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Category: Geopolitics
Tags: BushNuclearPakistanProliferationPutin
Entities: al-QaedaAQ KhanDonald TrumpGeorge BushIndiaIranLibyaNorth KoreaOsama bin LadenPakistanPervez MusharrafVladimir Putin
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Life is all about what ifs. What if you became an engineer instead of a doctor?
What if you chose to study abroad? These decisions may end up shaping your life.
But if you're a world leader, such moments may shape the entire world and
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sometimes for the worse. Tonight, we're talking about two such moments.
We know about them thanks to declassified US documents. Washington made them public this week.
They revealed conversations from 2001 to 2005. Conversations between whom?
Then
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US President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. We'll show you the conversation, the 2001 conversation first between Putin and Bush.
They met in Slovenia on the 16th of June. They discussed many topics
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and one of them was Pakistan. Putin called Pakistan a hunter with nuclear weapons.
I am concerned about Pakistan. It is just a ha with nuclear weapons.
It is no democracy. Yet the west makes no
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criticism of it. Should talk about it.
>> Glad to. You see the threat is not a United States Russia clash.
>> I must say the assessment was spot on both in 2001 and in 2025. Pakistan
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remains a ha with nuclear weapons, a global security threat. Putin urged Bush to criticize Islamabad.
Then Bush replied that he would be glad to do so. Of course, that criticism never came.
Months later, al-Qaeda terrorists
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attacked the World Trade Center in the US. In response, Bush launched a war on terror.
His first target was Afghanistan, the country that was hosting al-Qaeda's then chief, Osama bin Laden. >> And his main ally in that wars.
>> Bush's main ally in that war was
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Pakistan. Back back then it was ruled by a man called Purveves Musharav.
Bush and Musharav got along quite well. The media called them Bush and Mush.
The US needed Pakistan's help to continue the war in Afghanistan. And Musharov needed US help
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to extend his rule. Meaning all of Pakistan's crimes were forgiven.
No democracy, no problem. No freedoms, no problem.
Nuclear proliferation, no problem at all. It wasn't like Bush was not aware of the issue.
He just chose to ignore it. In
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fact, let's go back to another transcript. This is a White House conversation from the year 2005.
Listen to what Putin told Bush. >> Cooperation with Pakistan exists.
I talked to Masharaf about that. I told him we're worried about transfers to
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Iran and North Korea. They put AQ Khan in jail and some of his buddies under house arrest.
We want to know what they said. I keep reminding Mashara of that.
Either he's getting nothing or he's not being forthcoming.
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>> As far as I understand, they found uranium of Pakistani origin in the centrifuges. >> Yes, the stuff the Iranians forgot to tell the IAEA about.
That's a violation. >> It was of Pakistani origin.
That makes me nervous.
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>> It makes us nervous, too. >> Now, here's the background.
Pakistan's nuclear program was headed by AQ Khan. He did not just build a bomb for Pakistan.
He sold nuclear secrets and materials to three countries, Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Putin and Bush
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were talking about Iran. Bush said he had raised this issue with Musharaf, but he felt that Musharaf was not forthcoming.
And then Putin chimed in. He said that the uranium found in Iran was of Pakistani origin.
He said that made him nervous. And Bush's reply that
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he too was nervous. So what did George Bush do about that nervousness?
Did he sanction Pakistan? Did he put pressure on them?
Did he criticize them publicly? The answer is he did nothing.
Bush did nothing despite knowing Pakistan's
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reality. >> And this is the what if I was talking about.
What if George Bush had taken Putin's advice? What if he had not warmed up to Pakistan?
What if he had not given millions in military aid to Pakistan? Things would have been very different today.
Of course, we can't
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change history. All we can do is learn from the past and do better in the present.
Unfortunately, the US is not doing that either. Consider what happened last month.
US President Donald Trump announced that he was restarting nuclear testing that too after three decades.
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And when asked why this was his response, North Korea has been testing, Pakistan has been testing, Russia has been Russia's testing and China's testing, but they don't talk about it. So Trump said Pakistan was testing nukes in secret.
That comment caught the
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attention of the Indian government. Here's what they said.
>> Illegal nuclear activities are in keeping with Pakistan's history that is centered around decades of smuggling, export control violations,
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secret partnerships, AQ Khan network and further proliferation. India has always drawn the attention of the international community to these aspects of Pakistan's record.
In this backdrop, we have taken
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note of President Trump's comment about Pakistan's nuclear testing. >> It's the same cycle.
Trump knows what Pakistan is up to, but he's choosing to ignore it. For George Bush, the excuse was Afghanistan.
For Trump, the excuse is a minerals deal and family business
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ties. In fact, the fact is that these new documents confirm what we already know.
Pakistan's malicious activities and America's hypocrisy. >> Want the facts, >> the latest developments?
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>> News that gets straight to the point. >> Well, we've got all three just for you.
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