A recent article in Haaretz outlines previous agreements between US Presidents and Israel that sought to protect the Israeli nuclear deterrent from any possible US arms control proposals for the Middle East. Israel is now concerned that President Obama will not honor these informal arrangements, and is looking for reassurance that the supply of military technology will continue.
Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in the Middle East
Dr Khan and South Korea
An article in the November 19 South Korean Yonhap notes that South Korea received US,000 from the US government in 2005 as part of assistance to help improve Seoul's export control systems, according to the report dated October 31 from the Government Accounting Office (GAO).
It’s the Nnowledge, Not the Material
Back in July the Washington Post did a piece on the sad case of Richard Barlow, the former US intelligence analyst who was screwed over by this government for doing his job.
He could have been a professor in Syria
Given all the recent frenzy over whether Israel attacked a nuclear facility of some kind, or something else, in Syria in September I think it bears remembering that Syria was not a client of Dr Khan; though not due to lack of availability on the part of Dr Khan.
Let's read what Mark Hibbs wrote in the September 24 issue of Nuclear Fuels:
To ask the question is to answer it
I think events of this year alone show that the answer to the question, explicit in the title of this 2006 congressional hearing, is no. I recommend taking a glance so you can see how little we have advanced since then.
May 25, 2006:
Hearing: The A.Q. Khan Network: Case Closed?
HEARING TRANSCRIPT (.HTM)
HEARING TRANSCRIPT (.PDF = 517 KB)
What about those “30 proliferating companies in Europe”?
Not to beat a dead horse, but I think this [Pakistan] Daily Times editorial nicely encapsulates the furore over Ms Bhutto's remarks about Dr Khan:
Dr Khan 1: Benazir Bhutto 0
If Benazir Bhutto was floating a trial balloon when she talked about allowing IAEA inspectors to question Dr Khan I think it safe to say the results are in. And it appears, to paraphrase Franklin D Roosevelt, the only thing Dr Khan has to fear is not Benazir Bhutto. Consider some of the subsequent reaction, courtesy of BBC Monitoring International Reports, September 27, 2007:
Khan and Clearstream?
In two previous posts, I’ve mentioned press reports about Dr Khan and Syria, one saying there may have been a connection, the other saying no way.