(1999-2000): Pakistani Officials Begin to Question A. Q. Khan’s Usefulness, Due to US Pressure over North Korea Links

A. Q. Khan (left) and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. [Source: CBC]Due to US pressure over Pakistan’s links to North Korea’s nuclear program, some Pakistani officials begin to question whether nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan should continue to play such an active part in his country’s nuclear dealings. General Feroz Khan will later reflect: “It began to dawn on everyone that perhaps Khan had done enough. It was time for others to take over—who were a little less public and whose anonymity suited the secret program better.” Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will add, “A. Q. Khan, Islamabad’s greatest asset, was becoming a liability because of his ubiquity and ego.” The pressure results from a White House group formed in 1998 (see (Mid-1998)). One of the members of the group, Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation Robert Einhorn, will later say: “I recall a meeting at the residence of [Pakistani President] Nawaz Sharif where we raised the North Korean centrifuge connection. It was raised at the [Deputy Secretary of State] Strobe Talbott level, at the Clinton level too. Eventually the Pakistanis said, ‘We’ll look into this.’ They knew that they had to do something as we were not going to go away.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 516]