A CIA assessment of Chinese views of the United States and areas of both alignment and divergence with US policy and interests.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for Thursday, 27 June describes the latest developments in Yugoslavia, USSR, Cambodia, Philippines and India.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 25 July 1991 describes the latest developments in Iraq, Kuwait, the Soviet Union, Israel, Lebanon, ASEAN, South Africa, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Pakistan and Middle East.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 9 May 1991 describes the latest developments in Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, Lebanon, the Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, Yemen, Cambodia, the United Nations and Panama.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 26 October 1990 describes the latest developments in Iran, Kuwait, the Soviet Union, Lebanon, Pakistan, New Zealand and Gulf States.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 24 October 1989 describes the latest developments in the Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, and Colombia.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 10 August 1989 describes the latest developments in Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Panama, the Soviet Union, China, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Korea, and West Germany.

With the term “weapons of mass destruction” having not yet fully come into general usage, this NIE used the term “special weapons” to describe nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (formerly the term “special weapons” was sometimes used to describe nuclear weapons only). With numerous excisions, including the names of some countries in the sections on “East Asia and the Pacific” and “Central America,” this wide-ranging estimate provides broad-brushed, sometimes superficial, pictures of the situations in numerous countries along with coverage of international controls to halt sensitive technology exports to suspect countries.

For years, U.S. intelligence agencies did not take seriously Muammar Gaddafi’s efforts to develop a Libyan nuclear capability and this report provides early evidence of the perspective that the Libyan program “did not know what it was doing.” According to the CIA, the program’s “serious deficiencies,” including “poor leadership” and lack of both “coherent planning” and trained personnel made it “highly unlikely the Libyans will achieve a nuclear weapons capability within the next 10 years.” The Libyan effort was in such a “rudimentary stage” that they were trying to acquire any technology that would be relevant to producing plutonium or enriched uranium.

This heavily excised report on the “well-educated committed cadre” that managed the Pakistani nuclear program demonstrates how the CIA protects its intelligence on Pakistani nuclear activities. This is the same version of the report that can be found on the Agency’s FOIA Web page; the recent version includes no new information. Details on Khan Research Laboratories and the gas centrifuge program are entirely withheld, but some information is made available on the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission and the Directorate of Nuclear Fuels and Materials. The latter includes details on the status and purpose of major projects, for example, the Kundian Nuclear Complex, also known as the Chasma Reprocessing Plant, which was not completed until 1990. For the purposes of producing plutonium for weapons, the Pakistanis were interested in a heavy water moderated reactor of the NRX (National Research Experimental) type that Canada built at Chalk River. In 1985, the Pakistanis started that project in earnest, with construction beginning in 1987 of what became known as Khushab Chemical Plant II.