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Nuclear Tales from Pakistan
Proliferation unbound: Nuclear Tales from Pakistan is an insightful story of Pakistan's Nuclear program and beyond. Was it just Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Kahota Research Laboratory or early 90's era that led to this dodgy business of Nuclear trading or it was even massive.
Author: Gaurav Kampani
Gaurav Kampani is a Senior Research Associate, Proliferation Research and Assessment Program (PRAP) at Moneterey Institute of International Studies.
After years of blanket denials, Pakistan's government has finally admitted that during 1989-2003 Pakistani nuclear scientists and entities proliferated nuclear weapons-related technologies, equipment, and know how to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. The Pakistani government's denials collapsed after Libya formally decided to terminate its clandestine weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in October 2003 and make a full disclosure of its efforts to build nuclear weapons; and after Iran, in fall 2003, agreed to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and provide details of its clandestine uranium enrichment programs that originated in the mid-1980s.
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan
The Iranian and Libyan revelations have exposed a vast black market in clandestine nuclear trade comprising of middle men and shell companies; clandestine procurement techniques; false end-user certifications; transfer of blueprints from one country, manufacture in another, transshipment to a third, before delivery to its final destination. But even more remarkably, the investigations of Iranian and Libyan centrifuge-based uranium enrichment efforts have exposed the central role of the former head of Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), Dr. A.Q. Khan, in the clandestine trade. Detailed information has surfaced about transfers of technical drawings, design specifications, components, complete assemblies of Pakistan's P-1 and P-2 centrifuge models, including the blueprint of an actual nuclear warhead from KRL. But the transfer of hardware apart, there is equally damning evidence that Khan and his top associates imparted sensitive knowledge and know how in secret technical briefings for Iranian, North Korean, and Libyan scientists in Pakistan and other locations abroad.
Three decades ago, Khan, with the support of Pakistan's government, set out to create a new model of proliferation. He used centrifuge design blueprints and supplier lists of companies that he had pilfered from URENCO's facility in the Netherlands to launch Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. In the process, he perfected a clandestine model of trade in forbidden technologies outside formal government controls. By the end of the 1980s, after KRL acquired the wherewithal to produce highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapons program, it reversed course and began vending its services to other clients in the international system. KRL and Khan's first client was Iran (or possibly China even earlier); but the list gradually expanded to include North Korea and Libya. Starting in the late 1980s, Khan and some of his top associates began offering a one-stop shop for countries that wished to acquire nuclear technologies for a weapons program. Khan's key innovation was to integrate what was earlier a disaggregated market place for such technologies, design, engineering, and consultancy services; and in the process offer clients the option of telescoping the time required to develop a nuclear weapons capability.
As independent evidence of diversions from KRL has come to light, the Pakistani government has swiftly sought to distance itself from Khan and his activities. President Pervez Musharraf's regime has publicly denied that it or past Pakistani state authorities ever authorized transfers or sales of sensitive nuclear weapons-related technologies to Iran, Libya, or North Korea. Islamabad attributes Khan's clandestine nuclear trade to personal financial corruption, abuse of authority, and megalomania. Alarmed that Khan's past indiscretions might directly implicate the Pakistani military and state authorities, the Musharraf regime also launched an internal probe to apparently get a clearer picture of the activities of its top nuclear lab and senior scientists. In fall 2003, Pakistani investigators traveled to Iran, Dubai, Vienna, and Libya to investigate US and IAEA complaints against Khan. They discovered that the complaints were borne out by evidence; and more alarmingly, that Khan had apparently made unauthorized deals unbeknownst to Islamabad and reaped huge personal financial rewards in the process.
Since October-November 2003, Khan and his close associates' movements have been restricted. While Khan himself has been under placed under informal house arrest, his aides are undergoing what Pakistani government spokesmen politely describe as "debriefing sessions." In late January 2004, the government ultimately stripped Khan of his cabinet rank and fired him from his position as senior advisor to the chief executive. As part of a deal, Khan made a public apology on television before the Pakistani nation. In that apology, he admitted to personal failings, accepted responsibility for all past proliferation activities, and absolved past and present Pakistani state authorities of any complicity in his acts. In return, the Jamali cabinet granted Khan a conditional pardon. However, Khan's senior aides remain in custody and the government has not made up its mind on whether to press formal charges against them for violating the state's national secrets or to pardon them.
Most proliferation specialists and independent observers of Pakistani
politics have watched the surreal saga of what is perhaps the greatest
proliferation scandal in history with disbelief.
Most also find the Pakistani government's assertions of innocence and attempts
to absolve itself of any responsibility in the matter astonishing. For most,
the mammoth scale of the diversion from KRL, its extended time span, the
logistics of transporting material and machines out of Pakistan, and the
difficulty of circumventing the security detail surrounding senior Pakistani
scientists and KRL, are obvious pointers to state complicity. In the past three
months, senior Pakistani politicians have raked up the historical record to
point fingers at the Pakistani Army. Others, including US government officials,
have alluded to indicators that at least some of Khan's activities might have
enjoyed tacit, if not formal sanction from oversight authorities within the
state. Such indicators include Islamabad's past unresponsiveness to diplomatic
entreaties, sharing of intelligence inputs, published documentary records,
informed public speculation about Khan and KRL's nuclear proliferation
activities, and the Pakistani military's corporate ability to sustain its WMD
programs on a weak military-industrial base, even as the state operated at the
margins of economic solvency. As new evidence surfaces by the day, the record
becomes clearer; even as the controversy surrounding the role of the past and
present Pakistani governments becomes uglier.
This research report provides an overview of the evidence that has surfaced in the last three months to paint a clearer picture of what we now know of Khan and KRL's contributions to Iran, North Korea, and Libya's clandestine centrifuge-based uranium enrichment programs. It reviews the internal debate and finger pointing in Pakistan, and analyzes the narrative presented by President Musharraf's regime in its defense. The report also outlines some of the reasons for the Bush administration's muted response and concludes by offering a net assessment of the strategic implications of the new disclosures.
What Do We Now Know?
Although Pakistan has admitted that its nuclear scientists and entities engaged in clandestine nuclear transfers to Iran, North Korea, and Libya during the period 1989-2003, the full extent and nature of those transfers are still unclear. Iran has still not made a full disclosure about its two-decades-old centrifuge enrichment program. Scientists and engineers at the US Department of Energy are still in the process of analyzing documents and equipment turned over by Libya. And North Korea maintains that it never admitted to pursuing a clandestine centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program in October 2002.
But despite existing gaps, there is evidence that nuclear transfers to Iran from Pakistan occurred during 1989-1995.[1] According to Pakistani government sources, North Korea obtained similar assistance between the years 1997-2001.[2] However, US intelligence agencies believe that strategic trade between Pyongyang and Islamabad continued as late as August 2002.[3] Khan also began cooperating with Libya in 1997and such cooperation continued until fall 2003.[4]
All three countries - Iran, North Korea, and Libya - obtained blueprints,
technical design data, specifications, components, machinery, enrichment
equipment, models, and notes related to KRL's first generation P-1 and the next
generation P-2 centrifuges.
Cooperation between Pakistan and Iran most likely began in 1987 after the two
countries signed a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation for peaceful
purposes. Apparently, Khan sold "disused" P-1 centrifuges and what he describes
as outmoded equipment to Iran along with the drawings and technical
specifications and possibly components or complete assemblies of the more
advanced P-2 model.[5]
Initial deliveries were made during the years 1989-1991; but evidence has
surfaced that transfers continued as late as 1995.[6]
Pakistani investigators believe that some of the shipments were probably
transported over land through a Karachi-based businessman. Other shipments were
routed through Dubai.
Similarly, Khan and his associates supplied Pyongyang with centrifuge and enrichment machines, and depleted uranium hexaflouride gas (UF6).[7] Orders for the North Korean contract were placed in 1997 and deliveries continued until 1999. KRL also rendered further technical assistance to Pyongyang during 1999-2001.[8] Some of the shipments to North Korea were flown directly from Pakistan using chartered and Pakistan Air Force transports.[9]
In 1997 Khan supplied Libya with 20 assembled P-1 centrifuges; with components for an additional 200 more for a pilot facility. The Libyans also obtained 1.87-tons of UF6 in 2001; the consignment was directly airlifted from Pakistan on board a Pakistani airline. IAEA sources believe that amount is consistent with the requirements for a pilot enrichment facility. In September 2000, Libya placed an order for 10,000 centrifuges of the more advanced P-2 model. Component parts for the centrifuges began arriving in Libya by December 2002.[10] However, a subsequent consignment of parts was intercepted by US intelligence agencies in October 2003, after which Libya decided to make a full disclosure and terminate its nuclear weapons program. But more alarmingly, in either late 2001 or early 2002, Khan also transferred the blueprint of an actual fission weapon to Libya as an added bonus.[11]
The supply package to all the three countries did not just include hardware and design information. Khan and his associates also provided their clients integrated shopping solutions in a fragmented market. They shared sensitive information on supplier networks, manufacturers, clandestine procurement and smuggling techniques, and arranged for the manufacture, transport, and delivery of equipment and materials through a clutch of companies and middlemen based in South-East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.[12] Pakistani scientists and technicians held multiple briefing sessions for their Iranian counterparts in Karachi, and locations in Malaysia and Iran.[13] Briefings for Libyan scientists were held in Casablanca and Istanbul.[14] Khan also visited North Korea nearly a dozen times, and it is likely that technical briefing sessions for North Korean scientists were arranged during those visits. But there are also reports that North Korean scientists were allowed to train at KRL itself.[15] In addition, Pakistani engineers and scientists were also on hand for providing consulting advice and trouble-shooting services through intermediaries.
US intelligence analysts believe that the nuclear weapon blueprint that Khan and his network sold Libya is most likely a design that China tested in the late 1960s; and later shared with Pakistan. Apparently the design documents transferred from Pakistan contain information in both Chinese and English, establishing their Chinese lineage; they also provide conclusive evidence of past Chinese assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.[16] The blueprint provides the design parameters and engineering specifications on how to build an implosion weapon weighing over 1,000 pounds that could be delivered using aircraft or a large ballistic missile.[17] Analysts believe that the design is not currently in use in Pakistan, which has graduated to building more advanced nuclear weapons.[18] However, the transfer of an actual weapon design to Tripoli has left open the question whether Tehran and Pyongyang obtained a similar copy; whether the design is still in circulation; or who else might have obtained it.
In the mid-1990s, Khan also set up a clandestine meeting with a top Syrian official in Beirut to offer help with setting up a centrifuge enrichment facility for an HEU-based nuclear weapons program.[19] In mid-1990, he also made a similar offer through a Gulf-based intermediary to Saddam Hussein's regime. However, the Iraqi government ignored the offer in the erroneous belief that it was likely a sting operation or a scam.[20] There is also fragmentary and indirect evidence to suggest that Khan may have offered his nuclear services to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.[21] But little is publicly know about the outcome of those overtures.
The Internal Blame Game
The Pakistani government claims that the nuclear trade with Iran, North Korea, and Libya was unauthorized; that KRL proliferated centrifuge technologies, equipment, and related intellectual property clandestinely and illegally, unbeknownst to military oversight authorities formally in charge of the nuclear weapons program. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has publicly accused A.Q. Khan and his top aides of corruption and attributed their actions to financial gains.[22] In an attempt to distance Pakistani state authorities from the scandal's fallout, Musharraf has also suggested that the scientists were rogue operators, who abused the trust and autonomy granted by state authorities to pursue their personal agendas.[23]
In calculated leaks to the press, senior Pakistani government officials have painted Khan as a megalomaniac; a publicity hound who created a larger-than-life image of himself. They have narrated tales of KRL's corrupt culture; of Khan's parceling of procurement contracts at exorbitant prices to family members and associates; bribes for procurement orders from vendors; Khan's palatial houses and real estate investments in Pakistan and abroad; his lavish lifestyle; and unaccounted for millions in secret bank accounts.[24] Pakistani government sources from the president on down have also made it plain that Khan's corruption and profiteering from proliferation activities were critical factors behind his removal from KRL in March 2001.[25]
However, Khan has disputed Musharraf's allegations in private debriefings with Pakistani government investigators. Apparently Khan has made the case that he was pressured to sell nuclear technologies to Iran by two individuals close to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The first, Dr. Niazi, was a friend, while the latter, General Imtiaz Ali, served as military advisor to Bhutto.[26] Both individuals are now deceased. Khan has further alleged that aid for Iran's uranium enrichment program was also approved by then Chief of Army Staff, General (retd.) Mirza Aslam Beg (1988-1991). Similarly, Khan claims the nuclear-for-missile deal with the Kim Jong Il regime was backed by two former army chiefs, Generals (retd.) Abdul Waheed Kakar (1993-1996) and Jehangir Karamat (1996-1998). The latter, according to Khan, made a secret trip to North Korea in December 1997 and presided over efforts to obtain Nodong ballistic missiles from that country. Khan's friends have also privately suggested that General Pervez Musharraf, who succeeded Karamat and took over responsibility for the Ghauri missile program in 1998, had to have known about the transfers to North Korea.[27]
In interviews with Pakistani government investigators, Khan apparently insisted that no investigation would be complete until all the actors - Khan, former army chiefs, and other senior military and government officials - were questioned together. Equally significant, Khan is believed to have challenged his interlocutors' reticence to probe the nature of the technology and equipment transfers to North Korea as against the blanket charge of proliferation; the import of his suggestion being that either the equipment and material transferred to North Korea would not enable it to enrich uranium to weapons-grade in the short-term, or alternatively, that the logistics of the equipment and technology transfers would directly implicate the military and state authorities. [28] There are also rumors that Khan has smuggled out evidence with his daughter Dina, who is a British citizen, which would directly implicate senior Pakistani officials in an unfolding scandal.[29]
Fearing that any further washing of Pakistan's dirty nuclear laundry in public could cause irretrievable harm to the Pakistani military and state authorities, Musharraf has sought to cap the controversy by pardoning Khan for his past transgressions. In the bargain, Khan has accepted personal responsibility for all acts of proliferation and absolved the Pakistani state and the military from blame. However, in his contrite public confession on television, Khan declared that he acted in "good faith but on errors of judgment," obliquely hinting at the likely involvement of the Pakistani military and other state authorities in his activities.[30]
Despite the Pakistani government's attempts to absolve itself from the charges of proliferation, most independent analysts of Pakistani politics remain unconvinced that A.Q. Khan and his associates could have engaged in nuclear transfers over nearly two decades without sanction or tacit acknowledgement from sections or individuals within the Pakistani government. The Pakistani military's tight control over the nuclear weapons program, multiple layers of security surrounding it, the exports of machinery and hardware from Pakistan, as well as rumors, leaks, and past warnings about Pakistan's nuclear cooperation with Iran and North Korea by Western intelligence agencies, have led analysts to believe that the current effort to pin the blame on a small number of senior officials from KRL is a cynical ploy to prevent the Pakistani military and state from being implicated in the unfolding scandal.[31]
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