[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 141 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               PAKISTAN'S INVOLVEMENT IN NARCO-TERRORISM

                                 ______


                        HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR.

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 3, 1994

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues a report that appeared in the Washington Post of September 
12, 1994, which describes a disturbing link between narcotics and 
terrorism. The report from Karachi, Pakistan, headlined ``Heroin Plan 
by Top Pakistanis Alleged'' quotes Pakistan's former Prime Minister 
Nawaz Sharif saying that ``drug deals were to pay for covert 
operations'' brings to mind other reports not so long ago of Pakistani 
involvement in using the Bank of Credit and Commerce International 
[BCCI] to launder drug money that was eventually believed to have been 
used in financing terrorist groups involved in the New York World Trade 
Center bombing.
  The report cites Pakistan's army chief and head of intelligence 
agency proposing to then-Prime Minister Sharif ``a detailed blueprint 
for selling heroin to pay for the country's covert military operations 
in early 1991.'' The role played by Pakistan's Inter Services 
Intelligence agency in exporting terror to Kashmir and Punjab in 
neighboring India was sufficiently well-documented for the previous 
administration to place the country on the watch list of states 
sponsoring terrorism. Its removal from that list is justified neither 
by its past track record nor by its present performance. The State 
Department's most recent report on global patterns of terrorism talks 
of ``credible reports in 1993 of official Pakistani support to Kashmiri 
militants who undertook attacks of terrorism in Indian-controlled 
Kashmir.''
  Mr. Speaker, a country that produces 70 tons of heroin annually and 
accounts for a significant part of the heroin consumed in the United 
States is a matter of concern under any circumstances. That a part of 
the same country's intelligence establishment can conceive blueprints 
to use profits from smuggling these drugs to support insurgency and 
export terror is a fact that we ignore at our own peril.
  I am inserting the Washington Post article in the Record, and urge 
Members who are concerned about drugs on our streets and international 
terrorism to read it very carefully

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1994]

Heroin Plan by Top Pakistanis Alleged--Former Prime Minister Says Drug 
            Deals Were to Pay for Covert Military Operations

                (By John Ward Anderson and Kamran Khan)

       Karachi, Pakistan--Pakistan's army chief and the head of 
     its intelligence agency proposed a detailed ``blueprint'' for 
     selling heroin to pay for the country's covert military 
     operations in early 1991, according to former prime minister 
     Nawaz Sharif.
       In an interview, Sharif claimed that three months after his 
     election as prime minister in November 1990, Gen. Aslam Beg, 
     then army chief of staff, and Gen. Asad Durrani, then head of 
     the military's Inter-Services Intelligence bureau (ISI), told 
     him the armed forces needed more money for covert foreign 
     operations and wanted to raise it through large-scale drug 
     deals.
       ``General Durrani told me, `We have a blueprint ready for 
     your approval,''' said Sharif, who lost to Benazir Bhutto in 
     elections last October and is now leader of the opposition in 
     parliament.
       ``I was totally flabbergasted,'' Sharif said, adding that 
     he called Beg a few days later to order the army officially 
     not to launch the drug trafficking plan.
       Beg, who retired in August 1991, denied Sharif's 
     allegation, saying, `We have never been so irresponsible at 
     any stage. Our politicians, when they're not in office and in 
     the opposition, they say so many things. There's just no 
     truth to it.''
       Durrani, now Pakistan's ambassador to Germany, said, ``This 
     is a preposterous thing for a former prime minister to say. I 
     know nothing about it. We never ever talked on this subject 
     at all.''
       Brig. Gen. S.M.A. Iqbal, a spokesman for the armed forces, 
     said. ``It's inconceivable and highly derogatory; such a 
     thing could not happen.''
       The interview with Sharif, conducted at his home in Lahore 
     in May, was part of a broad investigation into narcotics 
     trafficking in Pakistan. It marked the first time a senior 
     Pakistani official has publicly accused the country's 
     military of having contingency plans to pay for covert 
     operations through drug smuggling.
       Officials with the U.S. State Department and the Drug 
     Enforcement Administration said they have no evidence that 
     Pakistan's military is or ever has been involved in drug 
     trafficking. But U.S. and other officials have often 
     complained about the country's weak efforts to curtail the 
     spread of guns, money laundering, official corruption and 
     other elements of the deep-rooted drug culture in Pakistan, 
     which along with Afghanistan and Iran lies along the so-
     called Golden Crescent, one of the world's biggest drug-
     producing regions.
       In a scathing report two years ago, a consultant hired by 
     the CIA warned that drug corruption had permeated virtually 
     all segments of Pakistani society and that drug king-pins 
     were closely connected to the country's key institutions of 
     power, including the president and military intelligence 
     agencies.
       About 70 tons of heroin is produced annually in Pakistan, a 
     third of which is smuggled abroad, mostly to the West, 
     according to the State Department's 1994 report on 
     international drug trafficking. About 20 percent of all 
     heroin consumed in the United States comes from Pakistan and 
     its northern neighbor, Afghanistan, the second largest opium 
     producer in the world after Burma. The United Nations says 
     that as much as 80 percent of the heroin in Europe comes from 
     the region.
       It has been rumored for years that Pakistan's military has 
     been involved in the drug trade. Pakistan's army, and 
     particularly its intelligence agency--the equivalent of the 
     CIA--is immensely powerful and is known for pursuing its own 
     agenda. Over the years, civilian political leaders has 
     accused the military which has run Pakistan for more than 
     half its 47 years of independence--of developing the 
     country's nuclear technology and arming insurgents in India 
     and other countries without their knowledge or approval and 
     some times in direct violation of civilian orders. 
     Historically, the army's chief of staff has been the most 
     powerful person in the country.
       According to military sources, the intelligence agency has 
     been pinched for funds since the war in Afghanistan ended in 
     1989 and foreign governments--chiefly the United States--
     stopped funneling money and arms through the ISI to Afghan 
     mujaheddin guerrillas fighting the Soviet-backed Kabul 
     government. Without the foreign funds, the sources said, it 
     has been difficult for the agency to continue the same level 
     of operations in other areas, including aiding militants 
     fighting Indian troops across the border in Kashmir. Such 
     operations are increasingly being financed through money 
     raised by such private organizations as the Jamiat-i-Islami, 
     a leading fundamentalist political party.
       A Western diplomat who was based in Islamabad at the time 
     of the purported meeting and who had occasional dealings with 
     Beg and Durrani, said, ``It's not inconceivable that they 
     could come up with a plan like this.''
       ``There were constant rumors that ISI was involved in rogue 
     drug operations with the Afghans--not so much for ISI 
     funding, but to help the Afghans raise money for their 
     operations,'' the diplomat said.
       In the interview, Sharif, claimed that the meeting between 
     him and the generals occurred at the prime minister's 
     official residence in Islamabad after Beg called one morning 
     and asked to brief him personally on a sensitive matter.
       ``Both Beg and Durrani insisted that Pakistan's name would 
     not be cited at any place because the whole operation would 
     be carried out by trustworthy third parties,'' Sharif said. 
     ``Durrani then went on to list a series of covert military 
     operations in desperate need of money.''
       Sharif, in the interview, would not discuss operational 
     details of the proposal and refused to disclose what convert 
     plans the intelligence agency wanted to fund with the drug 
     money.
       Sharif said he had ``no sources'' to verify that the ISI 
     had obeyed his orders to abandon the plan but that he assumed 
     the agency had complied.
       ``I told them categorically not to initiate any such 
     operation, and a few days later I called Beg again to tell 
     that I have disapproved the ISI plan to back heroin 
     smuggling.''
       Embittered that his political enemies cut short his term as 
     prime minister last year and helped engineer the return of 
     Bhutto, Sharif has gone on an intense political offensive to 
     destabilize her 10-month-old government. He claimed recently 
     that Pakistan has a nuclear bomb and said he made the 
     information public to prevent Bhutto from dismantling the 
     program under pressure from the West. The government has 
     denied possessing nuclear bomb but repeated previous 
     statements that it has the ability to build one.
       Calling Sharif a ``loose cannon,'' a second Western 
     diplomatic source said, ``I'd have a hard time believing'' 
     his allegations about the military's drug trafficking 
     proposal. The official suggested that Sharif's disclosure 
     might be designed to keep Bhutto and Pakistan-India relations 
     off balance. ``If anything should bring these two countries 
     together, it is their common war against the drug problem, 
     but this seems to fly in the face of that,'' he said.