Another Embargo Mocked

The Bush Administration has scorned the clear intent of Congress by its unique discovery of a loophole in the ban on arms transfers to Pakistan.

A 1985 law says that “no military equipment or technology shall be sold or transferred to Pakistan” unless the President certifies “that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device.” The ban was passed when it became clear that Pakistan was vigorously pursuing a covert nuclear-weapons program. Its aim was to pressure the long-time recipient of U.S. military aid to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. When President Bush told Congress on Oct. 1, 1990, that he could not certify that Pakistan was in compliance with the law, the ban took effect.

But it has now been learned, as Murray Waas and Douglas Frantz reported in The Times this week, that the ban is porous. With Administration approval, Pakistan--which now officially acknowledges its nuclear weapons program--has been allowed quietly to buy military equipment from American commercial firms. Why?

Secretary of State James A. Baker III says that his department’s lawyers concluded that the ban does not apply to “commercial sales or exports controlled by the Department of Commerce.” But those who sponsored and supported the 1985 ban say that its intent was unambiguously inclusive: “ No military equipment shall be sold or transferred . . . .” The department’s lawyers ingenuously inferred an exception where none was meant to be.

The Administration argues that the military transfers were needed to prevent a deterioration in Pakistan’s defensive capabilities. But if that’s the case, such a need should have been foreseen and negotiated with Congress before the ban was enacted. News of the secret sales to Pakistan follows revelations in The Times about the Reagan and Bush administrations’ covert policy of supplying terrorism-sponsoring Iraq with dual-use technology in the 1980s. Both cases mock the embargoes that were supposed to be in effect.