WASHINGTON: The black market in nuclear technology run by Pakistan's top scientist probably is still in operation under new management, a senior House of Representatives Democrat said Wednesday.
A.Q. Khan, now under house arrest in Pakistan, provided centrifuges and other equipment to Iran, advancing its nuclear program by years; centrifuge machines and other equipment to North Korea in exchange for missiles; and an entire enrichment program to Libya, "soup to nuts," and the design for a nuclear weapon, said Democratic Rep. Gary L. Ackerman.
While Pakistani officials have declared the case closed, most of Khan's co-conspirators around the world "probably continue their trade in nuclear-related materials," Ackerman said at a hearing of the House Middle East and South Asia subcommittee that he chaired.
The Bush administration "can believe whatever convenient fiction it likes," Ackerman said, but "the Khan network is more likely to be open under new management rather than truly out of business."
The accusation that the Khan network has survived was endorsed by a senior Republican, Rep. Ed Royce. "It's not clear that the Khan network has been rolled up," Royce said, and Pakistan bears "especially close watching."
And Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said Khan was not an independent operator but part of a "government structure" in Pakistan.
"One way or another, Pakistan has to tell us the whole story," said Sherman, who chairs the terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee.
Sherman said Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, "has all the documents," but the Bush administration is applying no pressure to get them.
Testifying, a former top State Department official, Mark Fitzpatrick, said Khan's covert nuclear assistance to Iran allowed it to skip many steps in the development of uranium enrichment technology that appears to be intended for nuclear weapons.
"At least some of Khan's associates appear to have escaped law-enforcement attention and could, after a period of lying low, resume their black market business," said Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
So far, he said, he has seen no evidence to network was still operating.
Fitzpatrick proposed tighter controls around the world on exports and increased safeguarding of nuclear material that can be used for weapons.
