The Americans came to his rescue again after a few years by when he had been prosecuted following a TV disclosure about his activities and a Dutch court had sentenced him to a four year imprisonment in absentia. The Pakistani who had married a Dutch woman was able to fly in and out of Holland without the fear of being arrested. It can be presumed that his kleptomania continued during his subsequent peregrinations in Holland (and other parts of Europe) and helped him become the ‘father’ of the Pakistani bomb.

The ostensible reason for sparing Khan given by the US sleuths to Lubbers was that the US wanted to shadow Khan to learn more about his activities and Pakistan’s ‘secret’ nuclear programme. The Americans did learn a lot about Pakistan’s ‘secret’ plan but never thought it fit to restrain Islamabad in the hope that the maximum harm that the deadly arsenal being manufactured by Islamabad with stolen designs and equipment could inflict would be confined to India and the good boys in Islamabad would never allow any harm to reach the US shores from their sacred soil.

Participants in the pro-US frenzy may note that the Americans are still soft on Islamabad even when it undermines their own non-proliferation and security concerns.

Pakistan has closed the Khan chapter after first forcing an ‘apology’ from him and then putting him under ‘house arrest’, which in his case probably means nothing more than a restriction on his travelling out of the country where he could squeak against the Pakistani military regime. Khan had promised to remain mum about the military role in promoting his clandestine nuclear trade if he was not probed after seeking ‘pardon’.

There is a real danger that the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ could fall into the hands of terrorists because of people like Khan. Yet, there is no serious attempt by the US to get access to Khan to know first hand the extent of his global nuclear black market.

Soon after Khan’s ‘apology’ was telecast across the nation on the state-run PTV, the Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf, had summoned the editors of newspapers and told them in no uncertain terms that they should no more discuss the Khan affair. He told them that Pakistan would have had to face disastrous consequences if Khan had not taken the entire blame on himself. And the editors readily obliged as they thought that Khan had already suffered enough punishment, rather humiliation, by being forced to seek the presidential pardon for his nuclear indiscretions—which the Pakistanis see as a great achievement.

The iron curtain around Khan means that the world will be kept in the dark about the extent of help that he gave to Iran in building its nuclear programme that according to the West is clearly designed to develop the atom bomb. Nor will more light be shed on the nukes-for-missile deal that was stuck between Pakistan and North Korea. It is absurd to think that the Pakistani government had nothing to do with this barter between Islamabad and Pyongyang or Islamabad and Tehran.

The story of Khan’s help to Libya has been erased in the Western capitals which have also stopped talking about the speculation about a fourth country that has been widely speculated as being the recipient of Khan’s clandestine merchandise. The world had reacted with astonishment when Libya confessed to have embarked upon a secret nuclear bomb programme with help from Pakistan.

But that news had not come as a total surprise to a small group of people in the British and American intelligence who had known for many years that ‘someone’ was surreptitiously selling nuclear weapons technology.

That ‘someone’ was none other than Khan who was recently described by the former CIA director, George Tenet, as ‘at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.’ In one of its cover stories, the Time magazine had called him the Merchant of Menace and a person who had ‘single-handedly’ made the world a more dangerous place than was previously imaginable.

In late 1990s much before the ‘bolt’ from Libya, the CIA had infiltrated Khan’s network; one officer was actually placed inside the network. The CIA had learnt about Khan’s clients, front companies, finances and even manufacturing plants. By 2000, British intelligence circles were said to be ‘alarmed’ when they got to know about Khan’s extensive nuclear bazaar.

At one time an idea was floated that the CIA should undertake a covert operation to sabotage Khan’s production facilities in Pakistan. That plan was never executed for fear of ‘consequences’.

The only action that the Western nations, reportedly upset over the non-proliferation activities of Pakistan, took was to make a number of arrests and seizures in places like Malaysia, South Africa and Turkey. Neither the government of Pakistan nor Khan in person was pulled up, much less asked to wind up their secret nuclear bazaar. Pakistan, in fact, is the recipient of one of the largest US bounties with the cash flow from Washington equalling Islamabad’s annual defence expenditure of $3 billion.

Pakistani authorities have known all along about Khan’s activities, what with his frequent foreign jaunts, meeting leaders of countries seeking nuclear knowledge and his increasingly lavish style of living. There was no secret about it because he was doing the bidding of the government.

From the day he flew out of Holland with stolen designs he has been a VVIP for the Pakistani government. He had returned to Pakistan on specific request from Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was desperate to see Pakistan acquire a nuclear bomb to match India’s. Bhutto’s successors continued with the same line vis-à-vis Khan.

Soon after Musharraf staged his coup to outs the elected civilian government he brought the Bhopal-born Khan, a fellow Mujahir from India, as part of his inner circle and made him his special scientific and technology adviser, the position that he gave up only after his ‘public disgrace’ in early 2004.

Khan as a military captive in Islamabad suits the Pakistani policy of limited cooperation with the US in the so-called war on terror. Osama, US military officials believe is hiding in Pakistan with the full knowledge of the establishment. If Pakistan hands over the most prized catches to the US what else will it bargain with subsequently?

The intelligence community in the US, as also US officials talking privately, know this but Pakistan continues to receive kid glove treatment from their administration. Khan, whose recent heart scare turned out to be false, can certainly hope to live in peace as long as the US follows in respect of Pakistan a policy of plenty of carrots with an occasional mild stick.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

Printer-Friendly Version