HOW HE SEES IT Pakistani nuclear deals no secret

By DANIEL SNEIDER
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may pale in comparison to a larger failure in nuclear intelligence -- Pakistan.
In recent weeks, investigations have begun to unravel a global black market in nuclear technology based in Pakistan. Would-be nuclear powers could place an order through middlemen in Dubai, get the parts made in a factory in Malaysia or Germany, and assemble them based on designs provided by Pakistani nuclear scientists.
Pakistani officials, echoed by international nuclear watchdogs and U.S. officials, profess to be shocked to find out that Pakistani scientists have been hawking their expertise for 15 years to a list of clients that includes Libya, Iran and North Korea.
This is nonsense. The extent of the nuclear network may be a surprise. But several former and current U.S. officials directly responsible for counter-proliferation efforts say there has been intense concern about this going back more than a decade.
U.S. ally
There was a lack of attention, however, at the top and a slowness to act, one that continued into the Bush administration. Especially after Sept. 11, the administration hesitated to go against its ally, Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "Between the time when our alarm bells were sounding and now, what happened?" asks one former senior official.
At the center of what has been dubbed a "nuclear Wal-Mart" stands Abdul Qadeer Khan, the self-styled "Father of the Islamic Bomb." Khan is a flamboyant metallurgist whose claim to fame as the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program rests on having stolen the designs of uranium enrichment technology, along with a list of suppliers, from his former Dutch employer, Urenco.
Khan parlayed this thievery into control of the country's premier nuclear lab where his revered status allowed him to operate without much accountability. He also had the protection of elements of the Pakistani military, which oversees the nuclear program. But Khan's nuclear salesmanship left a wide trail of evidence that should have prompted action long before this:
UIran: Khan's travels to Iran in the late 1980s were known. The army chief of staff at the time, Aslam Beg, openly advocated a strategic alliance with Iran against the U.S. at the time of the Gulf War. U.S. officials raised concerns about a nuclear deal but were assured it wasn't true.
UIraq: U.N. inspectors found documents in Iraqi files in the early 1990s of nuclear aid offers from Khan, supposedly turned down by Baghdad.
UNorth Korea: From the early 1990s, Khan began frequent travel to North Korea, which provided ballistic missiles capable of hitting India. U.S. officials knew all this and suspected he was trading nuclear technology for the missiles.
UMoney: Khan's lavish lifestyle, complete with posh houses, BMWs and money spent to promote himself, was well-known. Accusations of corruption from within his own lab came to Pakistani military officials beginning in the late 1980s.
U.S. officials grew increasingly worried about the North Korean link and suspected ties to Libya and Iran. But only after Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998 did it take on more urgency, which lead to Clinton raising the issue during a 2000 visit.
Musharraf, who had seized power the previous year, did tighten central control over the nuclear program. And in March, 2001 he pushed Khan out of his position at the head of the lab. But ties to North Korea and Libya continued. Richard Armitage, Bush's No. 2 man at the State Department, pointed a finger directly at Khan for his North Korea activity in a little noticed interview in June 2001.
But nothing visibly happened until the International Atomic Energy Agency, quite by accident, uncovered evidence last year that Pakistan had supplied enrichment technology to Iran. Then the Libyans walked in and revealed Pakistani aid to their program.
Confronted with this, Musharraf is cracking down, though he is under tremendous pressure at home not to go after Khan and appear to be doing American bidding.
"The question is how much pressure is the U.S. actually going to put on Pakistan," says a very knowledgeable defense official. "This could topple Musharraf."
That is a real danger. But failing to uproot this nuclear network poses a far more serious threat.
X Daniel Sneider is foreign affairs columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.