Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb

550 Pages·2012·3.04 MB·English

by  Feroz Hassan Khan

Eating grass

E at i ng gr a s s
The Making of the Pakistani Bomb
FEROZ HASSAN KHAN
stanford security studies
An Imprint of Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.
All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Khan, Feroz Hassan, author.
Eating grass : the making of the Pakistani bomb / Feroz Hassan Khan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8047-7600-4 (cloth : alk. paper) —
isbn 978-0-8047-7601-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Nuclear weapons—Pakistan—History. 2. Pakistan—Military policy.
I. Title.
u264.5.p18k43 2012
623.4'5119095491—dc23
2012015835
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality
paper. Typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/14 Minion.
Special discounts for bulk quantities of Stanford Security Studies
are available to corporations, professional associations, and other
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sales department of Stanford University Press.
Contents
Preface ix
Pakistan: Key Characters xv
Abbreviations xix
1 Introduction 1
PART I: THE RELUCTANT PHASE
2 Atoms for Peace at the Crossroads of History 17
3 Ayub’s Non-Decision and the Nuclear Bomb Option 32
4 Never Again 68
PART II: THE SECRET NUCLEAR R&D PROgRAM
5 The Route to Nuclear Ambition 95
6 Punishing Pakistan 124
7 Mastery of Uranium Enrichment 139
8 Procurement Network in the grey Market 162
9 Building the Bomb 174
10 Mastery of Plutonium Production 191
PART III: COvERT ARSENAL AND DELIvERy MEANS
11 Military Crises and Nuclear Signaling 207
12 Pakistan’s Missile Quest 234
13 The grazing Horse in the Meadows 252
14 The Nuclear Test Decision 269
Contents
PART Iv: TOwARD AN OPERATIONAL DETERRENT
15 The Dawn of a Nuclear Power 287
16 A Shaky Beginning: Kargil and Its Aftermath 306
17 Establishment of Robust Command and Control 321
18 Testing the Deterrent 338
PART v: MEETINg NEw CHALLENgES
19 The Unraveling of the Khan Network 359
20 Nuclear Pakistan and the world 377
Epilogue 393
Notes 399
Index 493
vi
Map, tables, and Figures
MAP
Map of Pakistan xxvi
TABLES
5.1 Pakistan Nuclear Infrastructure 122
7.1 Development of Enriched Uranium Route 159
9.1 Bomb Design 187
10.1 Development of Plutonium Route 203
12.1 Missile Inventory 250
FIgURES
17.1 Organizational Chart: Combat Development Directorate
(CD Directorate, 1985–1998) 327
17.2 Organization of Strategic Plans Division (SPD) 330
17.3 Organization of National Command Authority (NCA) 336
vii

Preface
This book took six years to compile. what began as a simple quest to com-
press a holistic account of the Pakistani nuclear program turned into a Rubik’s
cube. As a first-time writer setting out to pull together a balanced and objective
account on a subject considered taboo for decades, I ran into the proverbial
Clauswitzian “fog of war,” where a maze of claims and counterclaims made the
research difficult.
Like many aspects of Pakistan’s politics and history, its nuclear story is awash
with controversies and competing narratives. yet, the most intriguing aspect
during the course of this research was facing the challenge of the relentless
disinformation campaign unleashed on the Pakistani nuclear program. gore
vidal’s famous quotation emphasizing that a “[d]isinformation campaign has
metastasized to a level where myth threatens to overthrow history” aptly ap-
plies to the case study of Pakistan. This was one reason that galvanized my
efforts in telling the story of the Pakistani nuclear program and my interest in
writing this book.
In the case of new nuclear states—such as India, Israel, and Pakistan—the
necessity to keep the nuclear weapons program covert in order to resist inter-
national proliferation pressures has added another layer of opacity. The hab-
its that come with decades of secrecy do not disappear overnight just because
the country has conducted a declared nuclear test. Furthermore, as with many
developing countries, the Pakistan government does not open its national ar-
chives to outside scrutiny, especially on matters of national security. Even non-
official accounts, such as newspaper and journal articles, are difficult to access
with collections often incomplete.
On top of these challenges, reconstructing the Pakistani case is vexing be-
cause its nuclear history is still contested by those who took part in the pro-
gram. As this study will show, the establishment of two rival organizations—the
ix