I am watching television right now and every news channel is reporting the latest interview by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. This interview came as a surprise to many people here in Pakistan and is sending shock waves around the world (wait and see after 4th July holiday in US).
Dr. Khan, who remains popular across Pakistan has lived in the shadows since 2004, confined to his Islamabad home. People of Pakistan last saw him in a tearful televised confession in which he admitted selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. President Musharraf has been telling Pakistanis since 2004 that Dr. Khan did it for money and personal greed. In his interview on May 30 2008, given to British newspaper Guardian, Dr. Khan claimed that he took the blame on himself in the national interest. Dr. Khan has been in the news for last few weeks because of his detention case in the Islamabad High Court but today he returned to the spotlight with a new twist: that North Korea received centrifuges from Pakistan in a 2000 shipment supervised by the security forces during the rule of President Pervez Musharraf.
According to Dr. Khan, the uranium enrichment equipment was sent from Pakistan in a North Korean plane that was loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials. He claims that the security forces had “complete knowledge” of the shipment and that it must have been sent with the consent of President Pervez Musharraf. Dr. Khan also disclosed that North Korea gave 200 missiles to Pakistan during Kargil War on his request without any payment. However, the government sources have completely rejected the statement, saying such reports are part of propaganda against Pakistan’s nuclear program.
Dr. Khan has often insisted in recent past too that if anything at all was smuggled to North Korea, Iran or Libya, it was in complete knowledge of Pakistan Army, particularly the ISI Chief Gen. Mahmood Ali Durrani (later the Pak Ambassador to US and currently national security adviser) and other officials in-charge of logistics etc. as it was not possible for him to do something like that alone. The centrifuges are large cylinders which cannot be just transported in a brief case. They need special care for transportation. American officials have even given the flight numbers which allegedly transported the nuclear material.
Talking to media Dr. Khan said that he didn’t say anything new and he just explained what Gen. Musharraf has already disclosed in his book, In The Line of Fire. According to Geo TV:
Renowned nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan has said that President Pervez Musharraf had already published in his book about the dispatching of centrifuges to North Korea and that his (Dr. Qadeer’s) statement was carried by the foreign news agency in a distorted manner. Talking to Geo News, Dr. A. Q. Khan said when he was asked by a foreign news agency whether the centrifuges were sent to N. Korea he replied that this had already been published in the President’s book. Dr. Khan said any question regarding the dispatch of centrifuges be put to President Pervez Musharraf. “Nothing could be sent without the supervision of the security forces,†he said. He expressed hope that his detention will end soon.
I don’t know how much damage this latest interview will cause to already under-threat nuclear program of Pakistan. But I believe that the way Gen. Musharraf and his regime has treated Dr. Khan since 2004, something like that was bound to happen. No matter whether Dr. Khan is a national hero as majority of Pakistanis still believe he is or a thief as some claim, we must not forget that he is a human being after all.
Allegedly, he was not even allowed to walk out of his home and meet anyone at all since 2004. His elder daughter Dina Khan was not allowed to meet him for one year. Just last week, the Deputy Attorney General claimed in Islamabad High Court and in front of media that Dr. Khan is absolutely free to meet anyone and no restrictions are placed on him. The same evening, many local TV channels showed live how Dr. Sahab was stopped by security officials to go to a dental clinic when he was suffering form severe pain his teeth. The officials ignored him for more than 24 hours until he came out, sat in the middle of road and refused to go back inside. Only then the permission was granted to take him to a dental clinic and the whole drama was shown live on a local channel Express News.
I believe that the authorities should immediately talk to Dr. Khan, lift restrictions on him so that everything could be settled. Sensitive matters like this should never come on media like that and we should close this matter ASAP. I think its a very dangerous trend that we make people believe in something for decades and then suddenly expect them to believe otherwise. Lets hope wisdom prevails before its too late.
Reference: Yahoo News Story on the topic here.
And yes his life is a lesson for us, we should all do our best for Pakistan and if money comes along, it would be welcomed too.
Every Pakistani child should take him as a Role Model.
YES WE LOVE HIM. He should be our President instead.
Dear Imran,
Reference your comment:
‘What a wonderful example we are setting for future generations by humiliating a national hero.’
Unfortunately, a person who divulged Pakistan’s most highly guarded secrets for personal gain, can lay no claim to the title of ‘national hero’. Of course, sometimes people are punished for doing the wrong thing, and, more often, for getting caught doing it. In Dr A. Q. Khan’s case, it is probably the latter. Nevertheless, what he did was wrong, no matter how you slice it or dice it. For example, look at the devastating and irreparable damage done to the country’s credibility- what little was left of it anyway. When you talk to someone from the developed world, and tell them you are from Pakistan, you can immediately feel an awkward silence hanging in the air, and the conversation goes downhill after that.
The ups and then downs of Dr Khan’s life are a lesson to us all, particularly those riding their high horses, dreaming of immortality. I am not saying his ill-treatment is justified, I am only saying that you can either be a hero or a thief, but you can’t really be both. Whose pockets were the source of the billions that were pouring into the unauditable ‘programme’? Answer: Taxpayers. The man on the street who has to pay tax on the water he drinks, the electricity he uses, the daal and atta he purchases, he has knowingly or unknowingly, voluntarily or forcibly, paid from each rupee and every rupee he has ever earned. Only so that the money can be skimmed off into the bottomless pockets of ‘national heroes’? I don’t think it has any justification. Do you?
If you really want to make a modern national hero out of someone, please find a philanthropist like Edhi or even a Doctor or a Teacher; I’m sure you’ll find many people more deserving of the title, and few, if any, to contest your judgment.
Regards, Umar.
It is sad to read comments from a bunch of thankless people who shamelessly criticize Dr. AQ Khan for helping us achieve permanent security. First you keep man (for taking blame of somebody else’s kaale kartoot) arrested like in his home for years and don’t even let his daughter to meet him and don’t allow him proper medical care and when he screams out of pain, you start hitting him further. What a wonderful example we are setting for future generations by humiliating a national hero.
I am disgusted by reading some of the comments made by people, who probably don’t even live in Pakistan. AQ Khan is my HERO for ever.
@ Aamir Ali: your comment is sick. If a Pakistani commits a crime then he or she should be put on trial and punished in Pakistan by Pakistanis. You don’t even know that Aimal Kasi was handed over to US by Farooq Leghari and not by Mush. Hudrends of thousands of people are missing in Pakistan today (including hundreds of Balochis). Dr. Afia is another example who was picked up along with her three little kids and sold to US. Reports are coming now that she is in Bagram airbase and has lost all her senses after brutal torture by US authorities. Her kids fate is still unknown.
But I guess people like you would never understand this unless one of your relatives or you yourself will be picked by agencies and sold to US for few hundred thousand dollars.
What a nation of thankless people.
I can see a beautifully planned division of Pakistani nationals. Pakistan is under a PPP Govt (Proxy Prime minister of Pakistan). Islam is being used as a weapon of mass division. Now the question is… “who is doing it all?” … nobody …but our own people and AQ Khan is one of them. In my view next 9-10 months are very very important for this region’s geogrpahic situation. May Allah bless us with a TRUE PAKISTANI NATIONAL SINCERE leader….otherwise a clear civil war and further deterioation is coming very very fast… which can lead us to Yoguslavia like fate….
Dr. Khan recent burst out was a planned event thanks mainly to his son-in-law and PM Gillani old jail connections. The Government may have though that it will dent a few more holes in the Musharraf camp by doing this drama but it has ended up chopping its own two feet by irrevocably damaging Pakistan’s security interests!
Dr. Khan is NO ANGEL nor the REAL MCCOY! He has made millions of dollars in dubious deals in the 80’s and 90’s (Governement turned a blind eye to his ventures due to the larger interest of a maturing nuke program). He hoarded the poistion of the DG of KRL labs for numerous years thereby being more of a dictator then a Government Servant. His habit of babbling at all occasions about his ‘achievements’ in the nuke sector has always been harmful to Pakistan. KRL and PAEC had always been at logger-heads in the past thanks to AQ Khan’s ego! His son-in-law has always been a black mailer and now roams around in a Mercedes Benz SLK and a Range Rover on Islamabad roads! Dr. Khan has numerous properties all over Pakistan including a house at Banni Gala which he had sold until a few years back. Where did he get the money to pile up this kind of a wealth on a Government Servants budget? Can anyone who thinks or calls him a hero ask this question first and foremost?
Dr. AQ Khan has outlived his utility as a nuclear scientist. Nuke boys take the oath of complete silence and should never be allowed to step out of the shadows (name any scientist working on the US, UK, French, British or even Chinese nuke programs??). Nuke boys are like a businessman’s swiss bank accounts to which no one should have information or access. The more now Dr. Khan speaks the more I feel that he should now ultimately REST IN PEACE and very soon at that!