asianaffairs

Dark deals by the Merchant of Menace

New information emerging from Tripoli offers further damning corroboration of Pakistani scientist A Q Khan's role in selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya and other countries,

By Shyam Bhatia

FATAL TRANSACTION?: A Q Khan made tens of millions of US dollars by selling lethal nuclear equipment to Libya

Libyans savouring their freedom after the ouster from power of Muammar al-Gaddafi and his family are also coming to terms with some of the more deadly secrets associated with the dictators' regime.

These include details of how Western politicians willingly paid court to Gaddafi and his immediate family, including his older son, Saif al-Islam, who was awarded a PhD by the London School of Economics.

Such revelations, however, are dwarfed by fresh and more significant insights into Tripoli's links with the notorious Pakistani scientist A Q Khan, who made tens of millions of US dollars by selling lethal nuclear equipment to Libya.

New information that has come to light follows the discovery of secret files in Tripoli, which are in turn based on a successful CIA bugging operation that was carried out in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in February 2002.

Khan was a key participant in that discussion when he talked about the sale of ten tons of uranium, as well as centrifuge enrichment equipment, to Libya.

Notes made at the time have CIA official Steve Kappes commenting, 'We, with all caution, recorded that incident and the meeting that went on between them and we have the full tape…'

He added, 'The centrifuges and uranium enrichment point to one direction only and that is military and not peaceful purposes.'

The incriminating evidence from Casablanca provided the backdrop for subsequent talks between Kappes, a senior official from Britain's MI6 security service, Mark Allen, who now works for BP, and Moussa Koussa, the then head of Libya's foreign intelligence service. It was Koussa who told the British and American agents that, in return for paying Khan tens of millions of dollars, Libya had also received a nuclear weapon design from the weapons network run by Khan.

The bomb design, alleged to be 95 per cent complete, was said to include a step-by-step process for a 10 kiloton implosion device based on a Chinese design.

Less than two years later, in December 2003, Gaddafi was persuaded to publicly declare that Libya was now prepared to renounce its programme for developing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Further information from the Libyans about how they — like Iran and North Korea — had benefitted from Pakistan's rogue operation to sell nuclear hardware amounted to the final nail in Khan's coffin.

In October 2003, US secret agents had seized the cargo of a ship, BBC China, that was carrying several containers of parts for Libya's secret programme to make 10,000 uranium centrifuges based on Pakistan's P-2 design.

It was this seizure, combined with the revelations in Casablanca of a year earlier, that prompted a formal investigation of Khan's shady, illicit and international procurement network to facilitate the development of nuclear weapons for anyone who was prepared to pay for them.

In February 2004, Khan appeared on Pakistani television and admitted clandestinely supplying nuclear weapons technology to each of North Korea, Iran and Libya. He also offered his 'deepest regrets' and 'unqualified apologies' for what he had done.

In his confession, he revealed how, during Gen. Zia's rule, Benazir Bhutto, her family, Gen. Imtiaz and Dr Niazi were financially supported by Col. Gaddafi.

He added, 'It was reliably reported that Col. Gaddafi had given $200 million to the late Mr Z A Bhutto to launch our nuclear programme. This was confirmed by Mr Khalid Hassan, Press Secretary to Mr Bhutto, in the mischievous BBC film Project 706 — The Islamic Bomb. I believe that one set of the drawings and components given by me was given to the Iranians and the other to the Libyans.'

In this carefully doctored confession, Khan first admits meeting a Libyan called Magid or Mageed in Istanbul, followed by several subsequent meetings with another Libyan called Matooq.

Khan explained how 'the last time I met him was in Casablanca for half an hour [with the meeting monitored by the CIA] at tea when we were going to Timbuktu… Matooq neither gave me any detail of his work nor asked any questions. I was aware that Tahir was assisting him with the placing of orders according to the supplier's quotations. It was business between user and supplier. The suppliers had all the drawings that we had originally given them as well as their own modified drawings, and were thus in a position to supply the requested or suggested products, make their own suggestions and/or submit quotations.

'Even when we met the last time, I was sure that the Libyans were unable to run any machine properly, not to talk of enrichment. Since I never visited their country or saw any film of their facilities, I did not know anything about their programme. I had heard that they had not even erected a single shed to do some preliminary work.'

Khan's confession confirmed the findings of Western intelligence experts who earlier established that Khan started sending uranium centrifuges to Libya as early as 1997. These were known in Pakistani parlance as L-1 centrifuges — of which 20 were sent to Libya — soon to be supplemented by an order for a massive additional 10,000 L-2 centrifuges, personally requested by Gaddafi himself. Deliveries for the second batch started in 2002 and were directed to a Libyan research facility called Al Hashan on the outskirts of Tripoli, later changed to another centre called Al Fallah. Within a short space of time Libya became a vital part of the Khan supply and manufacturing network — linking together Pakistan, North Korea, Malaysia, Libya and South Africa — for the uranium technology required to underpin the making of nuclear weapons.

In 2008 Khan retracted everything he had said, claiming that the earlier confession had been forced upon him. He described reports about how Pakistani nuclear technology was smuggled abroad as 'Western rubbish', adding that negative reports about his personal life and role in exporting technology were 'shit piles'.

Khan's apologists have tried to explain away his contradictory responses by explaining that he is a sick man recovering from cancer. The information coming out of Tripoli, however, is a damming indictment and re-confirmation of the Pakistani scientist's role in selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya and other countries. It fully justifies his reputation as the 'Merchant of Menace' and 'the world's most dangerous nuclear trafficker'. Generations to come will remember that former CIA director George Tenet once described Khan as being 'at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden'.

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