Khaannn!

On Wednesday the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing entitled A.Q. Khan's Nuclear Wal-Mart: Out of Business or Under New Management?, chaired by Rep. Ackerman. The hearing looked at the question of whether Khan's black (gray?) market operation for nuclear technology was still running, and what US policy should be towards Pakistan.

The hearing also dealt with this new report from the International Institute of Strategic Studies entitled Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A.Q. Khan and the rise of proliferation networks. You can watch the presentation and Q&A session during the launch of this report.

Here are links to statements of those who spoke at this hearing.

The Honorable Gary L. Ackerman
Mr. Mark Fitzpatrick
Mr. David Albright
Ms. Lisa Curtis

(Some video of the conference can be found here.)

A Daily Times article (also here) on the hearing said:

Under persistent questioning by members of the committee wanting to know if the AQ Khan network has been effectively wrapped up, the experts were in accord on the point that the network is no longer operative. In its most functional and active stage, there were about 40 to 50 people involved in its operations in Pakistan and abroad and the Dubai end is still in existence. In answer to a question, one of the experts said that Dr Khan’s motivation appeared to be financial rather than ideological.
...
The members of the committee, with the exception of Sheila Jackson-Lee, were openly hostile to Pakistan during their individual presentations and in their questioning of the three experts. Ackerman found it ironic that the “stiffest penalty” the Pakistani government could impose on those who sell its “nuclear crown jewels” is house arrest.

Also on Wednesday, this matter came up at the daily State Dept. briefing. Here's part of the exchange:

QUESTION: Can I ask about A.Q. Khan? There's a hearing -- Foreign Relations Committee -- today. There's a new report out from the Institute for Strategic Studies that's raising fresh questions about, you know, the scope of his network, whether it's still up and running. Do you have any concerns or reaction to this?

MR. MCCORMACK: I haven't seen the report. I know that -- to my knowledge, the network as we knew it is out of business. I can't tell you whether or not there are any copycats out there or any elements that were associated with the A.Q. Khan network who are attempting to continue to engage in these kind of illicit activities. The -- I don't think we know everything about the activities of the A.Q. Khan network. I think it is a matter of continued interest not only to us, but to others. And I know that our folks continue to take a look at it.

QUESTION: And there was a certain lack of accountability. I mean, he's still in Pakistan. He doesn't seem to be held accountable for what he did. Are you disappointed with this? Would you like to see him held accountable? Would you like to see him --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I think -- as I understand it, he's under house arrest and his ability to engage in the kind of activities that he engaged in previously -- my understanding is Pakistani authorities no longer -- have taken steps to prevent his engaging in those kinds of further activities. So I don't think that there -- this is certainly a cost-free exercise for A.Q. Khan and fundamentally it's up to the Pakistani Government to deal with him.

QUESTION: But were U.S. authorities ever given access to him to question him?

MR. MCCORMACK: I can't tell you. I don't know. I'll check it out for you.

Why are we so concerned about Khan's network? As Rep. Ackerman said:

To Iran, the world’s leading terror state and chief threat to peace and security in the Middle East, Khan provided centrifuges, technical designs, components, and an address book of suppliers for other material. Yet we don’t know whether he provided Iran with the same plans for a nuclear weapon that he provided to Libya. Without question Iran’s nuclear program is years ahead of where it would have been without his assistance.

To North Korea, Khan supplied centrifuge machines along with drawings, sketches, technical data, depleted uranium hexafluoride gas, and a shopping list so that North Korea could procure additional equipment directly from foreign suppliers. In return, Pakistan got missiles.

To Libya, Khan committed to supplying the entire enrichment process, soup to nuts and for good measure threw in the designs for a nuclear weapon. In return, Khan got wealthy.

What we have uncovered since 2003 is the single worst case of nuclear proliferation in the last 50 years. But what is most startling is not the scope of Khan’s network that stretched, as far as we know, across ten countries and involved at least 30 companies and middlemen -- but that so few countries, companies or individuals have been held accountable.

William Langewiesche had two good articles in The Atlantic about Khan and his operations. These articles are a good place to start if you want to get up to speed on how Khan obtained nuclear technology for Pakistan, and then shared it with nations not exactly friendly to the US. Here are the links:

The Wrath of Khan (November 2005 issue)
The Point of No Return (January/February 2006 issue)
(See also this interview with William Langewiesche on nuclear proliferation)

An excerpt:

Hibbs was onto it fast. In November of 1991, having previously written about the unconfirmed visits of A. Q. Khan, he described an unnamed Western government's suspicion that Iran had possibly obtained uranium-enrichment technology from Pakistan, and that this technology appeared to be that of URENCO, the consortium from which Khan had stolen designs. The official reaction in Europe and the United States was "no comment." Hibbs was left to pursue his work alone in his black box.

Unbeknownst to him, the CIA had concluded that the Pakistan-Iran connection had cooled, in part because the centrifuges that Pakistan had sold were castoffs, prone to vibration and inefficient compared with more modern designs. As a result U.S. interest in Khan diminished, and to some extent the trail was allowed to go cold. Hindsight shows that this was a mistake: Khan remained as ambitious as ever, and like a good vendor, he offered improvements to his client. His relations with Iran were solid and all the better because they were out of sight. Throughout that decade, however, as Hibbs occasionally reported, U.S. suspicions remained strong that Iran was continuing to pursue a nuclear-weapons program, with the perhaps unwitting aid of Russia and China, both of which were eager to sell civil nuclear technology to Iran—as they are today.

...

Hibbs wrote it up, and in January of 2003 his editor put it on page one of Nuclear Fuel, under the drab Platts-style headline "Pakistan Believed Design Data Source For Centrifuges To Be Built By Iran." It was the most important work of Hibbs's career to date—a 2,164-word masterpiece that went to the center of Pakistan's activities and with unerring precision mapped the recent history of nuclear proliferation. The reaction, as Hibbs had predicted, amounted to a chorus of official denials—with various professors chiming in to explain why, for cultural or geopolitical reasons, Pakistan would never have helped the Iranians to arm. But Hibbs stood his ground.

Finally, you knew I couldn't get through this post without linking to this.