MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The Malaysian comedy of errors in the Islamic nuclear chain and the global war on terrorism

A TALE IS TOLD OF A Chinese emperor in ancient times so fearful he would be overthrown and killed that he systematically killed, and destroyed the families of, his real and perceived enemies, and later, the intellectuals, those whose word and deed could turn against him, those who had the implements with which they could, at a pinch, be used against him. The fear was so pervasive and destructive that the mandarins stepped in and asked his favourite mandarin to tell him that his paranoia put the throne at risk. He thought deeply and at length, and as the Emperor and he were walking in the royal gardens he espied a gardener at work. He turned to the Emperor and said: "Your Majesty, kill that man now!" The Emperor turned to him in surprise and asked why. "Sire," he replied, "that man has the implements of rape on him." Fast forward to the 21st century, and variations of the tale is played out in London and Washington in their decision to invade Iraq. President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was a danger to the world, had to be destroyed. He did not have, but he could, at a pinch, acquire them. So they had to destroy him and the state he ruled. Like the Chinese emperor, President George Bush and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, had to destroy their presumed enemies. Like in China then, both now find their explanations unaccepted, seek a plausible reason to insist they are right, so far without success.

A case is built on British and US paranoia, this fear that Islamic militants and rulers they trained and paid to destroy the Soviet Union, could bite the hand that fed them. So Afghanistan is invaded. Iraq is invaded. The Muslim world is thrown awry. Washington and London seek a common link amongst especially Muslim countries who disagree with their plans to control the world and its oil. All it has done is to put all nations it regards as potential enemies at edge and, under pressure, agree with its global agenda; but with a citizenry hostile to the very idea. Neither Washington nor London understand the enemy they fight, but they are sure they can be contained. They believe that their enemies operate as they do, with computer graphs, long-term plans, detailed war plans, contingency planning, when as tribal societies, they dance to a different beat, linked only by a common enemy and sense of injustice, often working independently and without a central direction. When the dust clears, it could well be while Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network took the blame for blowing up the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, an offshoot planned and executed it independently. But in the Western mind, that is impossible.

Having found nothing in Iraq, with Washington and London blamed on how they went to war, and Presidential Elections in November, some link had to be found. They focussed on Pakistan. The father of its nuclear bomb programme, a metallurgist named Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, stands accused of having sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and, incongruously, North Korea. Incongruous because Dr Khan in a televised confession said his mission was for Muslim nations to acquire a nuclear capability. That North Korea is in this list suggests that he was a small cog in a large wheel. The Pakistan nuclear programme is controlled by its armed forces. Nothing Dr Khan did was as he confessed, a free lance operation to sell state secrets. This programme is so tightly controlled that if Dr Khan was telling the truth, he would have been hung out to dry years ago. But it became useful to have a scape goat while exonerating an important Washington link in this ubiquitous war on terror.

It now is certain he would be pardoned, with no further action against him. If he was, as it is made out, a traitor, is that the punishment? But he cannot be charged - as, in Baghdad, Mr Saddam Hussein - without the accuser becoming the accused. The Pakistan armed forces, his ultimate employer, is off the hook. President Musharraf, who could not be unaware of Dr Khan's actions from the beginning since he was in power then, is off the hook. He had to be. Otherwise, Washington cannot pursue as vigorously its war on terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That the Pakistani leader had foiled two assassination attempts on his life underscores Washington's conundrum. Each needs the other, which is why someone like Dr Khan is targetted.

Now to Malaysia. Malaysia, like Pakistan, had a singular belief that Muslims nations throughout the world must be pushed screaming and even against its will into the modern world. I have heard this view in Kuala Lumpur and Islamabad over the years, with the former Malaysian prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, only too happy to provide whatever help to other Muslims nations to achieve his larger aim. So when Dr Khan visited Malaysia twice in recent years, he did not come here for naan and mutton do piaza at Omar Khayyam's. The Malaysian government says he met no one in authority.

I find that difficult to believe, especially when the Pakistan High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur at the time was the retired chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces' Inter Services Intelligence bureau. Lieut.-General Naseem Rana was a key figure in his country's support for the Taliban's rise to power in neighbouring Afghanistan. The man was discretion personified, would skirt any controversial issues of his time at the ISI, and talk about other issues instead. President Musharraf implicitly trusted him, and I did not believe the story at the time that he was sent out to Kuala Lumpur to keep a coup plotter out of the way. He would arrange for lesser officials on holiday in Malaysia to see important figures in the Malaysian government. It would be out of character for him not to have arranged meetings for Dr Khan.

The Dr Khan visits to Malaysia appear to have come before a Dubai firm, Gulf Technical Industries LLC (GTI), run by a Sri Lankan, Mr B.S.A. Tahir, contracted to buy components for centrifugal plants from a firm in Shah Alam in Selangor state. When a GTI shipment was intercepted by European surveillance teams late last year, Malaysia got dragged into the rogue nuclear weapons chain. A senior Pentagon official shortly after called on the defence minister, now deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, and read him the Riot Act last year. He promptly disowned any connexion to this. It appears now that the aim was to link this to Dr Mahathir. But it is an embarrassment in Washington and Kuala Lumpur that it is to his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. It is no surprise that Malaysian mainstream newspapers were careful to omit Pak Lah's links to the scandal.

It turns out a subsidiary of a company controlled by his son, Mr Kamaluddin Abdullah, built the Shah Alam factory to fulfill this contract, supplied 14 units for RM13 million, and has not since August last year. Or to put it another way, a factory worth several times more than the value of what it delivered is built, and now lies fallow. These components could be used for medical plans, oil and gas installations, and nuclear plants. But strangely no questions were asked when it was built of its end use. Why? How did the customs authorities not detect the export of these, what we are now told, are components for nuclear centrifugal plants? Was the plant, as is alleged, designed to Pakistani specifications? But every one is scrambling. The US is at pains to say the plant and its parent is not involved. Malaysia is quick to distance itself from this. So Pakistan. It was Malaysia and Pakistan that was the target. But it is their leaders who got snared into the net. There is more to it than meets the eye.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com