THE FATHER OF THE ISLAMIC BOMB Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is the undisputed hero of Pakistans nuclear saga. Called the father of the Islamic bomb, Dr. Khan pioneered and led Pakistans effort to enrich uranium with gas centrifuges. In 1976, he took charge of the secretive Engineering Research Laboratories at Kahuta, now named the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories in his honour, where he assembled the machinery and manpower it would take to produce weapon-grade uranium. Khan recruited scores of Pakistani scientists living abroad to work with him at Kahuta. In 1990, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, lauded A. Q. Khans contributions to the nuclear field and declared: The name of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan will be inscribed in golden letters in the annals of the national history of Pakistan. And even Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has acknowledged his invaluable contribution not only in the nuclear field but also in other fields including defence production. After graduating from D. J. Science College of Karachi in 1960, he became an inspector of weights and measures in Karachi. It was the sort of government job that might have lasted a lifetime, but Khan was more ambitious, and he secured the funding to pursue his education abroad. In 1961, he resigned from his job, and flew to West Berlin to study metallurgical engineering at a technical university there. In 1962, while on vacation in The Hague, he met the woman who would become his wife. Her name was Henny. In 1963, he and Henny were married in a modest Muslim ceremony at Pakistans embassy in The Hague. Khan spent four years in Delft, where he earned a masters degree and learned to speak good Dutch. Over the course of his studies in Delft and Leuven he published twenty-three papers and edited one book on a variety of arcane metallurgical topics. His superiors were impressed, and so were his friends. To top it off, he was affable and outgoing and, as everyone agreed, just a very nice guy. In 1972, he received his PhD in metallurgical engineering and went to work in Amsterdam for a consulting firm called FDO. FDO happened to specialise in the design of machines called ultra-centrifuges — rapidly spinning tubes used to separate and concentrate certain isotopes in gasified uranium, in order ultimately to produce enriched uranium. FDO was a major subcontractor for a consortium called URENCO, which had been founded jointly by the governments of Britain, Holland, and Germany two years before. As a result, the operational details at both URENCO and FDO were held as state secrets, and Khan — like other employees — needed to receive a security clearance before going to work there. The Dutch internal security service ran a background check, and Khan was approved. He was 36 years old when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto assumed power. There is no evidence that A. Q. Khan was yet aware of the growing nuclear escalation on the Indian subcontinent. But on May 18, 1974, an event occurred that left no room for doubt. Beneath the desert of Rajasthan, near the Pakistani border, India detonated a fission device of roughly the same yield as the bomb that had destroyed Hiroshima. Far away in Amsterdam, A. Q. Khan believed that Pakistan was in danger. He had been working at FDO for two years, and with the access to the URENCO centrifuge technology, he realised that by chance he was in a position to help Pakistan face the threat. Apparently on his own, he decided to take action. In the summer of 1974 he sent a letter to Prime Minister Bhutto, presenting his credentials, summarising the purpose of centrifuges, and again volunteering to help. Bhutto responded through the embassy in The Hague. The two men met in Karachi in December 1974, after Khan and his family arrived for a holiday. Khan argued for a Pakistani effort to enrich uranium — a route to the bomb. Bhutto then decided on the spot to place A. Q. Khan in charge. Even before the go-ahead from Bhutto, he had gotten to work. For sixteen fruitful days in the fall of 1974 he had stayed in Almelo on a special assignment to URENCO, where he had helped with the translation of secret centrifuge plans from German into Dutch, and in his spare time had walked freely through the buildings, taking copious notes — in Urdu. Some of the places he had visited were nominally off limits to him, but not once had he been challenged. With Bhuttos approval, Khan now returned to Amsterdam to gather more information. He was much liked at FDO. As was his habit, he arrived at the lab with postcards, sweets, and other little presents for the staff. Despite the secrets held at FDO, the atmosphere there was even more open and relaxed than at URENCO, with no visible security and none of the culture of suspicion that governments might have wished to impose. One bin held discarded prototype centrifuge parts — components that were perhaps not quite within specifications — and employees were free to scavenge keepsakes from it to put on their desks. Either immediately before or after his trip to Pakistan, Khan began not merely to scavenge them but to take them home. Presumably, some of those components made their way to Pakistans embassy, which had received instructions from Islamabad to help. 208.jpg In October 1975 promoted Khan to a new and less sensitive job, which would keep him away from the centrifuge technology. Khans stay in Europe had come to an end. Two months after his promotion, in December 1975, he simply flew his family back to Pakistan on another holiday, and this time did not return. After his return to Pakistan, in 1975, he spent a few months within the confines of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, but he was frustrated by its slow pace and he angrily burst free. In a private conversation with Bhutto he showed his concerns. Bhutto decided to give Khan full autonomy, and promised him a large and secret budget. On July 31, 1976, Khan founded the Engineering Research Laboratories to set up and operate a centrifuge. The plant was to be built in an out-of-the-way town, Kahuta, which could be locked down and guarded by Pakistani security forces. Khan proceeded not sequentially but simultaneously on multiple fronts — hiring staff, laying out the installations, initiating the construction of the Kahuta plant, and setting up a pilot project elsewhere to resolve the practical intricacies of linked centrifuges and to make the first trial runs. This was a big operation. Ultimately he hired as many as 10,000 people. Khan never doubted his success. As long as he was granted autonomy and the budget he demanded, he was going to build the bomb. Three years later, in 1981, the production plant at Kahuta was ready to start up, and General Zia renamed it the Khan Research Laboratories. It was May 28, 1998, Khan posed for pictures with the mountain behind him. He looked more subdued than pleased. It should have been his moment, the apogee of his life, and an occasion for the entire nation to praise his name. Indeed, people did give him thanks, and over the next few years, by external appearance, he rose to new heights of glory and fame. But he was beginning to face serious troubles now — political forces that ultimately would lead to his arrest and disgrace — and a small but clear warning was being sent to him on that day. Control of the test had been awarded to PAEC. Samar Mubarakmand had been parachuted in to lead the site. It was Mubarakmand who had been given the honour of orchestrating the event. And Khan had been allowed to visit as a courtesy. Pakistan had its bomb, and it was a good thing, but the utility of Khan was almost over. He was a genuine patriot, much to be admired, but too strong for anyones good anymore. This treatment continued after Khan flew back to Islamabad. There was no official delegation to greet him. That welcome was reserved for Mubarakmand, who arrived later, and was met by the prime minister and a cheering crowd of hundreds. Khan, in contrast, was met by a small group of friends from the Kahuta plant, who waited for him in the VVIP lounge, and then drove with him to his house for tea with him. Khan looked haggard, perhaps because the near nuclear war had kept him up the night before, but more likely because of the frustrations of the day. Either way, he was not his normal irrepressible self. But looking back now, ten years later, the answer can be known. In Pakistan people understand more than they will ever admit out loud. Pakistan had its bomb, and it was a good thing, but the utility of Khan was almost over. He was a genuine patriot, much to be admired, but too strong for anyones good anymore. If he had become a monster, as some said, then some in the government and the army were implicated too.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:01:29 +0000
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