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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 the IAEA

To follow up to the earlier posting today about Benazir Bhutto’s remarks yesterday, in which she said allow IAEA inspectors to question Abdul Qadeer Khan, I think it appropriate to cite some of what Mark Hibbs previously wrote, in this November 23 2007 Nucleonics Week article:

Let’s keep ‘generic’ for drug prescriptions

On September 18, I posted that that four former executives of Japanese company, Mitutoyo Corp, were found guilty of illegally exporting devices that could be used in producing nuclear weapons. That is true, but from the perspective of actually trying to prevent such things from happening there is more to the story. And, as is usually the case, the redoubtable reporter Mark Hibbs had the story first; back in January, to be precise. Here is some of what he wrote in the January 15 issue of Nuclear Fuel:

Questioning President Musharraf’s hero?

We wonder how Dr Khan feels about this. Even though it was Pakistani President Musharraf who relieved Dr Khan of his job and put him in house arrest in February 2004, Musharraff has always been protective of him. In the past, he said, He is my hero. He always was and still is, because he made Pakistan a nuclear power (Shopping For Bombs, p 214). That helps explain why Musharraf has steadfastly refused to allow Dr Khan to be interrogated by outsiders.

Khan’s network just keeps going and going and going…

The Jerusalem Post ran an article September 20, which may very well be the first article, linking whatever it was in Syria that was attacked by Israel in early September, to wider nuclear proliferation concerns. The article by Yaakov Katz stated:

This week, Khan's name again made headlines – this time over suspicions that his black-market ring was behind the supply of nuclear technology and material to the facility that Israel – according to foreign news reports – bombed two weeks ago in northern Syria.

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