Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department official and now a nonproliferation expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the committee that he was unaware of any evidence indicating that the Khan network was still in operation.
That is not to say that elements of the network could not reawaken after lying low for a period of time, he said. “I think the greatest danger today may be that other similar quasi-state-related networks could emerge from countries like North Korea or Iran.”
By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Years after the black market nuclear network associated with Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was exposed, details remain unknown and the network is likely still in operation, a senior Democrat in the House of Representatives said yesterday (see GSN, June 12).
Khan, a metallurgist who stole European uranium centrifuge designs, is considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program. In 2004, Khan admitted to having supplied centrifuge technology to Iran, North Korean as well as Libya. He was placed under house arrest in Pakistan, but the nation’s leadership has refused to allow U.S. officials to question Khan about the extent of the proliferation network he headed.
Calling the Khan Research Laboratory a “nuclear Home Depot,” New York Representative Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee, said he believes “the Khan network is more likely to be under new management rather than truly out of business.”
Ackerman offered no concrete evidence for his statement during a meeting but noted that “all the incentives and missing safeguards that led to the government of Pakistan to encourage A.Q. Khan in the first place still exist.”
California Representative Ed Royce, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee, said “the case is not closed because there is more to learn.”
“It’s not clear that the Khan network has been rolled up,” he said.
Representative Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who leads that subcommittee and joined Ackerman as co-chairman for yesterday’s hearing, criticized the Bush administration for maintaining a close relationship with Pakistan while some details about the extent of the Khan network remain foggy.
“The president has decided not only to send them F-16s but to trample on the prerogatives of this committee and Congress in general in order to make sure that they got them,” he said (see GSN, July 28, 2006).
While handing over Khan, who is regarded as a national hero in Pakistan, for U.S. questioning might be politically untenable for politicians there, “Pakistan has got to tell us the whole story and names, places and dates of the European and American suppliers,” Sherman said.
Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department official and now a nonproliferation expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the committee that he was unaware of any evidence indicating that the Khan network was still in operation (see GSN, May 3).
That is not to say that elements of the network could not reawaken after lying low for a period of time, he said. “I think the greatest danger today may be that other similar quasi-state-related networks could emerge from countries like North Korea or Iran.”
David Albright, a nonproliferation expert with the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said he suspects that some elements of the Khan network might be operating in places like Dubai where nonproliferation laws are lax to nonexistent.
