Small Spies Must be Hanged , While Bigger Ones Prosper By casting unsubstantiated aspertions on such a dedicated man as Munir Ahmad Khan, who headed Pakistan's nuclear program as PAEC chairman for 19 long years, from 1972-91, Brig. Tirmizi has only blackened the face of the ISI.

What he has failed to explain is how did Munir Khan continue as PAEC chairman under diametrically opposed regimes and governments, from ZA Bhutto to General Zia, from Junejo to Benazir, Nawaz Sharif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and also continue to have their confidence and support for several projects in PAEC that he had launched and managed; and work with several Army and Intelligence Chiefs, if Tirmizi's accusations should be assumed to have been true.

Munir Khan's scientific colleagues who worked with him in PAEC for 19 years, from Dr. Isfhaq Ahmad, Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, Pervez Butt and many others have testified on numerous occasions to his impeccable integrity, honesty, patriotism and devotion to duty.

In fact, it is well known that Munir Khan's penchant for secrecy was legendary. This was so successful that throughout the 1970s and 80s, the world and the CIA kept guessing on exactly what PAEC was doing and what was its exact role.

His policy of secrecy was so successful that when PAEC under him carried out the first cold test of an atomic bomb on March 11, 1983, it remained a closely guarded secret known only to the Vice Chief of Army Staff, President Zia and Ghulam Ishfaq Khan. The cloak of secrecy on PAEC was only lifted when it came out in the open and successfully carried out six nuclear tests in May 1998.

Tirmizi is a contiuation of a massive effort launched by PAEC's detractors who have been involved in illegally selling Pakistan's centrifuge technology, and who have made several attempts to discredit Munir Khan and PAEC.

But Munir's work speaks for itself. Under his leadership, Pakistan's nucelar program developed into a dynamic centre of nuclear science and technology. From 1972 onwards, he launched several projects in PAEC ranging from uranium exploration, mining, refining, nuclear fuel fabrication, uranium conversion and enrichment feed production, uranium enrichment, and reprocessing facilities.

In addition under Munir's leadership Pakistan's indigenous nuclear reactor in Khushab, the nuclear test sites at Chaghi, the infrastructure for the design, development and testing of nuclear weapons beginning in 1974, and the entire nuclear fuel cycle program was built and developed in PAEC.

No amount of mudslinging can erase the contribution made by Munir Khan and his team of hundreds of dedicated scientists and engineers who enabled Pakistan to come on the nuclear map of the world.

Back To Idol Worship But why on earth would you want Dr. A.Q. Khan, the metallurgist-turned-nuclear wizard to be an idol for Pakistanis, notwithstanding the fact that he remains a popular "national" hero for the gullible and nuclear-ignorant masses in Pakistan?

Preventing More Lal Masjids

Preventing More Lal Masjids

The Time of the Bomb

South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal tahmed32,

I salute you and fully endorse you for whatever you have said in your post at number 104. The whole truth however, will come out one day. It is for those who know, and i suppose that you do know atleast some of the truth as much as I do, to bring it out for the consumption of the Qadeer stricken masses of Pakistan.

South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal HP,

If Munir was not allowed into KRL, AQ was never allowed into PAEC as well. I want specific answers to my questions, these are technical issues which should not be mixed with politics or emotionalism.

South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal Urs Truly,

If it is not ``blasphemous`` to dare to raise afew questions, can you please enlighted us on the details of how did AQ.Khan get the credit for supposedly making Pakistan a nuclear power? How many metallurgists in the world have done it before? What role did he play in :

1. The development and mastering of the full nuclear fuel cycle?

2. How critical is a nuclear fuel cycle to any nuclear program, civil or military and for the making of a bomb?

3. What role did AQKhan play in nuclear weapons design, development and testing?

4. Why did he not conduct the 1998 nuclear tests?

5. Why was he not involved in the development of Pakistan`s plutonium program?

6. Why was he not PAEC chairman if he was head of the program?

7. Where and how did he get the thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians who enabled Pakistan to become a nuclear power?

8. KRL was not his baby. It was a PAEC project code named Project 706 started in 1974 long before AQKhan came on board.

Regards.

South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal Urs Truly,

So how and why does any one who criticizes A.Q.Khan automatically become a traitor?

My Hero! Your Hero! Our Hero! Whose Hero? Salam,

Indeed, Dr. Abdus Salam was the greatest scientific hero of not only Pakistan but the entire Muslim world. But ofcourse in Pakistan, to qualify as a hero, one has to be a PR and propaganda expert, not a genuine and down to earth scientist or engineer whose work will speak for itself. Another hero that a whole generation of Pakistanis has failed to recognize or appreciate is Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, a long time contemporary and friend of Dr. Salam and Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission for 19 long years, from 1972-1991, who indeed is the architect of nuclear Pakistan. But again, he like Salam, was not into the business of PR campaigns, but worked silently along with his team at the PAEC to give Pakistan a deterrent capability. Time however is a great equalizer, and the imposter and hijacker of the nuclear program and a principal architect of character assasination of Munir, Salam and the PAEC stands exposed. It is high time that the people of Pakistan should recognize and honor its real heroes, who unfortunately do have the respect and and recognition of the scientific community, but not the media or the press in Pakistan. Pakistan`s nuclear history has been completely falsified and fabricated to support a myth that does not have a leg to stand on. Eventually the truth will come out one day and the people of Pakistan will again be caught by disbelief simply because a whole generation has been brainwashed into believing lies and half truths.

Regards.

The Trial of a Nation Mr. HP,

Who told you that AQKhan was incharge of nuke testing? If he was then why did the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission conduct the 1998 tests? or even those were conducted by AQKhan? You need to educate yourself about what goes into the making of a nuclear device and what roles the PAEC and AQKhan played in the programs on the technical level. It is you who is relying on newspaper reports, not me.


What nonsense are you talking about security clearance for KRL regarding Munir? He was PAEC Chairman, or is PAEC Chairman an alien for you? or did he come from Mars or Pluto? or was he working for the Indian RAW or Mossad? Just tell me this, why was Munir allowed to remain PAEC Chairman for 19 long years if he did not have security clearance? I am sure you have been reading stuff about Munir that is fed by AQKhan`s paid propaganda writers. Do some objective research before making conclusions. If the PAEC was only restricted to the power program, then where did the Khushab plutonium reactor come from? where did the Centre for Nuclear Studies come from? where did AQKhan get the uranium hexafloride gas, the crucial raw material for enrichment if PAEC was not producing the same? Who built the Chaghi tunnels? why was Samar Mubarakmand, former Member (Technical) PAEC incharge of nuclear testing in 1998 if AQKhan was involved in nuclear tests? AQKhan was never involved with nuclear weapon design, development or manufacture, or any of the steps involved in the nuclear fuel cycle leading to enrichment and subsequently fuel fabrication and plutonium reprocessing.

So if Munir did not have security clearance, then how come those working under him like Samar and Ishfaq had security clearance to conduct the 1998 tests?

How come Samar Mubarikmand is today Chairman NESCOM and why is he heading the nuclear weapons production and missile production programs when he is Munir Ahmad Khan`s trained scientist who worked for 19 yrs under Munir in various projects like NDC and others?

Remember, KRL was there before AQKhan came to Pakistan. It was called Project-706 under Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood. It was only separated in order to ensure that all work in not concentrated in one place.


Please get your facts straight before passing judgements on the PAEC and Munir Khan. So much for security clearance at KRL that AQKhan sold state secrets and equipment for money. Is this the criteria for making people heroes in Pakistan?

If AQKhan was the father of the bomb, he would have been incharge of nuclear testing also, which he was not, because he never had any thing to do with nuclear weapons. Nuclear Physics and Metallurgy do not mix. We are not talking about high school subjects that a metallurgist can learn everthing under the sun because he is AQKhan. Even President Musharraf in an interview with a Japanese newspaper said that AQKhan had nothing to do with nuclear weapons.

That is why the only proliferation charges relate to the one step under AQKhan and not PAEC. If PAEC was involved in power generation only, then we would have had many more power plants than we have today. The fact that PAEC was heading the nuclear weapons program is proof that all its resources were focused on nuclear weapons development.

So what are your sources of information? newspaper reports and books written by AQKhan`s paid writers? or the scientists themselves?

The Trial of a Nation Salam,

A.Q.Khan did not return to Pakistan in 1975. He arrived in 1976, two years after the Kahuta Project had been started. He never took over the nuclear program. He only headed one step in a series of equally important 24 steps that lead to a bomb. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission remained the overall incharge of the bomb program, including uranium enrichment, under PAEC Chairman Munir Ahmad Khan. They built the bomb and tested the weapons in 1983 and 1998. Western media reports are prone to inaccurate reporting on Pakistan`s nuclear program, without understanding the facts. For eg. A.Q.Khan is accused of helping North Korea with the plutonium program and the bomb design, when in fact AQKhan had not training or knowledge of plutonium or the nuclear weapons design or development. His designs were never adopted by Pakistan because they had failed cold tests. Nuclear weapons design, development, manufacture and testing as well the nuclear fuel cycle and plutonium development as well as many aspects of enrichment, being part of the nuclear fuel cycle, were solely done by PAEC.

Regards.

The Trial of a Nation Urs Truly,

I agree that AQKhan must never be handed over to any outsider, either from the IAEA or anywhere else, and only Pakistani law should be applied to him. Having said that, you must understand that what ever he is going through has a history to it and is the fruit of his own deeds that he committed in the past. You cannot deny that he is completely innocent as far as the proliferation charges are concerned. Yes, he is certainly not alone, with many powerful accomplices who managed to get away with it, while he could not. But ofcourse, again, how could he get away with it when he himself had put in 30 years in building his self-styled image and myth as the nuclear god-father of Pakistan, when he did not deserve any of it in reality. The West picked him up simply because of his high profile defection from Urenco, and then he became a liability for Pakistan, since he could not have been disowned at any point in time. Thereafter successive governments used his high profile image in the Western media to act as a cover and a decoy for the scientists at the PAEC where the real work was being done. But during all this, he managed to get out of control and knew no bounds to his megalomania. How many scientists around the world engaged in the nuclear program have had such insatiable appetite for self-glorification, all at the cost of national interest as he has had?

One most important point, the west is not crazy for targeting him, he was the only scientist along with his accomplices at KRL who was involved in proliferation. Why does the west not target the PAEC people? Because PAEC folks never indulged in such activities. They too had secret funds and immense powers at their disposal. Yet they behaved with maturity, responsibility and put the supreme national interest above personal gains and self-glory.

It is precisely because AQKhan had built himself up as the nuclear father that he became the target of the west and it is for this reason alone that he knew he could not be caught and he got away with whatever he did. Yes Pakistan is not a signatory of the NPT, but we are a responsible nation, and we must behave with utmost nuclear responsibility, otherwise we run the risk of inviting self-destruction like Saddam`s Iraq. there is no morality in International Relations, there is only power politics and small nations have to play it very safe. But was AQKhan not a signotory to the Official Secrets Act?

why did the PAEC scientists not indulge in such activities?Did AQKhan not violate the trust that was bestowed upon him, although at great cost to the national interest retrospectively, by the nation? He could not have dreamed of the life of such opulance and power that he enjoyed in Pakistan while he was at Urenco. Yet he sold material under his administrative control to Libya, Iran and North Korea, the three countries that the West calls the axis of evil, along with his accomplices for personal greed. It is a shame how white collar criminals are defended without realizing that his actions have put Pakistan`s nuclear program`s credibility at stake and put a ready made case in the hands of the enemies of Pakistan to be used any time against us in the future. Remember, Iraq was attacked and occupied on the mere suspicion of developing weapons of mass destruction. AQKhan has shown that Pakistan has been helping other states with producing nuclear weapons, and is the centre of illegal nuclear smuggling. The tragedy is that he has cast serious doubts about the credibility of the entire Pakistani nuclear scientific community, when 99 percent of them are patriotic, honest and responsible people, committed to national interest and world peace. Nuclear Weapons are to be treated with immense maturity and responsibilty.

Had AQKhan been in any other country, he would have been tried for high treason along with his accomplices in a court of law. Is he above the law or is his image more dear to us or is Pakistan`s nuclear program and interest more dear to us? Both cannot go together. If such people are allowed to get away with their crimes, then we will have the world at our doorstep demanding sanctions, nuclear roll back, opening of our nuclear sites to the IAEA supervision and control and inspection and God forbid, military action as an extreme step.

AQKhan has brought harm, dishonor and disgrace to Pakistan. His role in the nuclear program is marginal. His actions have put the credibility of Pakistan in the eyes of the world in serious jeapoardy. He has through his actions given the enemies of Pakistan a very clear issue to use against our nuclear program and harm our national security. So make a choice, are we prepared to stand up to the world for a man who sold his nation for money, or are we more interested in safeguarding Pakistan? Individuals come and go, nations and institutions remain. National security demands that we start thinking rationally and maturely, rather than fall for emotional hogwash and ruin whatever we have painstaikingly built in the past 50 years.

We must show that we are a responsible nuclear power where the rule of law prevails, not a rogue state which is a source of nuclear blackmarketing. Is Pakistan more dear to us or is Iran , North Korea and Libya more dear? Imagine what would have happened if Musharraf had not acted wisely. We would have had sanctions, then military action. Tell me, how long can we stand up to a US attack with India joining in? How long can we stand up against sanctions alone? Therefore the wise thing to do is to accept what wrong has happened and rectify our mistakes.

If the west was making up stories,and if they wanted to target our nuclear program without any solide justification, they should have targeted the PAEC as well because that is where most of the work is done. KRL was there before AQKhan, and will remain after him also. Pakistan`s nuclear program was hijacked by AQKhan for his personal fame and glory, and now his actions have proven that giving him autonomy was a big mistake. Yes, he is not alone in all this, and all others, regardless of status, must be brought to justice.

Long Live Pakistan.

The Trial of a Nation Urs Truly,

Whether AQKhan stole the technology or replicated it back in Pakistan through his own genuis that he obtained in sixteen days at Urenco, or whether he is being eulogized by people as the self-styled father of the bomb, he is not the father of the bomb, let alone the nuclear program. To call him that is outrageously stupid and non-sensical, notwithstanding the volume of propaganda he managed to heap on the nuclear-ignorant people of Pakistan through his paid propaganda writers.

Now, Pakistan`s nuclear program began in 1956 with the establishment of the PAEC. In the 1960s, two important milestones were achieved which provided the technical basis of a basic civilian nuclear program infrastructure, namely, the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) with its two atomic research reactors, (PARR-1 & 2) and KANUPP. This was done in the tenure of Dr. I.H.Usmani as PAEC Chairman from 1960-71.

The nuclear weapons program was initiated on January 20th, 1972 at the Multan Conference where a nuclear engineer, having specialized in nuclear engineering from the Argonne National Laboratories in the U.S, Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan was appointed head of the nuclear program and PAEC Chairman. Munir had served with distinction as Head of Nuclear Reactor Engineering Division at the IAEA from 1958-1971, being the only Pakistani, and the first Asian to serve on the staff at the IAEA. Munir was involved in the establishment of nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes in all countries at that time under the US. Atoms for Peace Program, and had vast technological, managerial and scientific experience by virtue of his position at the IAEA and had cultivated vast international contacts there. When he was appointed PAEC Chairman, he was the best choice for Pakistan, whereas A.Q.Khan had only completed his PhD in Physcial metallurgy in 1972. He did not have any scientific, research, managerial or technical experience because he was a middle level technician-cum-metallurgist employed by FDO. His sixteen day stint with the centrifuge documents does not qualify him to be the father of the nuclear program, because the program had begun long before his arrival in Pakistan.

A.Q.Khan was not involved in the initiation or establishment of the PAEC or any of its projects.

He was not involved in Giving Pakistan complete mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle, which is the basis of any sustainable nuclear program, which Iran is still struggling with, and AQKhan`s help has not been able to enable Iran complete the fuel cycle. The nuclear fuel cycle is the PAEC`s singular accomplishment under Munir Ahmad Khan.

AQKhan did not start the Kahuta uranium enrichment project. It was started in 1974 by Munir Ahmad Khan with Bashiruddin Mahmood as project incharge of code name project-706 of the PAEC. The PAEC had begun extensive Research and Development with Italian Centrifuge Designs as early as 1975 when the first pilot scale centrifuge plant was successfully run at Sihala. The drawings that A.Q.Khan brought from Urenco were of First generation centrifuge machines, which were so low in efficiency that they could not have produced the required levels of enriched uranium. Therefore his input was only a small portion of the enrichment effort. The PAEC had on its own established a surreptitious nuclear suppliers network in Europe with the brilliant S.A.Butt as the man incharge of procurement who reported directly to Munir Ahmad Khan, who enabled PAEC to acquire and develop the balancing rotors used in centrifuges, the mass spectrometers and the high frequency inverters used to supply power to the centrifuges. Centrifuge is just one link in a long chain of enrichment technology. It is a small part of the enrichment process, let alone the nuclear program as a whole.

Munir Ahmad Khan had acquired maraging steel in 1975-6 worth Rs. 50 million which is used in the development of centrifuges and their cascades.

It was the PAEC that produced the uranium hexafloride gas or UF6 at is plant at D.G.Khan, which is the crucial raw material and Feed for enrichment, without which the centrifuges would be useless. It is this UF6 gas which is enriched to weapon grade through the gas-centrifuges at Kahuta. This plant was begun and completed long before AQKhan came on the scene.

The enriched uranium would be useless without developing a workable nuclear bomb design, its triggerring mechanism and implosion techniques in addition to cold testing and hot testing facilities. The PAEC began work on this in March 1974 and the first bomb design was ready by 1978. AQKhan did not come up with any workable design which also failed cold tests.

Munir Khan conducted the first cold tests on March 11, 1983 and completed the Chaghi test sites by 1980.

Plutonium is another route to nuclear weapons. The PAEC had completed its own reprocessing plant at PINSTECH called New Labs by 1981 which gave Pakistan the ability to produce enough plutonium for atleast one bomb a year. The PAEC conducted over 24 cold tests between 1983 and 1990, during which plutonium weapons may also have been tested.

The Khushab heavy water plutonium production reactor was inititated by Munir Khan in 1985 which is now commissioned and has given Pakistan the ability to produce enough plutonium for many bombs and tritium which is used to boost fission devices. This was despite sanctions and despite the French backstabbing the Chashma contract.

After the Canadians put sanctions on KANUPP in the wake of the Indian test of 1974, the PAEC scientists and engineers developed the spare parts and nuclear fuel for KANUPP indeginously. AQKhan had nothing to do with any of this.

Munir also established the Centre for Nuclear Studies in 1975, before AQKhan came to Pakistan, and CNS provided over 5000 nuclear scientists, engineers to the nuclear program, inclucing KRL,when the world had closed its doors to Pakistani scientists. today CNS is a university called PIEAS.

So when A.Q.Khan had no role in any of the above mentioned achivements, which were all accomplished during Munir Khan`s tenure as PAEC Chairman from 1972-1991, then how is AQKhan the father of the nuclear program? He was never even head of the program, as he never was the PAEC Chairman.


Regards.

The Trial of a Nation Salam,




PAKISTAN IN 1976 TOLD THE NETHERLANDS IT HAD ITALIAN CENTRIFUGE DESIGN

Nucleonics Week
Sept-2005


Munir Ahmad Khan, then chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), told Dutch officials in mid-1976 that Pakistan had ``no interest`` in developing gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, according to Dutch government dossiers related to its investigation of the theft of Urenco`s centrifuge design information by Pakistan.

Khan confirmed that Pakistan had done some development work on gas centrifuges, but asserted that the effort was limited to a small number of centrifuges and a cascade design obtained from Italy.

The dossiers spell out that the Netherlands` intelligence agency, the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD), learned in 1975 that Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist—unrelated to Munir Khan—might have misappropriated confidential or secret Urenco data and provided it to Pakistani government procurement agents working out of the Pakistan embassy in Belgium.

The files provide information about the A.Q. Khan investigation beyond what was declassified by the Netherlands government earlier this year. Declassified documents referred to actions by the Dutch administration beginning in 1978 (NuclearFuel, 1 Aug., 5).

Suspicions that A.Q. Khan was involved in a diversion of centrifuge know-how were first raised by Khan`s employer, Fysisch-Dynamisch Onderzoek (FDO), a laboratory which was a subcontractor of Ultracentrifuge Nederland (UCN). UCN was at that time the Dutch partner firm in the trilateral Urenco enrichment enterprise.

According to Dutch diplomatic sources close to the Urenco program at that time, Khan was hired by FDO in 1972 because UCN was gearing up to shift its centrifuge program from a Dutch model to a German model, based on a decision made by the Urenco partnership and approved by the Netherlands government. The sources said that not enough Dutch nationals could be found to staff up FDO in a hurry.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, UCN had developed a supercritical centrifuge using aluminum rotor tubes called Commercial Nuclear Obreptitious Rotor (CNOR). According to documents, UCN terminated the CNOR program in October 1974. UCN prepared to build the German steel centrifuge called G-2 instead, they said.

To set up G-2, UCN obtained classified engineering reports about the G-2 centrifuge from Centec, a Urenco centrifuge technology development agency in Germany, and from the firm Machinenfabrik Augsburg-Nuremberg AG (MAN), then a partner in the German centrifuge development and construction effort. Khan was assigned the task of translating these documents from German into Dutch.

In 1975, FDO personnel became suspicious of Khan, after a French firm, Metalimphy, was tasked by Pakistan`s embassy in Belgium to obtain specialized wrapping foil based on a technical report that appeared to belong to UCN. As a precaution, the French firm showed the report to UCN officials, who confirmed it was a confidential document that had been misappropriated from the company.

Since UCN had never provided any information from its centrifuge program to Pakistan`s embassy in Brussels, the company quickly focused its attention on Khan, a Pakistani national, in its attempt to locate the source of the leak. It was believed possible that Khan could have obtained the report in question and that he could have provided it to Pakistani government agents. As of October 1975, documents suggest, FDO had contacted Dutch intelligence about its concerns.

About a year later, in September 1976, FDO officials held a discussion with PAEC head Munir Khan. Dutch experts sought to confirm their suspicions that Pakistan had been tapping the UCN program for a secret centrifuge development program.

Munir Khan was appointed PAEC chairman by then-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972. Two years later, when India set off its first nuclear test, he presided over a meeting of Pakistani scientists and government officials in Multan to discuss how Pakistan should respond to the perceived Indian threat. In July 1976—two months before he met with Dutch experts—Munir Khan fell out with A.Q. Khan over the direction of Pakistan`s autonomous nuclear development, leaving A.Q. Khan in charge of Pakistan`s uranium enrichment effort, according to media reports in Pakistan. The PAEC under Munir Khan continued to develop plutonium production.

But Munir Khan brushed off Dutch concerns that Pakistan was trying to steal Urenco`s technology. He said Pakistan had ``no interest`` in developing gas centrifuge technology for a future uranium enrichment program.


The PAEC head, Munir Khan, did acknowledge that the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology (Pinstech) in Rawalpindi had carried out an exploratory centrifuge investigation, and had set up between 10 and 20 centrifuges in a laboratory. But according to Munir Khan, Pinstech`s centrifuge effort was based on centrifuge and cascade design information obtained from Italy—not from the Urenco program.

The record of questions about A.Q. Khan by top officials at Khan`s employer FDO beginning in 1975, registered in Dutch internal files, contrasts with statements made by ministry staffers in documents that were declassified earlier this year. The declassified files suggest a very different reaction to assertions by a U.K. lawmaker in 1978 and media accounts beginning in 1979 that Urenco security could have been compromised. The declassified files say the Dutch government considered it improbable that Khan could have seriously challenged the security of the Urenco program and that Khan had little access to secret centrifuge design information.

Beginning in 1979, staffers in the Netherlands ministries of Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs engaged in damage control to play down allegations about Khan in public and in parliament. Records show that personnel in the Dutch embassy in Islamabad at this time discussed Pakistan`s nuclear program with Pakistani officials. The Pakistanis—mirroring Munir Khan`s claims—told Dutch diplomats that Pakistan`s centrifuge program was a low priority or at a very early stage, and that there was no military component to it.

That message may have served the purpose of bureaucrats in The Hague to put out the fire of speculation in the media and parliament about Khan`s contribution to a nuclear weapons program in Pakistan. But one cable from the Netherlands` embassy in Pakistan to headquarters in The Hague suggested that embassy staffers were highly skeptical of Pakistan`s assertions that its nuclear program was peaceful.

Western officials said last month that it would have been possible for Pakistan to have obtained centrifuge design know-how from a pilot centrifuge development program in Italy at that time, which was centered on work carried out by Italian industry and government-sponsored laboratories.

Western officials said that Italy began centrifuge research and development in 1969, and by 1973 had done some separation work using a relatively simple, so-called Zippe-type centrifuge. This type was pioneered after World War II by the German engineer Gernot Zippe, and provided the engineering and physics bases for both Italian and Urenco machines.

Italy developed and tested a second generation centrifuge on a lab scale by 1975, officials said. At about the same time, Italian scientists were doing work on a different, block-mounted centrifuge and had begun to experiment with more advanced rotor tubes made of carbon fiber. By around 1978, the Italian program had designed a small uranium enrichment plant.

Then, however, Italy dropped its centrifuge program and shifted its interest toward gaseous diffusion, in parallel with Italy`s membership in the Eurodif consortium. Officials said that the IAEA has since verified that Italy is no longer pursuing any research in the field of centrifuge uranium enrichment.

Munir Ahmad Khan died in 1999.

Regards.

The Trial of a Nation Salam,

Since when and how come did the metallurgist A.Q.Khan become the personification of the Pakistani Nation that his trial becomes the trial of the nation itself?

The Multan Conference is a fact. If it was held under a shamiana, that does not change the fact that it happened. Please do some research before doubting events that actually took place. The Book titled ``The Islamic BOMB by Wiesmann and Krosney`` published in 1981 has a whole chapter on this conference. The conference can also be read about at nuclearweaponarchive.org.

About A.Q.Khan and centrifuge technology. A.Q.Khan was a middle level technician cum metallurgist at Almelo having just completed his studies in 1972. He did not have the experience, the access, the training or the knowhow of centrifuges that he could have stolen blueprints and reproduced them in Pakistan all by himself.

PAKISTAN DID NOT BEGIN CENTRIFUGE WORK AS PART OF THE ENRICHMENT PROJECT WITH A.Q.KHAN. THE PAEC began work on Kahuta as Project-706 in 1974 with Bashiruddin Mahmood as project director. The first pilot scale centrifuges were developed by PAEC based on ``ITALIAN CENTRIFUGE DESIGNS`` and were successfully run in 1975 at Sihala before the KRL plant was fully made operational and before AQKhan came to Pakistan. The designs that A.Q.Khan brought to Pakistan were first generation centrifuges which were so low in efficiency that it could not produce enriched uranium. PAEC was involved in all areas of enrichment and without PAEC support, KRL could never have gone beyond an advanced machine design shop.

The story of the Italian centrifuges has been published for the first time from declassifed dutch documents in the US Magazine Nucleonics Week, Sept, 2005.

The real father of Pakistan`s atomic bomb is Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC from 1972-1991, who was appointed PAEC Chairman by Bhutto at the Multan Conference.

A.Q.Khan was used by successive governments as a decoy and a front man, and nothing more. His technical contribution is not more than 5 % of the entire effort. there are 24 steps that lead to a bomb, each critical to the program, the PAEC Under Munir Khan dealt with 23, A.Q.Khan was only `heading` KRL and depended on PAEC for trained manpower, uranium hexalforide gas which is the crucial raw material for enrichment, balancing rotors, maraging steel and much more. The Bomb was made by the PAEC directorate of technical development, and work on it began in March 1974, which is again 2 yrs before AQK came to Pakistan.

A.Q.Khan never met Bhutto when he came here. He was hired by PAEC as a mole in Urenco , as were many other unsung heroes of PAEC in other countries who came back to serve Pakistan. A.Q.Khan never headed the program, he was a tiny part of a gigantic team effort headed by the PAEC Chairman. That is why he was never made PAEC Chairman.

The PAEC under Munir Khan accomplished the following from 1972-1991.

1. Initiated work on the atomic bomb in March 1974 with the establishment of DTD, also known as the Wah Group.

2. Started R&D in all areas of enrichment in 1974, selected site for KRL in January 1975, and started first centrifuge plants in Oct-Nov 1975 based on Italian Designs.

3. Parallel to that, began work on the Uranium Hexafloride plant at D.G.Khan to supply large quantities of Feed for Kahuta in 1975.

4. Began work on the NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE in 1974 which includes all steps from uranium exploration, mining, milling, yellow cake, conversion to hexafloride or UF6, enrichment, fuel fabrication and then plutonium production and reprocessing.

5. Completed the pilot reprocessing plant called New Labs in PINSTECH in 1981 after the French backed out.

6. Started work on the heavy water Khushab Plutonium reactor in 1985 which is now commissioned and produces weapon grade plutonium and tritium for advanced compact warheads.

7. Selected the Chaghi test sites in 1976 which were complete by 1980.

8. Established the Centre for Nuclear Studies in 1975 which has so far produced over 5000 nuclear scientists and engineers and which is now a university (PIEAS) and provided the human resource and technical manpower for the entire program.

9. Laid the groundwork for the Chashma-1 nuclear power plant in Nov. 1990.

10. Established the National Development Complex for the production of solid fueled Shaheen missiles in 1990 with Samar Mubarikmand as project director.

11. Procured Maraging steel worth Rs. 50 million in 1975 for the enrichment project and centrifuge development, and high frequency inverters from the British firm Emerson Electric and developed mass spectrometers for measuring the levels of enrichment.

12. Conducted the first successfull nuclear cold test on March 11th, 1983. The PAEC between 1983 and 1990 conducted 24 cold tests of diff designs of atomic bombs, and in each test a new design was tested and improved.

13. Established over a dozen nuclear medical and agricultural centres such as NORI and NIAB.

14. Produced nuclear fuel indigenously for KANUPP after the Canadians backed out in the wake of the Indian 1974 test.

So if PAEC under Munir was doing nothing for the program, then why did the PAEC conduct the 1998 Chaghi tests? AQKhan never had any thing to do with nuclear weapons design or development or the nuclear fuel cycle. His role in enrichment is restricted to heading KRL as a thief and a proliferator, when in fact he was dependent on PAEC for the uranium hexalforide gas, and technical manpower, almost all of which came to KRL from PAEC before he came to Pakistan as KRL was a PAEC project and all other areas of enrichment.

So how the hell is he the father of the bomb? if he bought the press and his paid propaganda writers, then that does not change facts on the ground. He has been exposed and Munir Ahmad Khan vindicated, who called for nuclear maturity and total secrecy. One day the full truth will come out, and AQKhan lovers will get the shock of their lives.

Munir Ahmad Khan and his team are the real heroes of nuclear Pakistan.

Pakistan Zindabad.

Regards.