U.S. Officials Reportedly Conclude That Pakistan Has a Nuclear Bomb : Weapons: This assessment was behind the U.S. suspension of aid.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  After years of suspicion, U.S. officials have concluded that Pakistan has developed a nuclear explosive device, a knowledgeable source said Tuesday. The officials believe that the bomb was completed last spring at the height of increased tension with India over long-disputed Kashmir, the source said.

The determination was based partially on satellite photographs of the closely guarded Kahuta uranium enrichment facility about 12 miles from Islamabad, as well as on reports of covert attempts to buy sophisticated high-temperature furnaces and other critical elements through intermediaries in the United States and Europe, other sources said.

The U.S. assessment, which Pakistan officially rejects, was behind Washington’s unexpected suspension of $564 million in new economic and military aid to Pakistan earlier this month. The freeze also affects $2.7 billion in previously authorized military aid and sales, including the delivery next year of 71 F-16 fighter jets.

U.S. officials concede that the aid freeze vastly complicates U.S. relations with its third-largest aid recipient and closest ally in South Asia. It also has become an emotional political issue in national elections being held across the country today.

Analysts said that Benazir Bhutto, who was ousted as prime minister Aug. 6, appears likely to capture strong support despite a seventh corruption charge filed against her Tuesday by the caretaker government.

Public opinion polls show that most Pakistanis strongly support the country’s nuclear program to maintain a balance of power with India, its neighbor and longtime enemy. Pakistan began its program after India exploded a nuclear device in 1974.

“It is seen as vital to the security of Pakistan,” said Mushahid Hussain, a lecturer at Pakistan’s National Defense College and the military Command and Staff College. “The West does not have a lethal enemy breathing down its neck, as we do.”

“I haven’t seen a single anti-nuclear editorial,” agreed Najam Sethi, editor of the Friday Times, an independent weekly in Lahore. “You would be ruined, wiped out, run out of town, if you said we don’t need the bomb.”

Pakistan has never tested a nuclear bomb and denies having one. But it refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or allow international experts to inspect suspected facilities until India agrees to the same conditions.

The aid freeze was triggered when President Bush could not certify to Congress that Pakistan “does not possess a nuclear explosive device,” as required in a 1985 law.

“We believe it’s gone past that line,” the knowledgeable source said, adding, “There’s a certain amount of subjectivity in there.”

Despite White House warnings in 1988 and 1989, assurances from Islamabad that the program was stopped “no longer held up” early this year, the source said. “There was new information on new activities that had taken place this year,” he added.

Bush’s deputy national security adviser, Robert M. Gates, expressed concern about the work when he met with Pakistan President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in Islamabad on May 21 to discuss the threat of war with India over Kashmir, according to Hussain.

Hussain said Gates complained that Pakistan was preparing weapons-grade uranium at Kahuta, in violation of a 1984 pledge. “The U.S. feels that commitment was not kept,” he said. “So they want to open Kahuta for inspection.”

Pakistan has fought three wars with India, two over the status of Kashmir. Both countries claim the divided Himalayan state, while hundreds have died this year as India has tried to crush a violent pro-independence movement in its only Muslim state.

Some U.S. officials privately admit they conveniently ignored Pakistan’s nuclear development in the 1980s, when the country was used to supply American weapons to anti-Soviet guerrillas fighting in neighboring Afghanistan.

Many Pakistanis say the United States also overlooked widespread human rights violations, an explosion in drug trafficking and 11 years of brutal martial law under Bhutto’s predecessor, Gen. Zia ul-Haq.

“They find America’s sudden focus on democracy rather amusing,” one Western diplomat said.

The ambivalence is one reason the aid freeze has aroused strong nationalist passions in a bitter election campaign. Both Bhutto and her opponents have tried to tap into resentment against the United States, accusing each other of undermining the nation’s popular nuclear program.

The Islamic Democratic Alliance, for example, has denounced Bhutto as a “traitor” and accused her and her mother of lobbying Washington to cut aid on India’s behalf in a “Zionist-Hindu conspiracy.”

Bhutto, in turn, has insisted that her government repeatedly resisted U.S. pressure to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty but that her opponents were prepared to do so.

“We prefer to lay down our lives for the vital nuclear program instead of compromising on it,” she told a packed rally in Rawalpindi last Friday.

The knowledgeable source said the U.S. freeze would be reviewed after a new government is elected. For now, it has caused “a tremendous amount of antipathy and hostility, which is going to make U.S.-Pakistan relations more difficult.”

The freeze comes at a difficult time for Pakistan. Already burdened by heavy debts and debt servicing, the impoverished nation stands to lose $2 billion from the Persian Gulf crisis, according to government officials. The loss comes from a surge in oil prices, a sharp fall in exports and lost currency remittances from Pakistani workers who have fled Iraq and Kuwait.

But few Pakistanis appear sympathetic to calls for nuclear non-proliferation. A group of men who gathered to sip tea in a crowded Lahore bazaar several nights ago had nothing but scorn for the idea.

“Why should America tell us what to do?” demanded Mohammad Saleem, a 26-year-old office clerk. “We are not a colony of America. Why does George Bush want to be the viceroy of Pakistan?”