George Bush is upset, distraught, that North Korea has fired a missile that could reach Alaska — carrying a nuclear warhead. Well, Mr. President, you have only yourself to blame.
In case you can’t recall, your intelligence chiefs ordered US agents to curb their investigation of A.Q. Khan, head of Pakistan’s bomb-building program. There was mounting evidence Khan was selling his nuclear and missile material technology to Libya and North Korea.
The reason for the spike order, the “back off” directive, was that the investigators had tracked the source of funds for Mr. Khans flea market in fissile material to Saudi Arabia. Apparently, Team Bush did not want to make the Saudi’s uncomfortable by exposing their payments to Khan.
We reported this on BBC in November 2001, based on informants within the top levels of our intelligence agencies, men unhappy with politicians who would have them avert their gaze.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “ARMED MADHOUSE: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal ’08, No Child’s Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.”
For more on the Khan Labs sale of nuclear plans and material to North Korea, read, “The Khan Job and the ‘Back-Off’ Directive” in Armed Madhouse, the update of the story first reported by Palast for BBC Television Newsnight and the Guardian (UK).
Greg Palast has written four New York Times bestsellers, including Armed Madhouse, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, now a major non-fiction movie, available on Amazon ”” and can be streamed for FREE by Prime members!
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