You wouldn't think it's possible. And you don't want it to be possible. But apparently, yes, he is/was. From an article by William J. Broad and David Sanger in the New York Times today:
Nuclear investigators from the United States and other nations now believe that the black market network run by the Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan was selling not only technology for enriching nuclear fuel and blueprints for nuclear weapons, but also some of the darkest of the bomb makers' arts: the hard-to-master engineering secrets needed to fabricate nuclear warheads
And while the president of course flat out lied to the American people last year in his reelection campaign (as Eric Cartman would put it he lied, lied right to their faces) saying that this network had been stopped and brought to justice, Americans have still never even been allowed to question Khan, who remains an immensely popular figure in Pakistan. Secretary Rice "raised concerns" about that (again) when she met with General Musharraf last week, but the Bush team has either 1) put little real pressure on him (which seems entirely possible given other recent appalling news stories) or 2) been remarkably ineffective at pressuring the country's dictator, one of the biggest recipients of US foreign aid. I was under the impression that we invaded Iraq and brought down its government for far less threatening actions.
Posted by armand at March 21, 2005 09:38 AM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs