Author: Simon Henderson
Publication: www.nationalreview.com
Date: January 19, 2004
URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/henderson200401190957.asp
Introduction: The Iran-Pakistan
nuclear story continues to unfold.
"My father told me that if ever
anything happened to him, I was to call you," said the plaintive, attention-grabbing
voice of a young Pakistani woman on the telephone to me Sunday. Her father,
a nuclear scientist, had been detained by Pakistan's feared Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI). They had come in the evening and told her father to
pack a small bag, with personal articles sufficient for a few days. Barely
able to hold back the tears, she passed me onto her brother. "There had
been five or six standing by the door and another three or so in a four-wheel-drive
vehicle and another car outside," he told me.
At least four men have been arrested
in the last few days, bringing my tally to a total of at least seven scientists
arrested since the beginning of December. (One person over the weekend
told me between 25 and 30 scientists and other experts might have been
detained so far.) The Pakistani authorities have publicly acknowledged
only a few of the detentions, saying they are trying to work out whether
"renegade nuclear experts" have helped neighboring Iran develop a nuclear-weapons
program.
Why phone me? I have written about
Pakistan's nuclear-weapons endeavors for more than 25 years. I have a variety
of good contacts. The woman who called me clearly thinks publicity could
help her father and the others. I previously wrote "Nuclear Spinning: The
Iran-Pakistan Link" in December for NRO, a few days after the first arrests.
It had been prompted by other telephone calls.
The story is bizarre. It is also
probably true - although it is safe to assume we have so far learned only
a fraction of that truth. In essence, the story is that Pakistani scientists,
directly or indirectly, allowed Iran to acquire centrifuges suitable for
enriching uranium. The centrifuges were discovered when international inspectors
visited Iran last year, much to the embarrassment of President Pervez Musharraf,
Pakistan's military leader turned dictator. Under pressure to cooperate
with the U.S. against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, Musharraf himself is
threatened by Islamic extremists, as two failed assassination attempts
in the last month testify. Iran's public nuclear-centrifuge admission is
giving Washington an excuse to hammer Pakistan for its long history of
reckless proliferation, previously thought to have been in exchange for
Chinese and North Korean assistance. But whatever Musharraf might have
known about Iran for years, first as a senior general, and then as chief
of army staff (the Pakistani army is guardian of the country's nuclear
project), he is now claiming total ignorance - and innocence - as head
of state.
The arrested men all worked at the
Khan Research Laboratories, a uranium-enrichment plant outside the capital
city of Islamabad. In 1981, the then military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq,
gave the plant its current name in honor of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who
created it in the 1970s. This gesture was intended to annoy the United
States, and it did. What is going on now appears, in part, to be Washington's
revenge. Using the Iran- centrifuge scandal, Washington can pressure Musharraf
to shut down perhaps half of his nuclear-weapons projects.
Khan himself was retired on his
65th birthday in April 2001, against his own wishes. President Musharraf,
who had taken power in a military coup in 1999, apparently was responding
to U.S. demands. He also retired Khan's main rival, Samar Mubarakmand,
at the same time. Khan had followed the highly enriched-uranium route to
the bomb; Mubarakmand's team had followed the plutonium route. Both groups
successfully tested devices in Pakistan's May 1998 nuclear blasts. Both
teams also separately worked on providing Pakistan with missiles capable
of carrying nuclear bombs. Khan's group acquired a Nodong production line
from North Korea - the missile is known as the Ghauri in Pakistan, and
is in operational service. The plutonium team chose the Chinese M-11 missile,
known in Pakistan as the Shaheen.
Last month the Pakistani government
briefed a select few of its journalists to report that rogue scientists
had used German go-betweens to sell their secrets to Iran. The scientists
had also been helped by two Sri Lankan businessmen in Dubai, the journalists
were told. "The [scientists] were motivated entirely by money," went the
briefing line.
Khan's name did not appear in the
subsequent reports, but it is clear that Khan is considered the center
of the web. He probably hasn't been arrested himself only because he is
a national hero. In Pakistan, he is known as "the father of the Islamic
bomb." But he has been invited in for questioning nonetheless, most recently
last Saturday evening. It started at 6 P.M. and was not finished until
after 9 P.M. A friend who spoke to him later reported that, although Khan
said he was okay, he sounded exhausted.
Two other men were detained around
the same time: Major Islam ul-Haq, Khan's personal staff officer, and Nazeer
Ahmed, a director at KRL with a British Ph.D., who was Khan's principal
and closest aide in the KRL headquarters for many years. The men arrested
in December had been linked to centrifuge production and purchases of equipment
from abroad. One, Saeed Ahmed, had been head of the centrifuge-design office,
another, Yasin Chohan, ran a production line. Both have been released.
A third, Farooq Mohammed, is still detained; his family went to court last
week to secure his release. This week, they will learn the result - but
they are not optimistic. Legal niceties about habeas corpus take second
place in a military regime.
The story could be bigger than just
leaks of uranium-enrichment technology. Two other men arrested last week,
Abdul Majid and Mansoor Alam (also directors at KRL), had both been directly
involved in the first 1998 nuclear test, watching from a distance when
a device using highly enriched uranium had been detonated under the Chagai
Hills in Pakistan's southwestern region.
But to believe the storyline dictated
so far by the Musharraf regime, you have to believe that a group of scientists,
motivated by national glory (the quest for a bomb), was distracted by the
opportunity to earn a quick buck (selling secrets to Iran, a potential
enemy). The whole escapade apparently completely escaped the notice of
a wide array of governments, some military, some democratic.
None of this makes any sense, yet.
But with the keywords "Iran," "Islamic terrorism," and "nuclear proliferation,"
this should be one of the stories to watch in 2004.
- Simon Henderson is a London-based
associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
