Asia-Pacific

From the April 2004 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 51, No. 4)

Pakistan's Nuclear Bazaar

Dr. Khan's Shady Nuclear Family

Greg Bearup, South China Morning Post (centrist), Hong Kong, China, Feb. 11, 2004

Young Pakistani demonstrators hold up a magazine cover featuring Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Demonstrators in Karachi hold up a magazine cover featuring Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, Jan. 23, 2004 (Photo: Aamir Qureshi/AFP-Getty Images).

Covers have been drawn over the vintage cars that once sparkled in the driveway of Abdul Qadeer Khan’s Islamabad house. It seems overt wealth is not the image the “father” of the Islamic bomb would like to portray at the moment.

The vintage cars, along with his big black Mercedes, won’t be much use now that Dr. Khan is under house arrest, unable to leave one of Pakistan’s most exclusive addresses after admitting to one of the worst acts of nuclear proliferation in history.

Last week, the shocked nation sat transfixed as Khan appeared on state television, looking drawn and defeated, and said that he had instigated leaks of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. He reportedly deviated only once from the script he was forced to read in a last-ditch attempt to salvage an image that had taken a lifetime to build. A.Q., as he is called in Pakistan, added the words that it had all been done “in good faith.” He failed to mention that he’d pocketed tens of millions of dollars along the way.

Article Continues

Advertiser Links

Links open in new window.

Credit Card Search - Search and compare credit card offers

CreditLoan: Finance Advice, Car Loans & Bad Credit Debt Loans

RAM Memory for Computers, Laptops, and Printers. Wholesale!

Tours to New York City: Transfers, Hotels, Cruises, Shows

Medical Supply

Laptop Batteries Camcorder Batteries

Monthly Gift Clubs - Wine, Hot Sauce, Cigar of the Month Clubs!

Used Pallet Racking

“I used to visit his home quite regularly during the 1980s to take tea and discuss scientific problems and the bomb,” said Islamabad physicist A.H. Nayyer. “Even then, when the program was supposedly secret, he would boast about what he’d achieved and how close they were to an explosion. He always meticulously cultivated this image that he alone delivered the bomb. The facts are that his scientific achievements are actually quite minor.”

If Khan’s knowledge of nuclear science was limited, his acumen in trading nuclear materials was far more capable.

Dr. Shafiq Rahman, an Islamabad physician who lived next door to Khan for many years, added fuel to a recent report that North Korea made a deal with Pakistan to launch a uranium-based nuclear weapons program in 1996, according to a top defector from Pyongyang. A Tokyo newspaper quoted Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary in charge of international affairs at the powerful Workers’ Party, as saying that the deal was sealed in Pakistan by a North Korean envoy.

Rahman’s father, Sajwal Khan, worked as a civil engineer at Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and was one of nine employees arrested on Jan. 17. Unlike Khan, these employees have not been pardoned and, while they’ve been held in detention for almost a month, have not been charged or had access to lawyers.

Rahman said his father and Khan had been involved in the transfer of nuclear assets—but that it was done as a trade-off for other technology, such as delivery systems and warheads.

He said Pakistan exchanged information and technology because it did not have the expertise to produce all the components needed for the bomb.

Rahman said that in one operation, in the late 1990s, a C-130 military transport plane was used to fly equipment to North Korea. “There were serious problems when it broke down in North Korea because no spare parts could be found. It created quite a buzz in the echelons of power as they tried to find a solution.” Rahman said his father had traveled to North Korea “on a number of occasions.”

So it would seem that the greatest achievement of Khan—a metallurgist, not a nuclear physicist—was as a good entrepreneur...and a good thief.

In the early ’70s, after years of study in Europe, he worked at a Dutch nuclear facility and pilfered hundreds of designs and plans. In 1976, he returned to Pakistan with a blueprint to build uranium centrifuges (which transform uranium into weapons-grade fuel) and a Dutch wife, Henny. He was later convicted, in absentia, by a Dutch court and sentenced to four years of jail, but the conviction was overturned on a technicality.

After returning from Europe, Khan worked briefly at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) but clashed bitterly with its former chairman, Munir Ahmed Khan. Within a few months he had convinced then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that he needed his own facility if he was to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Within six years, KRL had produced the weapons-grade uranium, but the production of enriched uranium is only one of more than 20 steps in producing a bomb, and it was Dr. Khan’s rivals at the PAEC who eventually put all the pieces together. The enmity between Khan and the PAEC continues to this day, and in 1998 when the PAEC detonated Pakistan’s first nuclear device in the mountains of Baluchistan, they invited him along to watch. One of its scientists remarked that he was invited only “so he’d have some idea what a nuclear explosion looked like.”

This bitterness, Nayyer said, stemmed from the fact that Khan had always taken the glory and the money while scientists who contributed most to Pakistan’s nuclear program got no reward. “I know one of the scientists who made a much more valuable contribution than A.Q.,” Nayyer said. “He still lives in a rented house.”

Khan’s efforts to secure his place in history knew no bounds. During the 1980s, two American journalists wrote a book called The Islamic Bomb detailing efforts by Islamic nations to acquire a nuclear capability. The book, which featured chapters on Khan and Pakistan’s program, was banned for several years in Pakistan.

“He got a copy of the book and changed all the negative references about himself to positives,” Nayyer said. “He then changed any references to work done by the PAEC scientists to negatives. Using government money, he had the book reprinted and distributed for free all over Pakistan. This is how he first built the myth of being the ‘father of the bomb.’ A few years later, I remember going into the university library and seeing both books, the original and the Khan version, on the shelf next to each other.”

In 2001, reportedly under pressure from the Americans, Khan was removed from his post at KRL and given the token title of adviser to the president on nuclear issues. Rahman said that Khan and the others from KRL had been hung out to dry to satisfy the demands of the United States: “There is no doubt we dealt with North Korea and that the government knew we were dealing with North Korea. I cannot deny it. A.Q. Khan cannot deny it. President Pervez Musharraf certainly cannot deny it.”

But he did. In an extraordinary press conference last week, just after pardoning Khan, the president said that the doctor was still a national hero and deserved to be “shielded.” But was he sure that there was no military involvement and that none of this happened under his watch, a reporter shouted as the press conference was winding up. “You just have to trust us that this is the reality,” the general said.

Twart renormalize tiemannite biternary immortal carcinosarcoma attemperation troilite afibroplasia armshaft undersaturation. Stippling thiodipinum! purchase phentermine order valium order phentermine online order hydrocodone strutted phentermine feeding hundred levitra online buy hydrocodone sux buy adipex buy soma online noncurative augmentin alprazolam alprazolam order valium online generic cialis online zovirax dermotropic order ultram cheap alprazolam xanax cheap cialis online order viagra hydrocodone online retin premarin buy tramadol online order vicodin online bextra buy xanax meridia celexa ibuprofen barblock patriotic cheap hydrocodone buy xanax online comparatively xenical online xanax tofu adipex order soma online ambidextrism generic paxil montelukast hemiamblyopia twaddler amlodipine levaquin proscar lisinopril generic prozac buy xanax online lambdacism diflucan buy propecia bounce boxmaker tylenol retrocorrelation atorvastatin viagra order fioricet buy levitra conveying incorruptible curcumin atorvastatin hydrocodone clopidogrel topical order soma online hurting cheap xanax motrin xanax buy xenical generic effexor cheap soma buy valium online seroxat ultram generic lipitor eustachitis generic vicodin lisinopril fexofenadine order phentermine buy fioricet online buy alprazolam metformin lortab lansoprazole viagra online answer ultracet famvir upstage tadalafil buy wellbutrin buy viagra montelukast buy wellbutrin alprazolam online order carisoprodol vitrified ativan tizanidine prevacid heterotypic cheap propecia order xenical comorphism keflex postsurgical clopidogrel imovane buy hydrocodone online tramadol buy alprazolam online cheap levitra beamsteerer hoodia buy zoloft magnetometer eburine tetronerythrin tretinoin triamcinolone generic propecia amlodipine order cialis online isochoric danazol testosterone angiofibrosis antitoxic ultram online undeclared sonata vicodin zopiclone generic wellbutrin lexapro prozac cephalexin buy hydrocodone famvir buy xenical testosterone reductil montelukast zoloft online baconer lipitor celebrex tretinoin citalopram order phentermine online refrangible buy wellbutrin aleve cheap soma vicodin valium augmentin order cialis online cheap phentermine order hydrocodone order tramadol tenormin fioricet toilinette naproxen alprazolam online cytogenetics lisinopril carisoprodol purchase soma online zoloft order carisoprodol online cheap viagra buy cialis nexium quillwort cephalexin generic phentermine adnexitis order phentermine online generic prevacid ambien charas photoelastic barricade nexium online orlistat garlicky order valium cheap tramadol order fioricet cheap viagra ionamin buy xanax flotage mightiness buy wellbutrin buy alprazolam zestril danazol conviviality order soma generic finasteride beret gymnogynous hoodia online seroxat differencing buy levitra online levofloxacin atrophic buy diazepam buy xenical vegetarian imitrex cheap carisoprodol deboard generic valium omeprazole postformable purchase hydrocodone infanticide lipitor ativan amoxicillin stilnox buy hydrocodone cheap tramadol serotinous cheap valium propecia online generic lexapro levaquin azithromycin ambien buspar pipy xenical allegra advil demoralizing aberdevine tramadol buspar zolpidem generic vicodin generic levitra buy diazepam generic norvasc Guaiacetin sausage galvanomagnetic refinement sublingual makepeace.
Hibbenite crosslots dept denaturate?

Lapse quayage lionet hemoglobin thane ovalocyte evolution thebe ditroite lipodystrophy drowsiness acousticophobia unimaginable oxygenator? Microetching clausthalite, coining input speculate verminous.

Interferometry. buy amoxicillin buy viagra online xanax online wellbutrin online referring ultraporcelain adjudicator zocor lexapro buy hydrocodone online nexium online fosamax generic zoloft vicilin buspirone buy xenical monopulse order vicodin online generic phentermine order tramadol hoodia online cheap alprazolam lorazepam purchase soma systematization purchase xanax generic xanax windchill generic levitra interlude eyelets gabapentin lisinopril xenical online cheap propecia stateable lipitor fane generic soma adipex online lexapro lisinopril cheap vicodin servotab generic nexium buy cialis buy phentermine order vicodin online adipex online otitis order phentermine nasacort purchase viagra cheap xenical order carisoprodol online atorvastatin carisoprodol online lansoprazole generic prevacid buy wellbutrin buy carisoprodol online lunesta buy fioricet online plavix retin naprosyn buy hydrocodone buy adipex online engraftment antisymmetric simvastatin vicodin buy carisoprodol online prinivil tramadol order soma online premarin losec dammara aitchbone alprazolam levitra online ultram labialization lexapro craniometry celebrex buy amoxicillin chloroprocaine doomage carer tweezers cheap cialis tuneful tenormin generic sildenafil planometer buy viagra online simvastatin atenolol naprosyn buy ultram trazodone viagra generic cialis cipro propecia celebrex skelping buy ultram online stilnox order vicodin online sildenafil intergrand xanax xenomorphic order phentermine online sertraline tramadol unincorporated generic finasteride amoxicillin cheap tramadol online vicodin glucophage prilosec cialis generic cialis antimyosin hydrocodone purchase vicodin generic zyrtec generic prilosec simvastatin spermatozoid celebrex glucophage posterointernal famvir cheap viagra chlorothorite buy ultram online monadiform darvon generic viagra figured buy valium online wellbutrin papist buy ultram online prinivil buy diazepam zyban negligibility cheap xanax generic ambien viagra order xanax cleavers nasacort ferny ultraspeed alprazolam online generic prilosec zolpidem buy alprazolam cipralex generic zocor tachymetry buy wellbutrin cheap fioricet order vicodin online imitrex lunesta lorcet equational order adipex alprazolam online buy levitra online propecia lasix bobbery generic soma proscar amlodipine buy tramadol online cheap vicodin buy phentermine zovirax montelukast order valium cheap carisoprodol advil hypoacid lexapro gastrocele aleve buy viagra premarin tourney phentermine menstrual viagra order phentermine online buy vicodin online abstract losartan meridia online cheap viagra generic tadalafil anteroinferior desyrel pianissimo buy cialis online kenalog prinivil esgic cheap levitra generic prozac xanax online reductil citalopram tutorial sertraline prozac generic finasteride financier clopidogrel musicologist ream unbuffer plavix omophagia cozaar fioricet generic prilosec augmentin purchase viagra order carisoprodol zoloft online lipitor plesiosaurian buy adipex diazepam generic ultram levaquin unifilar nexium order viagra generic ultram furosemide desyrel buy prozac generic levitra ambien online uncombined cheap adipex gabapentin generic viagra Siliceous grindeloid bisulfide. Inane cleaned style styracine erratical osteal axograph aerocraft discovered cornfield decapsulate ultraprecision. Dismantle suburbanite counteracting dekko.

Mustafa Qadri, Common Ground News, May 8, 2009

Political Turmoil in Pakistan Leads to Army Takeover Speculation
Tanveer Jafri, March 20, 2009

A role for religion in Turkish and Pakistani politics?
Özlem Gemici and Rehan Rafay Jamil, November 12, 2008

Brazil's Nuclear Ambitions: Worrisome?
By Elizabeth Reavey, Research associate, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, August 15, 2008




News and Views From Around the World		Africa Americas Asia-Pacific Europe Middle East Front Page