New Delhi: While the aim of Pakistan’s nuclear programme was to counter India, the larger goal was to create an “Islamic Bomb”, former CIA officer Richard Barlow has said in a startling revelation.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the mastermind behind Pakistan’s nuclear programme was a prolific proliferator and had intentions to extend and accelerate the technology to other Islamic nations, including Iran, Barlow told ANI.
The officer was part of the CIA’s counterproliferation unit during Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear activities in the 1980s. He detailed how Khan’s network provided critical gas centrifuge technology and possibly nuclear weapons plans to Iran in the early 1990s, accelerating Tehran’s programme by decades.
“Pakistan’s primary motive for developing nuclear weapons was to counter India. But it was also very clear from A Q Khan and the generals’ perspective that it was not just the Pakistani bomb; it was the Islamic bomb, the Muslim bomb,” Barlow said.
“I think A Q Khan was even quoted once as saying, ‘We’ve got the Christian bomb, we’ve got the Jewish bomb, and the Hindu bomb; we need a Muslim bomb.’ It was very clear to me that Pakistan intended to provide nuclear weapons technology to other Muslim countries, which is what happened,” he added.
It was not Khan who quoted the need for a “Muslim bomb”. It was then Pakistan prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who called for such a need and initiated Pakistan’s nuclear program with Khan at the helm.
Born in Bhopal in 1936, Khan migrated to Pakistan in 1952 with his family. Considered one of the world’s most notorious nuclear smugglers, he smuggled technology to rogue states like North Korea, Iran and Libya.
He is called the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, making his country the world’s first “Islamic nuclear power.” He died in Islamabad in 2021 at the age of 85.
Washington’s response to Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear dealings was marked by negligence, Barlow, who had investigated nuclear proliferation activities during his tenure with the CIA, said.
“Not only did they shut down from doing anything about that in 1987 and 1988, but they did nothing for the next 20 to 24 years,” he remarked.
Touching on the connection between Pakistan’s nuclear programme and Iran’s atomic ambitions, Barlow claimed that Iran’s progress in gas centrifuge development was directly linked to technology provided by AQ Khan’s network.
“There is no way that Iran could ever have developed gas centrifuges without the centrifuges that Khan and Pakistan provided them in the early 1990s, along with nuclear weapons plans,” he said.
“At the very least, it might have been impossible. This is very difficult work — making gas centrifuges and nuclear weapons is no small undertaking. It knocked, at the very least, many decades off of the Iranian nuclear programme,” he added.
The former spook noted that while Iran has since made significant independent advances, the foundations of its programme were built on Pakistani assistance.
“I think now it looks to me like the Iranian programme is quite advanced in terms of their gas centrifuges. They’ve done a lot of work on their own, but they never could have gotten started without Pakistan’s help,” Barlow added.
