The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him

by Douglas Frantz

  The Dubai workshop was only part of the complicated scheme that Khan was putting in motion. Shipments to Iran were still moving through Tahir’s computer business, but the volume expected for the Libyan project required a separate freight business as an added layer of security. Again, Khan turned to someone he had known from the old days.

  In 1976, while searching for machine tools, Khan met British engineer Peter Griffin. Griffin said he became a supplier to Pakistan’s program by chance, explaining that an acquaintance of Khan’s in London had mistakenly telephoned Griffin’s business. Later, Griffin and Khan sat down to dinner at a Pakistani restaurant not far from the House of Commons and hit it off. In the years that followed, Griffin traveled often to Pakistan and sold a wide range of industrial equipment there for factories, agriculture, and the nuclear facilities. Griffin, a tall, handsome former rugby player who could be pugnacious or charming, as the situation required, later said that his transactions with Khan did not violate export regulations or other laws, and he was never charged with a crime. As for Khan, Griffin saw him as an ambitious patriot.

  “Do you ever want to be president?” Griffin asked Khan at one point.

  “No way, I just want to help my country develop,” replied Khan. “If it’s good for Pakistan, I’d buy it from the devil.”

  When Khan contacted Griffin in 1998, the engineer and his son, Paul, were running a small shipping business in Dubai, Gulf Technical Industries. Griffin agreed to serve as the shipping agent for Khan’s operation, though he later said that none of the Libya transactions in which he was involved were related to nuclear equipment and that Tahir had forged his company’s name on some invoices.

  Other former network members returned to the operation. Gunes Cire and Selim Alguadis, who ran two Turkish electronics companies that had sold equipment to Pakistan and Iran, were enlisted to supply a range of electronics for the project. Heinz Mebus, the German engineer, had died, but Gotthard Lerch was brought on to find someone to build the complicated system to control the centrifuge cascades, one of the most difficult aspects of the project. Like the centrifuges, the control system was to be built in a third country and later shipped to Libya. Lerch told Khan that he thought he knew just the man for the job.

  Gerhard Wisser, a German engineer, had immigrated to South Africa in the 1960s and eventually set up a small business involved in his adopted country’s nuclear-weapons program. At one point, Wisser was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, and he justified the gun by telling the South African police that he often carried classified documents for the government. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Lerch was still with Leybold-Heraeus, Wisser had bought vacuum valves from him for South Africa’s nuclear program. The two men had become friends and occasional partners in real-estate investments along South Africa’s coast. When South Africa abandoned its program in the early 1990s, Wisser and a host of other suppliers and engineering firms faced bankruptcy. By the late 1990s, Wisser was still struggling to make ends meet by taking various small-scale engineering projects. His financial difficulties were compounded because he was in the middle of an expensive and ugly divorce. All of this made him just the man for the job.

  When Lerch telephoned his old friend, he was cagey about the reason for inviting him to Dubai, saying only that he wanted Wisser to attend a dinner so he could meet some potential business associates. A few weeks later, Wisser found himself ushered into the luxurious home of a businessman who was hosting the affair. As he looked across the room, Wisser saw not only his old friend Lerch but someone else with whom he had worked in the past. A decade or so earlier, Tahir had come to Johannesburg with his uncle, Mohammed Farooq, when they were trying to buy a specialized furnace for Pakistan’s nuclear program, and Wisser had met with them several times. Far from the slim, dark-skinned young man who had seemed little more than a coat holder that Wisser recalled, Tahir had grown into a well-fed and confident businessman. He wore a flashy Western-style suit, and his hair was fashionably trimmed. Wisser and Tahir chatted amiably as they waited for the dinner to be served. At one point, Tahir boasted that he owned a Rolls-Royce and other luxury cars, along with several businesses in Malaysia. Not until he was seated between Tahir and Lerch for dinner did Wisser realize that the Sri Lankan was the potential client.

  During the meal, Tahir explained that he and some associates were looking for someone to manufacture certain sophisticated piping systems for an oil refinery in the United Arab Emirates, employing advanced vacuum technology. Wisser said that his company was much smaller than it had once been and no longer had the capacity to manufacture something that complex. When Tahir offered Wisser a finder’s fee of one million dollars if he could arrange for the production of the system, the South African changed his mind: He eagerly promised to look around when he got home. Tahir said he would gather the technical drawings and have Lerch review them before sending them on to South Africa. Wisser couldn’t believe that anyone in the Middle East would have to go to South Africa to find refinery equipment, and he did not believe there was any use for this type of technology, but he didn’t question the claim. He needed the million and he had learned long ago not to ask too many questions. “With the best will in the world, I could not imagine what he wanted to do with vacuum pumps in Dubai,” said Wisser. “There was no use for them there.”

  Even before he got back to Johannesburg, Wisser knew the person who could fill the order. A few days after his return, he went to the offices of Tradefin, an engineering and manufacturing company that was run by a former colleague from the nuclear program, Johan Meyer. Sitting with Meyer in the Tradefin office inside a large, hangarlike structure in Vanderbijlpark, fifty miles southeast of Johannesburg, Wisser explained that he had a line on a major project in Dubai, something that could run into the millions. Wisser said he didn’t have the details yet, but he had been told the deal was for the oil industry. Like Wisser, Meyer had suffered from the demise of the South African weapons program, though Tradefin still had enough work to employ a sizable workforce and the capacity to execute the project that Wisser was describing. The two men were so eager for the business that they decided to fly to Dubai and meet the client. When the pair showed up unexpectedly at SMB Computer, Tahir was dumbfounded by the unwitting security breach. The whole reason for using someone as far away as South Africa was to provide an extra layer of protection for the Libyan project, and he was visibly shaken to see the two men on his doorstep. Recovering, Tahir explained that the drawings and a payment schedule were being prepared by his partners and that the material would soon be sent to them in South Africa. He apologized but said that he was too busy to see them now, and they should go home and wait. Wisser and Meyer were puzzled, but the prospect of a lucrative contract allayed their concerns, and they returned to Johannesburg.

  A few days later, a box containing an eighteen-inch stack of documents from Tahir arrived at Wisser’s office. He took it to Tradefin, where Meyer spread the documents across a large table. The diagrams and engineering schematics were poor copies, leaving Meyer scratching his head from time to time, but he had enough experience to recognize that they had nothing to do with the oil industry. The plans called for a sophisticated system of piping, vacuum pumps, specialized valves, and assorted other equipment built to precise tolerances far more suited to enriching uranium than refining oil. As he examined them more closely, Meyer realized he was almost certainly looking at a system to feed uranium gas into cascades of one thousand centrifuges and withdraw enriched uranium from the other end. He calculated that the job was worth thirty to forty million dollars, a big contract for his small operation. Several days later, Meyer telephoned Wisser to ask if he knew the identity of the end client. Wisser acknowledged that he wasn’t sure, though he knew it wasn’t Tahir. Meyer was worried about getting involved in a nuclear-weapons project, but he set aside his qualms when the initial payment arrived from a Zurich bank. In the coming months, the giant system would grow to be two stories high and cover m
uch of the factory floor at Tradefin, leading Meyer to dub it “the beast.”

  A few days later, Wisser was talking on the telephone to Lerch about one of their real estate deals and brought up the piping system. When Wisser asked if Lerch knew the final destination of the piping, the German replied brusquely: “I don’t know. And it’s none of my business.” The comment, whether true or not, exemplified the attitude that pervaded the corps of middlemen at the heart of the nuclear smuggling network.

  In Dubai, Urs Tinner was struggling to set up the centrifuge plant. The problem wasn’t getting the necessary equipment and material—it was finding even a small number of technicians skilled enough to operate the advanced machinery. Like many wealthy Arab oil states, the Emirates depended on workers from developing countries like the Philippines and Pakistan to do the manual labor that kept businesses and households running. The natives had no interest even in the sorts of highly skilled jobs that Tinner needed to fill, and any foreign worker interested would have to get a government work permit, which risked exposing the nature of what Tinner was doing. When he raised his problem with Khan, the Pakistani suggested that the manufacturing could be shifted to Turkey. At Khan’s request, Gunes Cire made inquiries but reported back that it would be difficult to find enough skilled labor there, too.

  Despite the setback, Tinner was developing a close relationship with Khan, supplanting Tahir as the Pakistani scientist’s most trusted aide and surrogate son. Tahir was coordinating the network and handling the finances, which were washed through as many as six banks to conceal the payments, but he had none of the technical expertise that made Tinner so valuable in Khan’s eyes. Tahir had looked upon Khan as a surrogate for his late father, and he resented watching Tinner come between them. In June 1998, Tahir planned to marry the daughter of a prominent former Malaysian diplomat in Kuala Lumpur, and he used the opportunity to display his affection for Khan, too, arranging for him to be met at the airport by a limousine and installed in a luxurious hotel suite for the duration of the opulent festivities. But to Tahir’s annoyance, Tinner accompanied Khan.

  THE LIBYAN project meant that Khan’s network was buying more nuclear-related equipment in Europe and elsewhere, which did not go unnoticed by the CIA and European intelligence agencies. The flow of information had been trickling in for years, but the focus had always been on what Khan was importing into Pakistan. So when the reports of renewed purchases filtered in, the intelligence officials assumed that Khan was still buying for his own program. A far bigger concern to the United States was intelligence that Khan was increasing his cooperation with North Korea, which the Americans suspected was obtaining enrichment technology.

  At the State Department, Bob Einhorn had been raising alarms about Khan’s activities with the Koreans in back-channel conversations with his Pakistani counterparts for several months. In late 1998, he had confronted the two military officers in charge of maintaining control over the country’s nuclear arsenal with intelligence reports that Khan was using aircraft from the military-controlled Shaheen Air International to carry shipments of suspected enrichment equipment to North Korea. “The only explanation is either you are complicit, or this is taking place without military knowledge, and both of these are pretty disturbing,” Einhorn told the two officers.

  In January 1999, President Clinton demonstrated even greater concern by sending Einhorn and Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state, to Islamabad to persuade Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to rein in Khan. The two Americans were invited to lunch at Sharif’s official residence, a modern house perched on a hill overlooking the city. The dining room was decorated with polished brass urns and gilded platters. The business portion of the session came near the end of the meal, as butlers served tea and coffee.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, we know that Pakistan is importing North Korean missiles,” said Talbott. “We are very concerned about this. Our concern is that these transactions go beyond missile technology and could involve nuclear exchanges.”

  Sharif smiled and replied, “Ambassador Talbott, it is true that Pakistan has important defense cooperation with North Korea, but it is for conventional military equipment. Nothing involving nuclear technology is taking place.”

  Einhorn had seen the latest spy-satellite photos just before leaving Washington, which showed a Shaheen cargo plane loading missiles into its huge belly on a runway in North Korea. “Mr. Prime Minister,” he interjected, “it’s important to sever these connections with weapons specialists in North Korea. These transactions involve Khan Research Laboratories, your main nuclear installation. If the business continues, we would have to assume that there is more to it than conventional weapons and that nuclear issues are involved.”

  Sharif stared silently at Einhorn, leaving the American unsure whether the prime minister even knew that his country was swapping nuclear technology for missiles. Whether he was in the dark or not, Sharif expressed no inclination to make any accommodation to his guests, sending Talbott and Einhorn back to Washington empty-handed.

  Pakistan’s failure to halt Khan’s trade with North Korea did not stop Clinton from trying to restore relations with both Islamabad and Delhi. If the two countries agreed to limit their nuclear and missile capabilities and resume bilateral talks, Clinton promised to work for removal of the sanctions imposed on them after the 1998 nuclear tests. The Pakistanis, faced with serious economic troubles, accepted the basic terms, even agreeing to sign a treaty limiting missile development. In February, Sharif and his Indian counterpart met for a two-day summit in Lahore and agreed to normalize relations and establish measures to reduce the risk of nuclear confrontation. Faced with the improving ties and pressure from Americans businesses eager to expand in India and Pakistan, Congress passed an amendment in July that authorized Clinton to waive the sanctions against both countries for one year.

  Even before Congress voted, however, relations between the neighbors were back on a downhill path. In early May, Pakistani commandos disguised as Islamic extremists slipped into Kashmir and seized a fifteen-thousand-foot peak called Kargil, a strategic position that gave them control over supply routes from India into the disputed territory. The plan was hatched by General Pervez Musharraf, a former commando who had recently become chief of the armed forces, and approved by Sharif after receiving assurances that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would shield it from an all-out counterattack by India. Few of Pakistan’s military adventures had been more ill conceived. Within days, it became known widely that the supposed jihadis were actually regular soldiers, prompting the Indians to bomb the peak and threaten to wipe out the Pakistani army. The confrontation seemed about to escalate further as American intelligence picked up signs that Pakistan was moving its nuclear arsenal, possibly as a prelude to an attack on India. Clinton summoned Sharif to Washington and told him, “Pakistan is messing with nuclear war.” The prime minister appeared surprised by the nuclear maneuvers, and he returned home immediately to announce a complete withdrawal of Pakistani troops from Kargil.

  Sharif blamed the army for the incident, but the generals circulated a rumor that it was the prime minister who had promoted the disastrous escapade. In the weeks that followed, Sharif worried that Musharraf was preparing a coup against him, so on October 12, as the army commander and his wife were returning from a golf junket in Sri Lanka aboard a Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet, the prime minister fired Musharraf and ordered that the plane not be allowed to land at the Karachi airport. While the plane circled the Arabian Sea, running low on fuel, the army ousted Sharif and forced the air controller to permit the PIA jet to land. By the time Musharraf and his shaken wife stepped off the plane, Musharraf was in complete control of Pakistan.

  Clinton was angry about the takeover, but his administration refused to call what happened a coup, which would have triggered renewed sanctions from Congress and damaged relations with the new government in Islamabad. Like it or not, the Americans had something more important on their agenda than critici
zing Musharraf or pursuing Khan: Osama bin Laden could not be rooted out of his hiding place in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help. A few months later, a senior State Department official traveled to Islamabad for consultations with the government. Instead of Einhorn or another proliferation official, he took along a terrorism expert. A new stage in the American-Pakistani relationship had begun. The Americans planned to enlist Pakistan’s help in preparing for a commando raid to snatch the Al Qaeda leader from his haven in Afghanistan.

  MUSHARRAF didn’t need the Americans to bring Khan to his attention. As a career army officer, he was well aware of the scientist’s freewheeling ways and occasional escapades. Even before the coup, Musharraf had received a report that North Korean scientists were being given secret briefings on centrifuge technology at Khan Research Laboratories. He had ordered the army and the ISI to question Khan, but the scientist had denied any knowledge of the issue. In the years when Khan was essential to developing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, such behavior might have been tolerated, but now that the nuclear weapons were in place, Musharraf was determined to bring some discipline to the country’s nuclear industry, including its star scientist. In February 2000, he established the National Command Authority, a new agency that reported directly to him and had responsibility for oversight of the nuclear industry. A few weeks later, the agency received a tip from a disgruntled scientist at Khan’s lab that centrifuge equipment was being loaded on a plane destined for North Korea, the latest installment in the long-running barter deal. The information was passed to the ISI, but when intelligence agents boarded the plane, all they found were crates of medical supplies. Musharraf later speculated that someone within the government had tipped off Khan, and the nuclear equipment had been removed. Musharraf’s hold on power remained tenuous because he had not been elected and lacked a political base outside the military; even within the military, there were pious officers who thought the president too Westernized to lead an Islamic country. As a result, he had to tread carefully in going after A. Q. Khan, who remained a national hero, particularly among the Islamic political parties.