Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons

The successive governments of Pakistan over the last 30 years have differed in many things, but all supported Khan and his weapons program.

And, as this book makes clear, successive U.S. Governments over the same period did not directly support Khan's work, but they did nothing to hamper it either. Indeed geo-political considerations caused the U.S. not only to ignore Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear weapon technology, but to even ignore its export of that technology to countries such as Iran and North Korea, which according to this book's. authors, continues to this day. The title of the book, "Deception" refers not to Pakistan, but to the fact that every administration from 1976 on purposely misinformed the U.S. public on Pakistan's nuclear ambitions and activities.

Rather ironically,

the U.S. Intelligence Community actually produced excellent intelligence on both Khan's program and the international trade in nuclear technology.

His `network' was pretty well identified by 1985 and its activities were well documented. Unfortunately, as has been often observed, intelligence is only as good as the system it serves and in this case U.S. policy makers over an almost thirty year period were just not interested in this information.

Also of interest is the information on how Khan learned how to make fissile material in the first place. After earning a Ph.D. in metallurgy he went to work with a low-security rating for a Netherlands' consortium that was developing centrifuges for separating fissionable U-235 from yellow-cake - despite coming from a nation known to be seeking nuclear weapons. While there he sought and obtained a position translating German material on a new centrifuge to Dutch and English, thereby providing access to top secret material. The information was split into twelve pieces with the intent of limiting any single person's access to only a few portions; Khan, however, obtained the entire document through offering to get it retyped on site (management had been prepared to send the material back to England for typing; Khan had befriended the secretaries numerous times).

The new gas centrifuges required six foot tall aluminum tubes that were injected with a gas refined from yellow-cake. The heavier U-238 spun to the outside and slid down to a waste pipe; fissionable U-235 gathered at the center and was sucked out while the centrifuges spun at 70,000 rpm. Any sort of imperfection (including a fingerprint) likely led to the centrifuge shattering. (Many Pakistani centrifuges were lost during an earthquake around 2004.) Gaseous diffusion required all pipes and motors be made from nickel and aluminum allows, kept free of grease and oil, and a very large production facility.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's government had been humiliated by India's development of an atomic weapon, and was seeking to build its own. Khan's proposal to create the fissile material through much cheaper centrifuges instead of the much more expensive and complex gaseous diffusion method used by the U.S., China, Russia, and France, was well received, and he headed back to ('75) Pakistan with three suitcases full of stolen documents. He estimated that passing the uranium hexafluoride through centrifuges 65-70 times would provide 90% enriched uranium.

The next year Pakistan began shopping for the needed equipment - a fact noted by U.S. and U.K. intelligence analysts. Carter (anti-proliferation) was lobbied by Brzezinski to turn a blind eye because of Soviet efforts in Afghanistan and possibly Iran. Reagan did likewise. Worse yet, Reagan officials buried awareness of Beijing's gift of bomb blueprints and technical assistance. By Reagan's departure, Pakistan had a tested device ('84), partly also thanks to hundreds of millions of American military assistance to Pakistan's military that was diverted to their nuclear program.

Pakistan Is Increasing Its Nukes Arsenal At An Astonishing Rate

Pakistan's nuclear program development time lines

Burgeoning activity at Kahuta and Khan’s frenzied efforts to get parts and equipment for it from around the world through shell companies and devious routes had attracted attention. Fearing time may be short, AQK launched Project 706, aiming to establish self-sufficiency in manufacturing nuclear components and acquiring capability through reverse engineering. This was followed by Project AB (Atom Bomb) to materialise Bhutto’s dream of an “Islamic Bomb”. This needed independent funding which was soon realized through sales of nuclear fuel and parts and components by an increasingly boastful and arrogant Khan to Libya, Iran and possibly even to al Qaeda agents.

The Americans (and Israeli’s) were by now sufficiently alarmed to consider bombing Kahuta, an option that India is also said to have contemplated. They also confronted the Pakistanis and urged them to desist from proliferation to no avail. The genie was out of the bottle.

AQK, with the full support of the Pakistan establishment and ISI, was now like a man possessed. He had moved from nuclear acquisition to nuclear proliferation, having built a nuclear arsenal and delivery system (the North Korean-modelled Ghauri and F-16s converted to carry nuclear bombs) and a stockpile of enriched uranium and equipment to trade with what the Americans called the Axis of Evil. Regime followed regime in both Pakistan and the US but AQK seemed to grow larger than life, one step ahead of those out to get him at home and abroad.

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9/11 alarmed the US and Musharraf once again became America’s foremost partner in the War against Terror. Once again, all was forgiven – and fleeing Talibans were given safe haven in Pakistan! Then, with the declaration of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Bush turned the heat on Musharraf. AQK was “retired”. In 2003 the Americans confronted the Pakistan President in New York with an exhibition incontrovertibly exposing AQKs proliferation misdeeds worldwide. Musharraf records in his autobiography “In the Line of Fire” that he found himself “at a loss for words”. This was the most embarrassing moment of his life. But he quickly found his tongue to distance the Pakistan Government and himself from AQK who was denounced as a braggart and dangerous megalomaniac. This pretence convinced nobody. The Pakistan Government and Musharraf personally are closely involved. The one reason AQK, though questioned, has not been brought to trial is not because he is Pakistan’s greatest national hero but because he prepared a brief on Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear adventures and sent it off to London with his younger daughter to publish if he came to any harm. The blackmail has worked.

Since then more information has come from Libya, which has made a full disclosure of its AQK connection, North Korea and Iran. The exposure is complete but the charade goes on. Pakistan has become a refuge for the al Qaeda with Quetta as a base.

In 2005, a powerful earthquake laid waste areas along the LOC in PAK. This saw all the so-called banned jihadi outfits resurface as relief agencies that worked with the military authorities. The earthquake also destroyed part of the Kahuta nuclear complex, causing something of a “nuclear accident” that sent alarm bells ringing in Islamabad. Musharraf called on AQ Khan for help. Khan refused.

However, the restoration has proceeded even as more evidence has surfaced, this time through German intelligence, that Pakistan continues to trade in nuclear weapons technology – buying and selling as before to Iran and Saudi Arabia. New clients include Syria, Egypt and others unnamed and unknown, leading to apprehensions of a widening circle of proliferation. According to Levy and Scott-Clark the old Pakistan-China-North Korea nexus has not been ended. It has merely evolved.