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Nuke hero wanted Iran cover-up
26/09/2006 16:16 - (SA)
Islamabad - Pakistan's disgraced nuclear hero AQ Khan wanted Iran to cover up his role in the proliferation of nuclear technology, according to President Pervez Musharraf's newly published memoir.
Writing in In the Line of Fire, the president said Pakistani intelligence intercepted two letters from Khan in which he advised Iranian contacts not to mention his name to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"He also advised them to name dead people during investigations, just as he was naming dead people in Pakistan," the president wrote.
Musharraf said the second letter was addressed to Khan's daughter living in London and concerned the probe being carried out by the Pakistani government.
"The letter, besides being critical of the government for the investigation, contained detailed instructions for her to go public on Pakistan's nuclear secrets through certain British journalists," Musharraf wrote. Televised confession
Khan admitted passing nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea in a televised confession in February 2004, placing him at the centre of a global atomic black market.
Musharraf pardoned Khan the same month, but he has since lived under virtual house arrest in a leafy diplomatic sector in Islamabad and makes no public appearances.
The president wrote that Khan had provided Iran and Libya nearly 18 tons of materials, including centrifuges, components and drawings via Dubai, and had also transferred nearly two dozen centrifuges to North Korea.
He said learning about Khan's proliferation network was one of the saddest moments of his career.
"The unearthing of AQ's involvement in nuclear proliferation was perhaps one of the most serious and saddest crises that I have ever faced," he said. Greed
"The West in general and United States in particular wanted the scalp, but to the people of Pakistan he was a hero, a household name, and the father of Pakistan's pride - its atom bomb."
Musharraf criticised Khan for acting on greed and denied that any government or army officials were involved.
"The truth is that he was just a metallurgist, responsible for only one link in the complex chain of nuclear development. "But he had managed to build himself up into Albert Einstein and J Robert Oppenheimer rolled into one."
He said there was little doubt that Khan was the central figure in the proliferation network, but he was assisted over the years by a number of money-seeking freelancers from other countries - mostly in Europe.
Khan's network based in Dubai had employed several Indians, some of whom have vanished, he said.
"There is a strong probability that the Indian uranium enrichment programme may also have its roots in the Dubai-based network and could be a copy of Pakistani centrifuge design," Musharraf wrote.
- AFP
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