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One Reporter's Opinion: The Rise and Fall of A.Q. Khan George Putnam It is this reporter's opinion that ever since we dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the race has been on for nuclear superiority. And now the "nuclear club" includes at least eight countries, with others standing in line to build (or outright buy) the most fearsome weapon ever devised.
One merchant of death in the forefront of this race for the bomb is Abdul Qadeer Khan, commonly referred to as A.Q. Khan. Khan, born in Ghopal, is a German-educated metallurgist who from the 1970s through the 1990s secretly disseminated nuclear technology to a number of rogue states around the world.
The full story of Khan's activities has been examined in a persuasive preliminary account by Gordon Corera, a correspondent for the BBC who has followed the rise and fall of Khan, in his book "Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network." It's a disturbing tale.
According to Corera, Khan headed Pakistan's nuclear program for 25 years and is considered Pakistan's "national hero." From May 1972 to December 1975 Khan was employed by Physics Dynamic Research Laboratory, aka F.D.O. (an engineering firm based in Amsterdam and a subcontractor to the URENCO Consortium specializing in the manufacture of nuclear equipment).
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In 1975 Dr. Khan was asked by Pakistan's prime minister to take charge of their uranium enrichment program. In early 1976 Dr. Khan left the Netherlands with secret URENCO blueprints for a uranium centrifuge. In 1983 Dr. Khan was convicted in absentia by a court in the Netherlands for stealing designs for key components, such as centrifuges, from his Dutch employer. His conviction was later overturned on a technicality.
Because Pakistan lacked the technical base for a nuclear program, Khan began to clandestinely acquire the necessary materials and components required for the production of fissile material using information he had taken with him from the Netherlands.
During the 1990s there were clues from intelligence that A.Q. Khan was discussing the sale of nuclear technology to "countries of concern." And it became clear that Khan was at the center of an international proliferation network – that uranium enrichment equipment was supplied to at least one customer in the Middle East, thought to be Libya, with evidence linking this activity to Khan.
Khan's official career came to an end in March 2001 after warnings from the U.S. to Pakistani President Musharraf about the "incontrovertible evidence of proliferation activities" of Khan.
There have been a number of allegations regarding Pakistan's nuclear weapon – that its origins may lie with China, since Pakistan's bombs closely mirror the Chinese designs from the late 1960s, which relied on advanced, implosion-based detonation.
In January 2004 Pakistani officials concluded that two of the country's most senior nuclear scientists had contacts that supplied sensitive technology to Iran and Libya through a black market based in the Persian Gulf Emirate of Dubai. Pakistani President Musharraf acknowledged that some of the scientists may have acted for their own personal gain, but he denied any government involvement and pledged harsh punishment for anyone implicated in the scandal.
In a startling televised confession, Khan insisted that he acted without authorization in selling nuclear technology to other governments but admitted selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan asked for clemency, but there is firm evidence that his network to supply such activities is global in scope, stretching from Germany to Dubai and from China to South Asia, and involves numerous middlemen and suppliers.
Top-flight journalist Gabriel Schoenfeld, senior editor of Commentary magazine, says Khan may not be as well known as Robert Oppenheimer or Enrico Fermi, who paved the way for America's atomic success, but he has played a major role in the 20th century history of the bomb.
In his book, the BBC's Gordon Corera traces the outflow of blueprints and materials in the 1990s. As Schoenfeld points out, U.S. intelligence services, although supposedly devoted to preventing nuclear proliferation, were almost completely in the dark about the biggest proliferation racket going. Their analysts were aware that Pakistan was importing nuclear technology, but they failed to grasp that such purchases were often intended for RE-EXPORT. Schoenfeld says the CIA has been appallingly ineffective for far too long. Lord only knows the price we'll pay!
As more and more evidence implicates Dr. Khan, God only knows what damage has been done or what Iran has acquired from Khan and others through the years. Such is the sordid tale of Dr. A.Q. Khan as friend and foe race to build the bomb. If the nuclear weapon falls into the hands of a rogue madman – if such a cataclysm happens – A.Q. Khan may figure at the core in the judgment of history.
References:
Gordon Corera, BBC Security Correspondent:
http://www.amazon.com/Shopping-Bombs-Proliferation-Insecurity-Network/dp/0195304950/sr=1-1/qid=1157038196/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1823934-5377526?ie=UTF8&s=books
Gabriel Schoenfeld, Senior Editor of Commentary Magazine: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/
Editor's note:
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