Magnificent Delusions (35 page)

For Pakistanis, the Indian nuclear tests were a near catastrophe. Since independence they had sought parity with India, only to learn over the course of three wars that they could not militarily defeat their larger neighbor. After each defeat Pakistan's leaders had generated an explanation for failure, thereby keeping the rivalry alive at least at a psychological level. In the eyes of Pakistanis, theirs was a special country destined to compete with India's Hindu imperialism. Pakistan's military was even more special, being the inheritor of proud Muslim warrior traditions.

As such, Pakistan had never accepted its reverses. It had bounced back with excuses. Failure in the 1965 war was the result of the American aid cutoff. The more recent rout in East Pakistan was attributed to the treachery of the Bengalis, who had been influenced by Hindus. The whole world had lined up against Pakistan, and the Americans and the Chinese just didn't do enough to save their ally.
Finally, the Arab and other Muslim nations just did not have enough religious fervor to stand by Islamic Pakistan.

So the Indian nuclear test shocked Pakistan at many levels. It put India in a league different from Pakistan, and this contradicted everything every Pakistani leader since Jinnah had told the Pakistani people. The Americans—and almost everyone else in the world—saw India's nuclear ambitions as directed against China. For Pakistanis, however, it was aimed squarely at Pakistan. With nuclear weapons India could now try to dominate the subcontinent and undo Pakistan once and for all.

Ambassador Byroade informed the US government that the Indian nuclear test had greatly exacerbated Pakistan's “chronic feeling of insecurity.” The government had initiated efforts “to seek urgent security guarantees and arms aid from major powers.” For Pakistanis, India's decision, in defiance of world opinion, served as proof of “Indian intransigence and South Asian hegemonic ambitions.” Islamabad wanted nonproliferation advocates to “deal firmly with India,” Byroade said, so that Pakistan and other non-nuclear nations may feel more secure. In Byroade's view, Pakistan's sense of alarm and urgency was “undoubtedly genuine.”

The Pakistanis were under no illusion, the US ambassador continued, that additional conventional equipment would in any way provide comparability to Indian military might. But the Indian nuclear test had further sharpened the already “painful awareness” of Pakistan's capabilities, as most of Pakistan's military hardware was “worn and obsolete in terms of what not only India but Pakistan's other neighbors possess.”
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Byroade's reference was to Iran, where the Shah was using oil money to buy sophisticated weapons on the international market. But Iran had never threatened Pakistan's security, so the US ambassador was repeating Bhutto's point that Iran's possession of better arms generated a sense of inadequacy among Pakistanis.

According to Byroade, Bhutto had rejected opposition demands that Pakistan embark on its own nuclear weapons program. He wanted Washington to know that there would now be intense pressure for “qualitative improvement in the armed forces to create cred
ible deterrent against at least conventional Indian military threat.” In other words, Pakistan would need superior conventional weapons to feel secure, and this might prevent the country from trying to build nuclear weapons of its own.

As it turned out, Bhutto had already initiated a covert nuclear weapons program. In an interview with the
Guardian
in 1965 he had said that if India built the bomb, “we will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own. We have no other choice.”
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The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was following India's route of using plutonium produced at a Canadian-supplied nuclear reactor. Pakistan was in the process of acquiring a reprocessing plant from France that would enable it to extract fissionable material.

A Pakistani metallurgist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who worked at a Dutch uranium enrichment plant, wrote to Bhutto right after the Indian tests. Khan said that he could help Pakistan take the shorter route to making an atom bomb—through uranium enrichment. Bhutto then set up two parallel teams to help Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons capability more quickly.

PAEC continued to seek fissile material from plutonium while Khan returned to Pakistan from the Netherlands with stolen designs for a uranium enrichment facility. But the covert nuclear program did not preclude that Pakistan would seek the resumption of military supplies from the United States. Because the US embassy in Islamabad was initially ignorant of Pakistan's nuclear plans, Byroade had become quite sympathetic to Pakistan's request for conventional weapons. He therefore advised the US government to lift the ban on military supplies to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in the denouement of the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford became America's president after Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974. Ford retained Kissinger as secretary of state. Unlike Nixon, Ford did not have strong views on Pakistan or South Asia, so US policy on Pakistan moved completely into the hands of the State Department. Thus, Kissinger's and diplomats' opinions carried even more weight than they did before. Kissinger found the embassy in New Delhi seeking greater attention for India, following their nuclear test, just as Byroade had recommended that
the United States open military supplies to Pakistan in order to provide Pakistan reassurance.

Rumors that the United States might expand relations with India in order to contain nuclear proliferation caused disquiet in Islamabad. Ahmed, who now carried the title of minister of state for foreign affairs, asked Kissinger during a meeting in Washington whether there had been a “dramatic improvement in relations between the United States and India.” Kissinger assured him that any improvement in ties with India would not be at Pakistan's expense. The United States simply wanted to wean India away from the Soviets, he said.

Kissinger explained that some of the “Embassy people” in Delhi felt the United States had to prove itself to the Indians. “It is an American masochistic sense of guilt that we must perform a national duty by giving aid to India,” he retorted. “We have no illusions about Indian policy,” he went on, “but their and our purposes may be served by the illusion of better relations. There are also domestic advantages in this. Internationally there is no significance, no real change.” Ahmed replied that the better way of proving to the Indians “the futility of arming themselves” would be to supply “sophisticated arms” to Pakistan.

The secretary of state brought up the subject of India's nuclear ambitions. “I am less outraged by the Indian bomb than some,” he said. “I see it as a trap for India. They will never be able to use it in practice. And if the bomb spreads, it will equalize India's military superiority.” Ahmed did not agree, arguing instead that “If the Indian army were in difficulty they would use the nuclear bomb in desperation as a last resort.”

Kissinger said that India would have to lose a war “very badly” before using a nuclear weapon. “Will you beat them?” he added sarcastically. The Pakistani diplomat instinctively said, “We can if we have arms,” before checking himself—”But we're not planning to do that.” He insisted that Pakistan just wanted enough weapons to defend itself against India and Afghanistan, who were being supported by the Soviet Union. But for the last three years the United States had not supported Pakistan militarily. Kissinger promised that
he would push for cash sales first, but the matter would have to be handled delicately.

Ahmed moaned once again about the difficulty of buying arms on the open market. Pakistan preferred its old relationship with the United States when planes and tanks as well as money to raise army divisions were provided through the budget of the US Department of Defense. “The French are slick businessmen,” he added. Pakistan had bought three Breguet-Atlantique Long-Range surveillance aircraft from the French. “The French gave us half-price on the aircraft—38 million francs—but with the service and modifications the total price was 220 million francs.”

“They are not only fleecing us, but also skinning us,” Ahmed said of the French. “The Croatale missiles increased from 200 to 350 million francs by the time we reached agreement. They know we have nowhere else to go and they exploit us.” Further, although the Iranians had helped convert Pakistan's US-supplied tanks to be powered by diesel fuel, they were reluctant to cross-train Pakistani crews on their equipment.

When Kissinger offered to raise the matter with the Iranian Shah, Ahmed said that he didn't want the Shah to know he had complained. “He has been very good to us,” Ahmed said about the Shah. But he did seek US help in nudging Saudi Arabia and Iran to increase balance-of-payments support. They were already providing $200 million between them, but Pakistan needed more. There were also the by-now routine requests for wheat and edible oil.
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If Kissinger found it comical that Pakistani officials privately asked for so much support but publicly insisted on decrying their benefactor, he kept that to himself.

When Kissinger visited Islamabad a month later Bhutto voiced Pakistan's concern about the United States growing close to India once again. Kissinger, who had just been to India, jokingly remarked, “After seeing India, I am thinking about supplying nuclear weapons, not only conventional arms, to Pakistan and even Bangladesh!” He tried to reassure Bhutto by telling him that he had told the Indians that the United States was committed to Pakistan's independence and integrity.

Kissinger told Bhutto that he had pointed out to the Indians Pakistan's apprehensions about Afghanistan and Balochistan. The Indians “swore they were exercising a moderating influence,” he reported. The Indian assertion had been so strong that Kissinger felt he would be in a good position to go back to them. “If you can get evidence that I can produce,” he said in relation to Pakistani charges that India supported secession in Balochistan, “I would make a case with them.” If Bhutto had any evidence, he did not offer it.

The Pakistani prime minister then explained his motivation for continuously seeking sophisticated weapons. “We would like to be able to strip our army of its power and put it in its place,” he averred. “But we must protect our borders. If we are stronger, it will enable us to do more in negotiating.” In Bhutto's opinion the Indians were “so stupid and arrogant, they cannot negotiate. They are getting so uppity.” He alleged that India had a history of “trying to thrust out” a new formulation for the old view that India sought hegemony over its neighbors. Bhutto then told Kissinger: “If Pakistan's existence is not important to the United States then say so.” He said that because of Pakistan's ties with Iran, China, and the Gulf, “we can be useful to you.”
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During this meeting Bhutto had expressed optimism about resolving Pakistan's concerns about Afghanistan. He asked Kissinger to tell the Afghans that Pakistan was ready to negotiate but “not barter away” its territory—a reference to the notion of Pashtunistan. From Bhutto's perspective, this was an important meeting, as Kissinger had agreed with his critique of India. The secretary of state might have been simply making conversation, but it nonetheless emboldened Pakistani officials. They believed they had made some headway in convincing the United States that India was a security threat by virtue of its “hegemonic” core.

On February 4, 1975, Bhutto arrived in Washington for his second official visit. By now Kissinger was able to commit that the United States would rescind the ban on transferring military equipment to Pakistan. This would open the way for Pakistan to buy weapons for cash, as the secretary of state had suggested earlier. Kissinger told Bhutto to stay quiet on the matter, however, until he had informed
the Indians and Congress about the decision. He asked for only one assurance in return: Pakistan had to declare that “there will be no nuclear development outside of safeguards.”

This was because the US Congress was voicing concern about nuclear proliferation. Pakistan, like India, had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Because of this, the House Foreign Affairs Committee had questioned Kissinger in closed session about the wisdom of reopening the sale of advanced weaponry to Pakistan. The committee's chairman, Lee Hamilton, a Democrat from Indiana, had requested that lifting the ban on arms supply to Pakistan should be linked to guarantees in the nuclear field. Pakistan must observe safeguards that would allow it to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, such as power generation, but not to develop an atomic bomb.

Pakistan, Bhutto recalled, objected to the nonproliferation treaty “on a moral basis.” India refused to sign the treaty because, it said, the agreement was discriminatory because it allowed five countries to retain nuclear weapons but denied the right to others, thus creating what Indian diplomats described as “nuclear apartheid.” But Pakistan did not have a similar universal objection. “India has not signed,” Bhutto said. “Of course we will sign if India signs.” Kissinger reiterated that Pakistan's nuclear program should remain “under safeguards you couldn't divert your efforts to a nuclear explosion.”
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A few days after meeting Bhutto Ford lifted “the embargo on U.S. sales of lethal military equipment to Pakistan and India.” He laid out guidelines that would ensure that the “sale of defense articles and services” would “meet the legitimate security needs for modern and effective forces in Pakistan and India.” The most important of these was that all military sales to the subcontinent were to be on cash basis. The presidential statement on the occasion also said that the United States did not want to “stimulate an arms race in that region or restore the pre-1965 situation in which the US was a major regional arms supplier.”
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Pakistan immediately rushed to line up funding from its Arab friends for its purchases.