Anyone Still Interested In Kidnapping Dr. AQ Khan?

The credit for the two best-known cases of smuggling out nuclear scientists goes to Israel’s Mossad and Pakistan’s ISI. Israel kidnapped a renegade Israeli nuclear scientist. Pakistan helped one return home from Europe with the technology to build the bomb.

Both scientists were driven by noble impulses. The Israeli scientist, Mordechai Vanunu, wanted to expose his government's fevered push to produce nuclear weapons in a region that had none. The Pakistani scientist wanted to help his small country stand up to a nuclear-armed bully, India.

This is why Dr. A. Q. Khan, who has been much demonized by the Am-Brit media, is a hero to 180 million Pakistanis.

But a question begs itself: demonized for what?

Although former President Musharraf did a commendable job at shielding Dr. Khan from direct American access, the very act of forcing Dr. Khan to confess to something that is not a crime under any law was wrong.

Pakistan is not signatory to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Islamabad could have simply told Washington and London to take a hike when both accused it of transferring technology to Iran and North Korea.

In fact, there was room for a deal: Ensure Pakistan's legitimate regional security requirements, including a credible nuclear deterrent in the face of Indian posturing, in exchange for avoiding any future Pakistani nuclear trade with North Korea.

By incarcerating Dr. Khan, Musharraf's Pakistan accepted undue pressure. We will have to pay for a long time, especially in bad reputation, for showing weakness when we should not have.

But since Pakistan did accept the 'crime', several international parties can make a case now for pursuing Dr. Khan if he is set free of the security detail that accompanies him. The Americans have been twisting Pakistani arm for some time demanding US officers be allowed to interrogate Dr. Khan.

Washington has direct interest in nuclear technology transfer to Iran and North Korea. But America has also been silently worried about the Pakistani nuclear program. In 1978, when there was no threat of extremists overtaking Pakistani nukes, CIA used the US consulate in Karachi to recruit 12 Pakistani nuclear scientists and technicians. The CIA ring was assigned the task of sabotaging several nuclear sites to scuttle the nascent Pakistani nuclear program and make it look like a series of unfortunate accidents by an inexperienced nuclear power aspirant.

The Israelis are also quite active in the region: In India where military and intelligence cooperation is at a peak; and in Afghanistan, which is one of the countries Israeli intelligence service is using to encircle and penetrate Iran.

In February, London's Daily Telegraph ran a report quoting unnamed 'western intelligence sources' that said Israel was quietly assassinating Iranian nuclear experts. As proof, the newspaper said Mossad was behind the mysterious murder of Ardeshire Hassanpor, the top Iranian nuclear scientist at the uranium plant in Isfahan in 2007.

Why would anyone still be interested in laying their hands on Dr. A. Q. Khan, who has had no operational access to Pakistani strategic sites for at least a decade now?

Considering Pakistan's crippled security environment, exposed thanks to a heavy US overt and covert presence in the region, Dr. Khan faces a real threat of being kidnapped. Washington's spy network has been a failure so far in assessing the exact location of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The Americans have also failed, despite several attempts, to gain access to the 'triggers'. Under duress, like a Guantanamo-style interrogation, Dr. Khan can provide clues that could lead to understanding where and how Pakistan is safeguarding its nuclear capability.

Security officials in Pakistan will have to balance Dr. Khan's legitimate need to feel he continues to be a revered Pakistani hero with Pakistan's security requirements and needs. This is a tough balancing act considering that Dr. Khan's original incarceration and the subsequent demonization was contrary to Pakistani interest.

In July 2008, when a justifiably angry Dr. Khan gave a series of press interviews throwing out juicy details about Pakistan's nuclear history, I authored a report assessing threats to the well being of Dr. Khan should he decide to completely dispose off of the security detail provided to him.

Here are relevant excerpts:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Dr. A. Q. Khan, Pakistan’s notorious nuclear scientist, is under threat of being kidnapped and bundled out of the country in a joint Israeli-American operation that could take the lid off Pakistan’s massive nuclear and strategic arsenal.

Pakistani security officials went on red alert in the last week of June 2008 after receiving information that Israel’s Mossad, possibly in a joint operation with some elements from CIA, is planning to kidnap Dr. Khan, who lives in a house in an Islamabad suburb, and take him out of the country. The officials are tightlipped about the source of the alert.

This possibility is literally Pakistan’s worst nuclear nightmare. All Pakistani scientists, technicians and other special staffers, retired and serving, working on the strategic weapons programs, follow security procedures to avert this possibility. Dr. Khan is the only retired senior scientist who is currently trying to break out of these procedures, creating a risk both for himself and for Pakistan. Islamabad has done a lot to protect him from foreign hands.

Dr. Khan no longer holds official access to Pakistan’s strategic facilities but is considered to be a treasure trove of information on Pakistan’s missile and strategic weapons, especially the two areas that bear his fingerprints: uranium enrichment technology and the development of Pakistan’s long range, nuclear capable Ghauri missile series.

The threat to Dr. Khan is part of a larger dilemma facing Islamabad these days regarding how to deal with the retired scientist. The government wants to relax his security detail assigned to him since his 2004 confession to running a clandestine proliferation network and the subsequent presidential pardon. The government wants to do this in order to calm the Pakistani public opinion that continues to see Dr. Khan as a mistreated national hero.

But the other side of the coin is the fact that Dr. Khan is privy to critical and classified information. There is no known threat to his life but he faces a real possibility of being kidnapped and shipped out of Pakistan to be debriefed by foreign interrogators. One Pakistani official puts this dilemma facing the Pakistani government this way, ‘How can we take a chance with this kind of a personality?’

Making matters worse is Dr. Khan himself, who has intensified his campaign of blackmailing the government into withdrawing his security detail and set him free of any security. Pakistani officials say Dr. Khan is a free man but that assigning him a security detail is based on threat assessments done by professionals.

[ … ]

Pakistan has firmly told everyone that Dr. Khan’s case is ‘closed.’ But the worrying aspect is that with a strongly pro-American PPP government in Islamabad, whose ambassador in Washington is keen to promote U.S. views and whose party cochairman, Mr. Asif Zardari, has used his recent international tour to confirm the presence of terrorist camps inside Pakistan, there is no towering politician or statesman left in the Pakistani capital who can come forward now and boldly defend the Pakistani position.

Alarmingly, Dr. Khan has moved the Pakistani Supreme Court to force the government to remove all security detail assigned to him. This obviously crosses a red line.

That is why Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, the director of the Strategic Plans Division, which oversees the strategic weapons programs, came out on Saturday in Islamabad to say that Pakistan will protect its interest at any cost.

“There are international threats … [Dr. Khan] is being simplistic in his approach,” Gen. Kidwai told a group of Pakistani journalists during a special briefing over the weekend in Islamabad.

Although the days of the Cold War, with their intelligence intrigues, are behind us, the history of nuclear espionage and the stories of the kidnappings and mysterious disappearances of nuclear scientists are too serious and too fresh to be ignored.

Early last year, an Iranian scientist, Ardeshire Hassanpour, mysteriously died in Isfahan, Iran. He was connected to the Natanz nuclear facility which is under international spotlight. Reports suggested he was either killed by the Israeli Mossad or was eliminated by the Iranian government after he was found communicating with either American or Israeli agents. In either situation, this is a fresh and clear case that Pakistan’s immediate region is abuzz with covert activity targeting nuclear scientists and installations.

Interestingly, the credit for two of the best known cases of kidnapping a nuclear scientist and taking him to another country goes to Israel’s Mossad and Pakistan’s ISI. The Pakistani intelligence agency smuggled Dr. A. Q. Khan out from Europe to Pakistan, not to mention that it ran a clandestine operation for the purchase of prohibited equipment and recruitment of nuclear experts and technicians. So, it is safe to say that officials in Islamabad know what they are dealing with. And thus the threat perception [the chances of an A.Q. Khan kidnap] is not exaggerated.

On Sept. 30, 1986, Mossad drugged and smuggled out the rogue Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu while he was en route in a plane from London to Rome. Vanunu was a disgruntled former employee of the Israeli nuclear program. In revenge, he handed over pictures and sensitive information to a British newspaper.

For those who think the Pakistani government is not fair to Dr. Khan, they should see what the Israeli government did to Vanunu.

According to a U.S. Web report, ‘Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for multiple violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. In July 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to a further six months' imprisonment for speaking to foreigners and for traveling to Bethlehem.’

In comparison, Dr. Khan is not in detention. He is at his home with his family. He carries a cell phone, along with his family members. Recently, he has been allowed to take meals at restaurants, with some restrictions pertaining to timings in view of Dr. Khan’s security. The Pakistani authorities have been so generous with Dr. Khan that recently he has been free to give telephone and written interviews without any problem, which indicates that his telephone calls and written exchanges are not monitored or censored.

At no point did any Pakistani official misbehave with Dr. Khan. The reason for this generosity is that Dr. Khan might have wronged by getting involved in the proliferation business and self-enrichment, but he remains a man who served his nation well.

Lt. Gen. Kidwai of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) and Gen. Ihsan-ul-Haq, the former head of the ISI, who questioned Dr. Khan in ten different ‘sittings’ back in 2004 always addressed Dr. Khan as ‘sir’ as a sign of respect.

The evidence of wrongdoing against the prominent scientist was so strong and damning that Dr. Khan changed his testimony from an initial denial to stopping at one point to say, ‘Enough is enough. Please ask the President to pardon me.’

Gen. Kidwai and the ISI chief conveyed to President Musharraf that Dr. Khan wanted to apologize and seek a pardon. ‘This is not personal,’ President Musharraf reportedly said, ‘He should apologize to the nation.’

This is where the idea for the famous television apology came up. The National Command Authority, the main federal agency in charge of the strategic assets and the parent organization of SPD, prepared an initial draft and handed a copy to Dr. Khan for his input. The process of finalizing the draft apology took at least three to four days as the draft of the apology letter ran back and forth between the officials and Dr. Khan, who made corrections to the draft with his own pen. This draft copy is available with the officials and contradicts Dr. Khan’s recent complaint that ‘a letter of apology was thrust in his hands at the President’s office and he was asked to read it on television.’

Now Islamabad is considering presenting the evidence against Dr. Khan before a limited group of neutral Pakistanis. The evidence cannot be made public due to the sensitivity of the information. But if Dr. Khan manages to convince the Pakistani court that he needs to be freed of all security around him, then the government will come forward with the evidence before a group of prominent Pakistanis in a closed door exercise. The purpose is to prove that Dr. Khan is not as innocent as he says he is, and, second, to ensure he retains the security detail provided to him in order to protect him from possible threats, including the reports of an Israeli-style kidnapping.

Pakistani authorities have a legal document that Dr. Khan approved. The document indicates that the presidential pardon was conditional on Dr. Khan not jeopardizing national secrets and provided that no new information emerges on his proliferation activities beyond what he has already confessed.

As for the latest report on a possible plan to kidnap Dr. Khan and take him outside Pakistan, it is not clear where the information came from. Officials are tightlipped. Islamabad closely monitors Indian activities in the region and there is evidence that Indian intelligence operatives in the past have tried to volunteer information on Pakistani nuclear sites to Israel and to certain Pakistan-averse lobbies in the United States.

But Pakistan’s nuclear and strategic weapons programs remain on a strong footing. The image of instability is the result of a political failure on the part of the political class in the country.

The military resolve remains intact. In fact, voices are rising now that say that Pakistan should not be apologetic about its past cooperation with North Korea. Islamabad is not signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its cooperation with North Korea was within the parameters of Pakistan’s own legitimate security and defense considerations and did not break any international law.

Any past and future Pakistani cooperation with the United States or the IAEA remains confined to two red lines set by Islamabad: One, no one can question Pakistan about the origins of its nuclear and strategic weapons programs, and, Two, Pakistan will not discuss at any level its nuclear cooperation with friends and allies. Iran and North Korea are the only exception because the two nations are already involved in multilateral talks about their programs.