IN an article, titled ‘On Iran and China, Pakistan still needs A.Q. Khan, nuclear hero and pariah’, in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (Nov 7), Pakistan’s Ayesha Siddiqa has pilloried Dr A.Q. Khan for allegedly procuring the blueprints of the German-designed G-1 and G-2 centrifuges clandestinely from his workplace at Almello in Holland. Besides, she has accused Dr Khan of “technology swap” with North Korea, and of diversifying strategic partnerships with other states in West Asia and Europe.

The International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) published a ‘research’ dossier, ‘Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks’, which observed that Pakistan was not the only country to evade nuclear export controls to further a covert nuclear weapons programme.

Almost all the countries that have pursued nuclear weapons programmes obtained at least some of the necessary technologies, tools and materials from suppliers in other countries.

Even the United States, which detonated the first nuclear weapon in 1945, utilised the services of refugees and other European scientists for the Manhattan Project and the subsequent development of its nuclear arsenal.

The erstwhile Soviet Union, which first tested an atomic bomb in 1949, acquired its technological foundations through espionage. The United Kingdom in 1952 received a technological boost through its involvement in the Manhattan Project.

France in 1960 discovered the secret solvent for plutonium reprocessing by combing through open-source American literature.

China in 1964 received extensive technical assistance from the Soviet Union.

From the dossier, one gets to know that Asher Karni, an Israeli businessman, and Alfred Hempel, a former Nazi who died in 1989, were the co-fathers of India’s so-called ‘indigenous’ bombs. Hempel, a German nuclear entrepreneur, helped India overcome difficulties of heavy-water shortage by organising illicit delivery of a consignment of over 250 tonnes of heavy water to India’s Madras-I reactor, via China, Norway and the Soviet Union. He and Karni together arranged transfer of sensitive nuclear components to India.

Interestingly, the ‘learned’ writer of the ‘erudite’ Haaretz article has not said a word about the misuse by India of the Cyrus reactor and the knowhow acquired from Norway, Russia, China, France and Canada to make its A-bombs, probably also H-bombs, and even a neutron bomb.

She has never talked about the US ‘Atoms for Peace’ programme as a precursor to ‘Atoms for War’. What were the US policy motivations for blinking at bomb-oriented ‘peaceful’ nuclear research in several countries?

Dr Khan, if anything, was a ‘retail merchant’ to the international nuclear black-market, including some Israeli businessmen. All states should aspire to bring about a nuclear-free world. There should be no cherry-picking while talking about Pakistan’s nuclear programme, for it will not serve the purpose.

Amjed Jaaved
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2021