a pass because of Musharraf's agreement to fight terrorism, and now there is some suggestion that the hunt for Osama is waning. And what have we learned from Khan? Nothing."

Anybody think the Bush Administration is serious about non-proliferation? If they were willing to cite hoaxed material about Iraqi attempts for uranium, but unwilling to get tough with Pakistan, what does that say? Maybe that WMD were never the real focus when planning to sieze Iraq?