Pakistan's intelligence agencies ‘caught unawares’ by India's nuke tests: AQ Khan

[Veeru]

Pakistan's intelligence agencies ‘caught unawares’ by India's nuke tests: AQ Khan

Pakistan's intelligence agencies were "caught unawares" by a series of India's nuclear tests in May 1998 despite claims of having informants in "almost every house" near the test site at Pokhran, Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan has said.

In a column written in The News daily, Khan said he had "voiced my criticism of the performance of our intelligence agencies" when then premier Nawaz Sharif held a meeting of the defence committee of the Cabinet on May 13, 1998 to discuss Pakistan's options in the wake of India's first three nuclear tests two days earlier.

"Despite their claims of having informants in almost every house in Pokhran, and their promises that they would inform us if India made any preparations for tests, we were caught unawares," Khan wrote in the piece titled "Intelligence agencies and law."

"If we had had as little as 10 days' notice, we could have prepared a matching response and could have detonated our devices in as little as an hour," he wrote.

During the meeting on May 13, 1998, Khan said he, then foreign minister Gauhar Ayub Khan and then foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed Khan were "quite vocal" about conducting nuclear tests.

Pakistan agencies ‘caught unawares’ by India's nuke tests: AQ Khan - India - DNA

 

[Spring Onion]

Well how can one have access to each and very house ? and how can common household know about When Indian agencies, army personnel and scientists will be conducting the tests ???

Even India was unaware when we were going to test.

i am now slowly believing AQ is making fun of his own by listening to dumbos like Nawaz sharif and coming up with silly political statements

 

[abrahams]

Well how can one have access to each and very house ? and how can common household know about When Indian agencies, army personnel and scientists will be conducting the tests ???

cmon jana.. dont tell me u dont know what he meant when he said isi had a person in every house in pokhran...

well if u didnt .... it just meant the isi claimed ... they .. had a very strong presence in pokhran and not literally in every house... ha..

nevertheless it was a BS claim..

 

[AstanoshKhan]

Would love to see a neutral source about this news. DNAindia - argh

 

[Spring Onion]

cmon jana.. dont tell me u dont know what he meant when he said isi had a person in every house in pokhran...

well if u didnt .... it just meant the isi claimed ... they .. had a very strong presence in pokhran and not literally in every house... ha..

nevertheless it was a BS claim..

I know what he meant. But i doubt what AQ is saying because it is not really possible that ISI will claim such a thing.

As i said before even they have one person in each and every house how can the common people have access to Indian plans of conducting nuke test ?

i doubt AQ's statements.

and above all even if Pakistan came to know at that time beforehand Pakistan was NOT at all in a position to go nuclear publicly although we were having nukes before

 

[Qasibr]

Why isn't there a direct link to any of AQ Khan's articles or anyplace where he actually said those things that the Indian news site says he did. They're known to take things out of context.

 

[sanibhagwan]

Why isn't there a direct link to any of AQ Khan's articles or anyplace where he actually said those things that the Indian news site says he did. They're known to take things out of context.

There are a lot of pakistani sources buddy. But very few made headlines.

Intelligence agencies and law

When the Indians exploded their nuclear weapons on May 11, 1998, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called a meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) on the 13th to discuss options. The participants had varying views, but Foreign Minister Gauhar Ayub Khan, Mr Shamshad Ahmed Khan, the foreign secretary, and myself were quite vocal in favour of a response in kind. I voiced my criticism of the performance of our intelligence agencies. Despite their claims of having informants in almost every house in Pokhran, and their promises that they would inform us if India made any preparations for tests, we were caught unawares. If we had had as little as 10 days’ notice, we could have prepared a matching response and could have detonated our devices in as little as an hour.

more sources

fullstory

Pak "caught unawares" by India''s nuke tests - Full Story - Newzfirst

PAK AGENCIES CAUGHT UNAWARES BY INDIA'S NUKE TESTS: KHAN

 

[F-16_Falcon]

AQ Khan!

 

[KS]

Nothing to be ashamed of.

Even the mighty US with all its technology and satellites was caught with pants down.

 

[sanibhagwan]

^^^We outsmarted them.

And published reports suggested that India had fooled the US intelligence community by creating a diversion with preparations at Balasore for missile tests that it really wasn't planning to do - diverting US attention. Indian nuclear researcher G. Balachandran reportedly quipped that "It's not a failure of the CIA. It's a matter of their intelligence being good, our deception being better."

India may have been able to estimate the times that satellites passed over the site by analyzing the series of pictures presented by Wisner. It was also suggested that India tracked the orbits of American satellites and moved equipment only when they believed nothing was overhead.

Pokhran - India Special Weapons Facilities