Overview
- James Lawler tells ANI that certain Pakistani generals and leaders were on A.Q. Khan’s payroll, while stressing this did not constitute official state policy.
- He recounts CIA director George Tenet confronting Pervez Musharraf with what he calls incontrovertible evidence, after which Khan was put under years-long house arrest.
- Lawler describes building covert front companies and supplying intentionally compromised equipment to ensure illicit centrifuge systems repeatedly failed.
- He says Khan’s network moved centrifuge designs, missile technology, and even a Chinese atomic bomb blueprint, with URENCO-derived models feeding Iran’s program.
- Lawler adds that U.S. focus lagged in earlier decades due to competing priorities and warns that an Iranian bomb could spur a regional “nuclear pandemic.”