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by Chris Hansen and Richard
Greenberg
Dateline NBC
updated 9:57 a.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 19, 2005
He's been called by some, the most
dangerous man in the world. And he's not Osama Bin Laden. You may not
even know his name but, according to those who do know him, he helped
spread nuclear bomb-making technology to some of America's most
determined enemies. The question is, just how much damage has he done?
In the summer of 1999, a group of illegal weapons dealers were meeting
at a warehouse in Florida, their conversations recorded by federal
investigators. One of the men, from Pakistan, was seeking technology for
nuclear weapons. Who did he say he was working for?
Dick Stoltz: “Dr. Abdul Khan.”
Chris Hansen: “A.Q.
Khan.”
Dick Stoltz: “A.Q.
Khan.”
Former
federal undercover agent Dick Stoltz was posing as a black market arms
dealer.
Hansen: “Did you
realize what you had at the time?”
Stoltz: “No. We
didn't.”
But
now he does -- because A.Q. Khan is considered, by some, to be the most
dangerous man in the world. Why? Because Dr. Khan has peddled nuclear
weapons technology to some of the countries the United States considers
most dangerous, and some accepted his offers.
Hansen: “We're talking
about Iran?”
David Albright: “Iran
accepted.”
Hansen: “North Korea?”
Albright: “Accepted.”
Hansen: “Libya?”
Albright: “Accepted.”
David
Albright, a physicist and former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq,
has been tracking A.Q. Khan for 20 years.
Albright: “There was
no way for most of these countries to actually succeed in getting
nuclear weapons. I mean they lack certain capabilities, and Khan was
there to help them. “
And the
U.S. still doesn't know for sure exactly how many nuclear customers Khan
had.
Hansen: “What's our
worst nightmare having to do with this case?”
Albright: “I think the
worst nightmare is really how much assistance he could've given al Qaida
or helped al Qaida get closer to being able to make a nuclear weapon.”
In
order to build a nuclear bomb capable of killing hundreds of thousands
of people, experts say you need only an amount of weapons grade uranium
the size of a grapefruit. But the biggest challenge is being able to
produce that radioactive fuel.
And
that's where A.Q. Khan comes in. He's the father of Pakistan's nuclear
weapons program and an expert on uranium enrichment. While working in
Europe in the 1970s he gained the knowledge and the contacts that helped
Pakistan become a nuclear power, as he said in a rare interview in 1998
for German television:
A.Q.
Khan: “Now, if I needed something, I had friends in England, I had
friends in Germany. So I asked to buy some equipment, some materials.
He'd send a quotation. If the price was ok, we gave a go-ahead and we
bought it.”
Khan
made it sound like a trip to the hardware store, all completely above
board. But U.S. and foreign intelligence sources say that Khan was
buying highly sensitive machinery and many of his purchases were
illegal.
Albright: “He was
breaking laws all over the world. And the Pakistani government was
basically willing to accept that he was doing that, and in fact, happy
he was doing that, because they wanted nuclear weapons.”
Once
Pakistan had the bomb, David Albright says, Khan expanded his operation.
Though it's not clear whether the Pakistani government knew, sometime in
the 1990s, he began selling nuclear secrets to anyone willing to buy. He
even printed up these glossy brochures obtained by the military trade
magazine Jane’s Defense Weekly to market himself to potential
customers.
In his
1998 interview, he downplayed his own role in the spread of nuclear
weapons, and claimed many countries could take advantage of readily
available nuclear technology:
A.Q.
Khan: “If you know something has been done or something can be done, it
is no secret any more.”
David
Albright says when Khan offered his services to countries like Syria and
Egypt, they apparently turned him down. But there's no question that the
countries that accepted his help are much further along with their
nuclear weapons programs than they would have been.
Albright: “The
scariest part is a country like Iran goes from probably they couldn't do
it to being able to do it-- with the assistance from Khan. Because of
that assistance, they could be as little as three years away, perhaps
five.”
Undercover federal agent Dick Stoltz says there's evidence Khan's
operatives were at work here in the U.S., like a man who asked if
Stoltz could supply heavy water, an ingredient used to make plutonium
for nuclear bombs.
Stoltz: “He said that
Dr. Khan was handling the negotiations behind the scene, as far as-- the
heavy water.”
Stoltz
says the heavy water was supposed to go to Iran or North Korea, two of
Khan's biggest nuclear customers. Khan was also supplying nuclear
technology to Libya. But what he didn't know was that U.S. intelligence
was onto his expanding network and decided to go after it. In October
2003, the U.S. Navy intercepted this ship headed for Libya. On board
were parts to make equipment for enriching uranium. The materials were
traced by investigators back to A.Q. Khan. This past summer, President
Bush reacted:
President Bush: “These materials are the sobering evidence of a great
danger.”
Caught
red-handed, Libyan leader Muamar Qaddafi said he was abandoning his
nuclear program. Khan's alleged accomplices, who authorities say
provided the equipment Khan was selling, began to be rounded up in Asia,
Europe, and Africa:
President Bush: “Today, the A. Q. Khan network is out of business. We
have ended one of the most dangerous sources of proliferation in the
world, and the American people are safer.”
Last
February Khan went on Pakistani television to apologize for what he
called his "irrational judgment" in selling nuclear secrets. And though
he was pardoned by Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, Khan was
also placed under virtual house arrest. The Pakistani government
says it has been interrogating Dr. Khan and sharing what it has learned
with the international community. But some international investigators
would like to interview Dr. Khan face-to-face.
Mark Gwozdecky: “We'd
like to talk to Dr. Khan.”
Mark
Gwozdecky is the spokesman for the IAEA, the U.N. agency that polices
nuclear programs worldwide.
Gwozdecky:
“We've made it clear to the Pakistani authorities that that's our wish.
They've indicated to date that that's not going to be possible.
The
Bush administration says it is satisfied with what Pakistan is doing and
has received a "treasure trove of information." The U.S. has not
publicly pressed to interview Khan.
And
that does not surprise Rich Barlow, who was an intelligence officer who
helped catch A.Q. Khan's agents in the U.S. almost 20 years ago. He's
long been at odds with policymakers on the issue of Pakistan and says
the U.S. has been too lenient on matters related to Khan.
Rich Barlow: “This
issue in my opinion has always taken a back seat to other more immediate
policy concerns.”
For
instance, in the 1980s when Pakistan was helping the U.S. drive the
Soviets from Afghanistan, Barlow says some U.S. officials didn't want to
pursue Khan aggressively because it could have jeopardized Pakistan's
cooperation.
Hansen: “Did the
United States government close its eyes to A.Q. Khan and the Pakistani
Nuclear Network?”
Barlow: “Oh, well, I
wouldn't say they closed their eyes. But they certainly turned their
heads.”
And
now, even with Khan apparently out of business, critics like David
Albright worry it may be too late to undo the damage he's done.
Albright: “It's like
removing a tumor you know. The tumor's been removed but we don't know if
it's already metastasized and the cancer cells are already spreading.”
Hansen: “How do we
know that he didn't sell some of these secrets to al Qaida, Osama bin
Laden?”
Albright: “We don't
know. And it's on these kind of questions where people just don't trust
the Pakistani government to give us a straight answer. I think it's
going to be several years before we understand all the damage that Khan
has done to us.”
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
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