Pivotal Pakistan

Unraveling the A. Q. Khan and Future Proliferation Networks
by David Albright and Corey Hinderstein

The most disturbing aspect of the international nuclear smuggling network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely viewed as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, is how poorly the nuclear nonproliferation regime fared in exposing and stopping the network’s operation. Khan, with the help of associates on four continents, managed to buy and sell key nuclear weapons capabilities for more than two decades while eluding the world’s best intelligence agencies and nonproliferation institutions and organizations. Despite a wide range of hints and leads, the United States and its allies failed to thwart this network throughout the 1980s and 1990s as it sold the equipment and expertise needed to produce nuclear weapons to major U.S. enemies including Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

By 2000, U.S. intelligence had at least partially penetrated the network’s operations, leading to many revelations and ultimately, in October 2003, the dramatic seizure of uranium-enrichment gas-centrifuge components bound for Libya’s secret nuclear weapons program aboard the German-owned ship BBC China. Libya’s subsequent renunciation of nuclear weapons led to further discoveries about the network’s operations and the arrest of many of its key players, including Khan himself.

The Khan network has caused enormous damage to efforts aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, to U.S. national security, and to international peace and stability. Without assistance from the network, it is unlikely that Iran would have been able to develop the ability to enrich uranium using gas centrifuges—now that country’s most advanced and threatening nuclear program. Suspicions also remain that members of the network may have helped Al Qaeda obtain nuclear secrets prior to the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The damage caused by this network led former CIA director George Tenet to reportedly describe Khan as being “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.” The Khan network succeeded for many years by exploiting weaknesses in export control systems and recruiting suppliers, including some in states that were members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The network’s key customers were states contemptuous of NSG controls and committed to violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in their quest for secret nuclear capabilities. In essence, the network adapted to and benefited from the discriminatory and voluntary export control regime that was embodied in the NSG and complementary national export control systems. There is little confidence that other networks do not or will not exist or that elements of the Khan network will not reconstitute themselves in the future.

Yet, the international response thus far has not been sufficiently effective. Although revelations about the Khan network have reenergized support for a range of reforms, more extensive improvements to the international nonproliferation regime are still needed to block the emergence of new networks and to detect them promptly if they do arise. The United States, with the help of its allies, needs to pursue a broad range of foreign policy, intelligence, nonproliferation, export control, and law enforcement initiatives, as well as policies designed to close down nuclear smugglers’ access to civilian industries in newly emerging industrial states.