Word: khans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Emerging from his Islamabad mansion on Feb. 6, A. Q. Khan looked victorious; after five years of de facto house arrest, the Pakistani government declared that the nuclear scientist was being set free. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Khan's life's work - which included a clandestine network that sold nuclear secrets to nations such as North Korea, Iran and Libya - is still holding the rest of the world hostage. And while Khan is viewed by many in Pakistan as a national hero for developing the country's nuclear weapons program, his rogue dealings have simultaneously helped advance...
...experts all agree that Khan's release is a terrible signal. "There are others in the Pakistani establishment who have access to sensitive materials, and we would have liked them to know that there would be consequences to any misuse," says Levi. "But Khan's release undermines any deterrent effect." (See pictures of A. Q. Khan's nuclear bazaar...
Levi hopes that the Pakistani government will now persuade Khan to cooperate in investigations into his network. "The impact of what he did is still alive, we don't fully understand it," says Levi. The British government has already asked Pakistan to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency access to Khan. Previous such requests went nowhere. Pakistan's foreign ministry has said it now considers the Khan affair a closed chapter...
...unclear how the U.S. government will react to Khan's release. Cirincione, who runs the Ploughshares Fund, a grantmaking foundation focused on issues of security and peace, points out that Khan's release comes just days after the U.S. imposed sanctions against Khan, 12 of his associates and three firms tied to his network. "Was this a reaction to our move? If so, it is a direct challenge to our efforts to stop the network," he says...
Albright points out that Washington "has used up whatever leverage it had with Pakistan in this matter." He says U.S. efforts to prevent further leaks of nuclear technology from Islamabad have concentrated on intelligence gathering, rather than ensuring that previous offenders, like Khan, were adequately punished...