"The Bush" just Okayed Selling Them F-16's

Probe Reveals Pakistan Bought U.S. Nuclear Technology

WASHINGTON — A federal criminal investigation has uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan has made clandestine purchases of U.S. high-technology components for use in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law.

Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at one point passed through the hands of an arms dealer in Islamabad, Pakistan, named Humayun Khan, who they say has ties to Islamic militants.

Even though President Bush has been pushing for an international crackdown on such trafficking, efforts by two U.S. agencies to send investigators to Pakistan to gather more evidence have been stymied for more than a year by other American officials, according to U.S. officials knowledgeable about the case.

The impasse is part of a larger tug-of-war between federal agencies that enforce U.S. nonproliferation laws and policy-makers who consider Pakistan too important to embarrass.

The transactions began in early 2003, well after President Pervez Musharraf threw his support to the Bush administration's war on terrorism and the invasion of neighboring Afghanistan to oust Pakistan's former Taliban allies.