The Nuclear Jihadist

by Douglas Frantz

  The interview had served its purpose, so when the controversy erupted, the Pakistani government persuaded Khan to issue a statement claiming he had been misquoted. He asserted that Hussain had taken advantage of their friendship and brought the Indian journalist to Khan’s house, but he said his remarks had been strictly personal and that he never intended for them to be published. The Pakistani press claimed that the episode was orchestrated by Indian intelligence to embarrass Pakistan and cause trouble with the Americans. Security was increased at Kahuta in case the Indians used the incident to justify an attack on the plant. There were calls for Mushahid Hussain to be tried for treason. As part of the effort to discredit the story, the Pakistani press said the meeting between Nayar and Khan had lasted only a few minutes, not enough time for the sort of interview described in The Observer. To prove the point, the articles said Khan had entertained other guests that night, including two Pakistani generals and Heinz Mebus, described as a famous German engineer. What the press ignored was the fact that Mebus was one of the principal players in the illicit network of suppliers. In the end, Khan’s denial provided enough cover for the Americans, and the fuss subsided. Khan later admitted to Husain Haqqani, a Pakistani diplomat and journalist, that his disclosure had been orchestrated by the intelligence service to serve as a “verbal deterrent” to the Indians.

  Questions about whether Pakistan had “turned the final screw” and assembled a working nuclear device were strictly rhetorical, a convenient cover for an inconvenient truth. American intelligence knew Kahuta was producing enough highly enriched uranium for several nuclear devices and that Pakistan had tested a warhead, capable of carrying the fissile material to an Indian target. By any reasonable assessment, Pakistan possessed the bomb. “When I was in the State Department in 1985 to 1987, we had very good information about the stage of the Pakistani nuclear program, then we looked the other way,” said Stephen Philip Cohen, a South Asia specialist. “In a sense, that was official American policy. Pakistan was so vital to us in terms of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan that we held our ears, we held our nose, we kept our mouth shut. We scolded Pakistan, but we knew what they were doing and didn’t do anything about that.”

  KHAN’S success threatened to put him out of a job. Kahuta was churning out enough highly enriched uranium to fuel an arsenal of atomic bombs, leaving him looking for a way to expand his role. In the 1970s, President Bhutto had assigned responsibility for building the actual nuclear weapon and developing the missiles to carry it to the PAEC under Munir Khan. After besting his old rival in developing fissile material, A. Q. Khan was determined to take control of the entire nuclear program by developing his own nuclear device and missiles, too, so he assigned a team of engineers to use the Chinese warhead plans as the basis for his own version, and he began searching for a source for missile technology. “You may have a Rolls-Royce, but if you don’t have the gas to put in it, it isn’t going to run,” he told one of his colleagues. “We can enrich uranium, but without a bomb and a delivery system, it isn’t going anywhere.”

  Articles and television reports on Khan’s nuclear activities had made him infamous abroad and famous at home, where he was fast becoming the public face of a secret program. Pakistani newspapers were writing glowingly about Khan’s scientific accomplishments, coverage that he helped to shape by putting some of the journalists on his payroll. By the late 1980s, Khan couldn’t walk into a restaurant anywhere in Pakistan and hope to pay for his meal. His smiling face was painted on the bejeweled trucks that jammed the dusty roads and crowded streets. One newspaper named him “man of the year” in 1986. An accompanying article praised his brilliance and compared him to Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Journalist Zahid Malik was so taken that he asked permission to write Khan’s biography, a proposal the scientist accepted readily.

  Khan’s life had settled into a comfortable pattern as he moved easily through Pakistan’s military and business circles, attending meetings with senior government officials and receptions for visiting dignitaries. Henny remained in the background, raising the two girls and traveling often to see her aging parents in the Netherlands. Since his days as a graduate student, Khan had tried to keep up with the latest scientific research, and he began to publish articles in various journals about the intricacies of metallurgy and centrifuge development.

  Khan was the senior scientist in the country’s most important military effort, so the ISI kept close watch on him and found him useful. Occasionally, the ISI went to unusual lengths to protect Khan’s image. In 1981, a New York publisher issued a book called The Islamic Bomb, a sweeping account by journalists Steven Weissman and Herbert Krosney of how nuclear technology spread to Israel, India, and Pakistan. Three chapters focused on Pakistan’s nuclear program and were particularly critical of Khan’s actions. The book was banned in Pakistan, and few people were brave enough to try to smuggle a copy into the country, but as Khan’s influence rose the ISI decided the book had become an irritating reminder of days best forgotten. The ISI set out to change the record.

  One day in 1988, motorcycle couriers were dispatched simultaneously across Pakistan to deliver new copies of The Islamic Bomb to influential scientists, politicians, diplomats, and government officials. Pervez Hood-bhoy, a nuclear physicist with a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was in his office at Islamabad’s Quaid-i-Azam University when his copy was delivered. Hoodbhoy was an outspoken critic of his country’s nuclear program and one of the few people willing to criticize Khan. At one point his public attacks led Khan to persuade authorities to put Hoodbhoy on the exit control list, which prohibited him from leaving the country. It took months for Hoodbhoy to clear himself of charges leveled by Khan that he was “antinational.”

  Hoodbhoy had read accounts in the foreign press of The Islamic Bomb, but he’d never seen a copy until that day. Curious about why someone had sent him a banned book, he sat down and began to read. The work was impressive and thorough, but in the chapters about Pakistan, Hoodbhoy kept bumping into passages that seemed at odds with the overall tone of the book. Invariably, the sections praised A. Q. Khan and harshly criticized his rival, Munir Khan. Hoodbhoy found the suspect passages fishy, but he eventually set the matter aside, and the mystery remained until a visitor noticed the book on his shelf years later. When the visitor asked his opinion of the work, Hoodbhoy said he had found it very good except for some suspicious sections. The visitor photocopied the chapters on Pakistan and sent the material out of the country by Federal Express to avoid the risk of a confrontation with customs upon leaving the country. A later comparison of Hoodbhoy’s copy with the original text uncovered nearly one hundred changes, some big and some seemingly inconsequential, all apparently made to protect and enhance Khan’s reputation. For instance, accusations that nuclear technology had been smuggled into Pakistan had been removed, and a footnote had been added saying that Zia had renamed Kahuta in honor of Khan’s “Miracle.” A sample of other changes ranged from cosmetic to substantive: Munir Khan’s portrayal in the original book was changed from that of “a patriot who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland” to that of an incompetent scientist who “would do everything to keep atomic power and weapons away from Pakistan.” In another instance, the original said: “Only a few of the major industrialized nations had ever built their own enrichment plants, and both the technology and construction had proceeded under the strictest secrecy. How could poor, backward Pakistan ever hope to do it?” The new version appended the sentence, “Dr. Khan was the answer.”

  When asked about the changes, a senior Pakistani government official who had been close to the ISI explained what had happened. Pakistan had a thriving publishing industry that reproduced Western books without regard to copyright. The ISI had gone to one of those publishers and ordered the printings, with dozens of changes that rendered Khan in a favorable light and cast aspersions on his rival. “It became a well-known
trick within certain circles of the ISI,” said the official. “It was considered an enormous success.”

  CHAPTER 15

  ONE-STOP SHOPPING

  KHAN’S CONTACTS WITH WILLING and unwitting accomplices alike had expanded over the years, creating a vast clandestine enterprise capable of providing every piece of material and technology necessary to make nuclear bombs. American intelligence agencies had watched the ring operate for years, but they failed to understand the full extent or the nature of the black market that Khan had created.

  But by the late 1980s, Khan needed less help from outside suppliers for Kahuta, which left his shady middlemen and manufacturers restless and on the prowl for new customers. A handful were already selling technical know-how to the apartheid regime in South Africa, which was well along on its own secret program to build nuclear weapons. When it came to new customers, Libya and Saudi Arabia were possibilities—both were rich with oil money—but outsiders would face a hard time penetrating their closed societies. Iraq and Iran, on the other hand, were locked in the final stages of a long-running war that had claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides, and they seemed like potential clients.

  Saddam Hussein was already buying technology for conventional and nuclear weapons through a small army of clandestine procurement officers who were working out of Iraqi embassies across Europe, in a way that mirrored Pakistan’s early efforts. For its part, Iran was contemplating restarting the nuclear program initiated by the shah and shuttered by the revolution in 1979, but its leaders were constrained because they were spending large sums on conventional weapons for the fight against Iraq.

  One of Khan’s suppliers who was eager for more business was Gotthard Lerch, a quiet German who was living in the picturesque Swiss village of Grabs. Lerch, a big man with the fleshy face of a brawler, had started out as a mechanical engineer in the 1960s for an aircraft manufacturer in Germany. Eventually, he moved to another German company, Leybold-Heraeus, a major player in the European market for vacuum valves that were used in the manufacture of centrifuges. Leybold was among a handful of companies that had mastered the complicated vacuum technology used in the conversion of uranium hexafluoride gas into enriched uranium. By the early 1970s, Lerch had risen to department head, a position that put him in contact with Leybold customers at Urenco, including A. Q. Khan. After Khan returned to Pakistan, Lerch continued their relationship and sold Khan the particular vacuum valves he needed.

  By 1979, the size of the business with Pakistan had raised suspicions among German authorities. When they questioned Lerch, he readily acknowledged selling Pakistan valves, vacuum pumps, and a gas-purification plant worth one million dollars. The export officials noted that some of the equipment “might be adapted to be used in an enrichment plant,” though no formal charges were brought against the company or Lerch. Still, Leybold executives did not like the extra government attention, and Lerch was forced to resign. Undaunted, he packed up his bags and know-how and headed for Switzerland in 1983, determined to find a better climate in which to ply his nuclear trade. Not long after he left, Leybold discovered that top-secret plans for important parts of the enrichment process were missing.

  After starting his own business in the heart of Vacuum Valley, Lerch renewed his ties with Khan and once again began selling large amounts of equipment to the Pakistani. Suspicions that Lerch had stolen Leybold’s plans seemed to be confirmed in 1985 when Swiss authorities stopped a Pakistan-bound shipment of equipment that seemed quite similar to that in Leybold’s designs. Unfortunately, they also discovered that they had missed several tons shipped earlier. Again, no charges were brought against Lerch, because his actions were not covered by Swiss export laws. He viewed the run-in as just the cost of doing business.

  Lerch developed a reputation as the man to see about all types of high-technology needs, so it was not unusual when a physicist from Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization showed up at his office in 1987, looking for technology for the manufacture of conventional weapons. Lerch agreed to fill the order, but he insisted that the Iranian also watch a promotional film for his nuclear inventory. The physicist watched the short movie but repeated that he was buying for conventional weapons. For Lerch, however, the seed was planted, and a short time later he contacted Iranian nuclear officials in Tehran to see if anyone else might be interested in acquiring nuclear goods. Several weeks passed before Lerch heard back. The Iranians were indeed interested, and they suggested a meeting in Zurich.

  Lerch took the train to Zurich in July and met two scientists from Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Masud Naraghi and Mohammed Allahdad, at a hotel there. At the time, the organization was engaged in limited research using a small reactor provided by the Americans during the shah’s era as part of the Atoms for Peace program. But Iran seemed to have a growing appetite for nuclear weapons because in the final months of the war, when the larger Iranian forces appeared on the verge of winning, Saddam Hussein had launched a series of attacks with chemical weapons, killing thousands of Iranians. The attacks turned the tide in favor of Iraq. Iran protested at the United Nations, arguing correctly that the weapons violated international law. But the world’s superpowers had no sympathy for the Islamic republic, and their failure to take any action reinforced Iran’s isolation and reminded Ayatollah Khomeini and other clerics that Iran had to protect itself. The religious and military leaders determined that Iran had to develop its own deterrence, so they started stockpiling a chemical arsenal and shopping in earnest for a nuclear weapon. In other words, Lerch’s timing could not have been better.

  Rather than glossy brochures and sample products, the German engineer arrived in Zurich with a rudimentary proposal scratched out in En-glish on a single page of stationery from Siemens, a technology company that did business worldwide. He had divided the offer into four sections:

  1. Drawings, descriptions, and specifications for manufacturing centrifuges.

  2. One or two disassembled centrifuges to serve as prototypes.

  3. Enough components to build two thousand centrifuges.

  4. Blueprints and specs for a complete enrichment plant, including the full range of operating systems, and designs for fabricating nuclear-weapons components.

  No one was on hand to record the moment for posterity, though the single piece of paper did survive. Lerch’s offer marked the birth of a new phase of the proliferation threat. The network that had been established to supply Pakistan had reached out to a new customer and was about to evolve into an international bazaar for nuclear technology, open to any country or anyone with the money to spend.

  Lerch was in full sales mode, promising the Iranians that he and his unnamed colleagues could deliver everything required to build a bomb despite export controls and restrictions on what could be sent to Iran. Many of the goods, he said, were available immediately—full sets of plans and sample centrifuges could be in Iran within weeks—and the rest of the equipment could be delivered as needed, as work progressed. When the Iranians pressed him for details, he declined to say anything about the origins of the designs and equipment, though he vouched for the quality of the products. He said he and his associates would need twenty million dollars as a down payment and untold sums later. The Iranians were definitely interested, but they said that they needed to return to Tehran to consult with their superiors before agreeing to such an expensive and treacherous undertaking. Naraghi, the head of Iran’s secret program, and Allahdad promised they would get in touch with Lerch as soon as they got the go-ahead.

  Iran was not new to nuclear technology. Its program dated back to the days under the shah, initiated with help from the United States and Germany. A large-scale nuclear reactor near the coastal town of Bushehr begun by the Germans had been mothballed after the Islamic revolution, which had made the country an outcast and led to international sanctions blocking the sale of nuclear technology. Back in Tehran, Lerch’s proposal was passed from the Atomic Energy Organization to the Revolutionary Guards, t
he military organization responsible for the nation’s security, and from them to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Eventually the one-page list made its way to the senior clerics who wielded the ultimate power—and there, someone gave it the green light.

  The Iranians had run into some trouble in their efforts to buy conventional technology in Europe, and they feared being set up in a sting operation, so Naraghi tried to insist that the second meeting take place in Tehran. Lerch balked at going to Iran, however, in part because he was still under investigation by German authorities in connection with earlier shipments to Pakistan. So the two sides settled on meeting in the Persian Gulf city of Dubai, a neutral location outside the reach of European law enforcement. Even before the meeting, there had been some hard bargaining. The Iranians had spent heavily on the war, and Naraghi was under orders to bring down the initial price. Eventually, Lerch agreed to take ten million dollars as the first installment, payable upon delivery at the meeting.

  Dubai is one of the seven principalities that form the United Arab Emirates. A sleepy port until a construction boom started in the 1960s, by the 1980s Dubai was a bustling free-trade zone without tariffs or taxes and little in the way of government regulation. Foreign businessmen had been drawn by the freewheeling, explosive economy. Among them was Mohammed Farooq, a stocky Indian who had set up a small import-export business in the Jebel Ali Free Zone. Like Lerch, Farooq was a veteran of the nuclear black market—he had met the engineer in South Africa years before, and they had also crossed paths over the years in their dealings with Khan. Lerch now contacted Farooq and found a willing local partner. Lerch also recruited another alumnus of the Pakistani network, Heinz Mebus. Mebus had worked at Siemens and spoke better English than Lerch, prompting later speculation that he had been the one to write the four-point proposal for Iran on some of his old stationery.