We should drop Mahmood's team off with the French to question them for a few days! With the promise of spending the rest of their lives in the worse Turkish Prison!
I'll bet.
By Simon Henderson
The main office of Abdul Qader Khan, the man thought to be at the center of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear weapons project, is in a cluster of buildings built by the British in the 1940s to house the fire fighters at the Rawalpindi airstrip. The airstrip is still there, but it is now the Islamabad airport, serving Pakistan's capital, which was built in the 1960s. The roar of passenger jets or a Pakistani air force Hercules is continually in the background during conversations with A. Q. Khan.
Around the office are the trophies and mementos of his work-a cast iron model of an M-109 tracked howitzer given by the Pakistani army, a gift from China of a missile with boosters. On the walls are photographs-Dr. Khan with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Dr. Khan with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. There are also copies of the entries in the visitors book-not for this office, but for the uranium enrichment plant Khan built at Kahuta 30 or so miles away.
The entries are in English, the working language of administrative Pakistan. While Khan looked on, I read each intently to see whether there was a reference or even a hint that Kahuta was the center of nuclear weapons research. But no, they were simply extravagant tributes to Khan's hard work in successfully establishing an enrichment plant. The president's comments were much the same as the prime minister's. The words of Agha Shahi, a senior diplomat in the 1980s, were similar. The odd one out was the last-the comments by then-President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, on his visit in early 1981 when he changed the name of the installation from the Engineering Research Laboratories to the Dr. A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). Zia's rounded, almost childish script includes underlines of the K, the R, and the L.
Such a tribute still almost embarrasses Dr. Khan, who says that Kahuta was operational by then, but otherwise expresses ignorance as to why Zia (who was killed in an air crash in August 1988), made the name-change decision. Perhaps it was done to infuriate the U.S. government, which had become increasingly concerned that Kahuta was intended for making highly enriched uranium suitable for atomic bombs.
The story of Pakistan's efforts to match the nuclear expertise of neighboring India, which exploded a device in 1974, can usefully be told through the history of relations with the United States. With Washington a traditional ally, Pakistan reciprocated in the 1950s and 1960s by joining the CENTO and SEATO regional alliances and allowing U-2 reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union (like that of Francis Gary Powers) to take off from the airfield at Peshawar.
But, by 1977, when I first arrived in Pakistan as a freelance journalist writing for the BBC and the London Financial Times, Washington was putting pressure on France to stop supplying Pakistan with nuclear power reactors and to cancel a reprocessing plant, which would have given Pakistan a means of separating plutonium. During my 16 months in Pakistan-when I was not reporting on the military coup against Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, martial law, and abortive elections-I wrote about the nuclear problem. At the time I knew nothing about Khan and Kahuta, where work was already beginning.
I first wrote about Khan in 1979, after the name of Kahuta had become known. My replacement in Pakistan had gone to Khan's home in Islamabad, where the new reporter was badly beaten by security men and had a fictitious charge brought against him.
(The French ambassador had also been beaten a few days earlier near Kahuta. Zia's comment on being told of the ambassador's beating was, "I wish it had been the American bastard." Whether he meant the American ambassador was not clear. Two weeks earlier a State Department official, Robert Gallucci, now an assistant secretary of state, had come to Pakistan to confront Zia with satellite evidence of Kahuta. Zia had refused to see him, so Gallucci was driven-uneventfully-past the site by an American diplomat.)
Sent from London, I helped to organize my colleague's repatriation and then stayed on for six weeks to dig around for information. Returning to London, I wrote of the missiles surrounding Kahuta to guard it from Indian air attack, and of a network of British trading companies helping to supply Pakistan (Financial Times, August 22, 1979).
Over the next few years, I penned a succession of articles in the Financial Times on Pakistan's potential nuclear program. A December 11, 1987, article identified a military camp at Golra, between Rawalpindi and Islamabad, as a site suspected as a second uranium enrichment plant. The article included a denial by Khan. A few days later a story in the Pakistan Times said I had links with the CIA, MI6, and the German, Dutch, and Israeli intelligence agencies. (I cut out the article and framed it.)
An article I wrote on July 16, 1986, "Netherlands Drops Proceedings Against Nuclear Scientist," was, in retrospect, a breakthrough. Hearing that the Dutch government had given up the idea of re-opening the case against Khan-who had been accused of trying to obtain classified information about centrifuges-I rang him up for his comment. (Obtaining his telephone number is another story.) He answered my questions and, apparently, I reported his answers accurately. After my article appeared, he wrote me, enclosing some clippings, and I responded. Since then, and despite what must have been for him awkward articles, the letters have continued. I have three full files of his letters and copies of my replies at home, perhaps 50 in each direction.
At some point in this correspondence, I said I wanted to write a book about him, but I pointed out that this would not be possible without his cooperation.
Khan eventually warmed to the idea of meeting me, first trying to arrange a meeting in 1989 when Benazir Bhutto was prime minister. The next opportunity arose when he became more deeply involved with a new Pakistani university-the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. He is both an interim dean, establishing the academic staff, and the project director, making sure sufficient buildings are complete for the first students, who are due to arrive this October.
In the end, the opening of the university was the excuse for my visa, and a June trip was arranged. Curiously, the link was made by Khan's man at the Pakistan embassy in London, a man who had taken over the responsibilities of an attaché who had been declared persona non grata in 1990.
Given this background, it was with some trepidation that I flew to Islamabad. I took two gifts: a pot of orange marmalade from Fortnum and Mason, and extracts from a file that I had discovered at the Public Record Office in London on the work of Paul Harteck, a German scientist who worked on ultra-centrifuges for Hitler and, after World War II, for the British occupation authorities in Germany.
I met Khan in his Rawalpindi office and we fell into easy conversation. (He is a great lover of marmalade and said he would put the Harteck file in his library at Kahuta.) He could remember everything that I had written about him, but held no grudges. (It turns out that he was in Britain visiting his network of suppliers when my colleague was beaten outside his house in 1979.) Within half an hour he was taking me to have lunch with his senior directors in the officer's mess. During the next four days I had 12 hours of conversation with him, including 25 minutes totally "on the record," recorded in broadcastable sound on Super Hi-8 with a camera lent to me by a London television station. (A transcript of that 25-minute segment follows.)
I had heard that Khan was a kind man, and I already knew from his letters that he was polite and considerate. But I was fairly certain that he would not have a sense of humor. I was wrong; he delights in telling funny anecdotes and has a good sense of the absurd (a rather more British than American characteristic).
Khan lives in a spacious single-story house in Islamabad near the huge Faisal mosque. Uniquely, his house has a swimming pool, despite what I would call a local council ban on pools. He also rents the house next door to accommodate visitors. His wife, Henny (born in South Africa but originally of Dutch origin) loves animals. There are several cats and dogs, five turtles, and peacocks. A parrot that once belonged to a foreign family mimics his former mistress by screeching "Bakhtiar," presumably the name of a household servant. Henny Khan cooks meat daily to feed local strays and occasionally takes them into her house if they are injured. Khan ends up paying the veterinarian's bills.
Security around Khan is tight but discreet; during four days in his company I saw a gun only once. On the road, his car is escorted by four-wheel drive security vehicles with klaxons blaring and lights flashing. The road outside his house is a public thoroughfare, but there are safety bumps in the road surface to slow traffic and a permanent security post is opposite the house.
During my visit, Khan arranged a trip to the new campus of the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute at Topi, on the river Indus, more than a two-hour drive from Islamabad. Ironically, one of my guides for the day was a retired general, Anis Ali Syed, who as a brigadier had been responsible for building Kahuta from 1979 to 1983. He was reluctant to talk about Kahuta, but we discussed the coup against Bhutto in 1977, at which time he had been deputy director-general of military operations. My host at the campus site was a Brigadier Tariq, an engineer on assignment from KRL.
Sadly, I was unable to arrange a trip to Kahuta, but, believe me, I tried. At dinner one night we had quail "from our farm at Kahuta," Khan said with pride. I said that I would love to see it. He laughed dismissively. It seems that Kahuta will retain the magic of its mystery. Khan did say that apart from a farm, Kahuta also has a small hospital, as well as employees' housing and elementary and high schools for their children. A chart on the wall of one of his subordinate's offices showed that KRL has 15 (unspecified) technical divisions, in addition to directorates like security, medical, finance (two sections), and the Civil Works Organization, KRL's in-house construction group.
Khan's workers are well rewarded. KRL employees receive over 80 percent more compensation than other government employees of equivalent rank, including technical qualification allowances, technical work allowances, and a 15 percent bonus for KRL's "special project" status. His staff enjoys better transport, medical, and working conditions than the staff of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, a rival for talent. Perhaps only employees of foreign engineering joint ventures receive a better package of benefits.
As the interview shows, Khan maintains that Kahuta is a peaceful nuclear facility and that Pakistan does not see the need for nuclear weapons. But he acknowledges that Kahuta's capabilities give Pakistanis self-respect and a sense of security.
The sense of security attributable to nuclear ambiguity would be ruined by a public admission of nuclear capability, although a top foreign ministry official, Shahryar Khan, came very close to ending the ambiguity in an interview with the Washington Post on July 2, 1992. For Pakistan, ambiguity has also been cheap. Kahuta cost "half, less than half" of the $300 million the French reprocessing plant would have cost in the 1970s.
But a major imponderable in South Asia is that India behaves with its eye on China even more than on Pakistan. India is being watched to see if it deploys its "Prithvi" missile. Pakistan has been working on a 300 kilometer-range missile, the "Haft-2," perhaps in response. But a more immediate danger is that it will buy the 290-kilometer-range M-11 from China. Pakistani officials say the M-11 is not nuclear capable and would be used to threaten Indian airfields with area-denial munitions in the event of war. Ambiguity is everything, but it may be lost when it comes to missiles, resulting in an expensive arms race and a loss of deterrent stability.
During my stay I tried to find out more about Golra, but Khan dismissed the notion of it being a nuclear site. He did say that part of KRL functioned there, manufacturing a Chinese-designed anti-tank missile; 25 Chinese live in Islamabad and commute daily. No sign of this KRL operation is visible from the road. The Golra military base is ostensibly the Pakistan army's central mechanical and transport storage center, although security at Golra, which includes watchtowers, is noticeably tighter than at some other facilities.
Perched on a cupboard in Khan's sitting room is a large model of an F-16 in Pakistan's air force colors, a reminder of U.S. aid to Pakistan and the fact that 64 more F-16s are sitting in storage in the United States because assistance was cut off in 1990. Khan is uncertain how much Pakistan needs U.S. aid, pointing out that its current value would only be the equivalent of two chickens a year for every Pakistan citizen. "So let us eat some more of our excellent dal [a lentil dish]," he suggests.
Khan says he wants to return to education ("My father was a teacher") but cannot get the government to release him. Apart from enriching uranium at Kahuta, he builds a range of weapons for the army, including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank missiles, both of which he put on display for me. He is also now facing the prospect of having to expand Kahuta in order to produce fuel for the new Chinese-designed and Chinese-supplied power reactor being built at Chasma on the river Indus, scheduled to be commissioned in 1997.
But Khan looks forward to being able to collaborate with me on a book. He admitted that he has kept a diary since 1976, when he returned from Europe to start enrichment work. It is written in English "so that my wife can read it when I'm gone." I put in a request for a copy.
-S. H.
* * * *
Why did you become involved with the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute?
I have always been very keen to go into education. My father was a teacher. And that's why, when I went to Europe, I thought that I might do my Ph.D. and go back to Pakistan and teach at some university. When I came back I got involved in my nuclear program, and when I got some time-that was in the middle 1980s-I started working on the concept of a really good educational institution. So I discussed this with Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who was at that time chairman of the senate, and we worked on it very hard. We prepared a concept for a good engineering institution and that's how this institution came into being.
You have referred to your nuclear project; how would you describe the degree of success that you have had at Kahuta?
It was a challenge right from the beginning. A Third World country was supposed to be self-reliant, to be independent of foreign countries in the field of nuclear engineering and nuclear power. We were working in those days for getting power reactors from France and some other countries and we thought that we would be needing the fuel for it. And the fuel is very expensive. So we decided to work in parallel. The Atomic Energy Commission was supposed to be working on the reactors, and I was supposed to be working on an enrichment plant to provide fuel for those reactors. I believe that our project gave Pakistan some sort of self-reliance in this field.
The rest of the world sees Kahuta as being an enrichment plant for nuclear weapons.
No, it is just propaganda. Both our president and prime minister have time and again emphasized and given commitments to the world leaders, to the Americans and to the Europeans that this plant is not meant for weapons production and we do not see the need of having nuclear weapons in this part of the world. We consider it as an economic project so we should not depend on foreign countries for the fuel, and not be subjected to unnecessary pressure. When we have reactors, we like to have our own fuel.
But Kahuta could be used for making highly enriched uranium?
This is a hypothetical question. Everything has a double side: a knife can cut vegetables and a knife can kill human beings. So if you want to see it that way, so all nuclear plants and nuclear facilities and all chemical plants and chemical facilities all over the world can be used for all purposes, either for saving the human race, or hurting it.
But Pakistan refuses to accept international safeguards for Kahuta.
Yes, we consider it a highly discriminatory approach for Pakistan to be singled out. The Indians exploded a nuclear device in 1974. They haven't opened up their facilities. Now we are sitting next door to them, and we don't think that this principle should be applied only to Pakistan. We consider that if India does the same, we will do the same. Time and again our president and our prime minister have a hundred times told the whole world that if India signs the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] then we will sign the NPT. If they will open their facilities today for inspection by foreign inspectors, we will open [ours]. From our side there is no hesitation. The main difference you see is [that] the Indians say we are not making weapons, we say that we are not making weapons. We say we are willing to open our facilities, they say they are not willing to. So the world must judge from the actions of the two countries who is willing to open up their facilities.
But the problem of Kashmir would still exist between Pakistan and India.
It is a very big problem. It was a problem and it is a problem and it has been accepted as a dispute. There are resolutions in the United Nations. India had accepted those resolutions. Jawaharlal Nehru had accepted those resolutions and now India wants to back down from those commitments. A big country with 800 900 million people is trying to back down from commitments made to the world body. This is not [a] very good image for a country which calls itself the world's largest democracy.
The West did not believe what Pakistan says about Kahuta and tried to stop you. But you have succeeded anyway. Was it that difficult?
Everything is difficult. It was not so easy, especially such a highly sophisticated technology. We didn't have enough infrastructure and enough manpower, highly trained scientists and engineers. But we took it as a challenge because we thought it was most essential to be independent in the field of nuclear fuel and the supply of nuclear fuel for our reactors. Yes, there were obstructions from all over the world, but we still managed to put up a modest enrichment plant which can meet our requirements.
It is only now that Pakistan is in the process of buying a reactor that can use the enriched fuel from Kahuta. Is there enough of that sort of work to justify its existence?
Yes. I don't know what the world thinks about Kahuta. Kahuta is a very small facility. By international standards you could call it a pilot plant, so the fuel which we have accumulated is not very much. We believe that by the time we have the reactor from the Chinese operational in Pakistan, we will have enough material to feed it.
Is there enough work for you to do yourself at Kahuta?
Most of the work is done by my colleagues, but I make my humble contribution and give suggestions and advice. I am also involved in a lot of educational affairs. I am on the syndicate of the Qaid e Azam University in Islamabad. I am also patron of a hospital. I am also a member of the Pakistan Engineering Council and various other charitable organizations and educational institutions.
The West, and in particular the United States, keeps up pressure on Pakistan to open up Kahuta to inspection. The United States made a horrible example of Iraq in Desert Storm and is now putting tremendous pressure on North Korea. Is it worth it for Pakistan?
It is a matter of principle, since we have time and again emphasized and our president and our prime minister have said that our program is for peaceful purposes and that we are not making nuclear weapons. I believe that the Americans know about it. There are solemn commitments with the Americans and there is no need for us to worry that we will be made a horrible example of-like Iraq. There are pressures because the Americans don't want the spread of nuclear weapons-like we ourselves; [they believe] it is highly dangerous. As far as we are concerned, we don't think that those pressures will be applied to us.
What else do you do at Kahuta?
Kahuta is a self-sustained, small laboratory. We have our own facilities in [the] electronics field, metallurgy, production engineering. So it can do a lot of things for the country, and that's why we are doing a lot of work for the army. We are producing shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. They are for defensive purposes with a 5-kilometer range, so one cannot call them offensive weapons. Similarly, we are producing multiple-barrel rocket launchers. We are also producing anti-tank missiles, which have a range of 3.54 kilometers. We are also producing anti-tank munitions, laser range-finders and some other equipment for the army. So there is enough work for us to do for the army. The nuclear program is at a very low profile. There is no rush, and we don't have a large program, so a lot of my scientists and engineers are doing work for the army and for the armed forces.
The fact that Kahuta does do work for the army spoils the image that you would like to portray . . . [of] a peaceful nuclear plant.
The work for the army has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. Everybody knows that we put in exhibitions everything that we produce. A laser range-finder cannot be called a nuclear weapon or a small shoulder-fired missile. It is a question of having the facilities. We don't have commercial organizations like British Aerospace or the American big firms which specialize in producing weapons. In this country, either it is the Atomic Energy Commission or us who have some trained manpower or infrastructure. When the army or any other government organization looks forward to get[ting] some work done, they refer to us.
Given Pakistan's often turbulent politics, the world must wonder whether its established nuclear expertise is in safe hands.
Well, I never doubted about it. History has shown we have been responsible and who has been irresponsible. Our president or prime minister has not shown any sign of irresponsibility. I don't believe that there is any doubt or suspicion, or [that] the world should have any doubt or suspicion that our nuclear program is in unsafe hands. I have not the slightest doubt that there is any risk of our nuclear program going into the wrong hands.
I have seen a declassified American State Department memo accusing a Pakistani of stealing the secrets of uranium enrichment from the Netherlands. Did they mean you?
I guess so. I mean one can quite easily guess that the reference is to me, since I was working in Holland. But you probably know the whole case. I came to Pakistan from Holland. I was accused of trying-trying-to get some information from a colleague, which the Dutch said was classified. They did not accuse me of stealing anything. They said I wrote a letter, which was supposed to elicit information which the Dutch government thought was classified. They prepared a case. They convicted me in my absence without my knowledge. I put the case in the Dutch high court. The case was quashed. I was absolved of all accusations. I have been to Holland since then. I have been to Europe many times. There has not been any accusation from the Dutch. I have papers from the Dutch attorney general, from the Dutch prosecutor general, in which they have written to my lawyer that there was never, never any thought of spying by me. The only accusation was that my letter, in their eyes, was an attempt to obtain classified information.
But when you were building Kahuta you used subterfuge to circumvent international controls. Why do so if the plant was for innocent purposes?
Well, you can answer the question for me. Why do they stop sending ordinary O-rings? I can give you an example of them stopping O-rings that you can get from a shoemaker's shop. They were stopping O-rings, they were stopping materials, ordinary papers. It was not a question of circumventing. When you see that somebody is trying to stop everything which is destined for you, you ask the supplier to send to some other address. Now it is the responsibility of the supplier and the country that they observe the national laws and that they don't violate them. We are openly asking that those purchases are being made with open letters of credit with the specifications and everything. If it is in violation of the existing law of the country, then this will be stopped every now and again. We are still buying the things from abroad and they check. If it is not in violation of the laws of the country, they let it go. If they think it has a dual usage, they stop it.
You are 57 years old. When are you going to retire?
I wish it was yesterday. I have been very busy; it has been very, very tiring. There has been a lot of pressure, especially your own work. There have been these false accusations so you become a central figure and you are always under observation, under pressure. I would love to retire and go into teaching and do those things that I could not do over the years. I would like to read a lot. I have a lot of books that I have purchased and kept in stock for reading. I would love to go fishing. I love kite-flying, and I would love to play with my grandchild. I have got about three years. Every now and again I let it be known to the government that I would like to retire as soon as possible, and I would be the happiest man if they say tomorrow that I am a free man and I can go home.
You have been a controversial man-you are known as the father of the Islamic bomb. Are you happy with this image?
No. I think the world has not done justice to me. You see, it is the press and, I'm sorry to say, the Western press. Since I don't belong, it is always a tinted picture. I am accused of stealing things. The case was false, but still the same accusations again and again. I can't keep going into libel cases against all those magazines and journals. In Pakistan nobody calls me "father of the Islamic bomb." They say he has given us self-pride, he has given us a sense of security. That's how they consider me. They love me. There is a tremendous amount of love in the country, and it is obvious everywhere. Wherever I go, people show a lot of love and affection. I believe the most important thing is what my country, my people, think of me. I don't care what other people think of me. Once I'm gone, my name and my prestige and the love and affection that I have in this country will remain forever. The foreign press will forget me.
Do you have any political ambitions?
No, never, and this has been agreed upon with my wife, that I will not go into politics because she says, and I guess to some extent she is right, that politics is a dirty game and you end up telling lies and making false promises, and you end up getting in real dirt and throwing dirt and filth on other people and getting the same in return. It is not for me. I would love to be associated in some way with science and technology. If after retirement they want to keep me involved in some advisory capacity, I would love to do that.