When I visited one of the Gulf States in 2004, for example, a senior member of the royal family told me that Khan had been trying to sell them nuclear hardware for two years. The government had feigned interest, sending an agent to try to elicit information about the network’s dealings with Iran. Additional countries came forward with similar stories. In all likelihood, variations on this narrative had taken place in many locations. Is it not probable that, faced with such an opportunity, some customers did more than window-shop?
My ultimate nightmare is that the network’s ability to make nuclear material, equipment, and know-how available to anyone with cash in hand might have led to the creation of a small enrichment operation in a remote area such as northern Afghanistan.[13] Given the increasing technological sophistication of extremist groups, this should no longer be regarded as a macabre fairy tale.
The demise of A. Q. Khan may have removed the mastermind from the operation, but there is no assurance that the network is no longer capable of supplying interested clients. As Sam Nunn remarked about the network’s trade in nuclear weapon components, “When you see the kind of money involved, and the stakes involved, and the spread of this kind of technology around the world, it’s virtually inevitable.”[14] Abdul Qadeer Khan made it his life’s work to level the nuclear weapons playing field for Muslim countries, to establish security parity with Israel’s nuclear weapons program, and to make money in the process. The eradication of his nuclear bazaar may yet take some time.
There are three morals to the story. First, as illustrated by Israel’s role in the Middle East and by India’s role in South Asia, proliferation begets proliferation. Second, while export controls should be significantly stronger, they can no longer be considered a remedy: the technology is out of the tube. And third, so long as nuclear weapons exist and bring power and prestige to their owners, we will continue to see proliferation, especially in countries and regions that perceive themselves to be under threat.
8
FROM VIENNA TO OSLO
In the summer of 2004, as my second term leading the IAEA approached its conclusion, my inclination was not to seek a third term, despite the urging of most Member States. The job came with considerable stress, and my family’s preference was that I give it up. Then came U.S. interference.
I had been given to understand that should I choose to run again, the United States would respect my decision. In August, while on vacation at my summer home in Egypt, I was told to expect a call from Colin Powell confirming that position. This expression of support was not all that surprising. The past few months had seen a very positive series of meetings with American officials, including Bush himself.
But the call did not come. Shortly after I returned to Vienna, I learned from my deputy David Waller that the tone in the United States had changed. “I’ve just gotten back from Washington,” he said. “We need to talk.” Walking with David in Belvedere Park, across from my home, I heard that the U.S. view had shifted. John Bolton had launched a campaign to block my reappointment by invoking the seldom-applied limit of two terms to the tenure of UN Agency heads. Bolton had called David to say that if I agreed to step down, the United States would express effusive appreciation of my work for the past eight years.
I was furious. Bolton was my ideological opposite, a champion of “us-versus-them” foreign policy; he opposed multilateral diplomacy and consistently worked behind the scenes to discredit the IAEA, often blocking efforts to resolve nuclear proliferation issues peacefully. He strove to undermine everything I stood for. That he would presume to dictate whether I ran for a third term was intolerable. The irony was not lost on me: the United States, which had backed my first term as Director General against Egypt’s preferred choice was now calling for my ouster.[1]
That evening I talked things over with Aida, my wife. We quickly agreed that I should stand for a third term. If I won, it would be a vindication of multilateral diplomacy and a clear mandate to press for a negotiated resolution in Iran and in other trouble spots. If I lost, I would still have stood up against U.S. bullying. The next morning I wrote to the chairman of the IAEA Board declaring my candidacy for reelection.
The storm began almost immediately after I announced my decision. In September 2004 the Americans tried to amend a draft resolution on Iran to remove the standard statement of appreciation that referred to the Agency as “professional and impartial.” To an outside observer this might seem insignificant, but in diplomatic circles it was an overt slap. Peter Jenkins, the British ambassador, told me he found the move “churlish and petty.”
The United States began casting around for a candidate to run against me. Approaches were made to Brazil about putting forward UN High Representative for Disarmament Sergio de Queiroz Duarte.[2] They approached Argentina about Roberto Garcia Moritan, an undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry. They asked Japan about Shinzo Abe, their former ambassador to Vienna. They pressured both Australia and Russia to support Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister. These requests went nowhere, so the Americans formally asked the Europeans to join them in urging the IAEA Board to postpone the end-of-December deadline for candidates. The Europeans refused.
The campaign to unseat me adopted new tactics. In November 2004, at about the time of George Bush’s reelection in the United States, news broke about the missing explosives from Al-Qa’qaa in Iraq.[3] A barrage of misinformation ensued. A concocted story appeared about a clandestine nuclear weapons program in Egypt, tied to Libya’s efforts, that I was trying to cover up. Another article claimed that Blix and I had secret bank accounts in Switzerland, payback for our work in Iraq before the war. Still another asserted that Iran had deposited more than $600,000 in Aida’s bank account in Switzerland and had given me Persian carpets, each worth $50,000.
As reported by Dafna Linzer in the Washington Post, my phones were bugged in an attempt to find information to discredit me.[4] This was not the first time; we had seen earlier evidence of intercepted IAEA text messages and phone conversations. But now the issue had been reported in the news by an authoritative source.[5]
I was told that the tip about wiretapping had been leaked to the Washington Post by individuals at the CIA who were unhappy with the actions of certain people in the State Department. This did not surprise me: from mid-2004 to mid-2005, we had received copies of memos, briefings, and other information passed on confidentially from State Department staff who disliked the high-handed, insidious behavior of a few individuals.
In the end, the Americans were alone in their opposition to my candidacy. The four countries that normally follow their lead—Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom—stayed for a time on the sidelines, saying privately that they supported me but refraining from any public declaration in order not to embarrass or isolate the United States.
One week before the IAEA Board met to make its decision, I was invited to Washington by Condoleezza Rice, now the secretary of state. With some hesitation, I decided to make the trip. At my meetings, Rice and Steve Hadley, her replacement as national security adviser, limited the discussion to the immediate issue at hand: Iran’s nuclear program and the U.S. conviction that Iran must be prevented from carrying out any stage of the fuel cycle. When I mentioned the need for some face-saving steps for Iran with respect to its enrichment program, Hadley interjected: “Iran must not have even one centrifuge spinning.” From that time forward, the phrase became a U.S. mantra.
14
Steve Coll, “The Atomic Emporium: Abdul Qadeer Khan and Iran’s Race to Build the Bomb,”
1
At the time of my first election as Director General, in 1997, Egypt had put its support behind Mohamed Shaker, Egyptian ambassador to the United Kingdom and a close friend of President Hosni Mubarak’s family.
2
Duarte at the time was the Brazilian ambassador-at-large for disarmament and non-proliferation. He also served as ambassador to the IAEA.
5
Reuters reporters later said they were shown by Western diplomats what was purported to be transcripts of intercepted telephone conversations that I had held with the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. Lou Charbonneau, “Rice on WikiLeaks Spy Charges: We’re Just Diplomats,” Reuters, November 29, 2010.