Scanning machine installed at AQ Khan’s house

[Ray]

Thursday, April 20, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

Scanning machine installed at AQ Khan’s house

By Maryam Hussain

ISLAMABAD: An explosives scanning machine has been installed in the residence of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan that his family must pass through every time they leave or enter the house.

The unannounced fresh restrictions on the disgraced nuclear scientist and his family have stressed the entire household, a family friend told Daily Times. The source said even Dr AQ Khan’s wife was required to pass through the scanning machine.

The top level source also said that Aysha Khan, Dr Khan’s youngest daughter, had been stopped from visiting her detained father without explanation. Aysha runs a private school in Islamabad. Her husband, Saad Khan, was imprisoned in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi for several days some months ago after he beat up a British diplomat. He and his family have been put on a visa blacklist by Western embassies since the quarrel.

Dr AQ Khan’s eldest daughter, Dina Khan, left Pakistan shortly after her father was put under house arrest, allegedly with some “important documents”. Dina’s 13-year-old daughter Tania is still staying with Dr AQ Khan at his house.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-4-2006_pg7_11

Pakistan wants a nuclear deal with the US.

This is what US has givben instead! ;)

Tightening the screws before errant Paksitan does more damage to the world, apart from the lemmings they have created in the wake of Osama that are terrorising the world! ;)

[Lahori paa jee]

AQ Khan is being poisoned to death. We may hear the news of his death in a few months

[Ray]

Poisoned?

But why?

[Lahori paa jee]

So that the secrets of Pak Army's involvement in Nuclear Proliferation die with him

[Neo]

The guy is ageing and he's very very ill.
I know his brother who still lives here in Amsterdam, his nephew used to be my classfellow for years, so I know the family very well.

If Mush wanted him dead, he would have done it already.

[Lahori paa jee]

That would have put mushys own life in danger too. AQ is a hero here

[Ray]

Neo,

AQ Kahn may have done mischief.

But in Paksitan he is a hero.

One can't trifle with a hero and that too since he gave Paksitan and Islam a sense of power!

Therefore, to Pakistanis, he is not only a hero, but a super hero!

[Lahori paa jee]

“President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan disclosed recently that he fired Dr Khan, a national hero credited with developing Pakistan’s bomb, in 2001 after discovering that he was trying to arrange a secret flight to the Iranian city of Zahedan, known as a centre of smuggling... Dr Khan refused to discuss the flight, saying it was important and very secret. ‘What the hell do you mean? You want to keep a secret from me?’” —The New York Times reporting an interview given by Gen Musharraf to Discovery Channel.

WE should give ourselves credit for sometimes being our own worst enemies. Why is it so hard for us to understand that silence often is the best policy and verbosity at the highest levels of government an embarrassment?

Nations have skeletons in their cupboards and we have more than our share. But does it make sense to keep rattling those cupboards all the time and drawing attention to those skeletons? The leaders we have tend to lose all sense of balance when speaking to foreign journalists. There is certainly some complex at work here and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for shrinks and sociologists to get to the bottom of it.

At the best of times giving too many interviews is not a good thing. If our leaders can’t get the Mukhtaran Mai story straight, if they can come up with such gems as the idea that some Pakistani women think getting raped is a good way of becoming a millionaire or procuring a Canadian visa, it is preferable they left slightly more complicated issues alone.

Dr A. Q. Khan may or may not have been a nuclear delinquent. He may or may not have passed nuclear secrets around. But it is the height of foolishness to suppose that if he did what he is alleged to have done, he was entirely on his own, his activities escaping the attention of the layers of security round his person and our nuclear programme.

A centrifuge is not a spark plug you can hide in your coat pocket. No one has yet accused Dr Khan of having a magic carpet able to fly centrifuges from Kahuta to secret locations in the Iranian desert. That would require a slightly more extended logistical capability.

So when we ourselves point the finger of blame at Khan, it is not him alone we are accusing. By implication we are also accusing the army command (the ultimate guardian, after all, of the nuclear programme), a string of army chiefs (from Zia to Jahangir Karamat) and indeed Pakistan itself.

The New York Times can do all the writing it likes on Khan’s nuclear activities. That is its prerogative. But why should our highest levels of government become virtual research assistants for the Times? What national interest of ours is served by this out-of-season candour? Who is impressed and what brownie points does Pakistan earn? Far from doing Pakistan any good these remarks lend credence to the charge that countries like Pakistan cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.

The Americans keep saying that given Pakistan’s endemic instability, there is a danger of its nuclear weapons falling into the hands of “Islamist terrorists”. Dr Khan’s purportedly aborted trip to Zahedan doesn’t amount to the same thing. But it comes close to suggesting that Pakistan is a murky place where anything can happen.

When we can’t let go of this subject ourselves, it’s a bit too much to expect others will oblige us by keeping quiet.

The Israelis have a sensible policy. One thing they don’t ever yap about is their nuclear programme. Mordechai Vanunu broke this taboo by revealing details of the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert. For this he had to a pay a heavy price. He was kidnapped from Rome and brought to Israel where he spent many years in solitary confinement.

Israel has American protection, yet is so careful. We have nothing of the sort and are yet so heedless.

Nuclear doubters apart who think any kind of nuclear programme to be evil, Pakistanis generally are proud of their nuclear achievement. Lacking India’s scientific and technological base, we scrounged around for nuclear parts in order to get our centrifuges working. But in the end, no doubt after a lot of tears and sweat, we made the bomb.

The credit for this goes primarily to two inspired individuals: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, who, after India’s nuclear test in 1974 decided that Pakistan too must have the bomb; and Dr Khan who put the project together and made it possible.

A pity therefore that through a mixture of folly and chest-thumping we should have turned this not inconsiderable achievement into an international scandal.

Khan himself was bitten by a strange bug. Remaining in the shadows, as befitted him, was just not his style. At the height of his power and glory, and he reached the pinnacles of both, he was a real sucker for publicity, never able to keep away from the cameras. Any function he was invited to in Islamabad he had to make an appearance. He couldn’t even help opening his mouth before the Indian journalist, Kuldip Nayyar.

At the time it was said we were sending a message to India. There are subtler ways of sending a message than firing a blunderbuss.

As long as the US had an interest in fuelling the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan (our American friends then feeling no compunction in calling it a ‘jihad’) this did not matter. But when the Soviets retreated and American priorities changed, our nuclear programme came into the spotlight. Pakistan was told to “roll back” and when it didn’t, aid was cut and multiple sanctions imposed.

But the question to ask: when Khan was letting no opportunity go by without blowing his trumpet, and encouraging his lionisation at the hands of journalists who made a beeline to his door, where were his military minders? Khan was a technician albeit one with star status. Ultimate godfathers of all things nuclear were successive army chiefs. What were they doing?

The conclusion is inescapable: if our nuclear programme was a technological triumph, its handling at the highest military levels was a political disaster. If Khan did anything wrong, his military supervisors cannot escape their share of blame for his shenanigans. This says something about what the military should do and what it shouldn’t.

But all this is water under the bridge. High time we developed a national consensus: whatever the provocation, just keep our mouths shut on this issue, take no questions, give no answers.

Compelling Khan to appear on television to utter his mea culpa was a mistake. Nations should not write such indictments against themselves. On the other hand, not allowing American investigators anywhere near Khan — as we have been led to believe — is a good thing. That should remain our policy. But for God’s sake the tendency to blurt out things which angels wouldn’t be caught uttering must be curbed.

On important matters unrehearsed or unscripted remarks are best avoided. With us, from Kashmir to Dr Khan, the impromptu remark, delivered off the cuff, seems to have become standard policy. Then because Caesar has spoken that, for better or worse, becomes the national viewpoint. There are better ways of guarding the national interest.

http://dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

As i said earlier he is being killed to hide some secrets

[Lahori paa jee]

Mushy has this impression that he has got great persuasive power.

He has always made statements as if he was some philosopher and latter had to deny them.

Even in stating governments policies he sometimes over states them.

[Asim Aquil]

He just enriched the uranium. The devices are being manufactured by a whole team of Pakistani scientists.

We owe AQ Khan a lot, but not as much as its made out to.

[Jay]

So that the secrets of Pak Army's involvement in Nuclear Proliferation die with him

May be he shud write a book ;)

[Ray]

The Paksitan govt was well aware what AQ was doing.

It is stupid to think that AQ was doing things alone.

[JASOOS VIJAY]

Yeah BR had a movie on him, its posted somewhere in the multimedia section here :).