The Nuclear Jihadist Read online

  THERE is no doubt that the American government knew that Pakistan had embarked on a nuclear-weapons program by the time of the Indian test. The CIA had reported on Bhutto’s speech at Multan and monitored the beginnings of the scientific effort inside Pakistan, much of which rested with physicists and other scientists who had been educated in the United States and were open to discreet conversations with quiet Americans. At the State Department, efforts were under way to start a diplomatic campaign to block the sale of the French reprocessing plant to Pakistan.

  Bob Gallucci understood the Pakistani program better than almost anyone in the American government, and he recognized the urgency of stopping it, though he was among those who suspected that it was already too late. Gallucci had joined the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, an independent government body set up in 1961 to monitor nuclear-weapons developments worldwide, in early 1974 after receiving a doctorate in politics from Brandeis University. He was completing a manuscript about the politics of American involvement in Vietnam, but the new focus on proliferation after the Indian explosion meant his superiors assigned Gallucci the task of analyzing how long it might take Pakistan to develop a nuclear counterstrike capability. Gallucci appreciated Bhutto’s rationale that a nuclear weapon would serve Pakistan’s political and military purposes by providing a rallying point for a disheartened and anxious people, while also solidifying Bhutto’s power. He also recognized that the chances that the international community would take truly punitive action against Pakistan were slim because of the country’s strategic value as a buffer against China and India.

  On January 22, 1975, Gallucci turned his analysis into a classified memo that predicted Pakistan would proceed with its nuclear plans and that the objections of the international community would be both muted and ineffective. His examination of CIA intelligence reports and State Department documents convinced him that a concerted crackdown might delay Pakistan’s program substantially. The available evidence indicated that Pakistan would concentrate on developing a device with plutonium as the fissile material, not on using centrifuges to enrich uranium, so Gallucci advocated focusing international diplomacy on preventing the sale of plutonium-related technology to Islamabad.

  There are two paths to a nuclear device. The bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima used enriched uranium as its core fissile material; the one that devastated Nagasaki three days later was a plutonium device. Each method offered advantages and disadvantages. Plutonium is generally regarded as less complicated, but the reactor and reprocessing facilities required inevitably leave visible clues, such as shape, size, and connections to sources of water and electricity. In addition, gases released through reprocessing can be detected. Enriching uranium through centrifuges, on the other hand, can be concealed easily. A small factory, even a school gymnasium, could hide the thousand or so centrifuges necessary to produce sufficient enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon, though not an arsenal. A clandestine enrichment facility does not emit environmental signatures or consume large amounts of electricity. The drawback, however, is that enrichment technology can take years to master, even for countries with strong technological skills.

  In Pakistan’s case, plutonium seemed the surer route. The Canadian reactor near Karachi was operational, and negotiations were under way with France and others to obtain additional technology that could be used to extract plutonium from the spent reactor fuel. With the right outside help, Gallucci concluded, Pakistan could produce a plutonium-based atomic device in the not-too-distant future.

  “Pakistan’s nuclear industry is not particularly worrisome now, but its potential for expansion and the intentions of the Pakistani government once it achieves a significant capacity are cause for concern,” Gallucci wrote in the memo. He warned that French and Belgian companies could provide Pakistan with the additional technology to convert fuel from the Karachi reactor into plutonium for a nuclear device. He said Pakistan had “clearly decided to have the capability” to build a nuclear weapon, which might be completed as soon as 1980. The only way to stop it would be blocking transfers of technology from Western countries.

  “Because of the Indian explosion, the Pakistanis have a solid incentive to produce a bomb and they can also do so with less world condemnation than might otherwise be expected,” he wrote. “If an explosion is perceived as a source of political cohesion, current disintegrative tendencies within Pakistan may be seen as more reason to acquire the status of a nuclear weapon state. In sum, the Pakistanis appear quite prepared to proceed to a weapons capability, but they may encounter difficulties if political barriers are sustained.”

  Gallucci was right about everything save one detail: He had no way of knowing about the future impact of an anonymous scientist who was then toiling away inside a Dutch laboratory, working on the latest designs in centrifuges and yearning to help his country fight back against India.

  CHAPTER 4

  GOING HOME

  AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-EIGHT, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was a middle-ranking scientist working for FDO, applying the theoretical concepts from his academic work to the real-life development of ultracentrifuges. Security restrictions never impinged on his movement, and he traveled easily and frequently between the FDO lab in Amsterdam and the enrichment plant being built at the village of Almelo in the countryside. Khan was maturing as a rational scientist, but he remained a man shaped by the violent reality of his early years, who still believed in the fortune-teller’s prediction that a great fate awaited him, and who had never forsaken his desire to return to Pakistan. Word of the Indian nuclear detonation stirred Khan’s patriotism and renewed conversations he had had with Henny before they married about his desire to go home one day. Providence seemed to offer him an opportunity in June 1974, when two Pakistani nuclear scientists arrived at FDO.

  Despite the rising concerns in both the United States and Europe about Pakistan’s nuclear activities, the two scientists were touring a number of European nuclear facilities as representatives of the PAEC. Khan sought them out as they were having tea in the cafeteria. The two visitors were surprised when he approached them and started speaking Urdu—they had no idea that a fellow countryman was working in one of Europe’s most advanced centrifuge-development programs. Khan was eager to impress the scientists, hopeful that they might open the way for him to go home. Boasting about his academic background and the work he was engaged in at FDO, he told them that he was convinced India’s nuclear test foretold the death of his country unless it developed its own atomic bomb. He said that he wanted nothing more than to return to Pakistan and work to build a nuclear weapon to save the country.

  To Khan’s surprise, his appeal fell on deaf ears. Whether it was his middle-class background or his adopted European manners, he encountered a stone wall. The two Pakistanis told him in hushed tones that they had grave doubts about their country’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, urging Khan to remain in Europe, where he had a secure job and a bright future. “Nobody would appreciate your talents, and you would be disappointed not to find any employment,” one of them, Sibtain Bhokari, explained to the disheartened Khan. The rebuff, however mild, angered Khan, and he stalked out of the cafeteria. He had not been taken seriously as a scientist or a patriot.

  Khan was not going to go away easily. He later said that he knew nothing at the time about Bhutto’s secret quest for an atomic bomb, though he was certainly aware of the small civilian nuclear program that employed Bhokari and his colleague. Refusing to give up on his plan, Khan took another route. In August, he wrote a personal letter to Bhutto in which he described his accomplishments and offered his services. He wrote that he was an expert in uranium enrichment, working on advanced designs for the European consortium, and that he had published many research papers and edited a well-received book on metallurgy. Again, Khan was ignored, but he repeated his offer in a second letter, on September 17.

  Somehow, the second letter caught Bhutto’s eye. Perhaps the prime minis
ter was growing desperate because of the slow progress of the plutonium project. Facing the new international concerns over proliferation, France was dithering over its commitment to provide the reprocessing plant that was vital to the plutonium plan. Regardless of the reason, Pakistan’s nuclear history was about to be rewritten. One of Bhutto’s aides said Khan’s letter prompted the Pakistani leader to ask that inquiries be made about the writer and the legitimacy of his claims. “He seemed to be talking sense,” Bhutto scrawled in the margin of Khan’s letter. The task of evaluating the scientist and his motives was assigned to the embassy in The Hague. “Bhutto asked the embassy to see who this character was,” recalled the aide, Khaled Hasan. “All kinds of nutcases write.”

  By late that month, a Pakistani diplomat confirmed that Khan was the genuine article and that the research center where he worked was involved in nuclear projects. On instructions from Bhutto, the Pakistani ambassador in Holland, J. G. Kharas, contacted Khan, explaining that the prime minister was intrigued by his offer and would like Khan to come to Islamabad to meet with Major General Imtiaz Ali, Bhutto’s chief military adviser.

  Khan finally faced the choice that was to determine his future. He suffered no inner conflict over abandoning the place where he had lived and worked for more than a decade, no remorse about packing up his wife and children and taking them to a country they barely knew. Khan was convinced that his destiny was within his grasp, but he was calculating enough to recognize that he had to be prepared as fully as possible, because there would be no possibility of return. That meant taking a step beyond simply offering his scientific experience to Pakistan: Khan realized that he needed to be equipped with the actual technical plans that would ensure his success. So, though he was willing to leave at that minute, he explained to the ambassador that he needed to delay the trip because he was on the verge of starting an important new assignment with FDO, one that he suggested could provide crucial benefits for Pakistan. While he and his family had made three previous trips to Pakistan for holidays without raising suspicions at FDO, a visit home at this point without his family might attract undue attention, particularly given the new concerns about proliferation in South Asia. Khan asked to postpone the meeting until late December, when he and his family made their annual visit to his home and after he had completed his new assignment at FDO. Kharas sent a cable to Islamabad explaining the obstacle and received approval for the delay.

  But the promise of Khan’s return to Pakistan and the validation of his credentials prompted Bhutto to authorize the construction of two small pilot plants, where the first steps could be taken to learn to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. The pilot program was placed under the control of a Pakistani scientist named Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who would one day play a far different role in the world of nuclear proliferation.

  In Europe, the three countries that formed the Urenco consortium were competing with one another at the same time that they were cooperating. Each wanted to boost its domestic nuclear industry by winning the right to develop the new centrifuges for the huge enrichment facility being built at Almelo. For the Dutch scientists and engineers working for Urenco, the race translated into long hours of work and an atmosphere that encouraged the open exchange of information. Security concerns took a backseat. Khan was drawn into the process despite his low-level security clearance, which should have kept him away from the most sensitive aspects of the work. He found himself with access to almost every part of Almelo and working with every phase of the enrichment process. As part of his job, he helped devise detailed specifications for some of the specialty metals used in the manufacture of the new centrifuges. This work in turn brought him into contact with the outside contractors who were selling components and material to Urenco.

  In the fall of 1974, Urenco decided that the Dutch centrifuges were to be augmented with an improved version developed by German scientists, called the G-2. The Dutch engineers at Almelo needed to learn the intricacies of the new machines, but the designs and production specifications were in German. Khan was one of the few scientists in the organization who spoke both German and Dutch, so he was enlisted to translate the documents, which represented the most advanced centrifuge technology in Europe. This was the opportunity that kept him from going to see Bhutto.

  Since arriving in Europe, Khan had been accumulating knowledge that he hoped would translate into an important job for him in Pakistan. It wasn’t exactly espionage, but his learning always carried an ulterior motive. At FDO, he had picked up extensive information about centrifuges and a general understanding of what was required to build a uranium-enrichment plant. His hobby of photographing centrifuge components had resulted in a collection that would be invaluable in manufacturing the machines. Now he faced the opportunity to expand his knowledge, to acquire the cutting edge of centrifuge technology just as he finally prepared for the journey home.

  The German documents were contained in twelve fat volumes. Because of their sensitivity, they were stored inside a small metal structure called the “brain box,” which was separate from the main centrifuge plant at Almelo. In addition, the brain box contained the most sensitive records for the overall project. Khan had never been granted a high enough security clearance to walk inside the brain box, let alone work there, but that was where he was sent in October 1974 to translate the critical material. Security regulations required that the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs be notified of an employee’s transfer to an area this sensitive. Khan should have been required to obtain a higher security clearance. Again, security was a myth, as Khan discovered when he arrived.

  Regulations dictated that all doors and desk drawers in the brain box remain locked at all times. Access to the sensitive documents was supposed to be restricted. The reality was that the same collegial atmosphere and free exchange of information that permeated the main plant was operating in its nerve center, too. There was none of the culture of suspicion that the governments would have preferred. Even the segregation of the brain box from the rest of the plant was a fiction—there was a constant flow of people between the two locations, partly because the temporary structure had no canteen or bathroom, so workers there had to use the facilities in the larger building.

  On the morning that he started his new assignment, Khan checked in through security as usual, but he needed a special escort to the brain box. Once inside, he met several engineers with whom he had had dealings in the past, and one of them showed him around. After the quick tour, he was handed two of the twelve volumes. Khan was asked to translate them into Dutch as quickly as possible.

  Khan worked diligently for sixteen straight days, rewriting the material in Dutch and surreptitiously taking his own notes in Urdu. To anyone casually watching, Khan seemed only to be hard at work. For the first time, he was operating consciously as a spy, gathering material that he planned to take back to Pakistan. Whether sitting at his desk or walking through the larger sections of the plant, Khan seemed always to be jotting in a small notebook. If anyone bothered to ask what he was writing, he said they were letters to family back home. His transparent friendliness and the relaxed atmosphere blunted further questions.

  The Dutch made it easy for Khan to steal everything he needed. People working in the brain box had to make do with a single typist, so Khan was permitted to take his handwritten translations back to FDO, where a secretary typed them. The extraordinary arrangement meant that Khan regularly left Almelo with the translations in his briefcase; sometimes, he also carried the originals, saying that he needed help from his wife, who spoke better Dutch. The arrangement violated all of the security rules and provided Khan the chance to make his own set of production designs.

  At the time, there were no outward indications that the Pakistani scientist was anything more than a middle-class technocrat commuting by train to Amsterdam from the suburb of Zwanenburg, where he and Henny were raising their young daughters, Dina and Ayesha. Their two-story brick house at 71 Amestelle Street was tidy
and identical to the others that lined the narrow streets. Most of Khan’s neighbors also worked for FDO and, like him, rented their houses from the company. Ria Hollabrands lived a few doors away from the Khans and found them to be a quiet couple who neither stood out nor blended in. Mrs. Khan participated in occasional functions at the neighborhood school, but she was not Dutch, and she was never welcomed fully into the tight social circles. “My only memory of the mister was visiting the house once and finding him cooking something in the kitchen,” said Hollabrands. “It was a surprise, finding a man cooking, but he didn’t say anything and I didn’t either.”

  One of Khan’s specialties was fried chicken, a favorite of Frits Veerman’s. The Dutch bachelor and Khan had remained friends. They still took occasional weekend jaunts on their bicycles, and Veerman was a frequent dinner guest at Khan’s home. One night in October, as Veerman sat at the compact table with the Khans, he noticed a stack of blue documents on a nearby table. He thought the color looked familiar, and after dinner he slipped over for a closer look while Henny and Khan cleared the dishes. What he saw surprised him. “I could see these were very secure drawings for the ultracentrifuge, marked with a UC in the corners,” he said. “They should never have left the office. They belonged in the fire-resistant safe at FDO or somewhere else. I did not want to ask Abdul why he had them.”

  Veerman stayed on for another hour, sipping coffee and chatting nervously, unhinged by the sight of the documents. He knew Khan was working on something top secret at Almelo and was certain the drawings were highly classified and did not belong at his friend’s house. Veerman could not relax until Khan dropped him at the train station around ten o’clock that night. As he rode back to his apartment in Amsterdam, Veerman was unsure what he should do with this explosive information. Thinking back over the past two years, he examined previous incidents in a new light. Perhaps Khan’s interest in Veerman’s photographs had not been so innocent. Maybe Khan bought the specialized camera for something other than a hobby, and his endless questions about shutter speeds and lighting might have had a sinister implication. But in the hierarchy of the laboratory, Veerman was a lowly technician, and he could not imagine speaking out against a scientist of Khan’s stature. Plus, Veerman, a perpetual outsider, didn’t want to lose one of his few friends. He rationalized his silence, concluding that all the details probably added up to nothing.