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)
The lifetime costs – £5bn, or 40% of the defense equipment budget – is unjustifiable at a time of tightening public budgets
Now I'm sure you agree that when asked to name the first person who comes to mind when it comes to combating illegal nuclear black market traffickers Alberto Gonzalez is not on the tip of your tongue. In fact, now that he is no longer US Attorney General, you probably don't think of him at all.
But actually when he spoke at the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Summit on June 11 in Miami, Florida (and where better than Miami to talk about criminal behavior?) he actually a few some interesting things to say.
Did you know we have a NSOI? Neither did I. But thanks to this September 30 US State Department press release, I do now.
Evidently Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ednan Karabayev signed the Program of Cooperation between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic on Combating the Smuggling of Nuclear and Radioactive Materials.
Another noteworthy comment by David Albright in the course of his testimony was on the challenges governments and international organizations face in addressing illicit trade. For example, he wrote:
Let us consider serendipity, the aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. As I've previously noted, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade held a hearing on June 27 titled, 'AQ Khan's Nuclear Wal-Mart: Out of Business or Under New Management?' Click here to watch the hearing.
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:
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: