According to an Associated Press (AP) report dated Feb13, Malaysia promised it will share with Washington information from its investigations of a man that US President George W Bush described as a major player in the global trafficking of nuclear technology.

The report, which was also published in the official website of the United States Pacific Command, quoted a Malaysian official as saying that Malaysia was "cooperating with US authorities, especially in focusing on Tahir" and "we're trying to get a bigger picture of the network".

BSA Tahir is the man named by Bush in his speech delivered at the National Defense University in Washington last Wednesday spelling out new measures to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction and their illicit proliferation worldwide.

According to a BBC report, Bush's speech calling for "better international cooperation to halt the spread of nuclear weapons" was supported by China, Japan, Pakistan and India.

Tahir, a Dubai-based Sri Lankan, is reportedly married to a Malaysian woman. According to Bush, Tahir was the "chief financial officer and money launderer" of the Pakistan-centred network of nuclear trafficking to, possibly among others, Libya.

He was also accused of acting on behalf of Abdul Qadeer Khan - the Pakistani nuclear scientist who recently confessed to leaking and illegally trading nuclear technology to other countries, and securing the production and sale of centrifuges by Malaysian company Scomi Precision Engineering (Scope).

The majority shareholder in the company, was none other than Kamaluddin Abdullah ( right ), the 35-year-old son of Malaysian Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Senior officials involved?

While it was clarified that Kamaluddin had no official management role in the firm, a Feb 5 report in the New York Times mentioned that Scomi's chairperson was a former secretary-general of the International Trade and Industry Ministry, Asmat Kamaluddin.

The report also suggested that "with the tight control that the Malaysian government has traditionally exercised, many Malaysians and foreign diplomats doubt that a sale of this nature would have been possible without the knowledge of at least some senior government officials, probably in the military".

It quoted a Western official in Kuala Lumpur as describing the components sold by Scomi of "very high quality, very high tech" whose production "required a lot of expertise".

It also reported that Abdul Qadeer "made periodic trips to Malaysia over the past few years" and "according to Malaysian and Western intelligence agencies, not always traveling under his real name".

However, the police here have "cleared" Scomi of any wrongdoings, although, according to the AP report, "the investigation continues". It has been counter-claimed that Scomi did not know the end-use of the components which were said to be of dual-use or even "generic".

In any case, Bush's speech, delivered after the Malaysian police had said it had "cleared" Scomi, seems to have caused bipartisan concerns in Malaysia.

For example, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was reported on Feb 13 by the national news agency Bernama as saying that he was " disappointed" with "several undue references to Malaysia" in Bush's speech.

"We are disappointed that the speech appears to question the commitment of the government of Malaysia on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation," he said.

He reportedly refuted any suggestion that Scomi was involved with an international network which supported the illegal production of centrifuges.

Seek apology

Earlier, top leaders of Malaysia's opposition parties made public calls urging the government to clarify, rebut or even demand apology from the United States, if the claims made by Bush were unfounded or inaccurate.

Both Keadilan president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang called for the publication of a White Paper to set out the rebuttal to Bush's claims.

According to Wan Azizah, the issue cannot be settled through verbal, uncoordinated and "confusing" rebuttal or clarification in the mass media, but only in an official White Paper that was coherent, systematic and point-by-point.

She also suggested that Malaysia should seek an apology from Bush, if his claims "are unfounded and faulty". She added, there had been many cases where American and British intelligence materials had been proven " faulty", such as the controversial claim that before the Iraq war, the Saddam Hussein regime was in possession of weapons of mass destruction which could be launched " within 45 minutes".

However, she also added, if the claims made by Bush were correct, then the implications will be "serious and highly disturbing", not only to Malaysia but also its "friends and neighbours".

According to her, the concerns were whether Malaysia has "the secret intention and capability, even if in the future, to develop or even weaponise nuclear power" and whether its security was "tight enough" to prevent illegal production and movement of weapons of mass destruction or any vital components like centrifuges.

Meanwhile, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang also called on the government to rebut Bush's claims.

'Satisfactory' ties

However, an observer of Malaysia-US relations pointed out that although Bush's claims were "serious and disturbing" and Malaysia's denial "vehement", the security relations between the two countries remain " satisfactory" since Abdullah took over the office of prime minister in November.

For example, from Feb 3-6, the US Seventh Fleet's flagship Blue Ridge (LCC19) docked at Westport in Port Klang, and invited many senior military representatives, politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties, journalists and other diplomatic observers from Malaysia to visit the command-and-control ship.

A two-hour cocktail party was held on board Blue Ridge in the evening of Feb 3 and a Marine Band also performed publicly at the Petronas Twin Towers in central Kuala Lumpur later.

Although not publicly well known, the security cooperation between Malaysia and US has always been rather close since the early 1980s as the two countries hold many joint military exercises and training programmes.

Moreover, the Bush administration also sent congratulatory messages to both Abdullah and Najib Abdul Razak on their assumption of the offices of prime minister and deputy prime minister respectively.

However, both the former Bill Clinton and current Bush administrations still officially and publicly regard jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim as a "political prisoner".

For many years, administrations and politicians on both sides of the political divide in US have been consistently and publicly critical of Malaysia's human rights records and certain aspects of its conduct of international relations, especially during former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's 22-year administration.

So, how the rogue nuclear row between Malaysia and US on one hand, and between Malaysia's new premier and the domestic opposition on the other develops, should be an interesting issue to observe.