Logo

Washington, Jun 27, 2007 - Last year, the Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee I chaired held a hearing on the A.Q. Khan network. We held it shortly after a top Pakistani official declared the Khan case closed. It wasn't closed then, and it's not closed today. I hope that today we develop ideas for seeing that the A.Q. Khan case is not still open next year.

The case isn’t closed because there is more to learn. The Khan network has done incalculable damage to international security. Yet there remain unanswered questions about the enrichment technology it provided Iran. Given Iran’s threatening course, and destructive potential, we must have all the information possible about its technology. Pakistan owes the world greater cooperation.

It’s not clear that the Khan network has been rolled up. While Khan was its head, other network figures outside of Pakistan acted with autonomy. Pakistan nevertheless bears especially close watching, as it will continue with attempts to acquire sensitive technology for its own nuclear program. This program is very troubling given radical sympathies within the Pakistani population.

This IISS report we'll hear about documents North Korea's extensive procurement activities, which centered on the Khan network, but include China. This report suggests that this regime can draw upon a large and experienced transnational criminal network for nuclear procurement. Indeed, the Treasury Department's investigation of Banco Delta Asia "revealed additional illicit financial conduct ... including activity related to entities facilitating weapons of mass destruction proliferation." The Administration ought to be targeting this network while it seeks to negotiate North Korea’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons program. That our negotiating team bent over backwards to return $25 million that North Korea had obtained through this network is not a good sign that it will be attacked.

We’ll hear today recommendations for combating the proliferation of sensitive nuclear technology. Governments must tighten export controls, for sure. We need improved international cooperation. But we’d better realize that the forces of proliferation are very powerful: the challenge of managing duel use technology, improved communications, and ever more cross border activity. Taking advantage of these changes, Khan even outsourced the manufacture of enrichment components. History has shown that every technology proliferates. I mention this to stress the importance of making intense nonproliferation efforts, but also to plan for failure.

Of course, A.Q. Khan got his start by stealing technology, from the Urenco consortium in the Netherlands. The IISS report notes that “many Pakistani scientists and engineers gained crucial knowledge about the enrichment process through education, training and internships in European firms (sometimes under the aegis of UNESCO programmes)."

Moving forward, it’s important that international nuclear energy programs are well safeguarded. That’s why I offered an amendment to the nuclear fuel bank bill our Committee recently passed to help ensure that this concept is part of the proliferation solution, not the problem. Remember: the IAEA, while useful, is charged with promoting nuclear energy use, and the line between the peaceful and military use is a fine one, which many countries are working to erase. We need to be extra cautious in fire walling enrichment technology so new cases like Khan’s don’t arise.