Another scandal that I keep an eye on -- the nuclear blackmarket operation run by Pakistan scientist A.Q. Khan. I wrote earlier that Khan's network received funding from Middle Eastern banks (was BCCI one of them?). Greg Palast reported that the Bush administration spiked the probe of the Khan network, because "funding appeared to originate in Saudi Arabia." It turns out that this follows a long pattern of "blind eye" complicity by the US government.

Leonard Weiss writes for Arms Control Today:

A little more than one year ago, the world learned that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had provided nuclear-weapons-related technology to a number of countries, including North Korea, Iran, and Libya. Yet, the revelations could hardly have come as a surprise: the supply network was used by Pakistan over the past 25 years to obtain technology, components, and materials for its own nuclear weapons.

Far more remarkable was that, although Khan’s activities had been tracked by U.S. intelligence for more than two decades, little attempt had been made to roll up the network he created. Rather than focusing on this profound long-term strategic danger to national security, the United States had chosen to pursue short-term, tactical foreign policy gains with Pakistan.

This misguided policy approach continues today as the Bush administration has chosen to subordinate nonproliferation goals, including fully breaking apart the Khan network, to the short-term goal of building a relationship with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The president has also not proposed a long-term strategy to prevent a similar network from popping up in the future. [More here about Bush's Iran-for-Khan deal]

[...]

Still, in the context of the Cold War, [Jimmy] Carter’s policy was backed by much of the foreign policy establishment, including by President Ronald Reagan when he took office in 1981. The Reagan administration pushed through a $3.2 billion economic and military assistance package for Pakistan with a legislated six-year waiver of the sanctions against Pakistan for its nuclear violations. Such waivers were extended, and assistance for the mujahideen via Pakistan continued until the Soviets began to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988.

[...]

Warnings about the dangers of the Pakistani program were being constantly and publicly issued during this period, most prominently by Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio). In speeches, op-eds, and congressional testimony, Glenn warned that Pakistani nuclear weapons development, if not stopped, would lead to weapons technology finding its way to the Middle East, particularly to Iran.

It was a natural deduction to make: intelligence reports contained evidence of a Pakistani/Iranian nuclear cooperation agreement, and news reports quoted intelligence sources saying that Saudi Arabia and Libya were helping to finance the Pakistani bomb. These warnings had little effect on the Reagan or George H. W. Bush administrations, who did all they could to keep Congress in the dark about the details of the Pakistani program.

[...]

Khan’s downfall came soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to a renewed U.S. relationship with Pakistan. When the United States decided to bring down the Taliban government for hosting Osama bin Laden, it turned to its old friends in Pakistan who had long provided the Taliban with crucial assistance. Under U.S. pressure, Musharraf reversed course and supported the U.S.-led military operation against his former allies.

That move and Musharraf’s current assistance in the hunt for bin Laden has resulted in his being amply rewarded. He has received the lifting of all nonproliferation sanctions and the beginning of a multibillion-dollar aid program, despite his refusal to give up Khan to the IAEA for interrogation. Even another case of a Pakistani agent allegedly attempting to smuggle nuclear-related electronic components out of the United States has had no effect on our current cozy relationship with Musharraf, who presides over a military containing elements friendly to Islamic revolutionary fundamentalism. It is the "blind eye" redux, but with the Cold War replaced by the war on terrorism. Of course, this time there is an added peril: who will gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons should Musharraf fall?

Of course, this is the same old story for the past 50 years, in which short-sighted US foreign policy has condoned -- and even aided -- dictators and future terrorists (think Saddam-Iraqgate, Noriega, the CIA backing of the Mujahideen -- from which emerged the Taliban and Bin Laden).

Here is a related article in the LA Times about US tolerance of the Khan network.