Abdul Qadeer Khan

If America is making a list of villains of the modern world, A.Q. Khan has to be near the top. Khan is the Pakistani nuclear scientist who smuggled secrets from Europe to help his native country build a bomb to compete with archenemy India. Not finished reshaping the world, he then went into business for himself and, with or without his government's connivance, peddled nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and who knows who else.

CIA Director Porter J. Goss said Wednesday that the United States was making a renewed push for access to Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and acknowledged that U.S. intelligence agencies had yet to track down and eradicate certain pieces of Khan's vast proliferation network.

Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year.

In the fall of 2000, Pakistani intelligence agents followed the country's most influential nuclear scientist as he flew to the Persian Gulf port of Dubai. Abdul Qadeer Khan, acclaimed as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, was under surveillance as he met with men described by a former senior Pakistani military officer as "dubious characters." Rumors had persisted for years that Khan was selling atomic secrets, but Pakistani intelligence was on his trail for another reason.

Concerned that efforts to halt nuclear proliferation have proved inadequate, the international community is developing new strategies to fight the illicit spread of atomic weapons technology by private smuggling networks. Based on lessons from the investigation of the global black market in nuclear technology headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Bush administration is pushing for a larger role for the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency.

In spring 2000, Lt. Gen. Syed Mohammad Amjad was in his office at Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau when one of his senior investigators delivered the report he was dreading. The bureau had been created six months earlier to root out corruption among bureaucrats, politicians and the business elite. Amjad, a career army officer known for his integrity, was given authority to arrest anyone.

The father of Pakistan's atomic bomb told investigators that he gave nuclear weapons technology to other nations with the full knowledge of top army officials, including the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a friend of the scientist said Tuesday. A military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, denied that Musharraf was privy to any transfer of nuclear technology or had authorized Khan to do it.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, confessed in a televised address Wednesday to illegally passing nuclear weapons secrets to other countries and begged for forgiveness. Khan asked President Pervez Musharraf to grant him clemency for what Pakistani authorities say was the black-market sale of nuclear bomb technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea that earned Khan millions of dollars.

The United States will neither sanction Pakistan for pardoning the top scientist who passed nuclear bomb technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, nor demand an independent investigation of the Pakistani military's suspected role in aiding the transfers, U.S. officials said.

Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan presided over a nuclear smuggling operation so brazen that the government weapons laboratory he ran distributed a glossy sales brochure offering sophisticated technology and shipped some of its most sensitive equipment directly from Pakistan to countries such as Libya and North Korea. The brochure, with photos of Khan and an array of weapons on the cover, listed a complete range of equipment for separating nuclear fuel from uranium.