Khan Keeps Wriggling From Nuclear Confession

Admitted proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan yesterday continued his recent recantations of his 2004 confession to leading an international network of illicit nuclear suppliers from his post as head of Pakistan’s atomic sector, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service reported.  Khan has been regularly speaking with journalists for the first time since he was placed under house arrest in 2004 after his confession (see GSN, May 30).

Khan denied selling nuclear equipment or technology to Iran, Libya or North Korea, saying that he had only connected Tehran and Tripoli with other suppliers.  Pyongyang needed no assistance, he said.

“When Iran and Libya wanted to do their program, they asked our advice.  We said, ‘OK, these are the suppliers, who provide all,’” Khan said.   Those suppliers offered “complete centrifuge design, complete enrichment-plant drawings, complete weapons drawings,” he added.

“The Germans have those drawings.  The South Africans have those drawings.  The French have those drawings.  They were the suppliers.  You can't blame me for it.  They were selling.  They were making money.  Why put blame on me?” Khan continued.  “I brought them (Libya and Iran) into contact with middlemen.”

As for North Korea, Khan said Pyongyang did not need uranium enrichment technology.

“The North Korean program is totally based on reactor reprocessing plutonium.  They had mastered this technology even before we started.  I told my government when I saw their system, they have excellent technology.  They are much more advanced than we are.  And they have very sophisticated designs,” he said.

His remarks contradicted his detailed 2004 confession, in which he admitted to delivering enrichment equipment to the three nations.  Those transactions have been further confirmed by other evidence, said one expert.

“He's just lying; the facts are established,” said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Khan said he would not assist the International Atomic Energy Agency in its investigation of the smuggling network.

“Why should I?  Are we their colony?  We are not even a signatory to the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty].  There are no international laws that force anybody to comply,” he said.  “Cooperation with the IAEA is voluntary.”

Khan complained that Pakistani leaders had falsely promised him “free movement” in exchange for his confession.

“The moment I made the confession at the TV station and I was coming home, I said, “OK, from tomorrow I will lead a normal life.’  But as soon as I entered the house, there were guards outside.  They said, ‘Sorry, you cannot go out, you cannot meet anybody, your children cannot come, your daughter cannot come from England,” he said.

Other individuals “got away scot-free” following the confession, Khan said.  He did not elaborate, but probable candidates would be members of the Pakistani army, which manages the nations’ nuclear program, McClatchy reported.

Khan blamed Western intolerance for Islam as the source of his troubles.

“Muslims were the only religion which threatened the Western civilization.  They hate Muslims, they hate Islamic culture.  Every Muslim is a terrorist,” he said.  “The West will never forgive you.  I broke their monopoly.  I am the black sheep for them.  I destroyed their total monopoly over this technology.  We’re the only Muslim country that managed to do it.  So they will tarnish me, left, right,” he said (Saeed Shah, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, June 3).

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