Late 1993: Pakistan Military Tells Own Prime Minister No Sales of Nuclear Weapons Technology Are Being Made

Newly re-elected Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto asks Pakistan army chief General Wahid Kakar about rumors she has heard of sales of nuclear equipment linked to Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. Kakar denies that such sales are being made, but they do agree on one measure: giving the military control of access to Khan’s main research plant in Kahuta (see Late 1993). Bhutto will later say that at the start of her second term she made a decision not to become involved with Khan and his work, as she blamed it and her participation in it for her being thrown out of office at the end of her first term. She will also say that Khan was much changed by this time: “He was not the man I had met in my first term. The humility was gone. He was stubborn. Different. Rude. He was, having been awarded that strange title, ‘Father of the Bomb,’ now quite insufferable.” She also adds that Khan had become more religious and conservative, “quite the maulvi [religious scholar].” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 198, 498]