Abdul Qadeer Khan ڈاکٹر عبد القدیر خان; b. 1 April 1936);
DEngr, NI (twice), HI, FPAS; also respectfully known by some in
Pakistan as
Mohsin-e-Pakistan (in Urdu:
محسن پاکِستان; lit:
Savior of Pakistan), more popularly known as
Dr. A. Q. Khan, is a
Pakistani nuclear scientist and a
metallurgical engineer, colloquially regarded as the founder of
HEU based
Gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment program for Pakistan’s integrated
atomic bomb project.
[2] Founded and established the
Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) in 1976, he was both its senior scientist and the
director-general until his retirement in 2001, and was an early and vital figure in other
science projects. Apart from participating in
atomic bomb project, he made major contributions in
molecular morphology, physical
martensite, and its integrated applications in
condensed and
material physics.
Abdul Qadeer Khan was one of Pakistan’s top scientists,
[3] and was involved in the country’s various scientific programs until his dismissal.
[3] In January 2004, Khan was officially summoned for a debriefing on his
suspicious activities in other countries after the United States provided evidence to the
Pakistan Government, and confessed it a month later.
[3] Some have alleged that these activities were sanctioned by the authorities, though the Pakistan government sharply dismissed the claims.
[4][5] After years of nominal house arrest, the
Islamabad High Court (IHC) on 6 February 2009 declared Abdul Qadeer Khan to be a
free citizen of Pakistan, allowing him free movement inside the country. The verdict was rendered by
Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam.
[6] In September 2009, expressing concerns over the
Islamabad High Court‘s decision to end all security restrictions on Khan, the United States warned that Khan still remains a “serious proliferation risk”.
[7]
Early life
Research in Europe
In 1972, the year he received his
doctorate, Abdul Qadeer Khan through a former
university classmate, and a recommendation from his old professor and mentor, Martin J. Brabers, joined the senior staff of the Physics Dynamics Research Laboratory in
Amsterdam.
[11] There, he began his studies on the
high-strength metals to be used for the development of
gas centrifuges.
[12] The gas centrifuges were first studied by
Jesse Beams during the
Manhattan Project in 1940s but research was discontinued in 1944. The Physics Laboratory was a subcontractor for
URENCO Group, the uranium enrichment research facility at
Almelo, Netherlands, which was established in 1970 by the
Netherlands to assure a supply of
enriched uranium for
nuclear power plants in the Netherlands.
[11] Soon when the
URENCO Group offered him to join the senior scientific staff there, Qadeer Khan left the Physics Laboratories.
[11] There, he was tasked to perform physics experiments on
uranium metallurgy,
[11] to produce commercial-grade uranium metals usable for
light water reactors.
[11]
In the meantime, the URENCO Group handed him the drawings of centrifuges for the mathematical solution of the physics problems in the gas centrifuges.
[11] Uranium enrichment is a difficult
physical process, as
235U exists in natural uranium at a concentration of only 0.7%; URENCO used
Zippe-type centrifuges for that purpose to separate the
isotopes 235U from non-fissile
238U by spinning
UF6 gas at up to 100,000
RPM.
[11] Abdul Qadeer Khan’s academic and leading-edge research in metallurgy brought laurels to the URENCO Group.
[11]
URENCO enjoyed a good academic relationship with him, and had him as one of its most senior scientists at the facility where he researched and studied.
[11] At URENCO, Abdul Qadeer Khan pioneering research to improve the efficiency of the centrifuges greatly contributed to the technological advancement of the Zippe centrifuges, a method that was developed by
mechanical engineer Gernot Zippe in the Soviet Union
during the 1940s.
[11] URENCO granted Qadeer Khan access to the most restricted areas of its facility as well as to highly classified documentation on gas centrifuge technology.
[11]
1971 war and return to Pakistan
The clandestine and highly secretive
atomic bomb project of Pakistan was given a start on 20 January 1972, when
President (later Prime minister)
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto chaired a secret meeting of academic scientists at
Multan.
[13] The
winter planning seminar known as
Multan meeting, the atomic bomb project was launched under the administrative control of Bhutto, and the
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (or PAEC) under its chairman,
Munir Ahmad Khan.
[13] Earlier efforts were directed towards the
implosion-type bomb with exploration of the
Plutonium route.
[13] Prior to 1974, Khan had no knowledge of existence of country’s integrated atomic development, a controversy that highly doubts Abdul Qadeer Khan’s “father-of” claim.
Following the news about Pakistan, Khan wanted to contribute to the post-war military posture and approached the Pakistan
government officials, offering to assist in Pakistan’s secret atomic bomb project through his knowledge acquired at URENCO.
[15] He insisted in joining the atomic bomb project
[16] but was disuated by the military scientists who considered as “hard to find” a job in PAEC as a “metallurgist”.
[15]
Undaunted, he wrote to Prime minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, highlighting his specific experience and encouraged Prime Minister Bhutto to work on an atomic bomb using uranium.
[15] According to Kuldip Nayyar, although the letter was received by Prime minister Secretariat, Qadeer Khan was still unknown to the Government, leading Bhutto to ask the
ISI to run a complete background check on Khan and prepare an assessment report on him.
[17] The
ISI declared him as “incompetent” in the field of
nuclear technology based on his academic discipline.
[17] Unsatisfied with
ISI’s report, Bhutto was eager to know more about him, and asked Munir Ahmad Khan to dispatch a team of PAEC’s scientists to meet him.
[18] The PAEC team including Sultan Mahmood travelled to Amsterdam and arrived at his family home at night. Discussions were held until the next day.
[18] After the team’s return to Pakistan, Bhutto decided to meet with Khan, and directed a confidential letter to him. Soon after, Abdul Qadeer Khan took a leave from URENCO Group, and departed for Pakistan in 1974.
[18]
Initiation and atomic bomb project
Main article:
Project-706
In December 1974, Abdul Qadeer Khan went to Pakistan and took a taxi straight to the Prime minister Secretariat.
[19] The session with Bhutto was held at midnight and remained under extreme secrecy.
[19] There, Qadeer Khan met with Zulfikar Bhutto,
Munir Khan, and Dr.
Mübaschir Hassan, government
Science Adviser.
[19] At this session, he enlightened the importance of uranium as opposed to plutonium, but Bhutto remain unconvinced to adopt uranium instead of plutonium for the development of an atomic bomb.
[19] Although Bhutto ended the session quickly he remarked to his friends that: “He seems to make sense.”
[19]
Early morning the next day another session was held where he focussed the discussion on
uranium against plutonium, with other PAEC officials presented.
[16] Even though he explained to Bhutto why he thought the idea of “plutonium” would not work, Qadeer Khan was fascinated by the possibility of atomic bomb.
[16] Many of the theorists at that time, including
Munir Khan maintained that “plutonium and the
nuclear fuel cycle has its significance”,
[14] and Munir Khan insisted that with the “French extraction plant in the offing, Pakistan should stick with its original plan.”
[14] Bhutto did not disagree, but saw the advantage of mounting a parallel effort toward acquiring
HEU fuel.
[14][20] At the last session with Zulfikar Bhutto, Khan also advocated for the development of a
fused design to compress the single fission element in the
metalized gun-type atomic device, which many of his fellow theorists said would be unlikely to work.
[16][21]
Finally in 1976, he joined the atomic bomb project, and became a member of the enrichment division at PAEC.
[19] Calculations performed by him were valuable contributions to centrifuges and vital link to nuclear weapon research.
[13] He continued to push his ideas for uranium methods even though they had a low priority, with most efforts still aimed to produce military-grade plutonium.
[19] Because of his interest in uranium, and his frustration at having been passed over for director of the uranium division (the job was instead given to
Bashiruddin Mahmood), Qadeer Khan refused to engage in further research and caused tensions with other researchers.
[19] He became highly unsatisfied and bored with the research led by Mahmood; finally, he submitted a critical report to Bhutto, in which he explained that the “enrichment program” was nowhere near success.
[19]
Kahuta Research Laboratories
Bhutto sensed great danger as the scientists were split between uranium and plutonium routes.
[19] Therefore, he called Khan for a meeting, which was held at the prime minister secretariat. With the backing of Bhutto, Qadeer Khan took over the enrichment program and renamed the project to
Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL).
[19] Abdul Qadeer Khan insisted to work with the
Corps of Engineers to lead the construction of the suitable operational enrichment site, which was granted. The
E-in-C directed
Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar of Corps of Engineers to work with Qadeer Khan in
Project-706.
[19] The Corps of Engineers and Brigadier Akbar quickly acquired the lands of the village of Kahuta for the project.
[22]
The military realized the dangers of atomic experiments being performed in populated areas and thus remote Kahuta was considered an ideal location for reearch.
[22] Bhutto would subsequently promote Brigadier
Zahid Akbar to
Major-General and handed over the directorship of the
Project-706, with Qadeer Khan being its senior scientist.
[23]
At first, the ERL suffered many setbacks, and relied heavily on the knowledge from URENCO brought by Qadeer Khan.
[24] Meanwhile in April 1976, theorist
Ghulam Dastigar Alam accomplished a great feat by successfully
rotating the first generation centrifuges to ~30,000 RPM.
[24] When the news reached Qadeer Khan, he immediately requested to Bhutto for G.D. Alam’s assistance which was granted by the PAEC, dispatching a team of scientists including G.D. Alam to ERL.
[24] At ERL, Qadeer Khan joined the team of theoretical physicists headed by theorist dr.
GD Allam, working on the physics problems involving the
differential equations in the
centripetal forces and
angular momentum calculations in the ultra-centrifuges.
[24] On 4 June 1978, the enrichment program became fully functional after Dr. G.D. Alam succeeded in separated the
235U and
238U isotopes in an important experiment in which Dr. A.Q Khan also took part.
[24][25] Contrary to his expectation, the military approved to the appointment of Major-General Zahid Ali as the scientific director of entire uranium division
Legacy
During his time in the atomic bomb project, he pioneered research in the
thermal quantum field and the
condensed physics, while co-authored articles on chemical reactions of the highly unstable isotopic particles in the controlled physical system.
[55] He maintains his stance to use of controversial technological solutions to both military and civilian problems, including the use of military technologies for the civilian welfare. Khan also remained a vigorous advocate for a nuclear testing program and defence strength through nuclear weapons. He has justified the Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence program as sparing his country the fate of Iraq or Libya.
[56] In his recent interview, Abdul Qadeer Khan maintained that he has no regrets for what he did and maintained that:
[P]akistan’s motivation for nuclear weapons arose from a need to prevent “nuclear blackmail” by India. Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn’t have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently…. If (Pakistan) had an [atomic] capability before 1971, we [Pakistanis] would not have lost half of our country after a disgraceful defeat.
—Abdul Qadeer Khan,
statement on 16 May 2011, published the Newsweek,
[57]
Abdul Qadeer Khan faced heated and intense criticism from his fellow theorists whom he had worked with in the atomic bomb project, most notably theorist Dr.
Pervez Hoodbhoy.
[58] In addition, Qadeer Khan’s false claims that he was the “father” of the atomic bomb project since its inception and his personal attacks on
Munir Khan caused even greater animosity by his fellow theorists, and most particularly, within the general
physics community towards Qadeer Khan.
[2][58] Due to public promotion by the Pakistan media, he remains one of the best known but also most controversial scientists in the country.
[3] He has been depicted in the media as Pakistan’s own
Dr. Strangelove (commonly referred to
Edward Teller) in
Stanley Kubrick‘s 1964 satirical film of the same name.
[59]
He is the recipient of the following honors:
Publications
Selected research papers and patents
Nuclear and Material physics
-
-
The spread of Nuclear weapons among nations: Militarization or Development, pp. 417–430. (Ref. Nuclear War Nuclear Proliferation and their consequences “Proceedings of the 5th International Colloquium organized by the Group De Bellerive Geneva 27–29 June 1985, Edited by: Sadruddin Aga Khan, Published by Clarendon Press-Oxford 1986).
-
Flow induced vibrations in
Gas-tube assembly of
centrifuges. Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 23(9), (September 1986), pp. 819–827.
-
Dimensional
anisotropy in 18% of maraging steel,
[61] Seven National Symposium on Frontiers in Physics, written with Anwar-ul-Haq, Mohammad Farooq, S. Qaisar, published at the
Pakistan Physics Society (1998).
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Books