Indira Gandhi didn't approve India-Israel plan to bomb Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear site, claims ex-CIA officer

Former CIA officer Richard Barlow revealed in an interview with ANI that former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did not approve pre-emptive strikes on Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear facility, which he claims would have "solved a lot of problems" and stopped the nuclear ambitions of Pakistan. He also said that the US presidents until 1989 deliberately hid the fact of Pakistan's nuclear capability. Richard Barlow was a CIA counterproliferation officer during the 1980s secret nuclear activity in Pakistan.

Revelations from a former CIA officer, Richard Barlow

“I can tell you that most of us at the CIA were not comfortable with this. Eventhough we are not elected officials, we can provide senior policymakers with the best available intelligence, which is accurate.” Said Barlow. He said that it was even mentioned in Seymour Hersh's 1993 article in The New Yorker. In the articles, Hersh mentions Pakistan had developed nuclear weapons with explicit consent from Bush and Regan, using restricted, high-tech materials purchased in the US.

"I was out of government from 1982 until 1985. And I think that may have occurred while I was out of government. I heard about it at some point. But I didn't get my teeth into it because it never happened," said Burlow. India and Israel were planning for preemptive strikes at nuclear sites in Kahuta. It's a plan which was not approved by Indira Gandhi, and also would not have been approved by the then US President Ronald Regan. He called it a ‘shame’. The US also did not want Israel to get involved, as it would have jeopardised the US's covert war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.

Pakistan officials like Munir Ahmad Khan, former head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), also used this as leverage that any stop in the aid would see the cessation of cooperation in Afghanistan. "I think Reagan would have cut Menachem Begin's ba**s off if he did anything like that. Because it would have interfered with the Afghan problem," said Burlow.