It is celebration time in Pakistan. Abdul Qadeer Khan, 72, popularly known as the "father of Islamic nuclear arsenal", was freed last week by the Islamabad High Court from his solitary confinement that lasted five years.
The Week quoted from an editorial in Pakistan Observer : "Pakistan’s greatest living hero, Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, is a free man at last after five long years of anguish, isolation, sea of uncertainties, and agony,”
In 2004 Khan was placed under house arrest "after he confessed to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya, and North Korea—a confession he later retracted, saying that then–President Pervez Musharraf had forced him to make the statement."
The Wikipedia states: "In interviews from May through July of 2008, Khan recanted his previous confession of his involvement with Iran and North Korea. He said President Pervez Musharraf forced him to be a ‘scapegoat’ for the ‘national interest.’
"Khan accuses the Pakistan Army and President Musharraf of proliferating nuclear arms. He said centrifuges were sent from Pakistan in a North Korean plane loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials.
"He also said that he had traveled to North Korea in 1999 with a Pakistani Army general to buy shoulder-launched missiles from the government there."
It is not that the US administration, or the Western governments, did not know about the murky goings-on between Pakistan, China and North Korea since the 1980s in the development of nuclear technology in Pakistan.
To quote Wikipedia again: "The Pakistani government’s blanket denials became untenable as evidence mounted of illicit nuclear weapons technology transfers. It opened an investigation into Khan’s activities, arguing that even if there had been wrongdoing, it had occurred without the Government of Pakistan’s knowledge or approval.
"But critics noted that virtually all of Khan’s overseas travels, to Iran, Libya, North Korea, Niger, Mali, and the Middle East, were on official Pakistan government aircraft which he commandeered at will, given the status he enjoyed in Pakistan. Often, he was accompanied by senior members of the Pakistan nuclear establishment."
It is a mystery why successive US administrations kept looking the other way for more three decades when enough evidence was available that Pakistan was instrumental in nuclear proliferation in countries considered highly suspect/unstable/dangerous by America.
Why did the Bush administration become a party to Pervez Musharraf’s clever ploy of making Abdul Qadeer Khan a scapegoat by putting him under house arrest, and thus absolving the entire Pakistan establishment of its involvement in nuclear proliferation?
There are no easy answers. But please click here to read more…
However, the US administration’s myopic policies would be remembered in history as the main catalyst in helping the proliferation of nuclear arms in areas described inimical to world peace.
Meanwhile The Guardian reports that "Pakistan has prevented foreign investigators from questioning Khan, insisting it has passed on all relevant information about nuclear proliferation. That bar is likely to remain.
"Last year a United Nations nuclear watchdog said Khan’s network smuggled nuclear blueprints to Iran, Libya and North Korea and was active in 12 countries.
"Last month the US state department imposed sanctions on 13 individuals – two of them British – and three private companies because of their involvement in Khan’s network." More here…