Global Security Newswire

Month-old satellite images of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear complex reveal significant building progress on the installation's third heavy-water reactor, with construction on a series of cooling towers apparently completed, the Institute for Science and International Security said yesterday (see GSN, April 12).

Islamabad declared that its first heavy-water reactor went online in 1998. Construction of the second plant at Khushab started eight to 10 years ago, followed by initial work on the third facility in 2006. "These reactors support Pakistan's nuclear weapons program," according to the ISIS report.

Pakistan employs the Khushab complex for production of weapon-usable plutonium, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Work on the third reactor is moving more rapidly than the second plant, which appeared to be at some level of operation late last year, ISIS senior research analyst Paul Brannan stated.

"From the time of initial clearing and excavation for the second reactor, it took at least six years before its cooling towers appeared complete in commercial satellite imagery," Brannan wrote. "In contrast, it took Pakistan less than five years from when initial excavation is visible in commercial satellite imagery until the third reactor’s cooling towers appear finished" (Institute for Science and International Security report, Oct. 5).

"Based on what I see in the image, it wouldn't surprise me if they started [the third reactor] up in 2011," Brannan told Agence France-Presse.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan does not permit foreign monitoring of its Khushab complex. Material produced at the site could be used in warheads topping cruise missiles aimed at India, Pakistan's neighbor and nuclear-armed rival.

"Plutonium bombs give the ability to make smaller, lighter or more powerful weapons, and also more deliverable weapons, and I suspect that's what Pakistan wants," Brannan said (Shaun Tandon, Agence France-Presse/Google News, Oct. 5).

Meanwhile, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has harshly criticized former chief nuclear weapons scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan as a "characterless man," the Press Trust of India reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 29).

Musharraf ordered Khan placed under house arrest in 2004 after the scientist confessed to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan was released last year and has claimed he was operating under the direction of the powerful Pakistani army when he organized the nuclear sales.

Musharraf, in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, characterized those assertions as "wrong, absolutely wrong."

"I would be a traitor if I had ever given our nuclear weapons to the United States," Musharraf said. "This capability is our pride and it will never be compromised" (Press Trust of India/Zee News, Oct. 5).