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What's All the Fuss About A.Q. Khan?

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  • What's All the Fuss About A.Q. Khan?

    What's All the Fuss About A.Q. Khan?
    by Gordon Prather

    Even before retiring, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet – who had presided over two of the worst intelligence failures in history – tried to salvage something of his reputation. In remarks he made last February at his alma mater, Georgetown University, Tenet concluded by saying,

    "Last year in my annual World Wide Threat testimony before Congress in open session, I talked about the emerging threat from private proliferators, especially nuclear brokers.

    "I was cryptic about this in public, but I can tell you now that I was talking about A.Q. Khan. His network was shaving years off the nuclear weapons development timelines of several states, including Libya.

    "Now, as you know from the news coming out of Pakistan, Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow, with several of his senior officers in custody. Malaysian authorities have shut down one of the network's largest plants. His network is now answering to the world for years of nuclear profiteering."

    Notice Tenet didn't claim that Khan was a nuclear-weapons proliferator. Or that Khan had done anything that had resulted in nuclear-weapons proliferation.

    For good reason.

    Shortly after India tested its first nuke, metallurgist A.Q. Khan – working at the time as a subcontractor to Urenco, the European uranium-enrichment consortium – began sending back to Pakistan engineering drawings of Urenco centrifuges, lists of associated parts and components, and the suppliers thereof.

    Khan returned to Pakistan in 1978 and soon established a uranium-enrichment program at Kahuta, based upon his Pak-1 gas-centrifuge, a modification of Urenco's first generation design. But Khan had trouble producing aluminum rotors which would pass the "spin" test. So, in the 1990s, Khan developed the Pak-2, his modifcation of Urenco's second-generation design, which had maraging steel rotors.

    Khan then sold off the Pak-1 equipment. To Iran. To Libya.

    When Pakistan held its first international arms bazaar in 2000, there was available at the booth of A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) a Pak-2 brochure, as well as an associated 10-page catalog of specialty vacuum pumps, gauges, high-voltage switches, power supplies, and other equipment.

    According to KRL representatives, all the listed items were available for sale and had been approved for export by the Pakistan government.

    Now, how's that for a "hidden network"?

    Nevertheless, Tenet claimed to have played a major role in uncovering it.

    "First, we discovered the extent of Khan's hidden network. We tagged the proliferators. We detected the network stretching from Pakistan to Europe to the Middle East to Asia offering its wares to countries like North Korea and Iran.

    "Working with our British colleagues, we pieced together the picture of the network, revealing its subsidiaries, scientists, front companies, agents, finances, and manufacturing plants on three continents.

    "Our spies penetrated the network through a series of daring operations over several years. Through this unrelenting effort, we confirmed the network was delivering such things as illicit uranium enrichment centrifuges."

    Now, delivering a uranium-enrichment centrifuge to anyone is not illicit unless such delivery is a violation of the laws of the exporting country. And accepting delivery is not illicit unless the importing country (a) is a signatory to the NPT and (b) intends to enrich uranium for use in a nuclear weapon.

    Last December, Libya decided to follow Iran's lead. Libya admitted having attempted for more than a decade to acquire a uranium-enrichment capability, and Libya had engaged in some activities that should have been reported to the IAEA, but weren't. But Libya told IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei it wanted to sign – and adhere to, immediately – a go-anywhere, see-anything Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement

    ElBaradei was shown warehouses full of uranium-enrichment equipment, much of it still in shipping crates. ElBaradei reported that he found no evidence that Libya had yet produced even small amounts of enriched uranium. Apparently, the Libyans – like the Iranians – had the money to buy such equipment, but – unlike the Iranians – had no idea what to do with it once they got it.

    But the Washington Post reported that the Libyans also gave ElBaradei two white plastic shopping bags from a Pakistani clothing shop. The shop's name – Good Looks Tailor – and Islamabad address were printed on the bags in red letters. One of the bags contained drawings and blueprints; the other contained "a stack of instructions on how to build not only a bomb but also its essential components."

    The Libyans obviously didn't know what to do with that, either.

    As for Khan, in 2001, Pakistan tightened up its export laws. So Khan "retired."

  • #2
    Seriously , good thing this Libyan "affair" has been closed more or less permanently.They were crying for nukes since , Morarji Desai's times.
    Bloody fool nearly agreed to sell.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by SamudraGupta
      Seriously , good thing this Libyan "affair" has been closed more or less permanently.They were crying for nukes since , Morarji Desai's times.
      Bloody fool nearly agreed to sell.
      Araay yaar Sell it all! :) Make some god-damn money! I dont know why ppl get so paranoid!

      Comment


      • #4
        As far as i am concerned the advent of Nanotechnology and EMP will render Nuclear weaponry and missile technology redundant.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Hawk_eye
          As far as i am concerned the advent of Nanotechnology and EMP will render Nuclear weaponry and missile technology redundant.
          You may be right as far as govts are concerned, but for the rogues and terrorists a nuke is a great bargaining tool.

          Cheers!...on the rocks!!

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by lemontree
            You may be right as far as govts are concerned, but for the rogues and terrorists a nuke is a great bargaining tool.
            Not a bad point sir!

            Comment


            • #7
              Hawk_eye,

              Nanotechnology will take at least a decade to develop. And that period will be more than enough for any terrorist to get his hands on some nukes.

              BTW, because nanotech is still in the laboratory stage, my knowledge of it is limited to basic engineering applications. In what way can nanotechnology overtake nukes and missiles? I think it has the potential to better them.

              I found a link here though.
              Last edited by Karthik; 23 Feb 05,, 11:47.

              Comment


              • #8
                Nanotechnology may not replace nukes or missiles, but because there are enough miliary applications that can render the enemy ineffective and even 'crippled'.

                As far as AQ Khan and his purveying of the nukes to the highest bidder, I reckon it is a case of crying over spilt milk.

                If people knew that he was selling these dangerous stuff to rogues and thugs, then something should have been done at that time.

                I am not supporting the selling of the nuke tech and allied infrastructure, but I am focussing on the issue of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. If the nuke tech and equipment wasn't sold to Iran by AQ Khan, then the unfortunate standoff that the US is now facing would have been avoided and the world would have been a wee bit safer.
                Last edited by Ray; 23 Feb 05,, 07:53.


                "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                HAKUNA MATATA

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Karthik Dinakar
                  Hawk_eye,

                  Nanotechnology will take at least a decade to develop. And that period will be more than enough for any terrorist to get his hands on some nukes.

                  BTW, because nanotech is still in the laboratory stage, my knowledge of it is limited to basic engineering applications. In what way can nanotechnology overtake nukes and missiles? I think it has the potential to better them.

                  I found a link here though.
                  Good question, here are a few applications for Nano-tech:

                  Military applications include new propellants and explosives of higher energy density, and miniaturized guidance systems for small munitions. Nanostructured material could bring improved armor penetrators and some strengthening of light armor. Firearms could gain range and accuracy at reduced weight. Small missiles could become practicle even against human targets.
                  ...
                  NT and microsystems technology would permit vehicles and mobile robots of decimeter down to millimeter size, some using biomimetic forms of propulsion. One variant would be to use small animals (rats, insects) controlled by implanted electrodes. Although the munitions payload of small robots would be limited, they could attack at senstive spots, or act in swarms to achieve a mass effect...

                  Implants in soldiers' bodies could monitor their health status, and release druges for therapy--or to influence performance and mood. Identification, communication, or espionage devices could be implanted to keep them hidden. Another type of implant would use electrodes to contact nerves and the brain to reduce reaction time and to communicate sensory impressions or (simple) information.

                  NT approaches could soon lead to extensions of chemical and biological warfare. Nanoparticles designed to ferry therapeutic drugs across the blood-brain barrier or to concentrate in certain organs could as well deliver harmful substances. A mechanism developed to kill cancer cells after recognition of a mutant gene or protein could be used to target (or spare) a certain group, possibly even a certain individual, on the basis of either genetic factors or some separately administered biochemical marker...
                  ============

                  US Army to invest in Nanotech Centre
                  According to some reports the US Army is planning to invest $10 million annually in a collaboration with a yet to-be-decided university to start an " Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies."

                  The aim apparently is to create networked army uniforms with built-in sensors, leading on to wider implications for civilian products. The uniforms will monitor soldiers' vital signs on a real-time basis and could even send back images to commanders. Research into materials may lead to uniforms that are vuirtually impenetrable by ballistics, yet lightweight, and able to repel biological and chemical agents while absorbing oxygen.

                  Dr. Michael Andrews, deputy assistant secretary of the US Army for research and technology, and chief scientist said "We want to provide a good level of capability for our soldiers that will translate itself into commercial use for police or doctors - for those who may have to go into a chemical or biological environment."

                  Tom Kalil, former President Bill Clinton's chief technology adviser, praised the institute plan, and predicted that nanoscience investments by government will surely benefit society, saying it "could lead to technological breakthroughs as significant as the development of electricity, the transistor and the Internet."

                  Kalil went on to say "Clearly, there are military applications of nanotechnology," "but there are also many more civilian benefits, and some that could have 'dual-use' benefits - such as nano-engineered uniforms for police, or biosensors that could provide much earlier detection of diseases."

                  Philip Kuekes, a computer architect in quantum science research who specializes in nanotechnology at HP Labssaid the new institute will be "an important step for the nanotechnology research community.Right now, at the beginning of the century, the scientific community recognizes a big opportunity in nanotechnology." Kuekes said the blending of nanotechnology and clothing makes sense, given the computer's evolution from an "air-conditioned beast in a basement somewhere" to something people carry around with them.

                  =======
                  Some futher sources:
                  http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true

                  www.onr.navy.mil/about/conferences/ rd_partner/docs/accelerating_time/murday.pdf


                  Its big! :)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    They are big indeed ! Thanks for the links :) .

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The great Pakistani lie
                      How long is the world to believe that A.Q.Khan proliferated alone?

                      11 March 2005: There is a limit to the patience that is expected of the world and India in respect of Pakistani proliferation, that patience and forbearance demanded of and obtained by the United States, but limits to them have been crossed by the latest disclosure. Pakistan yesterday acknowledged that its notorious nuclear scientist, A.Q.Khan, shipped entire centrifuges to Iran to make nuclear weapons.

                      The Pakistan information minister who made the disclosure, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, however continued with the fiction that the Pakistan government had no hand or knowledge of the centrifuge shipments. Centrifuges are not the same as mobile phone made for ants, and Pakistani proliferation which commenced in the Eighties and continued apace through the Nineties and still apparently goes on with Saudi Arabia is of a scale and magnitude that implicates the Pakistan government and its successive constituent regimes. The tragedy is that we are expected to believe Khan ran this great huge nuclear empire alone with close relatives.

                      Pakistan became an assured proliferator soon after Khan credibly claimed making the deterrent in the mid-Eighties. Pakistan was then ruled by General Zia-ul-Haq who had forced the US to look the other way of its weaponisation programme in return for the waged so-called jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Zia’s assassination by mid-air explosion attributed to some dissident Shia military officers lead to a succession of civilian governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief, toppled or propped up by the military, and in regard to the nuclear and missile programmes, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief were merely figurehead heads of government, because they were neither informed nor kept apprised of all that went on with weaponisation and in the name of it.

                      Nawaz Sharief himself was toppled by General Parvez Musharraf, and through all these upheavals, there were two continuities. There was no let up in Pakistan’s weaponisation programme, with increasing and deeper linkages with China, which was proliferating nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan against India. The second continuity was A.Q.Khan. Through all the political maelstroms, Khan led a charmed existence as the so-called “Father of the Pak Bomb”. He was lavished with favours and fringe benefits, he came to enjoy almost as much absolute status as Pakistan’s absolute rulers, and not only did he run the nuclear programme, he became the nuclear programme. The Pakistani state built huge stakes on him. Like the military, he became a representative symbol of the Pakistani state.

                      It has often been speculated that the Shah of Iran funded Pakistan’s nuclear programme after it suffered crippling and humiliating defeat at India’s hands in the 1971 war and lost East Pakistan. If that be true, Pakistan was keeping only state commitments by supplying centrifuges and worse to Iran, a manner of nuclear quid pro quo. To blame this entire transaction, then, on one person, Khan, fools no one. Khan was representative of the Pakistan state, but it is unbelievable that the state knew little or nothing of his dealings, as the Pakistan information minister would have us believe.

                      But Iran was not the only Middle East power with a stake in Pakistan’s weaponisation programme. There was principally Saudi Arabia terrified of Shia Iran acquiring weapons, and it got a leg up after the Shah’s deposition by Ayatollah Khomeini turned America against. Throughout the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, America, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were close, quite a triumvirate, and as an espouser of Sunni fundamentalism, the Saudis and General Zia were close. Saudi Arabia also contributed to Pakistan’s weapons programme, and we published recent intelligence that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were keeping nuclear contacts alive long after A.Q.Khan’s exposure. So much for Pakistani government innocence in proliferation.

                      But this is hardly all. To US and British denukers, Libyan interlocutors confessed that Pakistan and China proliferated to them, and Pakistan itself admitted to this after incriminating evidence was presented, but with a rider. The entire Pak-Libyan connection was blamed on Khan. More outrageously, the proliferation to North Korea was also laid at Khan’s door, although here, the deceptions of the Pakistan government have been more swiftly and comprehensively exposed.

                      In the proliferation to North Korea, two countries were involved, Pakistan as a cutout for China, and China. While China is rogue North Korea’s sole supporter, and supporter of its weapons programme, because it terrorises South Korea and Japan and others in the Asia-Pacific region, it cannot afford to be tied closely to North Korean nukes as an NPT power. Enter Pakistan.

                      Pakistan sealed a nukes-for-missile deal with North Korea, meaning, for traded nuclear-capable North Korean ballistic missiles of Chinese origin, Pakistan would provide nuclear technology, also of Chinese descent. To clear the picture, China gave missile technology and maybe whole ballistic missiles to North Korea much in the same fashion that it provided nuclear technology and perhaps entire early generation nuclear weapons to Pakistan. Then to cross serve both its rogue allies, it got them to trade with one another, nukes for missiles as it went.

                      Long before A.Q.Khan was exposed, we logged his clandestine visits to North Korean nuclear facilities on Pakistan air force planes, the same planes that were later photographed delivering nuclear technologies or carrying away missile components. It is hard to believe that this whole China-Pakistan-North Korea nuclear and missile axis was controlled and operated by one man, Khan.

                      The point is, nobody believes this, not the US and the rest of the West, not the NPT powers excluding China, not India, having to face the brunt of Pakistani nuclear blackmail in the sub-continent, and not the international nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. But America, for its own reasons, is preventing the full and final exposure of Pakistan, and playing extra cautious in denuking Pakistan before its weapons fall into terrorist hands. The CIA says Pakistan will be a failed state by 2015 when it will be plunged in inter-provincial strife and civil war, and therefore US inaction seems even more irresponsible. The US believes in its own invincibility and infallible judgement, but the world should be wiser after 9/ 11 and the disastrous Iraq War. Pakistani government proliferation is a threat to international security, and consequently, Pakistan’s nuclear programme must be capped soonest

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Karthik
                        Hawk_eye,

                        Nanotechnology will take at least a decade to develop. And that period will be more than enough for any terrorist to get his hands on some nukes.

                        BTW, because nanotech is still in the laboratory stage, my knowledge of it is limited to basic engineering applications. In what way can nanotechnology overtake nukes and missiles? I think it has the potential to better them.

                        I found a link here though.
                        I know i'm a little late getting in here, but technolagy hasn't exactly solved all our problems. i'm sure i'm just restating what others have said but really, using nanotech against ourselves???

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          'Pakistan may hand over A.Q. Khan to US'

                          A powerful opposition grouping here claims that the Pakistan government may hand over father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb and disgraced scientist A.Q. Khan to the US.


                          The claim was made by Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed at a "million man march" organised by the group in Karachi Sunday, according to a report in Daily Times.

                          The MMA, an alliance of six Islamist parties, also called President Pervez Musharraf a security threat to Pakistan.

                          Ahmed said Musharraf had compromised Pakistan's nuclear programme, which acted as a deterrent against foreign aggression, and had made the country's defence insecure. He also accused the president of "misguiding the nation under the pretext of enlightened moderation".

                          He criticised Musharraf for supporting the US-led attack on and "occupation" of Afghanistan and accused him of failure to promote Islamic values and include the religion column in passports and allowing the Aga Khan Board, an NGO, to take over the country's education system.

                          He also criticised the government's flawed economic policies, saying they had forced the underprivileged segment of society to the brink of economic disaster.

                          MMA secretary general Fazlur Rehman said the large turnout at the march was a testimony to the fact that people had rejected the government's anti-people policies.

                          He charged that the present government was blindly pursuing "US diktats" and this had damaged Pakistan's image.

                          He asked the government to refrain from using force in Balochistan and South Waziristan Agency and warned that this would only complicate issues.

                          He accused Musharraf of trampling on the constitution, making parliament subservient to his "whimsical" policies and playing havoc with the country's democratic system.

                          "We will continue our democratic struggle till parliament's supremacy is ensured and an Islamic system in the country is implemented," he asserted.
                          What's the difference between people who pray in church and those who pray in casinos?
                          The ones in the casinos are serious.

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