How high up will this go?

The New York Times reports that the godfather of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program has spilled the beans: The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has signed a detailed confession admitting that during the last 15 years he provided Iran, North Korea and Libya with the designs and technology to produce the fuel ...

By Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

February 2, 2004, 6:50 PM

The New York Times reports that the godfather of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program has spilled the beans:

The New York Times reports that the godfather of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program has spilled the beans:

The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has signed a detailed confession admitting that during the last 15 years he provided Iran, North Korea and Libya with the designs and technology to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons, according to a senior Pakistani official and three Pakistani journalists who attended a special government briefing here on Sunday night. In a two-and-a-half-hour presentation to 20 Pakistani journalists, a senior government official gave an exhaustive and startling account of how Dr. Khan, a national hero, spread secret technology to three countries that have been striving to produce their own nuclear arsenals. Two of them, Iran and North Korea, were among those designated by President Bush as part of an “axis of evil.”…. The Bush administration offered no public comment on the Pakistani announcement on Sunday. But in recent weeks, administration officials have said that they forced the government of President Pervez Musharraf to confront the evidence, after Iran and Libya made disclosures that showed their reliance on Pakistani-supplied technology. “This is the break we have been waiting for,” a senior American official said. But the account provided by Pakistani officials carefully avoided pinning any blame on General Musharraf, the army or the Pakistani intelligence service, despite the fact that some of the material — especially what was sent to North Korea — appeared to have been transported on government cargo planes. Pakistani and American officials have said senior Pakistani Army officials would have known if nuclear hardware had been shipped out of a tightly guarded nuclear facility.

Quick hits:

Give the Bush administration some credit for pushing Musharraf into taking action;

One wonders whether the information culled from Khan’s confession will be useful in severing what appears to be a well-developed black market in nuclear technology.

One really wonders whether any Pakistani officials will be implicated. The story suggests that this should happen but won’t.

UPDATE: Several commenters are assuming that I’m accepting the Pakistani investigation at face value, when in fact the Musharraf government knew about this all along. Actually, what I think is worthy of mention is that the government has finally admitted that there’s a problem. Until two months ago they weren’t even willing to do this.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: Theory