nuclear-news

The AQ Khan nuclear network was first introduced to the public in early 2004, with Abdul Qadeer Khan’s dramatic televised confession to the Pakistani public that he had participated in selling nuclear technology, including bomb-making designs and equipment, to countries including Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

Right from the beginning, the sensational nature of the network and its eventual discovery, a tale of international intrigue and shadowy spy craft, seemed tailor-made for headline-grabbing reports, or sensationalistic BBC docudramas.

By now, much has been reported on the Khan network and its eventual unraveling. As is typical with these events, a popular understanding has emerged around the early reporting on the subject, one that suggests that Dr. Khan was working essentially off the radar and out of sight of the intelligence agencies whose very existence is predicated on identifying such threats long before they develop.

And as is also typical with these events, that popular understanding is completely wrong.

In fact, as we now know, Khan and his network were known, identified, surveilled, funded and even protected by the CIA from its very inception.

In 1974, Abdul Qadeer Khan offered his services to the Pakistani government to help them develop a nuclear bomb. Within a year, he was alreadyunder investigation by the BVD, a Dutch intelligence service. The BVD informed the CIA that they were going to arrest Khan for passing nuclear secrets to Pakistan, but the CIA told them to let him continue his operation. According to former Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Ruud Lubbers, “The Americans wished to follow and watch Khan to get more information.”…..

Given the active involvement and penetration of seemingly every level of the Khan network by the intelligence agencies in a decades-long “sting operation” that ended with nuclear technology being transferred to enemies who the US have long been clamouring for an excuse to go to war with, is it time to ask how much control the CIA really has over the nuclear black market, and whether this is all more than a mere question of “incompetence”?…  http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/10/19/the-eyeopener-cia-the-nuclear-black-market-a-case-study/