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Pakistani nuclear scientist denies selling bomb secrets, technology
June 4, 2008
Saeed Shah - McClatchy NewspapersIssue date: 5/29/08 Section: Real News
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan _ A.Q. Khan, the renegade nuclear scientist from Pakistan who once admitted helping Iran and Libya obtain nuclear-weapons technology, said Tuesday that he'd only introduced those two "rogue" regimes to Western businessmen who provided the technology and the know-how for their fledgling nuclear-weapons program.
In a telephone interview with McClatchy Newspapers in Islamabad, his first with an American news organization, Khan also said that others in Pakistan who'd aided him had gotten away "scot-free" while he'd become a "black sheep" for offering advice on nuclear weaponry.
Khan's protestations of innocence didn't impress Western experts.
Told of Khan's defense, David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said simply: "He's just lying; the facts are established." According to Albright, Khan agreed to oversee the building of a sophisticated nuclear facility for Libya.
In a startlingly detailed confession in 2004, Khan said that over a period of 15 years he'd provided Iran, Libya and North Korea with designs and technology. Much of that help, Pakistani officials said at the time, came from a secret network of smuggled equipment, the transfer of sensitive designs for centrifuges and technological advice offered in clandestine meetings with those nations' scientists. U.S. officials said the transfers didn't stop until just months before his confession.
In Tuesday's interview, Khan denied that he'd done anything but offer "very small advice" on where to acquire the technology. "When Iran and Libya wanted to do their program, they asked our advice. We said: `OK, these are the suppliers, who provide all.'"
Khan said that the companies were European.
Specifically, Khan said the nuclear technology included "complete centrifuge design, complete enrichment-plant drawings, complete weapons drawings."
"The Germans have those drawings. The South Africans have those drawings. The French have those drawings. They were the suppliers. You can't blame me for it. They were selling. They were making money. Why put blame on me? The fact that I brought them (Libya and Iran) into contact with middlemen."
In a telephone interview with McClatchy Newspapers in Islamabad, his first with an American news organization, Khan also said that others in Pakistan who'd aided him had gotten away "scot-free" while he'd become a "black sheep" for offering advice on nuclear weaponry.
Khan's protestations of innocence didn't impress Western experts.
Told of Khan's defense, David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said simply: "He's just lying; the facts are established." According to Albright, Khan agreed to oversee the building of a sophisticated nuclear facility for Libya.
In a startlingly detailed confession in 2004, Khan said that over a period of 15 years he'd provided Iran, Libya and North Korea with designs and technology. Much of that help, Pakistani officials said at the time, came from a secret network of smuggled equipment, the transfer of sensitive designs for centrifuges and technological advice offered in clandestine meetings with those nations' scientists. U.S. officials said the transfers didn't stop until just months before his confession.
In Tuesday's interview, Khan denied that he'd done anything but offer "very small advice" on where to acquire the technology. "When Iran and Libya wanted to do their program, they asked our advice. We said: `OK, these are the suppliers, who provide all.'"
Khan said that the companies were European.
Specifically, Khan said the nuclear technology included "complete centrifuge design, complete enrichment-plant drawings, complete weapons drawings."
"The Germans have those drawings. The South Africans have those drawings. The French have those drawings. They were the suppliers. You can't blame me for it. They were selling. They were making money. Why put blame on me? The fact that I brought them (Libya and Iran) into contact with middlemen."
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