TYPHOID ABDUL:

From Patriot to Proliferator: The myth of a Pakistani scientist as his nation's savior long protected him. It took his peddling of atomic know-how to shred it. (Douglas Frantz, September 23, 2005, LA Times)

In spring 2000, Lt. Gen. Syed Mohammad Amjad was in his office at Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau when one of his senior investigators delivered the report he was dreading.

The bureau had been created six months earlier to root out corruption among bureaucrats, politicians and the business elite. Amjad, a career army officer known for his integrity, was given authority to arrest anyone.

The investigator had been quietly verifying the contents of a 700-page dossier on Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist whose reputation as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb made him the country's most revered figure.

It was clear that Khan was living far beyond his modest government salary, the investigator reported. He had stashed $8 million in banks in Pakistan; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Switzerland, acquired seven expensive houses, paid monthly stipends to 20 journalists to burnish his image and collected kickbacks on purchases by the government lab he ran.

Corruption was easy to prove, the investigator said, but pursuing Khan would entangle the young bureau in a political struggle it was likely to lose. The scientist was shielded by a largely self-constructed myth that he had almost single-handedly ensured Pakistan's national security by building a nuclear arsenal to counter India's.

"My humble suggestion is not to open a case at this stage," the investigator told Amjad, according to a person who attended the meeting. Amjad reluctantly agreed.

Khan's protective wall did not collapse for nearly four more years.

In February 2004, facing rising international pressure, the government forced Khan to confess that he had run a highly profitable black-market operation that sold nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. His activities made him the single most important figure in the spread of atomic weapons beyond a small clutch of nuclear states.

Much about Khan's network has been discovered since then. Still, mystery surrounds what turned a proud and ambitious man from patriot to proliferator. [...]

In early 2000, Khan summoned Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist, to the lab at Kahuta to rage about Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who had taken control of the country in a coup the previous October.

Musharraf had had the gall to cut funding for the lab's program to develop missiles based on the North Korean designs, Khan told him. "Young man, he is trying to appease the Americans by stopping my missile program," Khan said.

Two former senior military officers close to Musharraf said the new Pakistani leader was actually trying to assert control over Pakistan's sprawling nuclear establishment, particularly Khan's operation. But Musharraf had to proceed cautiously because of Khan's enormous popularity and his own tenuous grasp on power.

Amjad's inquiry at the National Accountability Bureau did not lead to Khan's prosecution, and an investigation of two trips Khan made to Dubai later in 2000 also was inconclusive. But Musharraf thought he had enough evidence to take some action.

In March 2001, Musharraf removed Khan as head of the lab and forbade him to set foot inside Kahuta again. He softened the blow by appointing Khan as a presidential advisor.

"Musharraf didn't want a domestic backlash, and he didn't want to belittle him," said the former military officer, who was involved in the decision.

Khan remained defiant. He continued to expand his black-market dealings while denying that he had peddled nuclear technology.

In an interview in fall 2001 for "Stealing the Fire," a documentary about the spread of nuclear technology, Khan denied ever helping anyone other than Pakistan obtain nuclear equipment or weapons.

"We have not indulged in any proliferation," he said, according to a transcript of the session provided to the Los Angeles Times by the film's producers, John Friedman and Eric Nadler. "You cannot buy nuclear weapons. You cannot get a nuclear weapon on a platter."

That, however, was precisely what Khan was offering Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi. In an agreement reached in 1997, Khan had promised to provide Libya with a complete bomb factory, from uranium enrichment to nuclear warhead. The price tag was $100 million.

But even after he was demoted, Khan was powerful enough to continue using Pakistani government aircraft to fly nuclear goods to Libya.

In the end, Khan and his network were put out of business by one of their own customers, a man long regarded as a terrorist who now wanted to be accepted by the international community.

On Dec. 19, 2003, after months of secret negotiations with British and U.S. officials, Kadafi agreed to abandon his chemical, biological and nuclear programs. As part of the deal, Libya turned over records that directly tied Khan to the sale of nuclear technology and a warhead design.

Musharraf negotiated Khan's final surrender: The scientist would confess on television to unspecified proliferation in exchange for keeping his wealth and strict confinement to his home.

Mir, the journalist, met the defeated scientist at his government office a few days before he began his house arrest in February 2004. Khan railed that U.S. and Pakistani intelligence had caused his troubles, and he lashed out at Musharraf, predicting that he would do the Americans' bidding again by turning over Osama bin Laden just before the U.S. elections in November of that year.

"He thought that nobody could touch him because he is a hero," Mir said. "It was beyond his expectations that Musharraf could arrest him. That shock destroyed his mental health."

Amazing how many otherwise sensible people hate General Musharraf. He's like the new Pinochet or Franco.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 23, 2005 8:33 AM