The Bush administration has hardly taken serious measures to shut down the AQ Khan nuclear smuggling network, the NY Times reports in a long front page spread today:

In the 11 months since Dr. Khan's partial confession, Pakistan has denied American investigators access to him. They have passed questions through the Pakistanis, but report that there is virtually no new information on critical questions like who else obtained the bomb design. Nor have American investigators been given access to Dr. Khan's chief operating officer, Buhari Sayed Abu Tahir, who is in a Malaysian jail.

This disjunction has helped to keep many questions about the network unanswered, including whether the Pakistani military was involved in the black market and what other countries, or nonstate groups, beyond Libya, Iran and North Korea, received what one Bush administration official called Dr. Khan's "nuclear starter kit" - everything from centrifuge designs to raw uranium fuel to the blueprints for the bomb.

Privately, investigators say that with so many mysteries unsolved, they have little confidence that the illicit atomic marketplace has actually been shut down. "It may be more like Al Qaeda," said one I.A.E.A. official, "where you cut off the leadership but new elements emerge."

In many experts' opinion, Pakistan and its nuclear program and ties to Islamist extremists pose a greater threat to US national security than Iran and its nuclear program. But you hear the Bush administration say almost nothing about this ally of convenience. That behind the scenes the Bush administration hasn't insisted that the Pakistanis allow it to debrief Khan is just incomprehensible.

Posted by Laura at December 26, 2004 07:19 PM