Opening the door
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7218482
Jul 27th 2006
From The Economist print edition
IF THE long-predicted tidal wave of nuclear proliferation ever hits,
the individual most responsible for the catastrophe will be Abdul
Qadeer Khan, and the country, his native Pakistan. Metallurgist turned
nuclear entrepreneur, Mr Khan, once feted in the Islamic world as the
"father of Pakistan's bomb", is now confined to one of his many
houses, in a wealthy quarter of Islamabad, forbidden to have foreign
visitors or use the telephone.
Gordon Corera's story of how Mr Khan, once the powerful head of one of
Pakistan's two rival nuclear laboratories, was eventually outed and
ousted for his highly profitable nuclear freelancing is a page-turner.
No one knows, even to this day, how much Pakistan's leaders knew of the
"nuclear Wal-Mart" Mr Khan operated. The president, General Pervez
Musharraf, is on record describing the moment the CIA handed him their
detailed dossier of Mr Khan's proliferation activities, bank accounts
and the like as the "most embarrassing" of his life-but whether
because he knew and had been caught out, or because he was unaware of
the scale of Mr Khan's nuclear state within a state, he isn't saying.
Certainly, most of what Mr Khan did broke no Pakistani law.
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