Former CIA officer Richard Barlow has made explosive revelations that senior officials in the US State Department secretly alerted the Pakistani government to an undercover American operation aimed at arresting a retired Pakistani general involved in nuclear smuggling during the 1980s.

In a detailed interview with ANI, Barlow disclosed that the joint CIA–US Customs operation was closing in on an agent named Arshad Parvez, who attempted to procure 25 metric tons of Maraging 350 steel—a high-strength alloy critical for producing uranium enrichment centrifuges—from an American steel supplier.

Parvez was allegedly acting under the direction of retired Brigadier General Inam-ul-Haq, a known procurement agent linked to Pakistan’s Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Both institutions were pivotal in the country’s covert nuclear weapons development programme.

Barlow explained that his team had created the Nuclear Export Violations Working Group to coordinate investigations against illegal nuclear material acquisitions. Once they identified Parvez’s operation, a complex sting was arranged with US Customs officials that led to Parvez’s arrest. However, when his superior, General Inam-ul-Haq, was expected to arrive at the Pennsylvania facility to finalise the deal, he never appeared.

It was later discovered, Barlow said, that senior State Department figures had confidentially informed Pakistani officials of the arrest warrant, allowing Haq to evade capture. “I was ballistic,” Barlow recalled. “These were people in my own government—the enemy within.”

The former intelligence officer emphasised that the tip-off was not a result of operational negligence but of deliberate political interference. Barlow maintained that powerful figures in Washington prioritised Pakistan’s strategic role in the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan over enforcing US non-proliferation laws.

The decision effectively undermined years of investigative work and exposed dangerous policy divisions within the American government.

According to Barlow, his team had gathered irrefutable evidence linking Parvez and Haq to Pakistan’s state-controlled nuclear institutions. “There was no doubt they were government agents. We had hard evidence in the form of documents, communications, and undercover recordings,” he said.

When Parvez’s arrest became public, the incident provoked an uproar in the US Congress. Lawmakers, including Congressman Stephen Solarz, demanded the suspension of American aid to Pakistan under non-proliferation amendments such as the Solarz and Pressler laws. The disclosure highlighted a growing split between the State Department’s pro-Pakistan stance and sections of the intelligence community concerned with stopping nuclear proliferation.

Barlow argued that the true fault lay not in intelligence lapses but in flawed foreign policy. “It was not an intelligence failure; it was a policy failure,” he insisted. Despite clear violations of American export controls, the White House and State Department continued facilitating military and financial assistance to Pakistan throughout the 1980s.

By 1986–87, Barlow said, most analysts within the intelligence community were convinced that Pakistan had successfully produced all the components required for nuclear weapons assembly. However, government lawyers sought ways to bypass legislative restrictions and preserve aid flows essential for sustaining Pakistan’s support of the Afghan Mujahideen.

Barlow later testified before Congress alongside National Intelligence Officer David Einsel, who he claimed had close ties to the White House and instructions not to threaten aid continuity. His testimony revealed the depth of bureaucratic conflict between policy authorities and proliferation monitors.

“This was not an intelligence failure,” Barlow reiterated. “This was a policy issue—a wink and a nod.” He further described how the Reagan administration’s obsession with countering the Soviet Union overshadowed the dangers posed by Pakistan’s nuclear advances.

“The Cold Warriors were in charge,” Barlow said. “The fight against the Soviets was everything. They viewed Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons as secondary, interpreting everything through the prism of the Cold War.”

The revelations underscore how geopolitical considerations during the Cold War era often overrode non-proliferation commitments, enabling Pakistan’s rapid nuclear progress while straining internal cohesion across the US intelligence and diplomatic apparatus.

Based On ANI Report