| Islamabad Whitewash |
9 February 2004
|
Father of Pakistan's Bomb Gets Pardon for Telling Nuke Secrets
When Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of passing American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, they got the electric chair. When Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's Bomb, confessed to sharing similar information with Libya, North Korea and Iran on Pakistani TV, he got a pardon. The difference isn't cultural; it's merely political.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf can't allow Dr. Khan to go on trial. The cans of worms that would be opened could easily bring down his government, could lead to a coup d'etat and could result in civil violence bordering on civil war. Dr. Khan claims to have acted alone, but the word in Islamabad is that he had the acquiescence if not the assistance of the military -- from whence the president came.
Dr. Khan, moreover, is a national and Islamic hero. More than anyone else, he is identified with the successful test of Pakistan's nuke some six years ago. As a matter of national and religious pride, this achievement is hard for westerners to fathom. A trial of Dr. Khan would be like putting Oppenheimer or Teller in the dock.
Internationally, one may expect the pardon to pass with little comment. President Musharraf has been a very good friend to the US and others in the war against Al-Qaeda, and anything he needs to do to stay in power will received the quiet blessings of Washington, London and other interested cities.
The confession and quick pardon have all the hallmarks of an orchestrated political maneuver designed to get everyone off the hook. It will succeed, and the buckets of whitewash currently being spread over the affair are well used. The information can't be taken back, there is no benefit to an investigation and trial that would undermine the Musharraf regime, and now, Dr. Khan can quietly tell everyone precisely who got told what.
Dr. Khan succeeded where the Rosenbergs didn't because of one very simple factor. He is worth much more alive and cooperative than he is dead and disgraced. The Rosenbergs had no value to the American government alive, and their execution pour encourager les autres satisfied the Eisenhower administration's need to keep the Red-Baiters in line. In the murky world of nuclear weaponry, treason is whatever the government needs it to be.
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