generalspeaking

Called the 'father' of Pakistan's atomic bomb, this man appeared to be somewhat conscience-deficient. Pakistan was inflamed and furious that India had managed to build an atomic bomb. India had no active assistance from any other country in possession of nuclear devices, but it had contracted with Canada to build a nuclear installation strictly for energy purposes. It went on, surreptitiously, to enrich uranium and its nuclear scientists built on the opportunities a nuclear reactor and enriched uranium afforded them to become a nuclear nation.

Pakistan's hatred for India, the majority Hindu country from which it separated when British rule came to an end, to produce two separate nations, one Hindu the other Muslim, in 1947, was so searing it was fixated on securing its own nuclear program to produce atomic bombs. Pakistan's visceral detestation of its neighbour led A.Q.Khan of notorious repute in the West and celebrity status in Pakistan, to enable Pakistan to copy India's success.

 

Khan was on secondment in Holland with an Anglo-Dutch consortium, Urenco, dealing in uranium reprocessing. Urenco had a new centrifuge able to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level, and Khan with the assistance of a Dutch friend, acquired detailed drawings and blueprints. His friend had photographed the centrifuge design, with no ill intent on his part, but he shared the photographs with Khan.

 

When eventually Khan returned to Pakistan with the treasured blueprints, they became the basis of Pakistan's covert nuclear program. And Khan became a revered figure in Pakistan. He was also a dangerous man, determined to profit from his knowledge. He went out of his way to offer to sell the blueprints for Pakistan's own weapon to the most radical of countries: Iran, Libya and North Korea. Libya surrendered its plans under Moammar Ghadafi to attain nuclear status. 

 

North Korea, as the world well knows, is in its highly successful infant steps with its nuclear plans having produced and detonated several small bombs, and Iran, aided and abetted by North Korea and possibly Pakistan as well, is still, despite crippling sanctions imposed by the UN and led by the United States, on its way to becoming nuclear...but not if Israel can stop the country that threatens to annihilate it from the 'map of the Middle East'. 

 

When Western intelligence exposed Khan's conspiracy to arm these politically unstable states, the U.S. called on then-president Pervez Musharraf to take action as an 'ally in the war on terror'. The result was that Khan lost his position as government special science and technology adviser, and was placed under house arrest, a situation that outraged millions of people in Pakistan. Which earned Khan a pardon.

 

COVID-19 decided to intervene and took the life of a wretched man; celebrated in Pakistan, reviled elsewhere.