US must end ‘world’s most dangerous place’ Pakistan’s double game on terror: Book (Part-2)

January 8th, 2011 - 1:42 pm ICT by ANI  

Benazir Bhutto The US-Pakistan relationship has been a fraught one from the day the Central Asian nation broke free from British control to become an Islamic republic in 1947, the report said.

There are many examples of the double game that Pakistan has played with its US ally, it added, noting that in 1993, Pakistan’s Western-educated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto helped North Korea make major advances in its nuclear program.

Riedel’s book describes how she shared the secrets that helped the North Koreans develop a uranium enrichment program and, ultimately, a nuclear weapon.

“She carried back and forth information about nuclear centrifuges from North Korea to Pakistan and other information. Whether she carried a nuclear weapons design, I don’t think that has been substantiated one way or another,” said Riedel, who led a White House strategy review on Pakistan for Obama in 2009.

“It’s very ironic: Mrs. Bhutto was probably the most secular, pro-Western Pakistani politician of our lifetime and yet she was also involved in the nuclear trade with North Korea. And she was one of the early sponsors of the Afghan Taliban.”

The report cited another example of the complicated relationship between the US and Pakistan, saying that the CIA has never yet been allowed to interview the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, A.Q Khan, who in 2004 admitted to providing nuclear know how to, among others, Iran, Libya and North Korea. (ANI)

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