The Nuclear Jihadist

by Douglas Frantz

  Barlow remains adamant that he was not a whistleblower. Rather than going to outsiders, he had voiced his concerns within the chain of command and tried to provide accurate information during congressional hearings. “If intelligence officers are destroyed for telling the truth, we are all in trouble,” Barlow said years later. “I expressed only internal concerns and, if Congress had listened then, we might not be in Iraq right now because of cooked intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.”

  BHUTTO wasn’t faring much better than Barlow. Before the end of her first year in office, she found herself hemmed in at every juncture by Beg and the military. Even the continuation of American assistance did little to relieve the pressure or slow Pakistan’s nuclear progress, as she soon discovered.

  Late that year, Bhutto went to Tehran for a conference of Islamic heads of state. The Iranians greeted her warmly, hosting a lavish state dinner at which she was given the place of honor next to Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, the religious leader who had led the Iranian army in the final days of the war with Iraq. Rafsanjani had been elected president earlier in the year on a promise of restoring Iran’s military dominance in the region because the lessons of the Iran-Iraq war had convinced the Iranians that the international community would not protect their country. Shortly after the end of the war in 1988, Rafsanjani had told the Iranian parliament: “We should at least think about [weapons of mass destruction] for our own defense. Even if the use of such weapons is inhuman and illegal, the war has taught us that such laws are just drops of ink on paper.” As the dinner ended that night in 1989, Rafsanjani asked to speak to Bhutto in confidence, guiding her to a small room off to the side. Bhutto motioned to an aide to follow her.

  “Our countries have reached an agreement on special defense matters,” said Rafsanjani, an imposing figure in traditional cleric’s robes and short gray beard. “This agreement was reached on a military-to-military basis, but I want us to reaffirm it as the leaders of our governments.”

  Bhutto knew nothing about any defense pact with Iran. “What exactly are you talking about, Mr. President?” she asked, gesturing for the aide to move closer to overhear.

  “Nuclear technology, Madam Prime Minister, nuclear technology,” said the Iranian, shaking his head as though it had just dawned on him that she had no idea what he was talking about.

  Bhutto was surprised but contained her anger. “I’m not sure that I can approve such a relationship,” she replied, with some firmness. “I’ll have to discuss this when I get back to Islamabad.”

  Upon her return to Pakistan, the furious prime minister summoned General Beg. Confronted with Rafsanjani’s claims, he said he didn’t know anything about an agreement to send nuclear technology to Iran. Bhutto was certain the general was lying, but she could not risk challenging him. Instead, she ordered that no nuclear scientist be permitted to travel outside Pakistan without her approval.

  Beg almost certainly knew of the pact with Iran. When Beg replaced Zia, he had initiated a number of joint defense exercises with Iran, though he told Bhutto they involved only conventional weapons and training. Other evidence indicates that the exchanges also involved nuclear technology. While the initial private deal between Iran and Khan’s network had not gone beyond the first shipment of centrifuge components and drawings, the Pakistani scientist continued to provide technical advice and troubleshooting for Iran’s new nuclear program.

  In January 1990, American spy planes and satellites picked up signs that Kahuta was enriching uranium to a weapons-grade level, a clear violation of Bhutto’s promise to Bush and fresh evidence that she did not control the nuclear program. When the news reached Washington, administration officials knew they could no longer certify to Congress that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon. The president would have to inform Congress of the violation and impose sanctions, including canceling the F-16 deal. Bush dispatched Henry S. Rowen, an assistant secretary of defense, to Islamabad to warn Beg of the cutoff and possible international sanctions.

  Beg was in no mood to acquiesce to Rowen’s threat, so he offered one of his own in reply: “If we don’t get adequate support from the United States, then we may be forced to share nuclear technology with Iran.”

  Rowen was taken aback. “If that were to happen, Pakistan would be in terrible trouble with the United States,” he replied.

  Rowen could not imagine that Beg was serious. The United States still had no diplomatic relations with Iran, and Washington had accused the Iranians of sponsoring terrorism and trying to destabilize the Middle East by exporting their brand of Islamic fundamentalism. Further, Pakistan and Iran were openly vying for influence in post-Soviet Afghanistan, and Rowen doubted that they could overcome their differences on that and other issues to cooperate on the nuclear front. Still, he passed on the threat to Bob Oakley, the ambassador, and made a note of it in the report he wrote about his trip.

  Oakley took the threat seriously enough to request a follow-up meeting with Beg. Oakley had long opposed ending aid to Pakistan, which he believed would eliminate the moderate influence still wielded by Washington. When he broached the topic of nuclear sales to Iran with Beg, the general denied that he had been threatening the United States and said he only wanted the Americans to know that Pakistan would have to look for revenue elsewhere if it lost the aid. Selling nuclear technology to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was, in the general’s view, a legitimate source of potential revenue. “He said he had a good conversation with the Revolutionary Guards about nuclear cooperation and conventional military assistance,” Oakley said. “Iran was going to support Pakistan with conventional military aid and petroleum, and the Pakistanis would provide them with nuclear technology.”

  The military leaders of Pakistan had long seen the country’s defense industry as a potentially valuable source of foreign exchange. Its conventional weapons, mostly small arms and ammunition, were marketed aggressively to developing countries. Even Khan had gotten into the act, using a Chinese design for shoulder-fired missiles to produce a version that his laboratories sold. Beg’s ambitions for selling nuclear technology to Iran were even more outsized. He suggested to one government minister that the sales might bring in twelve billion dollars a year. And yet Oakley was one of the few Americans who seemed to take seriously the idea that Pakistan would peddle its nuclear secrets to Iran.

  The series of conversations in 1989 constitute the clearest evidence that the Pakistani military was not only aware of Khan’s nuclear transactions with Iran but that the scientist was operating with at least tacit approval because he was carrying out a policy of improving ties with Tehran that was endorsed by the commander of the armed forces and others within the military and intelligence leadership. In the years that followed, Beg repeatedly denied that anyone in authority had encouraged Khan’s personal proliferation, claiming that the scientist and his accomplices were freelancers trying to enrich themselves. But even in his denials, Beg said that Khan’s activities were not a crime. “If I was in it and had the people contacted me, I would have told them to go to such and such supplier,” he said. “I would not be committing a crime in that I had not directly passed on any nuclear secrets or nuclear know-how.”

  CHAPTER 17

  SADDAM’S GAMBIT

  A. Q. KHAN PACED the waiting room outside the prime minister’s office. Though impressed by the elaborate decorations—ornamental swords and gem-encrusted silver bowls, gifts from heads of state—they did not ameliorate his annoyance at being kept waiting. The meeting had been delayed several times by the prime minister already, but Khan needed a favor, so he tried to be patient. Eventually, an escort appeared, and the scientist was guided past the saluting guards and up the red-carpeted stairway to Benazir Bhutto’s office.

  “Qadeer Sahib, how pleasant to see you,” Bhutto said, moving from behind the desk to greet him and directing him toward low sofas at one end of the spacious room. As they sat, turbaned waiters appeared with trays of tea and sweets.

>   “The honor is mine, Madam Prime Minister,” Khan replied. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

  By January 1990, Khan exhibited all the trappings of success. Prosperity in Pakistan is measured in the acquisition of two things: gold and real estate. Khan favored the latter, and his stature and wealth gave him a say in virtually every major land deal in Islamabad, including arranging sweetheart deals for influential politicians and generals. Khan owned several homes, businesses, schools, clubs, a hotel, and a Chinese restaurant called the Hot Spot. Recently he had started construction on a weekend retreat overlooking Rawal Lake on the outskirts of Islamabad. The lake was the primary reservoir of drinking water for the more than two million residents of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and zoning regulations strictly prohibited construction on its shores. Local villagers and government officials had opposed Khan’s project, citing fears for the water supply and the destruction of pristine forestland, but they did not have the influence to counter Khan. When the local police chief dared to set foot on Khan’s property in an effort to stop the construction, the scientist’s employee shot him in the hand, an incident that brought no recriminations against Khan or the employee. Khan seemed to have more power than even Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Not far from Khan’s plot on the lake, work had recently been halted on a 287-acre section of forest that Zardari was developing as a lakeside hotel and golf course.

  Khan also exerted influence over Pakistan’s press. He secretly owned one newspaper, the Pakistan Observer, though the public proprietor was Zahid Malik, who was nearing completion of Khan’s authorized biography. Khan kept a handful of reporters on his payroll, and he often invited the press on junkets abroad to cover his speeches and scientific conferences, with expenses paid by Khan’s laboratory. “He was their hero,” said one journalist who covered him in those days.

  Despite his success in enriching uranium, Khan still feared being overshadowed by the PAEC and Munir Khan, who often warned associates and government officials that his rival was a thief whose activities would one day bring the country into disrepute. When A. Q. Khan heard about the defamation, he decided to take another major gamble and try to persuade Bhutto to get rid of Munir Khan.

  The prime minister had met A. Q. Khan soon after taking office in December 1988, when he and Munir Khan had given her a short briefing on the nuclear program. Since then, she had run into A. Q. Khan at official functions, but their relationship had remained formal, and she distrusted him. Now, after exchanging small talk about their families and the poor condition of Pakistan’s economy, Khan got to the point, asking Bhutto to dismiss Munir Khan and give him control of the country’s entire nuclear program. Munir, he argued, was delaying nuclear progress because he was not a good enough scientist or administrator to handle the job. Time was running out, Khan said. The Indians most certainly had an extensive nuclear arsenal, while Pakistan had yet to take the final steps.

  Bhutto knew that her father had trusted Munir Khan enough to put him in charge of the nuclear program, and she was not going to remove him. Still, she knew that A. Q. Khan was a favorite of the military and the ISI, and she did not want to antagonize him. She stalled, promising to consider his request. Later, she told one of her aides that A. Q. Khan was too difficult to control and too closely aligned with the military and intelligence factions that opposed her.

  As the weeks passed and he heard nothing, Khan realized his gambit had failed. So he telephoned General Beg and asked for a meeting. A few months earlier, Khan had responded quickly when Beg asked him to increase the lab’s uranium enrichment to weapons-grade level, so the general was more than happy to see the scientist when he called. As the two men sat in Beg’s office in Rawalpindi, Khan complained bitterly that Bhutto was hindering the advance of the nuclear program, explaining that she had restricted his travel and kept an incompetent, Munir Khan, at the top of the PAEC to stall the final push to a weapon. Bhutto was doing the bidding of the Americans, Khan contended, and the military should take steps to replace her before the Indians took advantage of Pakistan’s lack of a nuclear arsenal. Beg agreed that Bhutto was an obstruction and confided to Khan that he, too, wanted to get rid of her, but it was difficult because she remained popular with the public. Nonetheless, a new alliance had been forged. Beg cemented it a short time later when he arranged for Khan to receive the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, one of the highest civilian awards presented by the government. The inscription read, “The name of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan will be inscribed in golden letters in the annals of the national history of Pakistan for his singular and monumental contribution to the field of nuclear science.”

  BHUTTO’S problems were not restricted to the dispute between the two Khans. She and her political party were proving inept at governing the fractious provinces, leaving reform-minded Pakistanis and allies in the Bush administration disappointed and worried that she was damaging the long-term prospects for democracy in Pakistan. At the same time, tensions were escalating with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Tucked into the western Himalayas, the lush valleys and rugged mountains of Kashmir had remained a part of India after partition despite its Muslim majority. In early May 1990, India massed two hundred thousand troops in Kashmir and moved another twenty thousand within fifty miles of the Pakistani border in the south. Beg ordered his main tank units to the Indian border and put Pakistan on a secret nuclear alert. Pakistan had enough enriched uranium to assemble six to ten nuclear weapons in short order, and its existing fleet of F-16s was redeployed to bases throughout the country to protect against a preemptive strike by India.

  American intelligence and NSA satellites immediately picked up the Indian and Pakistani troop movements, sparking fears once again of a nuclear showdown on the subcontinent. Few doubted that Pakistan would pull the nuclear trigger if India threatened to overrun the country. A senior CIA analyst monitoring the emergency from Langley recalled a meeting with Khan at a conference in Europe a few years earlier. “I was told by Khan in no uncertain terms ‘Never again. Whatever else occurs, even if we tell you we’ve terminated, ceased working on the nuclear bomb, I can tell you that I will not be allowed to terminate, because we must continue to show the Indians that we have the ability to never again be defeated at their hands.’” Even the normally implacable Dick Kerr, by then the deputy director of the CIA, thought a nuclear exchange was imminent. “There’s no question in my mind that we were right on the edge,” he explained later. “This period was very intense. The intelligence community believed that without some intervention the two parties could miscalculate, and miscalculation could lead to a nuclear exchange.”

  Bush ordered a White House plane to take his deputy national-security chief, Robert Gates, to Islamabad and Delhi, sending along a private note asking for Bhutto’s cooperation. When Gates left Washington, Bhutto was visiting the Persian Gulf states as part of a campaign to win Muslim support for free elections in Kashmir, and the American envoy tried to persuade Bhutto’s aides to arrange a meeting in Cairo or Athens. The message he got back was that Bhutto insisted that Gates meet her in Yemen, a detour that he did not think he had time to make. Bhutto later blamed the failure to meet with Gates on intentional mishandling of communications by Pakistani officials trying to undermine her relations with the Americans. At any rate, Gates headed on to Islamabad, where he met instead with Beg and Ishaq Khan and warned them that they were “bungling toward a war.” To underscore his message, Gates gave them a precise scenario of an impending war that Pakistan could not win.

  “Look, I’m not here to solve the Kashmir problem or discuss regional arms control,” Gates said firmly. “I’m here because we think there is a short-term problem that we want to defuse.” Looking straight at Beg, the American said, “General, our military has war-gamed every conceivable scenario between you and the Indians, and there isn’t a single way you can win.”

  Gates detected no visible response from Beg, but Ishaq Khan appeared shaken. He had undoubtedly been assured by Beg and other mil
itary commanders either that India would back down or that Pakistan would prevail. The Pakistani president blinked, promising Gates that his government would stop supporting terrorism in Kashmir and shut down the insurgent training camps on Pakistani soil. The camps had trained hundreds of jihadis as part of a campaign to drive India out of Kashmir using the same tactics that had defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan.

  Armed with that commitment, Gates flew to Delhi and managed to persuade the Indians to make several concessions in return. Among them was granting permission for American military and diplomatic personnel to go to Kashmir to see for themselves that no invasion by the Indian army was imminent. When the Americans found that the Indian troops were pulling back, the message was relayed to Islamabad. A potential nuclear war was averted, but interpretations over why events had unfolded that way differed.

  Beg’s version of the meeting with Gates was scarcely credible. He said the threat of a nuclear showdown never existed and that Pakistani and Indian military commanders were in constant conversation aimed at reducing the tensions and avoiding a ground battle. He said the American conclusion that Pakistan was prepared to launch a nuclear attack was based on a false threat drummed up by the Indian lobby to divert attention from the dispute over Kashmir. Instead, Beg argued, the nuclear parity between Pakistan and India was responsible for averting a war. “The fact is that if today there is stability,” he wrote in an assessment of the 1990 crisis, “it is due to the possession of nuclear capability by both sides. It certainly has reduced the possibility of war.”