"Son Of A Bi**h": How Musharraf Had Reacted To Pak Scientist "Leaking" Nuke Secrets

A former American spy, who led the United States' covert operation that "penetrated and sabotaged" a Pakistani nuclear trafficking network, revealed Pakistan's then-president, Pervez Musharraf, was furious when confronted with evidence that physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan was selling the country's nuclear secrets abroad. According to former CIA operations chief James Lawler, confronting Musharraf proved to be a decisive moment in dismantling one of the world's most dangerous proliferation networks, with Islamabad placing Khan under years-long house arrest.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Lawler, who once headed the CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division, said that it was the CIA director George Tenet who personally briefed Musharraf with "absolutely incontrovertible evidence" that Khan was leaking sensitive Pakistani nuclear technology to countries such as Libya.

"So Director George Tenet met with President Musharraf and told him that Dr Khan was betraying Pakistan's nuclear secrets to at least the Libyans and maybe others. And Musharraf's initial comment was, I'm going to kill that son of a bitch...," the former spy said, revealing the then-Pakistani leadership's dramatic reaction on learning about the sabotage. 

Musharraf's Reaction

Musharraf ultimately placed Khan, a nuclear physicist and metallurgical engineer who was a key figure in Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, under house arrest for several years, marking a decisive step in containing the network. Khan, who is regarded as the "father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb", was involved for decades in a black market of nuclear technology and know-how.

'Merchant of Death'

Lawler revealed he nicknamed AQ Khan the "Merchant of Death" owing to his extensive networking skills over a three-decade period during which he moved from procuring technology for Pakistan to trafficking it to other states.

"We were very slow. We thought it was serious that he was supplying Pakistan with a nuclear weapons capability, but we did not imagine he was going to turn around and become an outward proliferator... In fact, it turned out to be a whole host of countries. And I nicknamed Dr Khan "the merchant of death", he noted.

AQ Khan's Reach

He further recounted how the CIA had confirmed that Khan's operation was supplying multiple foreign programmes and claimed several "Pakistani generals and leaders on his payroll" to assist him with the job. However, he emphasised that these top officials were involved with Khan in individual complicity, and the official leadership of the country was unaware. 

Expanding on the methods he adopted during the investigations, Lawler said he took inspiration from Felix Dzerzhinsky's "Trust" operation and established covert overseas entities that appeared to supply nuclear-related technology. "If I want to defeat proliferation and proliferators, I need to become a proliferator," he noted. 

These entities were used in sting operations to deliver compromised materials designed to hinder illicit nuclear activity. "We took the reverse of the Hippocratic oath. We always did harm," he said.

Operation Againt Khan

This approach aligned with how AQ Khan's network evolved. Over the decades, the network expanded significantly, shifting from procurement to full-scale trafficking. "Instead of being a consumer of this technology, they became a purveyor of the technology," Lawler observed, highlighting Khan's influence and popularity in Pakistan.

The former US spy attributed the slow early response from the United States to limited resources and competing geopolitical crises in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and conflicts in Latin America. He also rejected claims that Saudi pressure shaped US inaction, emphasising instead that counter-proliferation only became a priority in the 1990s.

A turning point came once analysts presented evidence confirming outward proliferation. The CIA then expanded contacts and infiltrated the network across multiple jurisdictions with a small team. No more than 10 officers at headquarters focused exclusively on the operation, supported by personnel overseas.

Following 9/11, concerns about Libya, then a designated state sponsor of terrorism, heightened the urgency of the mission. Lawler highlighted the CIA's interception of the BBC China freighter, which he noted was carrying "hundreds of thousands of nuclear components." 

When US negotiators confronted Libyan officials with the seized material, "You could have heard a pin drop," he said. Libya later dismantled its programme, and he recalled "dancing a little happy jig" beside the recovered containers, noting that the move likely prevented Gaddafi from using such weapons years later.

The broader proliferation picture also involved Iran. Lawler described how Iran's programme relied on designs originally stolen from URENCO, using the same P1 and P2 centrifuge models supplied through AQ Khan. Khan's network also passed ballistic missile technology and a Chinese atomic bomb blueprint. "I think they got all of it," he noted.

This led to his warning that an Iranian nuclear weapon could trigger a "nuclear pandemic", prompting regional powers to seek their own deterrents and sharply increasing the risk of nuclear conflict in the Middle East.

Lawler also addressed why the United States tolerated Pakistan's nuclear development while opposing Iran's, suggesting that policymakers may have turned "a blind eye" because of Pakistan's role in Afghanistan, while acknowledging that many decisions had long-term consequences.

His account included close monitoring of Pakistan's nuclear assets after 9/11. CIA Director George Tenet and the Counterterrorist Centre ensured that AQ Khan was not providing nuclear material to al-Qaeda, leading to Tenet confronting Musharraf with evidence of Khan's proliferation activity.