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Former Pakistani Prime Minister Says She Refused to Export Nuclear Technology
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said yesterday that Pakistani military officials and scientists sought her permission several times to export nuclear technology, but she refused (see GSN, Feb. 23). Bhutto told the Financial Times that she, along with senior civilian and military officials, developed a nuclear policy in 1988 that banned nuclear exports. She served as prime minister from 1988-1990 and from 1993-1996. Despite her policy, senior military officials and scientists urged her to approve nuclear exports late in her first term as a way to raise money. Bhutto said she told the military officials and scientists that only Iran, Iraq and Libya would be interested in Pakistani nuclear technology, and the amount of money collected (projected to be up to $100 million per country) would not offset the international isolation Pakistan would suffer. She also said that she had not considered North Korea as a potential purchaser at the time. “It was something that I was disabusing them of, that they could not get it. If they chose to sell it, only three countries would buy it, because it wasn’t like McDonald’s hamburgers that would have a huge consumer market,” Bhutto said (Stephen Fidler, Financial Times, Feb. 24).
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