Conde Nast Portfolio writer Douglas Frantz and DC-based writer Catherine Collins, the authors of the new book The Nuclear Jihadist, mentioned previously here, were online November 12 at the Washington Post to discuss their Outlook article about AQ Khan and the Bush administration’s refusal to force Pakistan to give him up.
Read the transcript here:
Here is the starting blurb:
The scariest legacy of Bush’s failed bargain with Musharraf isn’t the rise of another US-backed dictatorship in a strategic Muslim nation, or even the establishment of a new al-Qaeda haven along Pakistan’s lawless border. It’s the leniency we’ve shown toward the most dangerous nuclear-trafficking operation in history – an operation masterminded by one man, Abdul Qadeer Khan… The Bush administration has treated Musharraf with kid gloves here, insisting that the general is simply too critical to the fight against Islamic extremism to jeopardize his tenuous hold on power by forcing him to hand over such a national icon.