Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Rogue in the Ranks
State, Richard Armitage, provided new evidence to Pakistani officials
of Dr Khan’s involvement in the sale of nuclear technology. They
included detailed records of his travels to Libya, Iran and North Korea
and other nations, along with intercepted phone conversations,
records of financial transactions and accounts of meetings with foreign
businessmen involved in an illicit nuclear trade. 30 Musharraf was
shocked by the detailed evidence presented to him. The Americans
knew much more than the Pakistani authorities about Dr Khan’s
wealth spread across the globe.
The CIA chief, George Tenet, disclosed that the intelligence agency
had successfully penetrated Dr Khan’s network long before the IAEA
began investigating the illicit nuclear technology sale to Iran. ‘We were
inside his residence, inside his facilities, inside his room,’ Tenet said
in a speech at the end of 2004. ‘We were everywhere these people
were.’ 31 He said that CIA agents, working with British spies, had pieced
together a picture of the network revealing, scientists, subsidiaries,
companies, agencies and manufacturing plants on three continents. 32
As evidence grew, President Bush sent Tenet to New York to meet
with Musharraf in September 2003, as the US feared that Dr Khan’s
operation was entering a new, more dangerous phase.
When confronted with a highly credible investigation report and
‘mind-boggling’ details about Dr Khan’s activities, Musharraf was left
with no choice but to cooperate with the IAEA and the USA. It was,
perhaps, the most testing time for the military ruler since he had joined
the US war on terror some two years earlier. The Bush administration
warned him that failure to act on the information could lead to sanctions
by the United States and the United Nations. Pressure mounted as
Washington threatened to go public with the information on Dr Khan.
‘You need to deal with this before you have to deal with it publicly,’
Powell told Musharraf. 33 What caused most concern in Islamabad
was that an international investigation might open a Pandora’s box
involving even the military, which had always been the custodian of
the country’s nuclear programme. It was largely external pressure that
forced Musharraf to confront the problem head on. He assured the
Bush administration not only of full cooperation in their Iran-related
inquiries, but also of further tightening of export controls.
The Iran case presented the most damning evidence yet about
Pakistan’s connection to nuclear proliferation. Evidence uncovered
by the IAEA showed that the Pakistani link with the Iranian nuclear
programme went back to 1987, when General Zia’s military government
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