Abdul Qadeer Khan

For the Pakistani doctor associated with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, see Abdul Quddoos Khan.

Abdul Qadeer Khan HI, NI (twice)
File:A.Q.Khan.jpg
Born	(1936-04-01) 1 April 1936 Bhopal, British Bhopal State, British Indian Empire (Present day, India)
Nationality	Pakistani
Citizenship	Pakistan
Alma mater	Karachi University Technical University Berlin Catholic University of Leuven Delft University of Technology
Known for	Nuclear detterence programme Ultracentrifuges development
Spouse	Henny Qadeer Khan
Awards	Hilal-i-Imtiaz (14-8-1989) Nishan-i-Imtiaz (14-8-1996 and 23-3-1999)
Scientific career
Fields	Metallurgical Engineering
Institutions	URENCO Group Khan Research Laboratories Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO) GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology
Doctoral advisor	Martin J. Brabers
Other academic advisors	Bashir Syed

Abdul Qadeer Khan, (born: 1 April, 1936), (D.Eng, FPAS, Sc.D, HI, NI (twice)) (Urdu: ڈاکٹر عبد القدیر خان ); more widely known as Dr. A. Q. Khan, is a Pakistani nuclear scientist and a metallurgical engineer who served as the Director-General of the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) from 1976 till 2001. Abdul Qadeer Khan is widely regarded as the founder of HEU based Gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment programme for Pakistan's nuclear deterrence programme.

After years of home arrest, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on 6 February 2009 declared Abdul Qadeer Khan to be a free citizen of Pakistan, allowing him free movement inside the country. The verdict was rendered by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam. In September 2009, expressing concerns over the Lahore High Court’s decision to end all security restrictions on Khan, the United States warned that Khan still remains a "serious proliferation risk".

Early life

Khan was born in 1936 in British Bhopal State of India (that time known as British Indian Empire). His father Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Khan was an academic who served in the Education Ministry of the British Indian Government and after retirement in 1935, he settled permanently in Bhopal State. In 1947 after the partition, the family, migrated from India to Pakistan, and settled in West Pakistan. Khan studied in Saint Anthony's High School of Lahore, and then enrolled at the D.J. Science College of Karachi. There, he took B.Sc. in Physics and B.A. in Mathematics under the supervision of Suparco physicist Dr. Bashir Syed. In 1956, he attended Karachi University and obtained a B.S. degree in Metallurgy in 1960.

After graduation, he was employed by the Karachi City Government and worked as an Inspector of weight and measures in Karachi, Pakistan. In 1961, he went to West Germany to study Metallurgical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. In 1967, Khan obtained an engineer's degree (in Technology), an equivalent of Master of Science, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and the Doctor of Engineering degree in Metallurgical engineering under the supervision of Martin Brabers from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, just outside of Brussels, in 1972. Khan's doctoral dissertations were written in fluent German. His doctoral thesis dealt and contained the fundamental work in Martensite, and its extended industrial applications to the field of Morphology, a field that studies the shape, size, texture and phase distribution of physical objects

Research in Europe

Main articles: Urenco Group and Nuclear power in the Netherlands

In 1972, the year he received his doctorate, Khan through a former university classmate, Friedrich Tinner, and a recommendation from his old professor and mentor, Martin J. Brabers, joined the senior staff of the Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory (FDO) in Amsterdam. At first, he was responsible for evaluating High-strength metals to be used for centrifuge components. The FDO was a subcontractor for URENCO Group, the uranium enrichment research facility at Almelo, Netherlands, which had been established in 1970 by the United Kingdom, West Germany, and the Netherlands to assure a supply of enriched uranium for European nuclear reactors. According to Khan's deputy, Dr. Ghulam Dastigar Alam, Khan was very fluent in German, French and English languages, and the FDO administration gave a drawing of a centrifuge machine for translation to Khan. However, Khan later joined the URENCO Group after Urenco had offered him a prestigious job. The URENCO Group gave drawings of centrifuges for the solution of set of engineering problems that Urenco's engineers were facing. The Urenco facility used Zippe-type centrifuge technology to separate the fissile isotopes ²³⁵U from non-fissile ²³⁸U by spinning ⁶UF gas at up to 100,000Rpm. Abdul Qadeer Khan's academic and leading-edge research in metallurgy brought great laurels to Urenco Group. In a short span of time, Khan received among a great reputation there, and enjoyed a distinguished career at Urenco. One of the greatest achievement of Khan, was to enhanced and improve the efficiency of the gas-centrifuges, which he did it all alone. URENCO enjoyed a great academic relationship with dr. Khan, and Urenco had Khan as its one of the most senior scientist at the research facility he worked and researched. URENCO granted Khan a great privileged to have access to the most restricted areas of Urenco facility as well as permitting him to have access to the most restricted and highly classified documentation on the gas centrifuge technology. During this time, Urenco had granted this privileged to few of the senior academic scientists who were working in the highly secretive and classified research projects.

The technical details of these centrifuge systems are regulated as secret information and subject to export controls because they could be used for the purposes of nuclear proliferation, and useful to make weapon-grade fuel for weapon making purposes. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was responsible for improving the efficiency of the centrifuges used by the Urenco, and greatly contributed to the technological advancement of the Zippe technology, a technology that was developed by Gernot Zippe, a mechanical engineer, in Soviet Union during 1940s.

Uranium Enrichment Programme

Initiation

Main articles: Operation Smiling Buddha and Project-706

See also: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto § Father of the Nuclear weapons program, and Pakistan and its Nuclear Deterrent Program

Three years after Pakistan's defeat on 1971 Indo-Pak Winter war, India, under Indian Premier Indira Gandhi carried out a surprise nuclear test explosion. On May 18 of 1974, India conducted a surprise nuclear test, codenamed Smiling Buddha, near the Pakistan's eastern border. The test greatly alarmed the Government of Pakistan, and Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto quickly scrambled to establish a sustainable nuclear weapons capability.

Meanwhile, the scientific research started on January 20, 1972, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (or PAEC) under its Chairman, Munir Ahmad Khan, was exploring both Plutonium and Uranium route to developing an atomic device. The uranium route was considered a secondary route, as PAEC was concentrating and putting an effort to developing the first plutonium weapon-grade device. During 1974, Abdul Qadeer Khan, as senior scientist, was working in a centrifuge production facility in the Netherlands, and began to approach Pakistan government officials offering to help with Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence programme. At first, he approached a pair of Pakistani military scientists who were in the Netherlands on business. At the Pakistan Embassy, the military scientists discouraged him by saying: "As a metallurgical engineer, it would be a hard job for him to find a job in PAEC (Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission)".

Undaunted, Abdul Qadeer Khan wrote to Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, saying, "he [Abdul Qadeer Khan] sets out his experience and encourages Prime Minister Bhutto to make an atomic bomb using uranium, rather than plutonium, the method Pakistan is currently trying to adopt under the leadership of Munir Ahmad Khan".

In December 1974, Abdul Qadeer Khan went to Pakistan to meet Zulfikar Bhutto and PAEC Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan at the Prime minister Secretariat. During the meeting, he was unable to convince Bhutto to adopt uranium as the best approach rather than plutonium to make an atomic device. As Munir Ahmad Khan was a plutonium and nuclear fuel cycle technologist, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did not agree to halt the plutonium efforts but moved to begin a parallel uranium program. Later that evening, Zulfikar Bhutto met with his close friend Munir Ahmad Khan in his house, where he told him that, "He [Abdul Qadeer Khan] seems to make sense." Abdul Qadeer Khan again approached Bhutto and tried to convince him to halt the plutonium pursuit. In a meeting with Bhutto, Munir Ahmad Khan and senior academic scientists and engineers at PAEC believed that they could run the reactor without Canadian assistance, and they insisted that with the French extraction plant in the offing, Pakistan should stick with its original plan. Bhutto did not disagree, but saw the advantage of mounting a parallel effort toward enriched uranium.

The uranium enrichment programme was secretly started in 1974 by Munir Ahmad Khan. Following the surprise Indian nuclear test, the secret project was launched in May 1974 by PAEC as Codename — Project-706. Sultan Mahmood, a nuclear engineer, was made the project-director by the Chairman of PAEC. Before Abdul Qadeer Khan's joining, the uranium route was considered secondary route, and most efforts were put to develop a device with weapon-grade plutonium. In spring of 1976, Abdul Qadeer Khan joined the programme, and worked initially under Sultan Mahmood. However, the pair disagreed, and Abdul Qadeer Khan became highly unsatisfied with the work led by Mahmood. He wrote a letter to Munir Ahmad Khan, later directed to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, where he expressed his discontent with Mahmood and saying that he wanted to work independently.

After a meeting with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Abdul Qadeer Khan, with backing of Bhutto, re-named the enrichment project to Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL) and took over the uranium project from PAEC. Abdul Qadeer Khan disliked the idea of PAEC getting involved in his work; instead he advocated for Corps of Engineers to lead the construction of the suitable operational enrichment plant. The E-in-C chose Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar, a system engineer notable for leading the construction of GHQ, Pakistan Army's Combatant Headquarter. Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar chose the city of Kahuta near Rawalpindi, Punjab Province, for the operational enrichment facility. With promotion awarded by Bhutto, Zahid Ali Akbar was made Major-General, and served as the first Director of the Project-706. Major-General Akbar designed the entire city of Kahuta and as well the enrichment plant, facility and the research institute near by. During 1970s, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan worked at Engineering Research Laboratories as senior scientist and was responsible for established the laboratories and the enrichment chamber there. After the removal of Bhutto, Major-General Zahid Akbar was made the director of the entire nuclear development with Munir Ahmad Khan and Abdul Qadeer Khan directly reporting to Major-General Akbar. Major-General Akbar's office was shifted at the General's Headquarter (GHQ) and in his capacity, dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan served as intern director of the Engineering Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL). In 1980, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was officially made Director-General of the ERL, and he would later on served his role as more businessman than the scientist.

In 1983, Pakistan's Chief Martial Law Administrator and Chief of Army Staff General Ziaul Haq subsequently renamed it from Engineering Research Laboratories to Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). By early 1981, the enrichment project was fully functional.

However, the PAEC led by Munir Ahmad Khan remained in charge of all the other critical steps of the nuclear fuel cycle, starting from uranium exploration, processing, conversion, fuel fabrication and reprocessing- both in the pre and post enrichment phases as well as the plutonium, nuclear weapons and civil and military reactors programs. Despite leading the uranium enrichment programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan was not involved in the designing of the nuclear weapons, including its calculations, and hence also not invited to the secret cold-test of a working nuclear device, codename Kirana-I that was conducted in March of 1983 by the PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan. In 1984, Abdul Qadeer Khan's KRL claimed to carry out its own nuclear test. However, this seemed unsuccessful as PAEC had already carried out the test in 1983, and would carry out 24 more cold tests of different nuclear weapon designs. In 1984, KRL had produces the first and fresh batch of weapon-grade uranium loosely based on the Zippe Type technology.

Proliferation of URENCO technology

See also: Nuclear proliferation

Abdul Qadeer Khan then established an administrative proliferation network through Dubai to smuggle URENCO nuclear technology to Khan Research Laboratories. Abdul Qadeer Khan, partnered with Friedrich Tinner and Peter Finke, established a company to transfer Urenco technology to Pakistan, Libya, and Iran. However, the cover was blown by British MI-6, and Finke, along with unnamed ISI officer, defected to Pakistan while Tinner escaped to Libya.

On an interview given by Dr. G.D. Alam — a theoretical physicist who headed the enrichment programme, alongside with Abdul Qadeer Khan — made a confession acknowledging A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation work. According to Dr. Ghulam Dastigar Alam, the URENCO Group had given Abdul Qadeer Khan the drawings of centrifuges for translation, and to find out the errors in the centrifuges designs that URENCO engineers were facing. Abdul Qadeer Khan brought those drawings (blue prints) to Pakistan without notifying the URENCO Group and the Dutch government. Abdul Qadeer Khan's stolen drawings of centrifuge machine were incomplete and incorrect. Academic scientists, such as Dr. Tasnim Shah, Dr. G.D. Alam, Dr. Qadir Hussain, Dr. Anwar Ali, had developed new and powerful version of the centrifugal machine, and Abdul Qadeer Khan had nothing to do with it. Even though it was Abdul Qadeer Khan's tasked to figure out the problems as URENCO Group had trusted him for the solution of the problems. As the problems were fixed, Abdul Qadeer Khan began the enrichment operations in KRL and a milestone was reached in 1978 with enrichment project. In 1981, Dr. G.D. Alam and other academic scientists were transferred back to PAEC as they had developed serious disagreement with Abdul Qadeer Khan over his nuclear proliferation activities.

In 1980, a foreign government from an unknown Arab country contacted Dr. A.Q. Khan. Khan began his nuclear proliferation network and tried to include other scientists in his scheme, including Alam. The scientists had declined to cooperate with Khan. Abdul Qadeer Khan then decided to begin his independent operations in other countries. Ghulam Dastigar Alam disclosed his statement, as he said: Even until today, Dr. A.Q. Khan apart from the basics knows nothing about nuclear science and even today, he is not able to talk on technical issues.

In 2004, Samar Mubarakmand — a nuclear physicist who supervised the Chagai tests — provided further details about A.Q. Khan's proliferation network in an interview with Hamid Mir's Capital Talk. Mubarakmand acknowledged that the PAEC in IAEA first became aware of A.Q. Khan's network in 1980s, as PAEC was also a part of Libya and Iraq weapon's inspections. When Government confronted Abdul Qadeer Khan, he simply denied the acquisitions. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan first visited Chagai on May 28. He arrived 15 minutes prior to the tests, Mubarakmand concluded. He ended his interview by saying: It was PAEC, especially the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG), that designed and developed the weapons as well as the programme. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was only tasked with the enrichment project that he had took over in 1976. If he knew how to build the designs of weapons, Iraq, Libya and Iran would have developed the weapons by now, Mubarakmand concluded.

KRL Objectives

Abdul Qadeer Khan's Kahuta Research laboratories (KRL) was initially singly focused on enrichment of natural uranium into weapon-grade uranium. Despite of international media's reporting, neither the KRL, nor Abdul Qadeer Khan, was mandated to participate or/ involved with other phases of the nuclear weapon research development, including the actual weapon designing, development and testing of weapons, which remained under PAEC. Nor was it involved in upstream activities such as uranium exploration, mining, refining and the production of Urania as well as the conversion of yellow cake into ⁶UF, the gaseous feedstock for the enrichment. Nor was it responsible for contributing in nuclear energy programme or the reprocessing programme, which also remained under PAEC.

Competition

Main articles: Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and Munir Ahmad Khan

The KRL and PAEC were fierce rivals and competitors. From outset, Abdul Qadeer Khan disliked the idea of PAEC involvement in KRL's enrichment projects. That was the reason that Army Engineering Core had led the construction of the KRL facility under Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was a staunch critic of Munir Ahmad Khan's work. Abdul Qadeer Khan, on many different occasions, unsuccessfully tried to remove Munir Ahmad Khan's role in the nuclear weapons research programme. In spite of that, Munir Ahmad Khan and the PAEC provided its full support to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan's work. The Atlantic Monthly described the two as mortal enemies.

In the early 1980s, KRL also sought to develop nuclear weapons and claimed to have carried out at least one cold test in 1983. This appears to have been unsuccessful. PAEC had carried out the first cold test on 11 March 1983, and in the following years conducted 24 cold tests of different weapons designs. In the meantime, the KRL launched other competing weapons development projects, such as the nuclear-capable and liquid-fueled Ghauri strategic missile programme. In early 1995, the PAEC developed the solid fueled Shaheen missile programme. According to its scientists, the PAEC's Shaheen missile programme was highly ambitious and ingenious. Dr. Samar Mubarakmand was the lead designer of the Shaheen missile programme.

In 1980s, KRL produced both weapons and reactor grade uranium to level the competition with PAEC. However, while PAEC developed its the programme indigenously under Munir Ahmad Khan, Ishfaq Ahmad and Samar Mubarakmand, Abdul Qadeer Khan's team anticipated and richly contributed to the country's first Battlefield Range Ballistic Missile (BRBM), the Hatf missile program, collaborating with the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO).

1998 tests

Main articles: Chagai-I and Chagai-II

The competition between KRL and PAEC became highly intensified when India tested its nuclear bombs, codename Pokhran-II, in 1998 in Pokhran region. These nuclear tests conducted by India caused great alarm and internal tension in Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif, prime minister at that time, came under intense media and public pressure to conduct its own nuclear tests. After the Indian nuclear weapons tests, Abdul Qadeer Khan repeatedly met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, trying for permission to test Pakistan's nuclear weapons in Chagai. He proposed that the tests could by carried out in the underground tunnels in Kahuta. Despite his efforts, Sharif instead chose PAEC, under Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, due to their experience of ingeniously carrying out the tests in the past.

In meantime, Sharif sought to mitigate the intense rivalry between PAEC and KRL by asking Khan to provide its enriched uranium to PAEC. Nawaz Sharif also urged both KRL and PAEC to work together in the nation's best interest. It was the KRL's HEU that ultimately led to the successful detonation of Pakistan's first nuclear device on 28 May 1998. Two days later, on 30 May, a small team of scientists belonging to PAEC, under the leadership of Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, tested a Plutonium-based nuclear device. According to Pakistan defense analyst and retired engineer officer Lieutenant-General Talat Masood, the weapon-grade device was much more powerful than the uranium device. The theoretical test yield of the device was reported to 12-20 Kt. But recently in an interview with Dr. Shahid Masood of A.R.Y. Television Network, Abdul Qadeer Khan said that the even the second nuclear test was also based on Uranium-fissile fuel, though he did not provide any evidence to his claim. The tests were greeted with jubilation; in Pakistan, Abdul Qadeer Khan was feted as a national hero. The United States immediately imposed sanctions on both India and Pakistan and publicly blamed China for assisting Pakistan.

Suspicions of outside involvement

Pakistan's uranium enrichment capability developed so rapidly that observers suspected outside assistance. It was reported that Chinese technicians had been at the facility in the early 1980s, but suspicions soon fell on Khan's activities at URENCO. In 1983, Khan was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison by an Amsterdam court for attempted espionage. Barrister S.M. Zafar, at his own expense, immediately traveled to Amsterdam to fight the case of Khan and filed a petition in an Amsterdam court. The sentence was later overturned on appeal on a legal technicality. Khan, with Barrister Zafar, returned to Pakistan and explicitly gave interviews to Pakistan's mass media.

Khan rejected any suggestion that Pakistan had illicitly acquired nuclear expertise: "All the research work [at Kahuta] was the result of our innovation and struggle," he said in 1990. "We did not receive any technical know-how from abroad, but we cannot reject the use of books, magazines, and research papers in this connection."

U.S. objections

In 1987, a British newspaper reported that Khan had confirmed Pakistan's acquisition of a nuclear weapons development capability, saying that a U.S. intelligence report "about our possessing the bomb (nuclear weapon) is correct and so is speculation of some foreign newspapers". The Pakistani government disavowed the statement. Then Khan denied giving the statement, but later retracted his denial. In October 1991, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that Khan had repeated his claim at a dinner meeting of businessmen and industrialists in Karachi, which "sent a wave of jubilation" through the audience.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Western governments became increasingly convinced that China, Pakistan, and North Korea were collaborating on nuclear technology and ballistic missiles. "U.S. intelligence operatives secretly rifled A.Q. [Khan's] luggage ... during an overseas trip in the early 1980s to find the first concrete evidence of Chinese collaboration with Pakistan's nuclear bomb effort: a drawing of a crude, but highly reliable, Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapon that must have come directly from Beijing, according to the U.S. officials." In October 1990, KRL's activities led the U.S. to terminate economic and military aid to Pakistan, which led to a freeze in Pakistan's nuclear weapons development program. But in July 1996 Khan said, "at no stage was the program of producing nuclear weapons-grade enriched uranium ever stopped".

The American clampdown may have prompted an increasing reliance on Chinese expertise. In 1995, the U.S. learned that KRL had bought 5,000 specialized magnets from a Chinese company, for use in enrichment.

Proliferation investigations

North Korea and Iraq

It was reported that the highly Pakistani technology was being exported to North Korea. In May 1998, Newsweek magazine alleged that Khan had sent nuclear know-how to Iraq, an allegation that he denied. United Nations arms inspectors apparently discovered documents discussing Khan's purported offer in Iraq; Iraqi officials said the documents were authentic but that they had not agreed to work with Khan, fearing a sting operation.

The Bush administration investigated Pakistani nuclear weapons proliferation in 2001 and 2002, focusing on Khan's personal role. In December 2002 it renewed the allegation that an unidentified agent, supposedly acting on Khan's behalf, had offered nuclear weapons expertise to Iraq in the mid-1990s. Khan strongly denied this allegation and the Pakistani government declared the evidence to be "fraudulent". The United States responded by imposing sanctions on KRL.

In late October 2001, in a joint operation led by ISI, the intelligence agencies arrested Sultan Mahmood and Dr. Abdul Majeed over the suspected connections to the Taliban. Mehmood is known to have worked closely with Dr. A.Q. Khan in the development of weapons fuel during the 1970s.

Iran and Libya

File:Pakistan libya.jpg

In 2003, Libya gave up nuclear weapons-related material including these centrifuges that were acquired from Pakistan's AQ Khan nuclear "black market".

In August 2003, reports claimed that Khan had offered to sell nuclear weapons technology to Iran as early as 1989. The Iranian government came under intense pressure from the United States and the European Union to fully disclose its nuclear program and, finally, agreed in October 2003 to accept tougher inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA reported that Iran had established a large uranium enrichment facility using gas centrifuges based on the URENCO designs, which had been obtained "from a foreign intermediary in 1987." The intermediary was not named but many diplomats and analysts pointed to Khan, who was said to have visited Iran in 1986. The Iranians turned over the names of their suppliers and the international inspectors quickly identified the Iranian gas centrifuges as Pak-1's, the model that Khan developed in the early 1980s. In December 2003, two senior staff members at Khan Labs were arrested on suspicion of having sold nuclear weapons technology to the Iranians.

Although he was not arrested, Khan was summoned for "debriefing". On 25 January 2004, Pakistani investigators reported that Khan and Mohammed Farooq, a high-ranking manager at KRL, had provided unauthorized technical assistance to Iran in the late 1980s and early 1990s, allegedly in exchange for tens of millions of dollars. Pakistan Army's former Chief of Army Staff General Mirza Aslam Beg was also implicated. The Wall Street Journal quoted U.S. government officials as saying that Khan had told the investigators that General Beg had authorized the transfers to Iran.

In December 2003, Libya announced that it had agreed to abandon its undisclosed weapons of mass destruction program. Libyan government officials were quoted as saying that Libya had bought nuclear components from various black market dealers, including Pakistanis. U.S. officials who visited the Libyan uranium enrichment plants reported that the gas centrifuges used there were very similar to the Iranian machines. The IAEA officials also visited the Libyan nuclear plant where they found models of Paksat-1. Interpol arrested three Swiss nuclear scientists, who were Khan's close associates.

Investigation, dismissal, confession, pardon and aftermath

The Pakistani government's blanket denials became untenable as evidence mounted of illicit nuclear weapons technology transfers.

Pakistani government's investigation

The government investigated Khan's activities, arguing that if there had been wrongdoing, it had occurred without the government's knowledge or approval. Critics noted that virtually all of Khan's overseas travels, to Iran, Libya, North Korea, Niger, Mali, and the Middle East, were on Pakistan government aircraft. Often, he was accompanied by senior members of Pakistan's nuclear establishment.

According to Western sources, Khan had three motivations: 1) defiance of Western nations and an eagerness to pierce the "clouds of so-called secrecy," 2) eagerness to empower Muslim nations, and 3) money. Much of the technology was second-hand from Pakistan's own program and involved many of the connections he had used to develop the Pakistani bomb.

The full scope of the Khan network is not fully known. Centrifuge components were apparently manufactured in Malaysia with the aid of South Asian and German middlemen, and used a Dubai computer company as a false front. In Malaysia, Khan was helped by Sri Lanka-born Buhary Sayed Abu Tahir, who shuttled between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai to arrange for the manufacture of centrifuge components by a Malaysian company. Khan Research Laboratories is said to have entered into an agreement with Malaysian businessman Shah Hakim Zain to export conventional weapons to Malaysia.

The Khan investigation also revealed how many European companies were defying export restrictions and aiding the Khan network. Dutch companies exported thousands of centrifuges to Pakistan as early as 1976, and a German company exported facilities for the production of tritium (for hydrogen bombs) to the country.

The investigation exposed Israeli businessman Asher Karni as having sold nuclear devices to Khan's associates. Karni is currently awaiting trial in a U.S. prison. Tahir was arrested in Malaysia in May 2004 under a Malaysian law allowing for the detention of individuals posing a security threat.

In September 2005, Musharraf revealed that after two years of questioning Khan — which the Pakistani government insisted on doing itself without outside intervention — that they had confirmed that Khan had supplied centrifuge parts to North Korea. Still undetermined was whether Khan passed a bomb design to North Korea or Iran that had been discovered in Libya.

Dismissal

Khan's open promotion of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles became something of an embarrassment to Pakistan's government. The United States government became increasingly convinced that Pakistan was exchanging nuclear weapons technology for ballistic missile technology. In the face of strong U.S. criticism, in March 2001 the Pakistani government dismissed Khan from his post as head of KRL, a move that drew strong criticism from the opposition to General Pervez Musharraf. Perhaps in response to this, Musharraf appointed Khan to the post of "Science Advisor to the President" with the status of federal minister. While this could be regarded as a promotion, it removed him from hands-on management and allowed the government to keep a closer eye on his activities. In 2002, the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed "senior Pakistani Government officials" as conceding that Khan's dismissal from KRL had been prompted by the U.S. government's suspicions. On 31 January, Khan was dismissed from his post as the Science Advisor to the President ostensibly to "allow a fair investigation" of the allegations.

Confession

In early February 2004, the Government of Pakistan reported that Khan had signed a confession indicating that he had provided Iran, Libya, and North Korea with designs and centrifuge technology to aid in nuclear weapons programs, and said that the government had not been complicit in the proliferation activities. The Pakistan Government officials who made the announcement said that Khan had admitted to transferring centrifuge technology and information to Iran between 1989 and 1991, to North Korea and Libya between 1991 and 1997 (U.S. officials at the time maintained that transfers had continued with Libya until 2003), and additional technology to North Korea up until 2000. On 4 February 2004, Khan appeared on national television and confessed to running a proliferation ring.

Pardon and U.S. reaction

On 5 February 2004, the day after Khan's televised confession, President Musharraf pardoned him. However, Khan remained under house arrest.

The United States imposed no sanctions following the confession and pardon. U.S. officials said that in the War on Terrorism, it was not their goal to denounce or imprison people but "to get results." Sanctions on Pakistan or demands for an independent investigation of the Pakistan Armed Forces might have led to restrictions on or the loss of use of Pakistan Armed Forces bases needed by United States and NATO troops in Afghanistan. "It's just another case where you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," a U.S. government official explained. The U.S. also refrained from applying further direct pressure on Pakistan to disclose more about Khan's activities due to a strategic calculation that such pressure might topple President Musharraf.

In a speech to the National Defense University on 11 February 2004, President Bush proposed to reform the IAEA: "No state, under investigation for proliferation violations, should be allowed to serve on the IAEA Board of Governors—or on the new special committee. And any state currently on the Board that comes under investigation should be suspended from the Board. The integrity and mission of the IAEA depends on this simple principle: Those actively breaking the rules should not be entrusted with enforcing the rules." The Bush proposal was seen as targeted against Pakistan which, then served on the Board of Governors. It has not received attention from other governments.

In western media, Khan became a major symbol of proliferation. In February 2005, he was featured on the cover of Time magazine as the "Merchant of Menace", labeled "the world's most dangerous nuclear trafficker," and in November 2005, the Atlantic Monthly ran "The Wrath of Khan", featured a picture of a mushroom cloud behind Khan's head on the cover.

In May 2006, the U.S House of Representatives Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation held a hearing titled, "The A.Q. Khan Network: Case Closed?" Legislators and experts demanded that Pakistan turn Khan over to the U.S. and further Pakistani efforts to curb proliferation. In June 2006, a Pakistani Senate subcommittee issued a unanimous resolution criticizing the U. S. committee, stating that Pakistan would not turn Khan over to U.S. authorities.

In February 2009, two senior government officials announced that restrictions on Khan had been removed, allowing him to meet friends and relatives either at his home or elsewhere in Pakistan. The officials said that a security detail continued to observe his movements.

Aftermath

Calls for IAEA access

Since 2005, and particularly in 2006, there have been renewed calls by IAEA officials, senior U.S. congressmen, European Commission politicians, and others to make Khan available for interrogation by IAEA investigators, given lingering skepticism about the disclosures made by Pakistan regarding Khan's activities. In the U.S., these calls have been made by elected U.S. lawmakers rather than by the U.S. Department of State, though some interpreted them as signaling growing international discontent with the Musharraf regime.

End of investigation

The investigations were ended quickly and quietly following the fall of Military regime of General Pervez Musharraf. However, the details of such knowledge remain classified and hidden. Neither Khan nor any of his alleged collaborators has faced further charges in Pakistan, where he remains an extremely popular figure. Khan is lauded for his belief that the West is inherently hostile to Islam. In Pakistan's strongly anti-U.S. climate, action against him posed political risks for President General Musharraf, who faced accusations of being too pro-U.S. from key leaders in Pakistan's Army. A complicating factor is that few believe that Khan acted alone and the affair risks gravely damaging the Army, which oversaw and controlled the nuclear weapons development program and of which Musharraf was commander-in-chief, until his resignation from military service on 28 November 2007.

It has also been speculated that Khan's two daughters, who live in the UK and are UK subjects (thanks to their part-British, part-South African mother Henny), possess extensive documentation linking the Pakistani government to Khan's activities; such documentation is presumably intended to ensure that no further action is taken against Khan. Conversely, high-profile government members, such as Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq, as well as political opposition parties have expressed their support for Khan.

Army proliferation involvement

In December 2006, the Swedish Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (SWMDC) headed by Hans Blix, a former IAEA chief and United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) chief; said in a report that Khan could not have acted alone "without the awareness of the Pakistani Government".

On 4 July 2008, in an interview, Khan blamed President Musharraf and the Army for the transfer of nuclear technology, claiming that Musharraf was aware of all the deals and he was the "Big Boss" for those deals.

Khan said that Pakistan gave centrifuges to North Korea in a 2000 shipment supervised by the army. The equipment was sent in a North Korean plane loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials. He also said that he had traveled to North Korea in 1999 with a Pakistani Army general to buy shoulder-launched missiles. Asked why he had taken sole responsibility for proliferation, Khan said friends, including a central figure in the ruling party at the time, had persuaded him that it was in the national interest. In return he had been promised complete freedom.

Khan wrote to journalist Simon Henderson on 10 December 2003, saying that he was acting precisely under the orders of the Pakistani government when he sold weapon designs to North Korea, Iran and Libya. Khan also says that Pakistan built a centrifuge plant for China in Hanzhong province, in exchange for enriched uranium. Nuclear weapons expert David Albright of the ISIS agrees that Khan's activities were government-sanctioned.

Other activities

Space program

In the late 1990s, Khan sought to re-organize and revitalize the Pakistani's national space agency, SUPARCO, especially in the SUPARCO-proposed projects. In 1980s, Khan had participated in the development Hatf-I Ballistic missile program. Khan was increasingly involved in Pakistan's first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) project, and in March 2001, Khan announced that Pakistani scientists were in the process of building the country's first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) and that the project had been assigned to SUPARCO, which also built the Badr satellites.

Khan worked closely with SUPARCO's scientists on the development and construction of Pakistan's first indigenously constructed launch facility and space port, Tilla Satellite Launch Center. Khan also cited the fact that India had made rapid strides in the fields of SLV and satellite manufacture as another motivation for developing an indigenous launch capabilities. In 1999, Khan briefed then-chief executive of Pakistan Pervez Mushrraf describing his self-designed Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite. He also suggested that Pakistan should launch a satellite from its own launch centers. But Musharraf did not grant him permission. He was highly disappointed and wrote about it in his column. On 10 December 2001, Pakistan launched its second Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite instead from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Zenit-2.

Pundit

On 12 November 2008, he started writing weekly columns in The News International and Daily Jang. His columns heavily emphasized the education and engineering disciplines. Khan has gained even greater respect through his columns among Pakistanis. Khan also expressed his views on environmental issues. Even though his columns heavily focused on the issues of education, Khan severely criticized Pervez Musharraf and his policies, in which he blamed them for the growth of the Taliban insurgency.

Metallurgy education

Khan played an important role in the establishment of engineering universities in Pakistan. As both PAEC Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan and Ishfaq Ahmad established a nuclear physics and a nuclear engineering university, Pakistan Institute of Applied Sciences and Engineering. Khan established a metallurgy and material science institute in Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. He also served as its both executive member and director there. Khan played an important and key role in establishing the Dr. A. Q. Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering at Karachi University. Khan introduces metallurgical engineering courses in many newly-founded universities and sciences colleges in Pakistan.

Health matters

Cancer

On 22 August 2006, the Pakistani government announced that Khan was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. On 9 September 2006, Khan had surgery at Aga Khan hospital, in Karachi. According to doctors, the operation was successful, but on 30 October it was reported that his condition had deteriorated and he was suffering from deep vein thrombosis.

Hospitalization

On 5 March 2008, Khan was admitted to an Islamabad hospital with low blood pressure and fever, reportedly due to an infection. He was released four days later.

Legacy

Abdul Qadeer Khan is no longer associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons research programmme. Due to common public misconception and his extreme public popularity, Western, American, and Pakistan's Media have always portraited Abdul Qadeer Khan as "Father of nuclear detterence research programme". in spite of the fact that he was the head of only one HEU based Gas-centrifuge project, which was one part of Pakistan's uranium enrichment programme. All other projects in the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear deterrence programme, including uranium exploration- processing and most importantly for the enrichment program- the production of feedstock for centrifuges in the form of uranium hexafluoride gas or UF6, were initiated, developed and led by the Chairman of PAEC, Mr.Munir Ahmad Khan with contributions of other scientists, such as Abdus Salam, Riazuddin, Asghar Qadir, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad and several others, under the administrative leadership of Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who initiated, administrated, and orchestrated this programme.

Abdul Qadeer Khan came under intense criticism by his peers, such as Pervez Hoodbhoy, a prominent nuclear physicist, over his involvement in nuclear proliferation. Hoodbhoy heavily criticized the American (including David Albright), European, and the Pakistani media, for responsible for certain popular misconceptions about A.Q. Khan's role in the scientific research that was started by Munir Ahmad Khan and Abdus Salam in January 1972. In 1999, in an editorial essay written at Chowk.com, Hoodbhoy wrote: "Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the pre-eminent architect of nuclear deterrence program, is often called a nuclear physicist when, in fact, his degrees and professional accomplishments belong to the field of metallurgy, which is an engineering discipline rather than physics. When Dr. Khan visited the physics department of Quaid-e-Azam University about two months ago, he endeared himself even more to his admirers by wistfully saying he wished he could come someday to this university to study physics".

However, Abdul Qadeer Khan's downfall affected popular military regime of General Pervez Musharraf. Freelance people in Pakistan openly blamed the United States for Khan's house arrest. Journalists and the mainstream media came to support Khan and expressed their sympathies to him.

Opposition parties in Pakistan as well as coalition parties supported Khan. Former Minister for Religious Affairs Mr. Ejaz-ul-Haq held a public press conference in May 2007 to express his support for Khan. Aseff Ahmad Ali, Education minister, also supported Abdul Qadeer Khan where Khan remained highly popular in ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Honors and recognitions

Because of Abdul Qadeer Khan's open public promotion by the Pakistan media, Khan remained one of the most known, yet respected, scientist in the country. His active role, during the last two decades, in the nuclear development; Abdul Qadeer Khan came to known, both nationally and internationally as the country's top nuclear physicist, in spite of his academic (metallurgical) engineering discipline. Abdul Qadeer Khan has received more than 60 Gold medal across the countries universities and colleges. On 14 August 1989, Abdul Qadeer Khan, along with his counterpart Munir Ahmad Khan, was honored by the Government of Pakistan after he was awarded the second high civil award, "Hilal-e-Imtiaz" by the former Prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a public ceremony. In 14 August 1996, Abdul Qadeer Khan was awarded the highest civilian award "Nishan-e-Imtiaz" by former Prime minister Nawaz Sharif. On 12 March 1999, Abdul Qadeer Khan was again awarded and honored the highest civilian award "Nishan-e-Imtiaz" from President Justice (retired) Rafique Tarar. With receiving the Nishane-e-Imtiaz for the second time, Abdul Qadeer Khan remains the only Pakistani citizen who has been twice honored and awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, to date.

Honorary degrees

Khan has been conferred with various of honorary Doctorate of Sciences (D.Sc.) from all over the universities in Pakistan. A list of universities are listed below that have conferred Abdul Qadeer Khan with honorary doctorate degree:

• University of Karachi
• Baqai Medical University
• Hamdard University
• Gomal University
• Lahore University of Engineering and Technology
• Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology

Even after his confession, Abdul Qadeer Khan remains widely popular among Pakistani civil society and he is considered domestically to be one of its most-influential and respected scientists. In an interview with Pakistani political analyst Hamid Mir, Dr. Salim Farookhi described Khan as, "the most influential and talented scientist that Pakistan has produced."

Fellowships/memberships

• Islamic Academy of Sciences
• Kazakh National Academy of Sciences
• Pakistan Institute of Metallurgical Engineers
• Pakistan Institute of Engineers
• Institute of Central and West Asian Studies
• Chartered Engineer and Member, The institute of Materials, London
• Member of American Society of Metals (ASM)
• The Metallurgical Society of the American Institute of Met. Min. and Petr. Engineers (TMS)
• Canadian Institute of Metals (CIM)
• Japan Institute of Metals (JIM)

Publications

Selected research papers and patents

• "Topics in Physical Metallurgy" - The Burgers Festschrift - Edited by A.Q. Khan and M.J. Brabers, Elsevier F]Publishing Co., Amsterdam, August 1972. (contains ca. 35 articles & 460 pages).
• Stress-induced phase transformations and enhanced plasticity in Cu-Al and Cu-Al-Zn martensites, J. Materials Science, December 1972, with G.V.D. Perre and L. Delaey.

• `Topics in Physical Metallurgy' (Eds. A.Q. Khan and M.J. Brabers). , Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1972.

• Dynamic recovery and recrystallization in iron-containing aluminium bronzes, Transformations Japan Institute of Metals, Volume 15, No. 2 (March 1974).

• Creating a complete metallurgical engineer, Metals and Materials, April 1974.

• An-X-ray diffraction study of stacking sequences, stacking faults and distortions in copper-based martensites - Application to Ci-Al and Cu-Al-Zn martensites, J. Applied Cryst., published with G.V.d. Perre, L. Delaey. H. Tas, W. Vandermeulen & A. Deruyttere, (1974).

• . The Hall-Petch relationship in copper-based martensites, Materials Science & Engineering, vol.15, (1974), with M.J. Brabers and L. Delaey, pp. 263–274.

• . The spread of Nuclear Weapons among nations: Militarization or Development, pp. 417–430. (Ref. Nuclear War Nuclear Proliferation and their consequences "Proceedings of the Vth International Colloquium organised by the Group De Bellerive Geneva 27–29 June 1985, Edited by: Sadruddin Aga Khan, Published by Clarendon Press-Oxford 1986).

• Microstructural changes during Retrogression and reaging in AA-7075 - A TEM study, Proceedings, Aluminium Technology `86, Section B, Institute of Metals (1986).

• Chromium Determination in Steel using atomic Absorption spectrophotometer? problems and their remedies, Pak Steel Journal, Vol 26, Jan-Mar. 1986.

• Flow Induced Vibrations in Gas Tube Assembly of Centrifuges, Journal of Nuclear Science and technology, 23(9), (Sept. 1986), pp. 819–827.

• Dilation investigation of a ® g transformation in 18% Ni maraging steels, Proceedings of The International Conf. on Martensitie Transformations (1986), The Japan Institute of Metals, pp. 560–565.

• Electrical and magnetic properties of double-aged 18% nickel maraging steels, Proceedings of The International Conf. on Martensitie Transformations (1986), The Japan Institute of Metals, pp. 572–577.

• Physical and mechanical properties of ultra-high strength 18% nickel maraging steel, vol.28, (Jul-Sept./Oct-Dec. 1986). Pakistan Steel Journal, pp. 87–90.

• Some remarks on the hardness and yield strength of aluminum alloy 7075 as a function of retrogression time, vol. 18-A,, Feb. 1987, Metallurgical Transactions, pp. 350–354.

• Hot stage electron microscopy of rapidly solidified Cu-Al-Ni ß-phase alloys, Proc. 2nd Beijing Conf. and Exhib. on Instrum. Analysis, 1987.

Bibliography

• Khan, Abdul Qadeer (2010). "§Sehar Honay Tak: Dr. A.Q. Khan gave us sense of security, Javed Hashmi.". In Khan, Abdul Qadeer (ed.). Sehar Honay Tak. Islamabad, Pakistan: Ali Masud books publication. pp. 1–158. ISBN 9698500006. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Rahman, Shahid (1998). "§Dr. A. Q. Khan: Nothing Succeed like Success". In Rahman, Shahid (ed.). Long Road to Chagai. Islamabad, Pakistan: Printwise publication. pp. 49–60. ISBN 9698500006. {{cite book}}: |editor2-first= missing |editor2-last= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

See also

• Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction
• Nuclear proliferation
• Nuclear program of Iran
• Friedrich Tinner
• Asher Karni
• Mohammad Qadir Hussain
• Iran–Pakistan relations
• North Korea – Pakistan relations
• Project-706

External links

• Annotated bibliography for AQ Khan from the Alsos Digital Library on Nuclear Issues
• Abdul Qadeer Khan

Articles

• "The Wrath of Khan". The Atlantic Monthly. November 2005.
• "Unraveling the A. Q. Khan and Future Proliferation Networks". The Washington Quarterly. Spring 2005.
• "Tracking the technology". Nuclear Engineering International. 2004-08-31.
• "BBC profile". BBC.co.uk. 2004-02-20.
• "Pakistan's Nuclear Father, Master Spy". MSNBC. 2003-10-24.
• Reporter Adrian Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal
• "Kahuta - Pakistan Special Weapons Facilities", Federation of American Scientists.
• "Musharraf's speech in Honour of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan". Pakistan Government site.
• "Exclusive Interview with Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan (Urdu)". UrduPoint Network.
• "Successful Pakistanis Around The World". Friends Korner.

Online Books

• "Islamic Atomic Bomb for sale in World Black Market, by RV Bhasin". R.V. Bhasin.

• "Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and Nuclear Pakistan by Shahid Nazir Choudhry (Urdu)". Urdupoint.
• "The Debriefing of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan by Zahid Malik (Urdu)". Millat.