‘Musharraf is close to terrorists’

A new book by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark tracks the nuclear black market and its Pakistan connection. In an interview with Sidharth Bhatia they outline its dangers

How did you think of writing this book? Was it a difficult project?
Having worked in South Asia for more than a decade, for The Sunday Times and then the Guardian, we were following many of these stories individually and collectively. However, after 2004, when we watched the spectacle of AQ Khan’s confession on PTV, we thought of writing his biography, an investigative one examining what appeared to be the greatest proliferation crime of our lifetime.

The more people we interviewed, the more we became aware of how the story went far beyond the actions of one man and his fellow scientists and actually circumscribed the philosophy and deeds of the Pakistan military and its collaborators in the US.

Some critics have said Musharraf is not what he is made out to be. Do your investigations justify that claim? How?
We have stated that the military in Pakistan (and Musharraf) have continuously manipulated the Islamists. The Military and the Islamists have been welded together, militarily, electorally, financially and in some quarters, spiritually. Musharraf although not personally especially religious has espoused these policies that ultimately has led to the proliferation of terrorism in Kashmir, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in India and elsewhere.

He is a pragmatist who has worked with the terrorists and therefore whose proximity to them is such that, while he is in power no real results can come from the campaign against Al-Qaeda or peace in Kashmir.

In encouraging terrorist or radical groups, wasn’t he doing what several other generals in the Pakistan army and intelligence bosses have done? Why blame him?
We don’t single Musharraf out. We try and unburden the West of its misconceptions by placing him in a context of military leaders who have thought similarly. Western leaders have been seduced by an idea of a soldierly gentlemanly Musharraf, the man he writes of in his autobiography, a fictional creation on a par with Harry Flashman. We explain the evolution of the military’s idea, from Zia onwards, how defiance of the West and the rise of the Deobandis in the military changed Pakistan’s strategy and outlook.

This strategy kicked in immediately with a nuclear pact signed between Rawalpindi and Tehran in 1987 and 1988. In 1990, they switched to Iraq. The Pakistan military offered Saddam a bomb, and by 1993 the generals went back to Iran, having been turned down by a paranoid Saddam, reaching out too to North Korea. Libya followed.

Their operation too was gradually devolved away from prying eyes in Pakistan with logistics moving to Dubai, manufacturing to Malaysia and South Africa and warehousing to Sudan and other African nations off western radars.

The two perceptions about Musharraf are that he is a moderniser and also that he is two-faced. Is he both or just one?
He is neither. He is in the mould of those who preceded him, in that he continued to acquire great personal wealth, land and houses for himself, his family and his fellow officers. In 1995, Musharraf, used Islamist forces to re-ignite Kashmir, promising Bhutto he could find 10,000 Sunni mercenaries to send over the LoC, recruiting from the LeT and others. They continue to reduce the whole complex cosmology of foreign policy to one idea: revenge on India.

India has started talks with Musharraf. Going by what has appeared about your book, we in India should be worried that he may not be trustworthy?
The best guess is that such is the hatred for him now in Pakistan that Musharraf will no longer be the person India talks to. Even if he survives politically, which is incredibly unlikely, the negotiations will very much go through General Kiani’s office and others below him. There are those in the high command, who want a negotiated settlement in Kashmir.
 
Is there a danger that Pakistan’s nukes could fall into the wrong hands? Can Musharraf be relied upon to secure them?
The chances of a bomb going into the wrong hands are a risk but a negligible one. The military will cannibalise itself, producing a new leader to replace Musharraf. It is now as much a corporate structure as a strategic one, and wants stability for its financial empire, as well as its image restored in the eyes of the Pakistan people.

The real and present danger is of fissile material passing into the wrong hands. We know Al-Qaeda and its sympathisers have been and are trying to procure it. We know that in the last five years Pakistan scientists have offered Al-Qaeda the knowledge to make a dirty device or worse.

We know that a surprise audit of Kahuta found much Highly Enriched Uranium was missing. Where had it gone? Some to Iran and North Korea? But the rest?

Should the world be worried about Pakistan?
The West should be worried and depressed by our failure of imagination. We need a new strategy that hinges far more on building civil society and protecting that society, with adequately trained police etc as well as de radicalising it.

We need to support democracy and the progressive forces. The US leverage is over-stated. The one thing that is certain is that the Bush administration has no plan. No way out.