Nuclear Smuggler Khan to Remain Unavailable to Western Questioners, Pakistani Official Says

Western nations should back off their efforts to question the former head of Pakistan’s nuclear program, now under house arrest for his role as ringleader of an international nuclear smuggling network, a current program official told the McClatchy News Service (see GSN, Sept. 27, 2007).

“It is a dead horse that has been beaten, flogged, many times over,” said retired Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, chief of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program.

Still, nuclear nonproliferation experts have said that former nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has much more to tell about his smuggling activities.

“I don't think anyone feels confident the A.Q. Khan network was put to sleep.  We can't trust the Pakistanis to be forthcoming on this issue because they haven't been," said Christine Fair, with the RAND Corp.  “He's got 30 years-plus not as a rogue actor but as a state actor.  So they are not going to let anyone talk to him.”

The Bush administration has “basically accepted [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf's argument that we cannot have access to A.Q. Khan because it would further destabilize his government,” added Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  “The political decision has been made that we need Musharraf … more than we need to get access to Khan” (Tim Johnson, McClatchy News Service/Raleigh, N.C., News and Observer, Feb. 10).

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