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| US intelligence agencies' startling disclosure | | AQ Khan's network netted 100 million dollars | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, NOV. 20: America's intelligence agencies are reported to have discovered that "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, AQ Khan, and the clandestine network created by him netted 100 million dollars for the technology they sold to Libya alone. And the equipment that the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recovered from Libya could have helped produce up to 10 nuclear weaponsd a year.
The disclosure of the payment of 100 million dollars by Libya alone came days after a sensational rfevelation in London that the link between Libyan and Pakistani nuclear programmes seemed to originate in Britain. A Britsh businesman accused of helping Colonel Gaddafi's secret nuclear programme had previously been investigated by Britsh authorites for exporting potential atomic bomb equipment to Pakistan.
Peter Griffin is the Britsh businesman, who, according to a report of the Malaysian police, helped Gaddafi design an uranium enrichment workshop that could be used for nuclear weapons or nuclear power. The US President, George W Bush, has once again denounced a black market in nucledar technology created by AQ Khan. Peter Griffin was alleged to be working on behalf of the disgraced Pakistani scientist (Khan), who was providing sensitive equipment to Libya.
If the Malaysian police report were to be believed, Griffin designed a workshop to make centrifuges and arranged for eight Libyan technicans to travel to Spain for training in the use of specialist lathes. Colonel Gaddafi was acknowledged to be close to developing a nuclear bomb when he agreed to drop his weapons of mass destruction programme.
The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has already been officially informed that Chinese companies remain involved with nuclear and misile programmes in Pakistan and Iran. The US panel was, not long ago, informed by the CIA chief that AQ Khan and his network had been unique in being able to offer "one-stop shopping" for enrichment technology and weapons design information.
What is important is Washington's acceptance of Gen. Parvez Musharraf's explanation that Khan was acting on his own. Nonetheless, it is widely believed in Pakistan and elksewhere that Islamabad knew of Khan's activities. This, as argued by Stephen P Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, would make Gen. Musharraf as well as his Army and intelligence services complicit in the nuclear crime of the country.
Strategically, it is unlikely that he Pakistani Army would have directed AQ Khan to sell nuclear secrets toi North Korean, Libya and Iraq. It is more important for Pakistan to keep good relations with China than with North Korea, and selling to North Korea certainly angered the Chinese. As far Libya and Iraq, Pakistani strategists knew that helping a West Asian state acquire nuclear weapons would bring the wrath of the Israelis.
AQ Khan, currently bed-ridden, has already admitted that he broke Pakistan's law but feels that, in doing so, he acted in "good faith". This may be his way of saying that he intended to serve a higher god than the object of the law he broke. He may, for instance, have acted from pan-Islamic considerations, done what he did to promote the "greater glory of Islam".
If true, this might explain his transaction with Libya and Iran but not those with North Korea. Gen. Musharraf says that Khan was simply out to make money. It is possible that the two considerations (love of Islam and love of money) mingled harmoniously in his mind. If Khan's assets amount to only a fraction of what the experts regard as the likely proceeds of the sales he made, one may wonder who got the rest. |
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