Stratfor thinks the U.S. is letting Musharraf off the hook as a quid pro quo for letting the U.S. roam inside Pakistan to nail Bin Laden:

Geopolitical Diary: Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of the Pakistani nuclear program, officially took full responsibility on Wednesday for the transfer of Pakistani nuclear technology to other countries in an operation that went back to the 1980s.
He confirmed it in a speech broadcast in English in Pakistan. The gist of his statement was that he did it, he did it alone, and no one else in the military -- and certainly not President Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- knew about it. It was not a convincing performance.

The essence of his speech was, "The investigation has established that many of the reported activities did occur, and that these were inevitably initiated at my behest. In my interviews with the concerned government officials, I was confronted with the evidence and the findings. And I have voluntarily admitted that much of it is true and accurate." He continued, "I also appeal to all citizens of Pakistan, in the supreme national interest, to refrain from any further speculations and not to politicize this extremely sensitive issue of national security."

It was a strange speech. First, it was in English, a language that is incomprehensible to 70 percent of the country, and it was in a stilted English -- odd for a man who is quite fluent. The core motive is said to be "personal greed and ambition." That may be the case, but Khan was extremely successful by Pakistani standards and a national hero. Men can be greedy, but this characteristic was not evident elsewhere in his life.

When we look at the speech, clearly Khan is falling on his sword and wants everyone to know that he is. He does not appeal for mercy, nor does he try to justify his actions. He seemingly implies that he didn't realize his actions would upset anyone. Of course, the most important thing he says is that the issue should not be politicized.

It is extraordinarily difficult to imagine that a conspiracy of this magnitude -- involving Khan, his subordinates, interactions with foreign governments -- could have been missed by the Pakistani military, which controlled the program. More importantly, the Inter-Service Intelligence agency was very close to the program. Hamid Gul, a former director-general of the ISI, had extremely close personal relations with Khan and other scientists. These relationships came under close scrutiny after Sept. 11, 2001, when the question of the security of Pakistan's nuclear program appeared on the U.S. radar. The idea that the ISI didn't know that this was happening is impossible to believe.

Khan's speech seems designed to shield not only Musharraf, but also the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments. It is important that no one there be responsible. A lone gunman had to be found, and the only candidate was Khan. But he suffers from one mild defect -- he is the most implausible candidate imaginable.

It is understandable that Musharraf would want a solution to this crisis that does not challenge any of Pakistan's institutions. The real mystery here concerns the United States. First, forget the Pakistanis. How did the CIA miss Pakistan's transferal of sensitive technical information to Iran and Libya, and how did it miss it for more than 10 years? Second, if the CIA did know about it, why didn't anyone -- Reagan, Bush, Clinton -- do something about it? Third, if the transfers were discovered only recently -- say, during the Libyan reversal -- and the United States did not want Musharraf to fall as a result, did the United States simply suppress all public discussion to work covertly with Musharraf? Fourth, after the United States went public with it, why would it settle for, or be interested in, the political execution of Khan? The real issue is and always was the ISI.
Why go public and let Pakistan off the hook so easily?

The Pakistanis can be understood. The United States discovers they have been selling nuclear secrets to everyone the United States hates and fears.
Pakistan can't deny it, but it can pretend that it was the bad man over in the corner there -- he did it. The bad man makes his public confession, exonerating everyone else. Musharraf is shocked -- shocked -- to discover this has been going on. Musharraf breathes a sigh of relief.

It's the Americans who are baffling. Why make a public issue of this if Pakistan gets off the hook anyway? Or, put differently, how can the United States let Pakistan off the hook if it was selling nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya? Unless the United States suppressed the information and got the situation under control, the response makes no sense. For example, perhaps Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi threatened to go public with the news if the Americans didn't move first. Without some such scenario, the response makes no sense. Since we doubt that Gadhafi threatened that, we are left with a quandary.

The mystery yields only one conclusion: The United States did not simply let Musharraf off the hook. Musharraf was allowed to escape his crisis by blaming Khan -- and we suspect that there is a pardon lurking in his future -- but Musharraf had to make other promises. The only thing the United States cares about more than nuclear proliferation to Iran and Libya
is: Osama bin Laden. In all likelihood, he is somewhere in Pakistan, in the tribal areas in the northwest. Last week, the United States announced intentions to go in after him this spring. That's tough country, and the United States needs the ISI and the Pakistani military.

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