# The Untold Story | The Real Father of Pakistan's Nuclear Progarm.



## Chanakyaa

*The Untold Story of Pakistani Nuclear Program*
*The Real Father of Pakistani Bomb : Dr. M A Khan*​
_Before i Knew Him, i was almost sure that Pakistani Nuclear program was nothing but a Stolen Eurenco Technology witha Chinese Weapon Design. But as i researched more on works of Munir Khan & Related Comparision with AQ Khan, a new dimension originates._

#1. The Real Father of Pakistani Nuclear Bomb is NOT AQ Khan, But Dr. Munir Ahmed Khan
#2. Pakistan has Two Weapon Designs , Not Just the Uranium Design ( Stolen by AQ ) but a Plutonium Design.
#3. Plutonium Research is the Real Indegeniuis Effort by Pakistan, under PAEC whic did the most of Nuclear Program


Read on .... to know some Awesome Facts abt Munir Khan and Pakistani Nuclear program....






​
Bhutto began the nuclear quest with his characteristic sense of urgency. He had taken power in mid-December 1971, and in January he hastily called together some fifty of Pakistan's top scientists and government officials for what was to be a very secret meeting. At the time, the new government was still in a state of enormous confusion, and Bhutto's aides originally scheduled in the meeting for the town of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

It was January, with winter storms blowing down from Afghanistan to the north, and Quetta had no facilities adequately heated for the selected scientists and bureaucrats to meet in. No one complained, when, the government laid on military planes to fly the freezing scientists south and east to the town of Multan. The day was sparkling clear, and Bhutto convened the meeting under a brightly coloured canvas canopy, on the lawn of a stately old Colonial mansion. The scientists and administrators who were there were far and away the best brains in Pakistan, and some were as good as could be found anywhere in the world. The Pakistani people and their Islamic forebears had historically nurtured a rich scientific tradition, and the country, though in some ways underdeveloped could count on a surprisingly strong scientific establishment. Three names are especially worth remembering.

Abdus Salam - the Professor to his worshipping younger colleagues - had founded the Third World-oriented International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.Dr. Ishrat Usmani had gained prominence as Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and would go on to build his reputation as an international civil servant specializing in energy questions at the United Nations.

And the man Bhutto would name to replace Usmani as head of the nuclear programme and the PAEC till his retirement in 1991, Munir Ahmed Khan, had just come with high marks from the staff of the very organization that is supposed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Munir Ahmed Khan was a nuclear engineer of international standing, and he spent nearly 14 years at the IAEA in Vienna, where he was the Head of Reactor Engineering, before joining PAEC, and he had organized more than twenty technical and international conferences on heavy water reactors, advanced gas cooled reactors, plutonium utilization, and small and medium power reactors.

In the late 1970s, Director General of IAEA offered him the post of Deputy Director General in Vienna, but he refused it to accomplish his mission in Pakistan.He was the first Asian scientist to be appointed at the IAEA and later in 1986, he was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IAEA in Vienna.There was great deal of enthusiasm and joy. Bhutto started slowly. He spoke of Pakistan's defeat in the war with India, and vowed that he would vindicate the country's honour. He said that he had always wanted Pakistan to take the nuclear road, but nobody had listened to him. Now fate had placed him in a position where he could make the decision, he had the people of Pakistan behind him, and he wanted to go ahead. 

Pakistan was going to have the bomb, and the scientists sitting under the shamiana at Multan were going to make it for him.So Bhutto had all these boys together, these scientists, and there were senior people, very senior people, and junior people, and youngsters fresh with their PhDs in nuclear physics, and he said: Look, we're going to have the bomb.&#8221; He said &#8220;Can you give it to me?&#8221; So, they started saying &#8220;Oh yes, yes, yes. You can have it. You can have it.&#8221; But Bhutto wanted more. He paused them. &#8220;How long will it take?&#8221; he asked. There was a lively debate on the time needed to make the bomb, and finally one scientist dared to say that maybe it could be done in five years. Bhutto smiled, lifted his hand, and dramatically thrust forward three fingers.&#8221; Three years&#8221;, he said.&#8221; I want it in three years&#8221;.

The atmosphere suddenly became electric. It was then that one of the junior men - S.A.Butt, who under Munir Khan's guiding hand would come to play a major role in making the bomb possible - jumped to his feet and clamoured for his leader's attention. &#8220;It can be done in three years&#8221;, Butt shouted excitedly. Bhutto was very much amused and he said, &#8220;Well, much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, this is a very serious political decision, which Pakistan must make, and perhaps all Third World countries must make one day, because it is coming. So can you do it? &#8220;And they said, &#8220;Yes, we can do it, given the resources and given the facilities. &#8221;Bhutto's answer was simple.&#8221; I shall find you the resources and I shall find you the facilities&#8221;.

This then was the day the bomb was born, the meeting at Multan that set the seal on Pakistan's nuclear future. From that moment, Pakistan would begin a national crash programme to get the bomb. It was a historic move.The meeting set the stage and also helped select the actors. Most of the scientists came along. Few did not. Even Z.A.Bhutto, for all his powers of persuasion, could not convince some of the senior men, including the longtime friend and adviser, the future Nobel laureate Abdus Salam. Bhutto probably feared that any open condemnation of the project from Salam could severely split Pakistan's nuclear scientists, many of whom revered him. His opposition could also trigger alarm bells among the scientists and diplomats around the world. So some time after the meeting, a special emissary was sent to Salam, who had returned to his home in Britain, to brief him on the programme and to assure him that it was really peaceful in intent.

A second, lesser obstacle was the longtime head of the PAEC, Dr Ishrat Usmani, who had opposed the road to the bomb because at the time Pakistan did not have the necessary infrastructure needed for such a technologically giant and ambitious project. Given Usmani's reluctance, Bhutto fired Usmani, promoting him upstairs to the post of Secretary of the newly created Ministry of Science and Technology.He became a figurehead and soon left Pakistan, taking a post at the UN. In his place, as the new Chairman of the PAEC and the man who would make the nuclear dream come true, Bhutto named one of the enthusiasts of the Multan meeting, Munir Ahmed Khan. Trained at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States and a long time staff member of the IAEA, Munir Khan outlived his patron Bhutto to become the spirit and the symbol of the Third World nuclear ambitions, both on the civilian side and in the development of nuclear weapons.

If one is to go back to a founding figure, the PAEC considered the acquisition of nuclear technology capable of conversion to weapons technology as early as 1955, with the help of President Eisenhower's Atom's for Peace Programme.The foundation of any nuclear weapons programme is the production of the special nuclear materials required for weapons - plutonium or highly enriched uranium for a basic programme for producing fission weapons. Without these materials no weapons can be made. The initial direction taken by Pakistan was to pursue the use of plutonium.

*
The Plutonium route to the Bomb​*
A.Q. Khan always wanted Pakistan to work only on Uranium weapon as compared to Plutonium because (he thought and tried to convince Gen Zia) Plutonium route involved highly complex and sophisticated procedures and processes but PAEC knew better.Plutonium route and all the related activities to establish infrastructure (for eventual bomb) continued in full swing,against AQ Khan desire.A.Q. Khan sought to undermine Munir Khan by opposing the plutonium route because Munir was a plutonium expert, having spent 14 years as Head of Reactor Engineering at the IAEA before his joining PAEC in 1972, where PAEC under Munir Khan not only initiated the Kahuta Enrichment project before AQK, but continued to give crucial technical support.

Contrary to popular perception, Pakistan did not forego the plutonium route to the bomb, and pursued it along with the uranium route. Whether by intention to prepare a &#8220;nuclear option&#8221; or not, decisions made in the 1960s already provided a valuable basis for establishing a weapons programme. In 1971 the Canadian General Electric Co. completed a 137 MW (electrical) CANDU power reactor for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), which went critical in August 1971 and inaugurated by the man who would go on to become the architect of Nuclear Pakistan, the new Chairman, PAEC, Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan. It began commercial operation in October 1972. CGEC also provided a small heavy water production facility. These facilities had been contracted for in the mid-60s, thus predating Bhutto's drive for nuclear weapon capability, but perhaps influenced by him in a ministerial capacity.

The technology for KANUPP was the same natural uranium/heavy water technology used in the Indian Cirus and later Dhruva reactors used by India for producing weapons plutonium. The facilities were under IAEA safeguards, and have remained so; nonetheless it was the initial intent of the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme to use plutonium from this reactor as the key ingredient in their nuclear arsenal. But to do that Pakistan required a means of separating plutonium from spent fuel. Some advance preparation had occurred here also. In the late 1960s Pakistan had contracted with both British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Belgonucléaire to prepare studies and designs for pilot plutonium separation facilities. The BNFL design, capable of separating up 360 g of fuel a year. The plan for this plant was completed by 1971.

The centrepiece of the PAEC weapon's programme at this time was the effort to acquire a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from the fuel of KANUPP. The first step after Multan was to build a pilot reprocessing facility called the &#8220;New Labs&#8221; at PINSTECH, which was completed by 1981, and work on the KHUSHAB Plutonium production reactor started in the 1980s and it became operational in the 1990s. This facility (New Labs) was a larger and more ambitious project than the original BNFL plan. Belgonucléaire and the French corporation Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) built it in the early 70s.

The pilot plant was followed by a contract signed with SGN in March 1973 to prepare the basic design for a large-scale reprocessing plant, one with a capacity of 100 tons of fuel per year, considerably more than KANUPP would generate. SGN was the world's chief exporter of reprocessing technology and had previously built military plutonium facilities for France, the secret plutonium plant at Dimona in Israel, and contracted to provide similar plants to Taiwan, South Korea, and (later) Iraq. The Chashma plant, as it was known, would have the capability to produce 200 kg of weapons grade plutonium a year, if sufficient fuel were available to feed it. It would have provided Pakistan with the ability to &#8220;break safeguards&#8221; and quickly process accumulated fuel from KANUPP when it decided to openly declare itself a nuclear-armed state. One for the final detailed design and construction on October 18, 1974 followed the initial design contract. The original contract for this project did not include significant safeguards to discourage diversion of the separated plutonium, or controls on the technology

India's first nuclear test, known variously as &#8220;Smiling Buddha&#8221;, the PNE (for &#8220;Peaceful Nuclear Explosive&#8221, and most recently Pokhran-I, occurred on May 18 , 1974. It provided an additional stimulus to the Pakistani weapons programme. Bhutto increased the funding for the programme after the Indian test, but since arrangements to secure lavish funding had been underway for more than a year this would have occurred anyway. One consequence of the test was ironically to hamper Pakistan's programme as the test sharply escalated international attention to proliferation and led to increased restrictions on nuclear exports to all nations, not just India.

The French government began to show increased concern about the Chashma plant during 1976. A safeguards agreement for France brought the plant before the IAEA in February 1976, which was approved on March 18 and signed by Pakistan. This at least ensured that the plant would have monitoring so that diversion to military purposes could be made with impunity. Despite Bhutto's overthrow in 1977 by General Zia, the latter continued the project unabated, and continued to press the French to fulfil the Chashma contract. But France had begun gradually turning against the reprocessing plant. 

In late 1977 the French proposed to Pakistan to alter the design of the plant so that it would produce a mixture of uranium and plutonium rather pure plutonium. This modification would not affect the plant's suitability for its declared purpose - producing mixed oxide fuel for power reactors - but would prevent its direct use for producing plutonium for weapons. Pakistan refused to accept the modification. But by that time Pakistan had received 95 percent of the detailed plans for the plant by SGN, and was thus in a position to secure components and build the plant itself, which it would later at KHUSHAB.

*
The Uranium Route to the Bomb: PAEC's role in Uranium Enrichment*​
Pakistan from the outset of the Multan conference was exploring both the Plutonium and Uranium routes to the bomb. During 1974-76, uranium enrichment was probably seen as a backup or at most a co-equal programme for fissile material production. Having two different technologies for production would make Pakistan more resistant to efforts to restrain its programme, and producing both U-235 and plutonium would give Pakistan greater flexibility in weapon design. Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud was only one of dozens of scientists and engineers (besides) AQ Khan who were working in Europe, Canada and the US in late sixties and early seventies that later became &#8220;Consortium Companies&#8221; to supply enriched uranium to European nuclear power plants. PAEC brought back dozens of scientists from Belgium to start this programme under Dr Bashiruddin long before

*AQ Khan came on board...*

Moreover, the PAEC was already considering the centrifuge problem, and there was one experiment in Lahore in the early 1970s involving centrifuges. Two pilot centrifuge plants were set up in Golra and Sihala before the actual uranium enrichment facility was established at Kahuta. Munir Ahmad Khan completed the site selection for the Kahuta enrichment plant, initial procurement of vital equipment, construction of its civil works, and recruitment of staff for it by 1976. The Kahuta Enrichment Project was called Project-706 of the PAEC, and as with the plutonium programme, it was under the overall control and supervision of Chairman Munir Khan. A.Q. Khan came to Pakistan and produced gas centrifuge designs and drawings from URENCO. He initially worked under Project Director Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmud. 

Much of the buying for Kahuta of necessary materials and equipment before and after A.Q. Khan's arrival was done by a brilliant PAEC physicist-turned diplomat, S.A. Butt, who was also looking after the plutonium programmes' requirements. The best PAEC scientists and engineers staffed Kahuta. It must be remembered that the Plutonium contract with France had not been cancelled by the French government when the Enrichment Plant was being set up at Kahuta.
When Canada in 1976 suspended the supply of heavy water fuel and spare parts for KANUPP, the PAEC under Munir Khan took up the challenge and using indigenous resources produced the feed for KANUPP. As a result the Muslim World's first nuclear reactor was not closed even for a single day for want of spare parts, fuel, and heavy water.






The technology Qadeer brought would have eventually been acquired.The work had been started by Bashir-ud-din on Nuclear Fuel cycle to make fuel for KANUPP and future nuclear plants two years prior to Qadeer's arrival in Pakistan.Dr. A.Q. Khan did not bring a magic wand from URENCO but still it was a vital link to the bomb. Under Munir Ahmed Khan, PAEC started an ambitious programme to master the technology of complete nuclear fuel cycle in which &#8220; Heavy Water&#8221; was one of the most important components.

Heavy Water which was so (prohibitively) expensive which Canada was charging Pakistan $27/lb (in early/mid-seventies), Pakistan's only nuclear power plant would die and our whole nuclear programme would come crashing in late 1970.Qadeer's contribution cannot be denied but should not be overblown.Centrifuge essentially a highly specialized mechanical component was a link in the long chain of enrichment technology.As Qadeer and his team stumbled on many occasions, he received vital technical support from PINSTECH and PAEC infrastructure and scientists. Dr N Ikram out of many (Punjab University, Institute Of Solid State Physics) was a rare specialist in this field and international authority who came to his rescue.

Qadeer's blueprints were based on first generation enrichment technology originally developed by the URENCO in late sixties and early seventies whose SWU (unit of the measurement to separate U-238 and U-235 in natural uranium in order to create final product that is richer in U-235 (atoms) was so low that thousands of centrifuge machines would have to be deployed for thousands of hours at performance levels much inferior to then installed centrifuges at URENCO. PAEC (under Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan) challenged its economic viability and presented a programme that will deploy the most efficient technology by setting up an infrastructure for advanced machine design for the next generation centrifuges and in the two decades that followed spent more than $3 billion on centrifuge technology and its support infrastructure. 

PAEC used &#8220;proven technology&#8221; with heavy emphasis on R&D (not copy or stealing as US and western media says) with much higher SWU while reducing costs and improving efficiency through the use of state-of-the-art materials, control systems and manufacturing processes.
By late 90s, KRL had conducted centrifuge development work costing hundreds of millions of dollars. PAEC enabled KRL to take advantage of commercial advances in construction materials (thanks to PAEC/PINSTECH's Scientists) and advanced manufacturing methods to develop a centrifuge machines that achieved several times SWU performance previously demonstrated by early KRL machines, but at substantially reduced cost. Today PAEC has a workhorse technology that capably serves Pakistan defence needs and since New Labs setup, much of the fuel needs of the future nuclear plants in Pakistan.

People might ask the significance of higher SWU? Natural uranium, in the form of uranium hexafluoride (natural UF6), is fed into an enrichment process. If (for example), you begin with 50 kilograms of natural uranium, it takes about 30 SWU to produce 5 kilograms of uranium enriched in U-235 to 4. -5%. It takes on the order of (roughly) 100,000 SWU of enriched uranium to fuel a typical 137 megawatt (MW) commercial nuclear reactor for a year. A 137 MW (KANUPP) plant can supply the electricity needs for a city of about 500,000 in a country like Pakistan.Moreover, the technology brought by A.Q. Khan was based on the URENCO designs of gas centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapon grade, also known as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). But again, A.Q. Khan's uranium enrichment was not independent of PAEC, even after having acquired total control and autonomy for KRL.

In order to enrich uranium to weapon grade, he needed the crucial Hexafluoride gas, known as UF-6. Concurrent to the plutonium programme and the setting up of Project-706, the PAEC was also setting up a plant to produce Uranium hexafluoride, which is a crucial ingredient for enriching uranium. Here is how UF6 produced and supplied by PAEC to KRL is critical to Enriching Uranium through gas centrifuges and it underlines the importance of this very important 'step' in a series of interconnected steps that lead to a bomb. KRL depends on PAEC for Enriching Uranium as is illustrated here. KRL's role in centrifuges and vacuum technology and material is not being denied here, but PAEC's role is highlighted which is unknown and unacknowledged and unsung and all praise only goes to A.Q. Khan.

The PAEC at its HEX PLANT produces Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). Here the natural uranium ore concentrate is sent to a conversion plant where it is chemically processed into Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). At ambient temperature, UF6 is a solid with a low residual vapour pressure. It is then handed over to KRL.At KRL enrichment plant, a centrifuge comprises an evacuated (vacuum) casing containing a cylindrical rotor, which rotates at very high speeds, in an almost friction free environment. The Uranium is fed into the rotor as gaseous Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6) where it takes up the rotational motion. The centrifugal forces push the heavier U-238 closer to the wall of the rotor than the lighter U-235. The gas closer to the wall becomes depleted in U-235 whereas the gas nearer the rotor axis is enriched in U-235.

The gas flow is produced by a temperature gradient over the length of the centrifuge. UF6 depleted in U-235 flows upwards adjacent to the rotor wall, whilst UF6 enriched in U-235 flows downwards close to the axis. The two gas streams are removed through small pipes.
The enrichment effect of a single centrifuge is small, so centrifuge pumps are linked in-groups known as cascades. Passing through the successive centrifuges of cascades, the U-235 is gradually enriched to the required percentage - usually between 3 and 5% and the depleted uranium is reduced to 0.2 to 0.3% U-235. Enrichment achieved to 5% is non-weapon grade low enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants whereas HEU weapon grade is over 95%.

So Enriching Uranium does not start or end completely at KRL after which the enriched uranium is manufactured into a bomb, which involves very critical steps of developing the bomb design, implosion techniques, triggering mechanism etc. The work on the bomb itself had begun in earnest in the early 1970s by PAEC in a meeting called by Chairman Munir Khan, and attended by Dr. Ishfaq and other senior scientists at about the same time that the Indians exploded their Smiling Buddha. The Hex Plant was built by PAEC under Munir Khan's Chairmanship and it confirms the fact that this plant was built for providing UF6 to KRL, which was Project 706 of PAEC, developed under Bashiruddin Mahmud, before A.Q. Khan came.

There is no doubt that Munir Ahmad Khan was a true visionary, architect of Pakistan's uranium enrichment and plutonium programmes and way ahead of his time at PAEC or PINSTECH. He believed and worked tirelessly in building infrastructure that would fabricate nuclear fuel for Pakistan's nuclear plants and would be a springboard for Qadeer's fame and notoriety. Without getting hands around fuel cycle's first 3 crucial steps - 1) mining (uranium ore mining from mines), 2) milling (uranium ore into yellow cake), 3) conversion (yellow cake into hexafluoride) enrichment would be impossible for which PAEC laid solid ground work very early on. Enrichment, a step in increasing the concentration of U-235 isotopes from its natural level (0.5-.7%) to 5% level (fuel used in nuclear plants) was started by Bashiruddin Mahmud, under Munir Khan's directions. Dr. Bashiruddin did a complete feasibility of the project as early as 1974. Bashirudin was real enrichment (nuclear) expert not a metallurgist.These are two very different disciplines that should not be confused with each other.

Fuel fabrication (the 4th step) - the process of enriched uranium into uranium dioxide, sealing it into metal fuel rods and bundling into fuel assembly, and the last step - fuel fabrication (fuel into nuclear plants where U-235 starts fission producing heat and running the turbine etc) for power plants was again the work of PAEC.Technically speaking, KRL never built an atomic device for Pakistan but it did build lots of centrifuges, which is purely a mechanical device. PAEC provided technical assistance and guidance in all-important areas of enrichment (and much more) to KRL, as centrifuge was the &#8220;vehicle&#8221; to the enrichment process. 

Much of the KRL time (as an organization) was spent designing, developing centrifuges, identifying and resolving the most difficult cascading and other problems to the very end of the programme. From the beginning, more than 75% of KRL scientists and engineers were from PAEC, although many more with rare expertise were recruited from a diverse pool of Pakistani scientists and engineers working in the US and Europe. PAEC played an important role from the very beginning, and thus their know-how became increasingly important in the overall programme. Without PAEC involvement, KRL abilities could not have grown beyond an advanced machine design shop.

PAEC knew how to make nuclear fuel for civil applications before KRL was established. Without PAEC /PINSTECH active guidance and participation, KRL centrifuges (in all likelihood) could only have produced low-enriched uranium, not the highly enriched material needed for an atomic weapons. Simply describing, production of low enriched to highly enriched Uranium is not a &#8220;linear&#8221; process, which means that if you can produce low enrich uranium, you cannot or may not (readily) produce HEU.After 30 years of research into the uranium enrichment, Pakistan is now one of the 12 major players in the world that has mastered gas centrifuge technology. This technology with its dozens if not hundreds of spin-off hold the key to the security of Pakistan, future nuclear energy and fuel requirements. People would be surprised to know that laser enrichment programme in the US and Europe and Israel recently hit a dead end.

The Indian Atomic Energy Commission and BARC (BARK) have fresh proposals to revive the development of the gas centrifuge technology, which never got off the ground in the first place, whereas Pakistan had a continuous and on-going development programme for three decades. We now have latest generation of machines in operation (Pakistan's sixth generation), which is as good as if not better than any European machine. The strategy and risks behind Pakistan development programme were too many and what PAEC did no organization in the world would have done it in view of the resources allocated and severe restrictions to import dual use technology.

Hence, it is clear that the Pakistani enrichment development was begun in 1974 by Chairman PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan, under several covert programmes and one based (URENCO early model) on the concept of a lightweight rotor operating on pin bearings and magnetic top bearings got the most publicity in the west. Other parallel programmes Pakistan started were based on better design parametres to achieve super-critical operating speed that would provide PAEC with wide base of advanced engineering (machine design) experience on which they helped KRL develop future generation of centrifuges. 

PAEC policy was to run their programmes as economically as possible rather than just focusing on the technical benefits. This approach caused a major friction with KRL but forced KRL to shift its strategy from smuggling machines (not a reliable option) to R&D. KRL envisioned that future generations of machines would be developed from reverse engineering or they would make thousands of first generation machine, clearly a Russian approach wasting precious resources with low chances of success. KRL eventually was forced to undertake a long-term programme to develop significantly faster centrifuges through R&D under PAEC/PINSTECH guidance. While PAEC programmes were based much more on a series of &#8220;smaller projects&#8221; aimed at improving specific aspects of the current centrifuge either by manufacturing improvements to reduce the cost of manufacture or by taking advantage of improvements in materials.

In either case, all PAEC projects were evaluated from an economic point of view to ensure that lifetime cost improvements actually paid back the money committed to undertake the research and from a technical point of view to ensure that improvements were introduced as early as possible within the manufacturing phase as part of future generation. PAEC was always in favour of step by step approach in developing each centrifuge generation not just importing clandestinely some models and then reverse engineered them so they set out the development programme in three stages 1) R&D 2) Pilot and 3) Production. First step included design studies, testing of new materials, manufacture and very high stress testing of a small number of components and then building typically 20 or 30 centrifuges. The pilot phase was employed to prove that the centrifuges would operate successfully long term under all design parameters.


*Preparing to Build the Bomb​*
Pakistani work on weapon design began even before the start of work on uranium enrichment, under the auspices of the PAEC. Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC called a meeting, in March, 1974, to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Among those attending the meeting were Hafeez Qureshi, head of the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at PINSTECH (later to become Member Technical, PAEC), Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC. 

The PAEC Chairman informed Qureshi that he was to work on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO). The word &#8220;bomb&#8221; was never used in the meeting but Qureshi exactly understood the objective. Their task would be to develop the design of a weapon implosion system. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), in the North West Frontier Province and conveniently close to Islamabad.

The work at Wah began under the undescriptive codename Research and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as &#8220;The Wah Group&#8221;. Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosive lenses to be used in the nuclear device. This expanded, however to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering of the system and the triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment where it could and developed its own technology where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment.

The first preparations for eventual nuclear tests also started early - in 1976. Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, and Member (Technical) and Dr. Samar Mubarak of the PAEC were dispatched to Balochistan to conduct helicopter reconnaissance of potential test sites with the assistance of the army 5 Corps located at Quetta. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khuzdar in the south and Naukundi-Kharan in the east.The PAEC requirement was for a mountain with a completely dry interior capable of withstanding an internal 20 kt nuclear explosion. A likely site was found in the form of a several hundred-metre tall granite mountain Koh Kambaran in the Ras Koh range (also referred to as the Ras Koh Hills). 

The Ras Koh in the Chagai Division of Balochistan rise at their highest point to 3009 metres. After a one-year survey of the site, completed in 1977, plans were finalized for driving a horizontal tunnel under Koh Kambaran for a future test. (Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who had provided support to the PAEC survey team, was tasked by (now) President Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 with creating and leading the Special Development Works (SDW), which was entrusted, with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites. 

The SDW was formally subordinate to the PAEC but directly reported to the Chief of the Army Staff. Meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and Zia-ul-Haq led to the decision to prepare a second site for a horizontal shaft. The site selected was located at Kharan, in a desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public.
The Wah Group had a weapon design - an implosion system using the powerful but sensitive HMX as the principal explosive - ready for testing in 1983. 

The first &#8220;cold test&#8221; of a weapon (i.e. a test of the implosion using inert natural uranium instead of highly enriched uranium) took place on March 11, 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed of the PAEC. This test was conducted in tunnels bored in the Kirana Hills near Sargodha, home of the Pakistan Air Force's main air base and the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD).The Kirana Hills test tunnels were reportedly bored by the SDW after the Chagai nuclear test sites, i.e. sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the tunnels had been sealed after construction to await tests. As Prior to the cold tests, an advance team opened and cleaned the tunnels.

After clearing the tunnels, a PAEC diagnostic team headed by Dr. Mubarakmand arrived on the scene with trailers fitted with computers and diagnostic equipment. This was followed by the arrival of the Wah Group with the nuclear device, in sub-assembly form. This was assembled and then placed inside the tunnel. A monitoring system was set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills.One of the principal objectives of the test was to determine whether the neutron initiator (probably a polonium beryllium design similar to those used in the first US, USSR, UK, and Indian bombs) to reliably start a fission chain reaction in the real bomb. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscilloscopes were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables. 

At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscilloscopes confirmed that the neutrons had indeed been produced. A second cold test was undertaken soon afterwards which was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Lt. Gen. K.M. Arif and Munir Ahmed Khan.Between 1983 and 1990, the Wah Group developed an air deliverable bomb and conducted more than 24 cold tests of nuclear devices with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100-150 feet (30-50 m) in length which were bored inside the Kirana Hills. Later due to excessive US intelligence and satellite attention on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and the cold test facility was shifted to the Kala-Chitta Range. The bomb was small enough to be carried under the wing of a fighter/bomber such as the F-16 which Pakistan had obtained from the US. 

The Wah Group worked alongside the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to evolve and perfect delivery techniques of the nuclear bomb using combat aircraft including &#8220;conventional freefall&#8221;, &#8220;loft bombing&#8221;, &#8220;toss bombing&#8221; and &#8220;low-level laydown&#8221; attack techniques, the latter requiring a sophisticated high speed parachute system. Today, the PAF has perfected all four techniques of nuclear weapons delivery using F-16, Mirage-V and A-5 combat aircraft.


*Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC's other Achievements*​
Therefore, we can say that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, under the Chairman Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan remained in-charge of the overall bomb programme, of all the numerous difficult steps, before and after uranium enrichment, and remained closely linked with uranium enrichment itself. They built and exploded the device. There is no getting around this fact. Nor did Pakistan forego the plutonium route, the choice of every other country with nuclear weapons because plutonium bombs are so much more powerful. We know this because of the recent disclosures about the Khushab plutonium production reactor. 

This was driven during Munir Khan's 19-year tenure. All members (Technical), including Dr. Hafeez Qureshi of PINSTECH, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad (a theoretical physicist), Dr. Samar Mubarikmand (an experimental physicist) and others involved in critical technologies and projects like Dr. N.A. Javed, Dr. Abdul Majid (who designed the Khushab plutonium production reactor beginning in the 1980s, and an engineering accomplishment of greater significance for Pakistan than KRL), Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud, the Project Director of ERL/KRL at its inception, and all Members (Nuclear Power), worked as a team, and gave ultimate security to Pakistan.

The PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan not only went on to build the first generation of nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but also built the Chagai tunnels for nuclear tests, which were ready by early 1980s, and also the plant for the production of uranium hexafluoride gas, the crucial raw material from which enriched uranium is made. He also upgraded the research reactor at Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) and laid the groundwork for the 300MW nuclear power plant at Chashma, which has since been completed and commissioned.Among the first assignments that Munir undertook was the setting of the Centre for Nuclear Studies, later to become PIEAS (Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences), which has produced over two thousand trained nuclear scientists and engineers during the last over quarter of a century.

In addition a dozen nuclear medical centres and several atomic agricultural centres were set up. Specialized nuclear training centres were established at home and a large number of scientists and engineers were sent abroad for training to create a vast reservoir of trained manpower, the backbone of a self-sustaining nuclear programme.Munir Khan had some powerful detractors too who sought to undermine him. A bizarre incident of how he was undermined is the publication in early 80's of a book &#8220;Islamic Bomb&#8221; by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A Q Khan highlighting their contributions in the nuclear field.

But when Munir Khan's team conducted cold nuclear tests of its device in 1983,a new version of Islamic Bomb was clandestinely published and widely distributed gratis among army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists. In the doctored version all positive references to Munir Khan were deleted and replaced with negative and derogatory comments.For instance a reference to Munir Khan as 'a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland', in the original edition was doctored to read &#8220;Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan.&#8221;

At another place the original version read, &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the bomb project&#8221;. It was changed in the doctored edition to read as &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the reprocessing project&#8221;.The change made from the 'bomb project' to the 'reprocessing project' was striking as it sought to rob Munir Khan and his associates of any credit for the bomb project. The authors subsequently disowned the pirated version. It was all done at the behest of AQK, as Munir and his team had begun to get credit after the first cold tests conducted by PAEC in 1983.

Munir Khan's achievements must be seen in the backdrop of the anti-nuclear international environment of 70's and 80's when the United States, Canada and European countries passed domestic legislation to not only place restrictions on transfer of technology but even to renegotiate settled contracts.He refrained from advertising the Commission's achievements. Some of his colleagues thought the low profile policy were a mistake. They often complained that it had only encouraged others to hijack what actually they had performed. But Munir Ahmad Khan believed that bravado and brandishing nuclear capability would heighten negative international perceptions about Pakistan and make the objectives difficult to achieve.

The truth is that Munir Khan was very modest, and shied away from the counter-productive boasting of his rivals. He saw Pakistan's strength as lying in more than having a bomb, equally dependent on a secure economic and political future and non-isolation in the world.Munir Khan's role in developing the nuclear programme of Pakistan was in many ways akin to that of Homi Bhabha in India. Homi Bhabha had struck a synthesis with the political leadership soon after independence in 1947 and secured political commitment for his country's nuclear programme. Munir Khan achieved this synthesis with the political leadership in 1972 when he was picked up for the job in a conference of the country's scientists at Multan. 

Since then the country's nuclear programme has enjoyed the bipartisan political support. And like Bhabha, Munir Khan also believed that a viable nuclear programme was not possible without a vast base of trained manpower and the indigenous development of some components, which were vital for the programme.To provide a solid base of trained manpower he set up the Centre for Nuclear Studies, which has now become a University (PIEAS), to train young nuclear scientists and engineers. By now the Centre has produced over 2,000 highly trained and qualified experts in various nuclear disciplines. In the early stages he fought hard with the bureaucracy and sent hundreds of scientists and engineers to Europe and America for training.

It is this trained manpower which has given Pakistan mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle ranging from uranium exploration and mining, fuel fabrication, making of hexafluoride gas for feeding the enrichment plant and also enriching uranium itself. And as is widely known the devices, which were tested in Chagai in May last, were made by the trainees of these training centres the foundations of which were laid by Munir Ahmad Khan. He accomplished all this because of his successful style of work, whereby he was obsessed with secrecy, whereas AQK regularly gave fat cheques to journalists, who wrote books and articles eulogizing AQK at the expense of PAEC and Munir Khan. 

Munir Khan was a man who was obsessed with secrecy, which sometimes bordered on the paranoia, and he kept a very low profile. He believed that scientists working for the nuclear programme must maintain a distance from journalists and the public, due to the sensitivity of their job, and they had no business to issue any political statements. That would invite unnecessary and sometimes harmful attention from the enemies of the programme and endanger the security of the country.Today PAEC scientists and engineers can develop a new weapon design for a nuclear device every three months in a year. The National Development Complex was initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan in the beginning of the 1990s, and the last years of his Chairmanship as a project of PAEC of vital national significance under Dr. Samar Mubarik Mand, who had been the part of the team which conducted the cold test in 1983, and subsequently the leader of the team which conducted the hot tests in 1998. 

The PAEC had conducted almost 24 cold tests from 1983 onwards till 1998, wherein they improved on the basic nuclear weapon design in the following cold tests.The KRL under Dr. A.Q. Khan was unable to come up with a credible design, and that is why PAEC's bomb was used for testing in 1998 and in all the cold tests carried out by PAEC.PAEC scientists and engineers had gained vast experience in nuclear weapon development and bomb testing, which it was engaged in for over 2 decades. KRL never had anything to do with the actual development of the weapon itself, and PAEC's success in making a viable bomb design and repeatedly testing various designs clearly speaks for the technical prowess of the PAEC and the sagacity of its leadership. 

The making of nuclear weapons is a more challenging task than enriching uranium, as it involves a host of complicated processes and technologies including the triggering mechanism, design, implosion hydrodynamics and technologies, etc. which the PAEC conducted very successfully. Chairman PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan, General K.M. Arif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan witnessed the first cold test of 1983. At the time of the 1998 tests, Dr. A.Q. Khan was invited to the test site &#8220; to witness what a nuclear explosion looks like&#8221; in the words of Dr. Samar, and AQK left soon there after, and he arrived at the test site some 15 minutes before the explosions.

The greatest contribution that Munir Khan made to the making of nuclear Pakistan is that he made its nuclear programme self-sustaining and independent of himself. The infrastructure which he helped build and the reservoir of trained manpower which he gave, ensured the continuity of the programme after his retirement and is a guarantee that it will continue even after his death. This is unlike many of the great doers who claim sole monopoly over achievement, which essentially is collective.

Scientific journals in US and Europe recently reporting US companies having developed centrifuge machines that have achieved more than 300 SWU (Separative Work Units) per year, used in the gas centrifuge method for enriching uranium to weapon grade. This was possible because of advances in materials science and metallurgy etc; In Pakistan at GIKI and PAEC/PINSTECH, we now have material science and metallurgy departments offering PhD in material sciences. PINSTECH Nuclear Chemistry department offers BS/MS degrees specializing in heavy water chemistry. The worst US (and Indian/Israeli) fear is that if Pakistan has acquired this level of performance and yields from their machines then they may have ten times more highly enriched uranium to assemble 200 weapons. 

Adding Pakistan's plutonium capability from Khushab reactor to weaponize, it has brought Pakistan in league with Israel and China in her ability to miniaturize nuclear weapon small enough for tactical and battlefields use. (Plutonium bombs are greater in yield, but smaller in size and plutonium is used to make advanced compact warheads that can easily be fitted onto aircraft and missiles). To add more fear to US/Indian nightmare if Pakistan has produced or (by all accounts Pakistan is producing enough) tritium then Pakistan have nuclear weapons whose yield could easily be increased between 100-180 Kiloton. Now Pakistan needs to achieve TRIAD capability to achieve complete surprise.

Constantly underestimating and trying to belittle Pakistan's ability to progressively enrich uranium and develop an advanced Plutonium programme despite the west's sanctions and the French backstabbing of the Reprocessing contract in the face of acute resource constraints, the West, and the people of Pakistan simply are unaware of the magnitude of capabilities of PAEC/PINSTECH/NDC/KRL and our scientists and engineers. Munir Ahmad Khan's 19 years in the PAEC saw the initiation, blossoming and development of these capabilities.


PAEC and Nuclear Power Plants
​
Pakistan and China initially agreed (back in 1980s) to commission at least 2 plants at the same site (CHASMA) with common auxiliary services feeding both plants as this is normal practice in the US and Europe. Common auxiliary facilities save a country lots of money. All engineering/design work for both plants was done simultaneously as hundreds of PAEC/PINSTECH engineers worked in China (at Chinese equivalent of US Oakridge labs and other facilities) but only ONE was started and completed per PAEC requirements because China did not have the experience to sustain such large and highly complex projects. 

Chinese reactor safety and reliability was another overriding factor for the delay of second plant not what BBC has said. After CHASMA-I was completed, newly established PNRC (Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Commission) stopped PAEC from starting second plant right away as it wanted to monitor the plant for at least 3 years, first year and half for nominal power and rest of the time at full power as this is the most critical phase. Recently, PNRC has given the safety certificate to PAEC and IAEA.The second plant CHASMA-II will be completed in half the time, as the learning curve would be minimum and many of the 1st plant design anomalies would be fixed. Now I have heard from very reliable source that PAEC plan to build two 500-MW plants somewhere upstream of Indus River in next 7-10 years and another large (300MW) plutonium reactor and upgrading of Khushab reactor to unknown capacity. 

Chinese are also convinced that Pakistan (PAEC) has the engineering know-how and the critical mass of manpower to design turbines, components of large capacity pumps, nuclear grade pipes/tubings as well as backup control systems for the reactor, so the opportunities for Pakistan are endless.As stated above, another PAEC scintillating achievement is Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) reactor in which PAEC engineers developed nuclear fuel used. This was first plant where PAEC took part as consultant and designer. This was light water reactor designed to generate 300 MW of electricity using 15 tonnes of enriched uranium annually. 

The plant uses cooling water from the Chashma-Jhelum link canal and discharges it into the Indus similar to Chinese nuclear power station at Qinshan. As Chinese experience in the design of nuclear power stations for commercial purposes was limited, PAEC expertise came handy in procuring many of the components such as the giant steel pressure vessel, coolant pumps. The computerized control systems were designed in China with PAEC full participation specifications. Pakistan had also gained extensive experience in the safety systems running Karachi plant, so Chinese learnt a lot from Pakistan's experience and advised the Chinese in designing safety right from the scratch. PAEC designed and commissioned another reactor with a capacity of 72 MW at Joharabad in the Khushab district in Punjab.

This is an experimental reactor for the production of isotopes and heavy water required for its operation is manufactured in Pakistan. This reactor is not under IAEA safeguards. The designing of the project started in 1985 under the supervision of Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Canadian-European-trained, who was also in charge of starting the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant before AQK came from Holland. Another scientist instrumental in the design of the Khushab reactor, was the (late) Afzal Haq Rajput. Khushab produces weapons-grade Plutonium to make miniaturized nuclear warheads. 

Whatever Khushab's activity and operational parameters it cannot be placed under the IAEA safeguards on the ground that it was a 100 per cent indigenous project. In 1996 N.A.Javed, a PAEC scientist and a heavy water expert, was decorated (Sitara-i-Imtiaz) for developing an indigenous facility for heavy water production, thereby freeing Pakistan from dependence on Canadian and Chinese supplies. There is one very important point to note that Pakistan even if it wanted, could not buy as much heavy water because our friend and master (US) suspected over-supplying heavy water to KANUPP would be diverted to Khushab.


Conclusion​​
From the above discussion, and in the light of the recent nuclear proliferation scandal involving Dr. A.Q. Khan, certain conclusions can be drawn. Because of the covert 1972-98 period, Qadeer was able to parley his position into unprecedented autonomy (financial, administrative and security, as Musharraf described it).

Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC followed the path of silently pursuing the nuclear goal for Pakistan in line with the country's stated policy of nuclear ambiguity, and refused to acknowledge or advertise that they were developing a nuclear weapons programme, and insisted, along with the government, that Pakistan's nuclear programme was strictly for peaceful purposes.

Second, because it was indeed a covert period, Qadeer was encouraged to pose as the Father of the Bomb, even though he was responsible for just one of 24 steps, each crucial to making nuclear weapons. Those responsible for the other 23 steps all worked under the Member (Technical) of the PAEC, who in turn reported to its Chairman.However, Qadeer was allowed to head his own set up, smaller than the PAEC, but dealing with the President directly and equal in status to the PAEC Chairman. Dr. Samar has said it on record that it was unthinkable for any scientist or engineer working in PAEC to indulge in proliferation or leakage of any materials or information or expertise, for money or cheap popularity, as they considered their work as a sacred trust, and scientists of one department would never divulge any unnecessary information to any other person in another department, and only that information was told to the people involved in various projects, as was required for their work. 

On the other hand, Qadeer also demanded and got much more autonomy.It has been confirmed that the security restrictions on PAEC men, right up to the Chairman, which included surveillance (at times comically intrusive) and phone tapping, were not applied to Qadeer and certain senior colleagues. They went abroad for their own shopping for example. PAEC people were not allowed even to do that, until the intelligence operatives who did that job bought a lot of very expensive junk. However, the PAEC never enjoyed such sweeping autonomy. Perhaps because of that, the only proliferation charges relate to the one (relatively preliminary) step Qadeer was responsible for, and not for the other 23, including the more advanced and crucial steps, for which the PAEC remained responsible.

But history has been falsified, deliberately. Qadeer was used as a decoy to divert attention from the PAEC, where the real work was being done. KRL's scientists were only a fifth of the PAEC's, and perhaps KRL was overmanned. However, the myth-makers are stuck with the myth itself, and Qadeer has received adulation and honours. Even though it was clearly exposed in 1998 that his role in the nuclear programme was important but not major, the myth still persists. At the time of the Indian Brasstacks exercises, Dr. A.Q. Khan was picked up by the government to issue a statement that Pakistan had the bomb and would use it against India if its security was endangered. 

That was the turning point in the sense that from then on, A.Q. Khan began an all out propaganda campaign and successfully cultivated the myth that he was the 'father' of the bomb, when in fact, he was made into a famous figure by the West, after he came to Pakistan with his URENCO gas-centrifuge designs. The West made him a villain, and the people, especially the media, and the government, went out of the way to portray him as hero, and at a time when the nation was in dire need of heroes. Our society being so gullible and prone to emotionalism and cult worship, started idolizing him to the extent that he became virtually above the law and could do anything, go anywhere, without fear of any accountability. The PAEC and Munir Khan kept their silence and publicly never admitted that they had anything to do with nuclear weapons, as it was state policy throughout the covert period of 1972-98, never to officially admit that Pakistan was a declared nuclear weapons state. This enabled AQ Khan to claim and get away with what was actually performed by PAEC. In short he stole the whole show from PAEC.

There is one important point to note while examining whether there was state approval of proliferation: only KRL was leaking. If there was state policy, the other 23 groups should have been leaking.The title of Father of the Bomb could apply at the political level to Bhutto (though the roles of Ayub, Zia and Ishaq must not be ignored), and at the technical level, Munir Ahmad Khan as Chairman, along with his team comprising all Members (Technical and Nuclear Power) share the real credit (not to forget Samar, who was Member Technical at the time of the Chaghai tests, and who was personally responsible for at least one of the 23 steps, every bit as crucial to the bomb's working as uranium enrichment). Qadeer only leaked what he could (the so-called Libyan blueprints might turn out to be the rival KRL design which could not be constructed). 

This also validates the fact that the designs that he brought from URENCO were the first generation centrifuges (P1), which could not enrich uranium to weapon grade, and crucial technical input from PAEC enabled AQK to enrich uranium to the HEU level. Had this not been true, the designs and know how leaked to Libya and Iran would have enabled them to build the bomb, but they were unable to do it because numerous other processes and technologies involved in enrichment and the other 23 steps in the long chain to the bomb, were not available to them. Thus, without the selfless commitment, intense patriotic zeal and competent and inspiring leadership of PAEC and its leadership, the nuclear dream could never have been realized.

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan (HI, NI & Bar) remains the only Pakistani who got the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, the highest civil award twice. He also got the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, along with Munir Ahmad Khan, in 1989. AQK got both his NI during President Ishaq's tenure, and now it has been reported that he had paid Rs. 150 crore to GIK for the latter's Institute, whereas Munir Khan paid a personal price by remaining unsung. Only Dr. Samar has come out in the spotlight now that Qadeer's fall from grace and fame, and he was awarded the NI this year. Munir's predecessor, I.H. Usmani and his successor Ishfaq Ahmad got the NI as well; the former got it posthumously, yet Munir Khan has been denied the NI even though 5 years have passed since his death and in spite of the fact that Munir remained the longest serving PAEC Chairman, and PAEC's accomplishments during 1972-1991 were all driven and initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan. 


He was known as the 'Father' in PAEC circles, but the nation has been kept in the dark about him, and his image has not been honestly portrayed in the public. In the final analysis, it is always the man at the top who counts the most, and in this respect, the PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan was the real architect of the nuclear programme, and he along with his team share the real credit as its father. Successful he has been, in his capacity as Chairman, but replaced he shall never be, with or without Nishan-i-Imtiaz. Today PAEC stands tall along with NESCOM/NDC and other strategic organizations involved with the strategic nuclear and missile programmes. Justice requires that the record be set straight for all times to come, and the falsification of history be rectified.

Reactions: Positive Rating Positive Rating:
1 | Like Like:
52


----------



## Dr. Strangelove

clearly he was the real architect of our nuclear program 
but most people dont even know name of ma khan

Reactions: Like Like:
6


----------



## hunter_hunted

There are many unsung heroes and I salute all of them also. But nice try to defame AQ khan.

Reactions: Like Like:
25


----------



## A.Rafay

The one who ordered it to be made should be called the father of the bomb, Its the rule of the very World we live in!!

OK indian troll Who ever is the father but its not stolen!!

Reactions: Like Like:
12


----------



## rohailmalhi

There are many people who have given theor lives for nuclear program of Pakistan . They havnt done it to earn fame , they have done it because they of their patriotism and love for their motherland.

The article is baised as the author is clearly trying to defame Dr. A.Q.Khan which is very wrong every person played the part he or she was given in the program. 

For me all of them are every respectable and I hope we have more people like them who work day and night to make this motherland of ours a better place to live in .

Reactions: Like Like:
14


----------



## The Deterrent

Though it is an article based on facts, but the author bashed AQ Khan a little too much. Every person who worked for this program of national importance deserves credit for his efforts.

Reactions: Like Like:
19


----------



## somebozo

You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.

Reactions: Like Like:
12


----------



## Kyusuibu Honbu

somebozo said:


> You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.



Very smart! 

Guess Homi Jehangir Bhabha kept quiet , he might have lived longer

Reactions: Like Like:
4


----------



## kaleemraja

Very informative... Thanks for posting.


----------



## Sugarcane

I agree with somebozo, It's not that govt. didn't knew who is working on what but they deliberately kept and keeping most sensitive personalities secret. After all we don't want agencies of our enemies kidnap or assassinate them and this secrecy played major in achieving nuclear technology otherwise for the countries who attempted to sabotage our plants, killing scientists is/was not hard for them.

Reactions: Like Like:
4


----------



## Chanakyaa

AhaseebA said:


> Though it is an article based on facts, but the author bashed AQ Khan a little too much. Every person who worked for this program of national importance deserves credit for his efforts.



Just Go throught a simple reading of Both Khans ( on Wiki ) and it speaks volumes.

A Pakistani Sciecntist has gone on record to state that AQ knows nothing of Nuclear Science, apart from Basic Details.

What really surprises me is that PAEC has made Awesome Achievements , using fundamental research. More over this man never cared for Fame.. but Results... no doubt Sir. Munir is a Tru Patriot.

Reactions: Like Like:
5


----------



## Icarus

One of the thousands of unsung heroes. Nice to see you posting again XiNiX, it's been a while!

Reactions: Like Like:
20


----------



## The Deterrent

XiNiX said:


> Just Go throught a simple reading of Both Khans and it speaks volumes.
> 
> A Pakistani Sciecntist has gone on record to state that AQ knows nothing of Nuclear Science, apart from Basic Details.
> 
> What really surprises me is that PAEC has made Awesome Achievements , using fundamental research. More over this man never cared for Fame.. but Results... no doubt Sir. Munir is a True Patriot.



You are right indeed. 
Though off-topic, but I'm interested in your perception of Pakistan's present operational capabilities regarding nuclear weapons command, control and delivery.

Reactions: Like Like:
3


----------



## Chanakyaa

AhaseebA said:


> You are right indeed.
> Though off-topic, but I'm interested in your perception of Pakistan's present operational capabilities regarding nuclear weapons command, control and delivery.



Thanks Mate.



> One of the thousands of unsung heroes. Nice to see you posting again XiNiX, it's been a while!



Thanks Bro. Yes it has been really long.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## SQ8

AQ Khan has been overbloated in his capabilities.. 
Just a media pet.. nothing more.
In that way, he has served his purpose well..
He gets to be the one taking the limelight.. but also the first one to be taken down .. 
so the actual intellect is spared and may continue their work.

Reactions: Like Like:
24


----------



## rockstarIN

I would rather say it is all team work, the team leader/project leader gets all the fame.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Thorough Pro

First of all a big salute to all unknown and unsung heros who worked day and night and sacrifised so much for this great achievement againstall odds. One thing needs to be understodd that projects of this nature and size require large teams of dedicated people with exceptional caliber, chracter, credibility and dicipline.

I am sure thousands of people would have worked on this project from day one in Multan's first meeting to the day actual test was conducted and even now. Credit goes to all fom ZA Bhuttotostart this ambitious project, to Zia-ul-Haq, to Ghulam Ishaq Khan (not many people know of his involvement with this project, but he was the man to ensure financial budget for this project for a very long time).

As a nation, there is a big lesson for us to learn from this project. Despite all the political differences between various head of states from ZA Bhutto, to Zia-Ul-Haq, to Ghulam Ishaq Khan, to Benezir, to Nawaz Sharif,they were all committed with this project and despite the whole worlds opposition, we did achieve what we set out for. 

Thats the thing to learn and practice, have your differences but have committment with the country and nothing can stop us. Nothing.

Reactions: Like Like:
8


----------



## Darth Vader

1st of all who cares every 1 who worked in our nuclear project is a true patriot and they all done what needed to be done But STILL DR A Q KHAN IS the and will be the father of our nuclear progrm  salute to every single 1 of them thats wht indians can do only try 2 defame some 1

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Nan Yang

Looks like many countries were involved in Pakistan Bomb. 

United States
Britain
France
Canada
Belgium
Nethelands

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Shivani Malhotra

A.Rafay said:


> The one who ordered it to be made should be called the father of the bomb, Its the rule of the very World we live in!!
> 
> OK indian troll Who ever is the father but its not stolen!!




Since the article is posted by an Indian you started whooing and crying over it..It is good to learn about something you dont know you f***** ****


----------



## Thorough Pro

A little correction to you statement, thesecountries were never directly inviolved, rather they were the onces who created obstacles, yes many of our engineers did study/train/worked in those countries besides we getting some initial N power plant/equipment from them.

Real credit goes to india though for throwing us the challenge by starting theitr own weapons program first.




Nan Yang said:


> Looks like many countries were involved in Pakistan Bomb.
> 
> United States
> Britain
> France
> Canada
> Belgium
> Nethelands

Reactions: Like Like:
11


----------



## farhan_9909

Very Good find indeed.

Pakistan nuclear program was a joint effort

just remember the time when canadian firms left us with unfinished PARR series reactors.
MA khan was the person who lead his team and in 1974 we made our own indigenous reactor the PARR II.

AQ khan is overhyped.a Metallurgy engineer called father of our nuclear program is indeed a shame

from stealing centrifuge at urenco he has certainly brought shame to our country.when in 1983 kirana hills test it was proved that pak had the capability of making Nukes despite any country help


at the end AQ khan pop up and took all the credit alone

Pak nuclear program was a team effort..credit should never be given to a centrifuge stealer alone

Reactions: Like Like:
7


----------



## Hobo1

somebozo said:


> You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.



A Baniya having lower IQ than Ghazi. ????

RAW doesn't even target guys like Hafiz and other ISI biggies and u fear they would go after guys who are anyway just assembling Chinese Stuff.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## xyxmt

wasm95 said:


> clearly he was the real architect of our nuclear program
> but most people dont even know name of ma khan



you must be kidding, everyone who has a 10th grade certificate in Pakistan knows MA Khan and his contributions.

Reactions: Like Like:

1


----------



## Chanakyaa

xyxmt said:


> you must be kidding, everyone who has a 10th grade certificate in Pakistan knows MA Khan and his contributions.



Well if so then why This .. ?



shahzadasweet said:


> 1st of all who cares every 1 who worked in our nuclear project is a true patriot and they all done what needed to be done *But STILL DR A Q KHAN IS the and will be the father of our nuclear progrm*  salute to every single 1 of them thats wht indians can do only try 2 defame some 1


.

Though as highlighted in the Article AQ was responsible for just ONE of 24 Procedures.
Moreover, Pakistan could getBomb without him, it was just a broad view of the establishment that why NOt hv two things when can hv both.


----------



## The Green1

Shivani Malhotra said:


> Since the article is posted by an Indian you started whooing and crying over it..It is good to learn about something you dont know you f***** ****



I wonder how indians will react if a Pakistani posts an article about indian nuclear programme

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## The Green1

@ Xinix 

You forgot to mention a few things. Israel air force flew jets to drop bombs over kahoota and a few of mosad's and cia's agents which were trying to penetrate amongst our nuclear scientists.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Chanakyaa

The Green1 said:


> @ Xinix
> 
> You forgot to mention a few things. Israel air force flew jets to drop bombs over kahoota and a few of mosad's and cia's agents which were trying to penetrate amongst our nuclear scientists.



The Objective of the Article is to bring up the fact that Plutonium Route to bomb in pakistan was real work done by Dr. Munir. and He is the ONE who must claim to be the FATHER OF ISLAMIC BOMB !


----------



## kurup

The Green1 said:


> I wonder how indians will react if a Pakistani posts an article about indian nuclear programme



You can please start the thread and we can discuss.


----------



## Mercenary

This article took a while to read but a good read.


----------



## jaunty

I will read the article later, but whenever I have heard AQ Khan speak I wondered how that man could possibly be a great nuclear scientist. He endorsed the water car fraud ffs.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Chanakyaa

jaunty said:


> I will read the article later, but whenever I have heard AQ Khan speak I wondered how that man could possibly be a great nuclear scientist. He endorsed the water car fraud ffs.



He was a Good Metallurgical Engineer. Thats why he was at Eurenco. 
But Nuclear Technology ? and Bombs ? No way.

Actually he was a great Business Man who could manage to bring the elements needed for the bombs at one place.
He even tried to Paralyze the Indegenious efforts of pakistan and the lesser known fact is that even the uranium plans were underway by the name of Project 706 b4 Khan Got In.


----------



## farhan_9909

kirana hills tests were done on indigenously developed centrifuge.
indeed the centrifuge needed to be perfected bt we were certainly capable of developing nukes 

over view of kirana hills test from wiki
Kirana Hills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Slayer786

AQ Khan and Nuclear Bomb : Part VIII : Kahuta Nuclear Plant aka Butter Factory aka Project 706
Posted by 2paisay under Excerpt, History, Politics, Security 

On 31 July 1976 they gave A. Q. Khan the authorization to construct his own enrichment facility, the Engineering Research Laboratories. They also gave it a codename: Project 706.



Khan set himself a seven-year deadline to build a bomb. *To meet it, he sought out the brightest technicians, physicists and engineers in Pakistan and ripped apart the scientific establishment to get them, offering unheard-of salaries, perks, pensions and government bungalows. Some of the heads of the organizations made such a hue and cry [about losing their employees] that it seemed as if the heavens would fall in, he wrote. Among those he employed were Dr. Farooq Hashmi, a metallurgist trained at Southampton University, who became his deputy director, Dr. Alam, a British-educated computer programmer and mathematician, and Brigadier General Anis Ali Syed, on secondment from the Pakistan army, who became the head of the Special Works Organization, a military unit created to procure equipment for Project 706. Khan often used his hotline to the prime minister to ensure he got the last word, and by the autumn of 1976 the message had got through: Khan was not to be tangled with.*



All elements of Project 706 started simultaneously: the building of the main plant at Kahuta, the procurement of essential equipment and materials from Europe, the manufacture of the first prototypes, the establishment of a pilot plant in which to test them, even a weapons design center.* Khan had calculated he would need at least ten thousand centrifuges to supply a viable bomb program. He had plumped for the CNOR prototype as it was simpler to build, and since it had been abandoned by URENCO in favor of the G-2 there were dozens of suppliers with vast stockpiles of unwanted components they were desperate to sell. But the CNOR had a design flaw that URENCO had never completely resolved: its bottom bearing, a tiny ball stuck onto a needle and attached to the base plate of the machines rotor. The needle supported the weight of the rotor as it spun at up to 70,000 rpm, and to counter the friction a spiral groove, virtually invisible to the human eye, was etched on to the underside of the bearing, which sat in a tiny cup of lubricant. High-definition computer-driven lathes had to etch this groove onto the underside of the bearing, and even a minute irregularity would cause the rotor to tilt and the machine to crash. The exact dimensions of the bearing and its spiral groove had been among the most highly classified secrets at the Almelo plant, and it was clear from letters that Khan now sent to former colleagues at URENCO that he had been unable to obtain these specifications.
*


It was just another problem on a long list of challenges to surmount.* It was an uphill task with every step being marred by a new set of intricate problems  A country which could not make sewing needles, good bicycles or even durable metalled roads was embarking on one of the latest and most difficult technologies,* he wrote.



A small power station was also constructed to make Kahuta independent of Pakistans grid, which was so unstable and overdrawn that during the summer large sections of Rawalpindi and Islamabad were plunged into darkness. Khan also insisted that Project 706 aim to become self-sufficient in manufacturing components, and Brigadier Sajawal was ordered to build machine-tool workshops, ready to house state-of-the-art European equipment capable of reverse-engineering centrifuge parts. Aside from the technical sections, Kahuta also needed guard towers, alarm systems, a paved road wide enough for trucks, communications, staff facilities, guest houses for visiting scientists. Brigadier Sajawal estimated that the basic infrastructure alone would take three years to finish.* So, while his men bulldozed, Khan and his small team of scientists worked on designing a Pakistani prototype centrifuge (which they called the P-1)*



Griffin, who would become inseparable from Khan, supplying machines, parts and tools to him for two decades, recounted how, in the summer of 1976, when he was a young sales manager at a Swansea-based machine-tool supplier called Scimitar, he received a phone call that would change his life. *For Abdus Salam, the Pakistani-born businessman on the other end of the line, it was a misdial. He had been looking for the British office of US machine-tool giant Rockwell International, which helped make NASAs space shuttle, but instead got the UK agent of its power-tool division in Wales. Nevertheless, the conversation that followed led to an introduction to Khan. Griffin said: Salam wanted £1 million in Rockwell power tools. Top-of-the-range, US-made equipment. One million pounds of it. Of course I could do the deal even though I was not Rockwell. We agreed to meet in London. There, Salam revealed that the equipment was for a brilliant young Pakistani scientist called Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was trying to help his country industrialize and enter the modern age.*



*There were often loyalties at play beyond Griffins comprehension. Once, when he tried to convince Khan to stop buying laser rangefinders from China which were actually manufactured by Israel and would have been far cheaper sourced directly from there, Khan had refused. No, we import them from the Chinese, he said. The Chinese are our friends.*



The Pakistanis sometimes referred to their burgeoning network as *Operation Butter Factory,* a name that harked back to the 1960s when Albrecht Migule had built a margarine factory for the son of General Ayub Khan. Khan, Butt, ul-Haq and other ISI agents mentioned this in-joke in their correspondence, describing enriched uranium as cake, sweets or biscuits, the end product produced from the butter or UF6 that Migule had helpfully provided by building the fluorine and uranium conversion plants. But on the ground, Khans men made very little attempt to cover their tracks, preparing contracts that stipulated delivery directly to the Director General, Special Works Organization, Rawalpindi, and handing out checks from government accounts held at the National Bank of Pakistan.



*One reason for this openness was that Khan knew that Europe had no idea what he was up to. Because centrifuge technology was so new and poorly understood, the checks and balances that should have been triggered by the trade failed. Most of the components Khan requested were not on any IAEA list of nuclear-sensitive equipment and were not subject to any European export controls. Even though some of the components were vast, among them a complete gasification and solidification unit (to feed UF6 gas into the centrifuges and then transform it back into a solid form) which required three Hercules C-130 transport planes to get it to Pakistan, most sales were vetted and approved by Europes governments.*



Greed, lax custom inspections, an overly bureaucratic IAEA, governments pursuit of their national interests, and antiquated legislation were all being exploited ruthlessly, *and clearly Western governments and suppliers underestimated Pakistan. Dr. Shafiq, whose father was busy building centrifuge halls as components came flooding in, reflected: Everything came from the UK, Germany and France and was openly transacted. The companies would tell their governments, These silly buggers in Pakistan want to spend billions and their governments would say, If these silly buggers have got the cash then let them have it. *We would say vacuum pumps; we need them for oil and gas, etc. But it was all going to Kahuta. Later, when he had all he needed, Khan openly agreed:* The Western world was sure that an underdeveloped country like Pakistan could never master this technology*



In Pakistan, things appeared to be going so well that in 1976 prime minister Bhutto ordered test tunnels to be constructed at two locations in western Balochistan, five in the Ras Koh range on the Balochistan plateau, and one beneath the sands of the Kharan Desert, a hundred miles to the west. Brigadier Muhammed Sarfaraz, chief of staff at 5 Corps, oversaw the building work along with Brigadier Sajawal. At Kharan, they constructed a vertical shaft 300 foot deep with a 700-foot horizontal tunnel leading off the bottom. In Ras Koh, five horizontal tunnels were bored directly into the side of a mountain. The tunnels were designed in the shape of a double S so that if a bomb was detonated, the explosion would move the mountain outwards and the tunnel would collapse inwards. Each one was capable of withstanding a 20-kiloton explosion explosion, the same magnitude as the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Completed in 1980, the tunnels would be sealed until Pakistan was ready.



*Despite all the activity at Kahuta and Ras Koh, the international community was oblivious to Pakistans uranium enrichment plans, going all out, instead, to block its ongoing deal with France on the reprocessing plant, which it viewed as a prelude to the production of a plutonium bomb. Straining to see what Pakistan was up to, the State Department put Robert Gallucci, a young official in the Bureau of Non-Proliferation, on to the case. He rummaged around in all the classified material he had access to and concluded that Pakistans nuclear industry is not particularly worrisome now as the Islamic Republic was at the beginning of its nuclear development.*



US secretary of state Henry Kissinger had tried to head Bhuttos nuclear ambitions off course during a meeting in New York in 1976, offering him a strange deal. Bhutto was to terminate his reprocessing project in favor of a US-supplied facility that would be located in Iran and be made available to all countries in the region. But Bhutto rejected the offer and, fearing that Pakistan was about to proceed to the next stage of plutonium production, the US Senate proposed an amendment to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to block economic and military aid, threatening to cut off Pakistans annual $162 million US aid package. Bhutto was not rattled. The noise from the US Congress suited him fine, as he had no intention of going ahead with the costly reprocessing plant and was concentrating his energies on Project 706. Bhutto himself was of the view that the work at Kahuta laboratories should be kept concealed from the world by focusing attention on the purchase of the reprocessing plant, recalled Kauser Niazi, his information minister.60 Always on the lookout for cost efficiencies, Bhutto also hoped that if Pakistan was seen to abandon its reprocessing plans under American pressure it would not have to compensate the French when it finally pulled out of the deal.



[while Bhutto was under incarceration after Zia's coup] Somehow, the exasperating CNOR centrifuge whose exacting design had made it so difficult to reconstruct in Pakistan was now up and running at the Sihala pilot plant. Khan was even preparing to introduce UF6 gas into the centrifuge chamber and to attempt, for the very first time, to enrich uranium. It was remarkably rapid progress for a man who just two years before had been a translator at the FDO lab in Amsterdam, and a solace for Bhutto as he awaited his fate.

Source: Wordpress.com
--------------------------------------------------------------

My two cents here is that A.Q. Khan may not be the chief architect of the nuclear bomb, but he had a part to play in it. Now we are all proud of all our scientists be it Munir Ahmed or A.Q. Khan. Lets not argue who was the greatest. They all were great upto the office peon who worked in the project. Lets salute them all and ignore the Indians here who started this thread to see us all bickering over who should get the credit. 
Stay untied people for Pakistan's sake.

Reactions: Like Like:
4


----------



## Bratva

*Major-General Michael John O'Brian, PAF &#8212; Director-General of the Special Works Development

He supervised the nuclear test sites near Kirana Hills, and personally oversaw the construction of the test site. O'Brian was a senior member of the military unit Special Development Works (SDW) headed by Brigadier-General Muhammad Sarfaraz. As a military intellectual, he played an important role in the nuclear policy of Pakistan*


So who says Pakistan is a intolerant country?

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## SQ8

mafiya said:


> *Major-General Michael John O'Brian, PAF &#8212; Director-General of the Special Works Development
> 
> He supervised the nuclear test sites near Kirana Hills, and personally oversaw the construction of the test site. O'Brian was a senior member of the military unit Special Development Works (SDW) headed by Brigadier-General Muhammad Sarfaraz. As a military intellectual, he played an important role in the nuclear policy of Pakistan*
> 
> 
> So who says Pakistan is a intolerant country?




Christians have had much higher acceptance in the culture of the Armed forces as other religions. 
The general stigma has been with Hindus and Sikhs(not as much).

At the same time , there are examples of people from these communities doing fairly well. But the Zia era has been the bell of death for tolerance in Pakistani society.

Reactions: Like Like:
4


----------



## Safriz

Oscar said:


> Christians have had much higher acceptance in the culture of the Armed forces as other religions.
> The general stigma has been with Hindus and Sikhs(not as much).
> 
> At the same time , there are examples of people from these communities doing fairly well. But the Zia era has been the bell of death for tolerance in Pakistani society.



I dont know how old you are..but i was in my full senses during zia's era,and didnt see christians being crucified...
The only upheaval in his era was against Qadianis and Shias...
But then again i had Qadiani class fellows all along my school years and in college,and they werent lynched...

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## A.Rafay

farhan_9909 said:


> kirana hills tests were done on indigenously developed centrifuge.
> indeed the centrifuge needed to be perfected bt we were certainly capable of developing nukes
> 
> over view of kirana hills test from wiki
> Kirana Hills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Never knew about the kirana hills before, Thankyou! Our Bomb is Purely indigenous!


----------



## Tshering22

somebozo said:


> You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.



Well do you really think that it would have remained a hidden fact to the intelligence agencies? For all the high IQ you have, you guys should know that if any intelligence agencies were upto assassinating any of these scientists, they'd have done that by now. Neither AQ Khan is dead nor any of those above killed, by either CIA or RAW.


----------



## MastanKhan

rohailmalhi said:


> There are many people who have given theor lives for nuclear program of Pakistan . They havnt done it to earn fame , they have done it because they of their patriotism and love for their motherland.
> 
> The article is baised as the author is clearly trying to defame Dr. A.Q.Khan which is very wrong every person played the part he or she was given in the program.
> 
> For me all of them are every respectable and I hope we have more people like them who work day and night to make this motherland of ours a better place to live in .




Hi,

The truth is being told---AQK is not being de-famed---he is getting what he deserves----time is a great equalizer.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## VCheng

A.Rafay said:


> Never knew about the kirana hills before, Thankyou! Our Bomb is Purely indigenous!



Kirana Hill has a radar installation on top and many other projects in and around it. The runway of the Mushaf AFB and the city of Sargodha can be seen in the background in this view looking north:




KiranaHill by vcheng552000, on Flickr

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Hulk

mafiya said:


> *Major-General Michael John O'Brian, PAF &#8212; Director-General of the Special Works Development
> 
> He supervised the nuclear test sites near Kirana Hills, and personally oversaw the construction of the test site. O'Brian was a senior member of the military unit Special Development Works (SDW) headed by Brigadier-General Muhammad Sarfaraz. As a military intellectual, he played an important role in the nuclear policy of Pakistan*
> 
> 
> So who says Pakistan is a intolerant country?


One example changes nothing.


----------



## Bratva

indianrabbit said:


> One example changes nothing.




An ignorant will remain ignorant. Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer in the Pakistan Army and a military scientist. He served Pakistan Army for 33 years and most notably in Nuclear Policy making.

PAF Ace pilot Cecil Chaudhary

A christian active service Major General headed Sawat Ops for a while. many examples exist and would only be found by those who has a habit of using google.

Reactions: Like Like:
3


----------



## aks18

this black mountain is the historical site of Chaghi where Pakistan's nuclear tests were conducted.

The name of this peak is Kambaran peak.


GE Co-ordinates:

Lat: 28?49'48.76"N
Long: 64?55'48.08"E

GE Co-ordinates of nuclear tests site:

Lat: 28?47'33.77"N
Long: 64?56'48.00"E


Pic taken from plane by mobeen mazhar

Reactions: Like Like:
3


----------



## niaz

mafiya said:


> *Major-General Michael John O'Brian, PAF &#8212; Director-General of the Special Works Development
> 
> He supervised the nuclear test sites near Kirana Hills, and personally oversaw the construction of the test site. O'Brian was a senior member of the military unit Special Development Works (SDW) headed by Brigadier-General Muhammad Sarfaraz. As a military intellectual, he played an important role in the nuclear policy of Pakistan*
> 
> 
> So who says Pakistan is a intolerant country?



PAF does not have Major Generals. Do you mean AVM Michael John O'Brian by any chance?

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Bratva

niaz said:


> PAF does not have Major Generals. Do you mean AVM Michael John O'Brian by any chance?



Yes. My mistake, i should have corrected it.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Manticore

Pakistan's Nuclear Past as Prologue

Frank Klotz
|
March 12, 2013

Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb.

The rivalry between India and Pakistan continues to be cause for serious concern. Since partition in 1947, the two countries have fought one another in three major wars and clashed in a number of more limited military engagements. Disputes over territory and a host of other issues persist. Earlier this year, skirmishes on the &#8220;line of control&#8221; in Kashmir reportedly left three Pakistani and two Indian soldiers dead. Political leaders in both New Delhi and Islamabad predictably responded with angry rhetoric. It is after all an election year in Pakistan&#8212;and campaigning is practically a year-round activity in India&#8217;s huge federal system.

Because both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed states, the stakes of any armed conflict between the two countries are potentially enormous. Scholars disagree on the extent to which the very existence of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent may have lowered the prospects for all-out war during the past decade or so. Yet, even if nuclear weapons have had a deterrent effect, the potential for interstate violence nevertheless remains&#8212;and, with it, the ever-present possibility that some future crisis could escalate out of control regardless of what national leaders might actually intend. The consequences could be horrific not only for the region, but for the entire world.

Both India and Pakistan espouse a policy of &#8220;minimum deterrence&#8221;&#8212;though neither side has precisely defined what this actually means. Today, they each possess a stockpile of roughly one hundred nuclear weapons&#8212;with Pakistan having slightly more than its neighbor. While these are relatively modest numbers compared to those of the United States and Russia, the two countries are currently expanding their respective nuclear capabilities beyond their existing nuclear-capable fighter aircraft and medium-range land-based missiles. India is now conducting sea trials for its first indigenously produced nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine (the Arihant). Less than a year ago, it also tested a ballistic missile (the Agni V) capable of reaching Beijing. For its part, Pakistan is said to be developing tactical nuclear warheads to mount atop a new, sixty kilometer-range mobile missile, the Nasr. Both sides are also reportedly taking steps to expand their capabilities to produce fissile materials.

These new programs reflect differing assessments of the threat each country faces. China&#8217;s economic rise and growing ability to project military power beyond its borders loom large in India&#8217;s strategic calculations. While both China and India have a &#8220;no-first-use&#8221; policy regarding nuclear weapons, Indian strategists have for years cited China&#8217;s nuclear capability as the principal rationale for developing Indian nuclear weapons&#8212;though perhaps they would be as much a symbol of national power as a deterrent force. Pakistan, on the other hand, seems most concerned about mitigating the imbalance in conventional military power created by India&#8217;s advantages in manpower and resources.

The Relevance of History

But weapons-development programs are not just a function of perceived threats. The momentum of past decisions also plays a role. This has certainly been the case in the United States. Choices made a half-century ago concerning the size and nature of the American nuclear forces, as well the complex of nuclear-weapon laboratories and production plants, continue to affect and constrain U.S. nuclear-weapons policy today. The same no doubt holds true for India and Pakistan. Their separate nuclear legacies will influence the course of the arms competition between them, as well as the prospects for confidence-building measures that could help avert a nuclear confrontation.

For this reason, an understanding of South Asia&#8217;s nuclear past is essential to assessing its nuclear future. The history of India&#8217;s nuclear-weapons program has been well documented. Though first published over a decade ago, George Perkovich&#8217;s India's Nuclear Bomb, remains essential reading for its comprehensive and compelling account of India&#8217;s often ambivalent pursuit of nuclear weapons. More recent works, especially retired Vice Admiral Verghese Koithara&#8217;s Managing India&#8217;s Nuclear Forces, provide informed and insightful updates on the current status of India&#8217;s nuclear forces. Until recently, however, one would have been hard pressed to find a full account of Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear-weapons program between the covers of a single book. While several studies have dealt with specific aspects of the story, such as A. Q. Khan&#8217;s notorious nuclear-proliferation network, or provided details on current policies and capabilities, a single, comprehensive history had yet to be written.

Fortunately, Feroz Hassan Khan&#8217;s Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb fills this gap in the literature. In this important and impressive new work, Khan traces the development of Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear-weapons program from partition to the present, examining, in his own words, &#8220;how and why Pakistan managed to overcome the wide array of obstacles that stood between it and nuclear weapons.&#8221;

Khan, a lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, confesses that chronicling Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear history was no easy task. Aside from the highly classified nature of many aspects of the program, the author also had to contend with the conflicting narratives offered by rival personalities, laboratories and institutions. Fortunately, Khan succeeds admirably in sifting through published accounts and weaving in details and anecdotes from his numerous interviews with key participants. Though he personally denies that the book is an &#8220;insider account,&#8221; his background as a former brigadier in the Pakistani army and a former director in the Strategic Plans Division of the Joint Services Headquarters&#8212;which essentially controls Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear arsenal&#8212;obviously served him well in assembling the pieces of the puzzle into an intelligible whole, as well as a highly readable narrative.

From Reluctance to Resolve

The book takes its title from a 1965 quote attributed to then foreign minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that if India developed an atomic bomb, then Pakistan would follow suit &#8220;even if we have to feed on grass and leaves&#8230;&#8221; But as Feroz Khan points out, not everyone in Pakistan initially shared Bhutto&#8217;s fervor. Rather, for most of the 1950s and 1960s, a period dominated by the leadership of President Ayub Khan, Pakistan&#8217;s approach was decidedly cautious.

Fearing the potential political and economic repercussions of overtly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the Pakistani government and nuclear establishment concentrated instead on training a cadre of scientist and engineers and on developing the capability to indigenously build power plants. The Eisenhower administration&#8217;s &#8220;Atoms for Peace&#8221; program, including the opportunity for Pakistanis to study in American universities, played a crucial role in this regard. While such efforts could be considered necessary precursors to an active nuclear weapons program, that apparently was not Pakistan&#8217;s principal objective at the time. As Feroz Khan puts it, &#8220;&#8230; Ayub never explicitly rejected the bomb option. He simply decided not to decide.&#8221;

The catalyst for changing course was the shattering defeat Pakistan suffered at the hands of the Indian army in the 1971 war, during which Pakistan lost half of its territory (when East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh). Khan argues that a sense of &#8220;never again&#8221; and a corresponding inability (or unwillingness) to rely upon allies have been powerful motivators for some countries to &#8220;go nuclear,&#8221; most notably China and Israel. The same held true for Pakistan. It also made a difference that Bhutto came to power in the war&#8217;s immediate aftermath. Almost immediately, he abruptly changed the leadership of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and set it on a path to developing a nuclear weapon. After India conducted a &#8220;peaceful nuclear explosion&#8221; in 1974, there was essentially no turning back for Pakistan.

The Pakistani program, however, was beset by a host of challenges. Sectarian prejudices, particularly against members of the Ahmadi sect, meant that some highly capable nuclear scientists and engineers were deliberately excluded from important segments of the program. The loss of East Pakistan in 1971 also thinned the ranks of trained and experienced specialists. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the United States and other nations became increasingly concerned with the potential danger of nuclear proliferation and began to progressively restrict the flow of enabling technologies to would-be proliferators. Negotiations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty were completed in 1968.

Thus, by the time Bhutto launched a nuclear-weapon program in earnest, Pakistan was forced, in Feroz Khan&#8217;s words, to &#8220;tap into any and every source that would help Pakistan complete its fuel cycle. Where rules were lax, critical supplies were procured from the West, and when nonproliferation barriers increased, those supplies were found by other, less explicit means.&#8221; Chinese assistance with materials and designs at various stages also played a pivotal role. The author, however, rejects the notion that Pakistan&#8217;s ultimate success was simply the result of a &#8220;stolen program.&#8221; He argues instead that indigenous intellectual capital and making do with existing technologies&#8212;which he characterizes with the Punjabi term joogaardh&#8212;were indispensable elements of Pakistan&#8217;s overall effort.

Perhaps one of the more fascinating aspects of Eating Grass is its description of the intense institutional rivalries that plagued the Pakistani program. The author calls this chapter of the story the &#8220;clash of the Khans,&#8221; involving Munir Ahmad Khan, chairman of the PAEC from 1972 to 1991, and the now infamous A.Q. Khan, director of the Engineering (later renamed Khan) Research Laboratory (KRL) from 1976 to 2001. Intense personal jealousies led to bickering and constant maneuvering for political favor. The two organizations also differed on substantive technical issues, including the best path to developing a weapon (reprocessing plutonium versus enriching uranium) and the best approach to developing ballistic missiles (solid-fuel versus liquid-fuel).

In some respects, the competition may have helped provide the impetus needed to overcome numerous obstacles. But while the KRL played a crucial role in providing the enriched uranium the program used in its weapon design, the PAEC came out ahead in the end. When Pakistan ultimately decided to test nuclear weapons in May 1998&#8212;a decision the author asserts was forced by India&#8217;s nuclear weapons tests just days before&#8212;the Pakistani army assigned PAEC the lead, while the KRL team played only a supporting role.

The 1998 tests were by no means the end of the story. Pakistan still faced the challenge of transforming a demonstrated capability into an operational deterrent. Feroz Khan provides a detailed account of this process, drawing upon his firsthand knowledge as an original member of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD). On several occasions, the author directly refers to the role he and his erstwhile colleagues played, thus giving rise to some concerns about objectivity. On the other hand, Khan is able to supply detail and nuance that may not otherwise be clear from the available record. He concludes that the establishment and growth of the SPD professionalized Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear capability, by providing &#8220;systematic control over strategic organizations&#8221; and establishing measures to protect the security of Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear assets and guard against unauthorized use. He also credits the SPD&#8217;s increasing oversight of all aspects of the nuclear weapon program, including its finances, for ultimately unraveling A.Q. Khan&#8217;s proliferation network and his dismissal as KRL director in April 2001.

Prospects for the Future

In Feroz Khan&#8217;s view, in a country riven by sectarian and ethnic divisions, the need for nuclear weapons is the one thing upon which all Pakistanis agree. While most countries reacted with considerable dismay to the 1998 tests, the Pakistanis were jubilant. Their country had overcome long odds to build a nuclear weapon, despite starting with a weak technological base and facing strong countervailing pressure from the West. Moreover, Pakistanis felt they now had an answer to India&#8217;s larger conventional military capabilities.

But it is worth asking whether the national-security benefits gained from having a bomb were commensurate with the cost incurred in building it. As noted earlier, nuclear weapons may arguably have played a role in deterring another major war with neighboring India. Yet Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear weapons have not fundamentally redressed the conventional military imbalance between the two countries, which may grow even more lopsided as India continues its significant modernization effort. It is also not clear that Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear weapons will deter a major Indian military response to another terrorist incident, such as the 2008 attack in Mumbai, especially if that response is deliberately tailored not to cross any presumed Pakistani nuclear &#8220;red lines.&#8221; Finally, nuclear weapons do not deal with other pressing threats to Pakistan&#8217;s stability, which Feroz Khan describes as &#8220;domestic dissension and internal conflict&#8221; resulting from a failure &#8220;to bring harmony and nationalism to a religiously homogenous but ethnically and linguistically diverse people.&#8221;

Ironically, the sense of humiliation and isolation that gave rise to its nuclear-weapons program in the first place, may also still be a factor in Pakistan&#8217;s thinking, though in a different guise than before. Pakistan has clearly chafed at the U.S. civil nuclear agreement with India and its subsequent efforts to integrate India into international nuclear-control regimes&#8212;while not making similar overtures toward Pakistan. Aside from hardening Pakistan&#8217;s opposition to a multilateral ban on the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, it perpetuates Pakistan&#8217;s sense that it is isolated and forced to rely solely upon itself in protecting its national security.

Under these conditions, the prospects for Pakistan limiting or even scaling back its nuclear program must be considered remote, particularly as long as the potential for major conflict with India persists. Indeed, given current trends, the more likely near-term outcome is for a continued build up and increasing diversification of Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is widely reputed to have the fastest-growing nuclear-weapon stockpile in the world. Given reported plans to expand its plutonium production capacity with additional nuclear reactors at Khushab and completion of the Chashma reprocessing facility, Pakistan clearly looks to be in the nuclear-weapons business for the long haul.

Feroz Khan&#8217;s account clearly demonstrates that Pakistanis in the end did have to &#8220;eat grass&#8221; to build the bomb. The resources devoted to the nuclear-weapons program came at the expense of investment in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. The increasingly onerous sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries adversely impacted economic and military assistance, as well as overseas educational opportunities for Pakistani scientists. Pakistan&#8217;s current plans mean that the sacrifice of lost investment opportunities will continue. For unless and until its nuclear ambitions are tempered by a more circumscribed approach to &#8220;minimum deterrence&#8221; and actual progress in adopting both conventional and nuclear confidence-building measures with India, Pakistan&#8217;s nuclear-weapon program will consume precious resources for years to come.

Lt Gen Frank G. Klotz, USAF (Ret.) is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, and the former commander of Air Force Global Strike Command.

Commentary: Pakistan's Nuclear Past as Prologue | The National Interest

Reactions: Like Like:
3


----------



## W.11

the conclusion is everybody played his vital part in the development of nuclear bomb for pakistan these low life indians can try to undermine our people but they are all equally respectable

the low lives who had nothing better in their lives then to be salesmen like some peole here have no idea how much dedicated their efforts were for developing us as nuclear power

so i dont care if it was munir A khan or abdul qadeer khan, every body played his role equally well

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## qamar1990

somebozo said:


> You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.



aq khan is not a scape goat cheapster

becuase of him and his uranium program we were able to test ours at the right time.
he is one of the father of our nuclear program and better pakistani then you will ever be in your life.

Reactions: Like Like:
5


----------



## bigest

china's assisant is also important.Pakistan and India on war when both have nuclear weapons,It's terrible.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## RangerPK

Where is the source?


----------



## Umair Nawaz

Hobo1 said:


> A Baniya having lower IQ than Ghazi. ????
> 
> RAW doesn't even target guys like Hafiz and other ISI biggies and u fear they would go after guys who are anyway just assembling Chinese Stuff.



The comment from a typical ignorant man.


----------



## SBD-3

Ma Tayya used to work in PAEC and he was also of the view that the role of Dr AQ khan at KRL was to enrich uranium to fuel the bomb and the way he took the sole credit for the bomb was a source of great dis-grunt in PAEC since the bomb design, mining and all other facilities were completed by PAEC. He told me that PAEC had been able to achieve enormously from a very bleak picture. For Pakistanis the subject of Nuclear physics and allied branches had been forbidden for Docs and Post-Docs in Europe and US. Even the Dr.Abdus Salam's institute didn't accept Pakistani applicants and the institution was mainly dominated by Indian students. PAEC's attempts to convert the bomb to Plutonium (by building Khushab reactor) are nothing short of a marvel in itself. 
The standards of PIEAS are so rigorous that one of my cousin refused to accept their offer. When he told me, i was kind of shocked and asked him why is he doing so? He plainly replied me,"I Dont wana spend a life where I am expected to take a book along with me even to toilet." Though I don't agree with his exaggeration but PAEC has really set herself some standards.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Nuclear Spirit

There are no fathers and mothers of any programe but rather a team effort. A nuclear fuel cycle requires literally thousands of process which require thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians. A.Q was the head of only one part i.e. uranium enrichment. To call him the father is grssly misleading.

On another note A.Q Khan never stole URENCO's centrifuge technology. He was tried in the dutch court however he was honourably set free of all such blames. The centrifuge technology was already published in many scientific journals since 1930's. Although

Althoug it is well know A.Q Khan has a habit of show boasting and claiming credit for others.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## JawadSatti

> Before i Knew Him, i was almost sure that Pakistani Nuclear program was nothing but a Stolen Eurenco Technology witha Chinese Weapon Design.



i think do little research about your Nuclear Program India Also Take Technology From US Govt So why China Give His Technology to Pakistan


----------



## XYON

Munir Ahmed Khan was an American covert deep implant in the PAEC from the beginning. His wife was a foreigner (as that of AQ Khan) and his prime purpose was to keep Pakistan Nuclear Program at a threshold not exceeding weaponization. When things got out his hand and decision was made at the top for advancement of weaponization in nukes, he started filtering inside information to the US CIA. This is the reason that Pakistani nuclear program faced a lot of problems post 1980's in import of dual use technologies from the US. It was his information that lead to many of the Pakistani nuke equipment purchase operatives working around the world were arrested by the US and other European Governments.

He was not the father of the nuke program rather a snake in the armpits of Pakistan! Dr. A Q Khan was his nemesis and which is the reason why Bhutto encouraged A Q Khan to set up the KRL labs as an independent entity. With all his short comings I have more respect for A Q Khan than I have for Munir Ahmed Khan. One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan; and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people!

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Kompromat

XYON said:


> Munir Ahmed Khan was an American covert deep implant in the PAEC from the beginning. His wife was a foreigner (as that of AQ Khan) and his prime purpose was to keep Pakistan Nuclear Program at a threshold not exceeding weaponization. When things got out his hand and decision was made at the top for advancement of weaponization in nukes, he started filtering inside information to the US CIA. This is the reason that Pakistani nuclear program faced a lot of problems post 1980's in import of dual use technologies from the US. It was his information that lead to many of the Pakistani nuke equipment purchase operatives working around the world were arrested by the US and other European Governments.
> 
> He was not the father of the nuke program rather a snake in the armpits of Pakistan! Dr. A Q Khan was his nemesis and which is the reason why Bhutto encouraged A Q Khan to set up the KRL labs as an independent entity. With all his short comings I have more respect for A Q Khan than I have for Munir Ahmed Khan. One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan; and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people!



Interesting thing, to say none the less. Is it a 'fact' or an 'opinion presented as a fact' ? - If it is the former than one must require substantiated evidence of this theory to believe it.


----------



## The Deterrent

XYON said:


> Munir Ahmed Khan was an American covert deep implant in the PAEC from the beginning. His wife was a foreigner (as that of AQ Khan) and his prime purpose was to keep Pakistan Nuclear Program at a threshold not exceeding weaponization. When things got out his hand and decision was made at the top for advancement of weaponization in nukes, he started filtering inside information to the US CIA. This is the reason that Pakistani nuclear program faced a lot of problems post 1980's in import of dual use technologies from the US. It was his information that lead to many of the Pakistani nuke equipment purchase operatives working around the world were arrested by the US and other European Governments.
> 
> He was not the father of the nuke program rather a snake in the armpits of Pakistan! Dr. A Q Khan was his nemesis and which is the reason why Bhutto encouraged A Q Khan to set up the KRL labs as an independent entity. With all his short comings I have more respect for A Q Khan than I have for Munir Ahmed Khan. One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan; and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people!









You got something to back up that allegation?


----------



## SQ8

XYON;4609048 One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan;[B said:


> and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people![/B]



Please.. save us the sermon. There were bigger leaks than him.. A.Q Khan was an opportunist who was making his buck selling our centrifuges to other countries(in collusion with some khakis and others). He only stuck around because he was assured he would still be minting money through re-branded KRL as long as he took the fall.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## Dr. Strangelove

XYON said:


> Munir Ahmed Khan was an American covert deep implant in the PAEC from the beginning. His wife was a foreigner (as that of AQ Khan) and his prime purpose was to keep Pakistan Nuclear Program at a threshold not exceeding weaponization. When things got out his hand and decision was made at the top for advancement of weaponization in nukes, he started filtering inside information to the US CIA. This is the reason that Pakistani nuclear program faced a lot of problems post 1980's in import of dual use technologies from the US. It was his information that lead to many of the Pakistani nuke equipment purchase operatives working around the world were arrested by the US and other European Governments.
> 
> He was not the father of the nuke program rather a snake in the armpits of Pakistan! Dr. A Q Khan was his nemesis and which is the reason why Bhutto encouraged A Q Khan to set up the KRL labs as an independent entity. With all his short comings I have more respect for A Q Khan than I have for Munir Ahmed Khan. One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan; and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people!



my dear who told u this s**T


----------



## Chanakyaa

XYON said:


> Munir Ahmed Khan was an American covert deep implant in the PAEC from the beginning. His wife was a foreigner (as that of AQ Khan) and his prime purpose was to keep Pakistan Nuclear Program at a threshold not exceeding weaponization. When things got out his hand and decision was made at the top for advancement of weaponization in nukes, he started filtering inside information to the US CIA. This is the reason that Pakistani nuclear program faced a lot of problems post 1980's in import of dual use technologies from the US. It was his information that lead to many of the Pakistani nuke equipment purchase operatives working around the world were arrested by the US and other European Governments.
> 
> He was not the father of the nuke program rather a snake in the armpits of Pakistan! Dr. A Q Khan was his nemesis and which is the reason why Bhutto encouraged A Q Khan to set up the KRL labs as an independent entity. With all his short comings I have more respect for A Q Khan than I have for Munir Ahmed Khan. One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan; and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people!



Imagination ki bhi Had hoti hai Yar !


----------



## Green Arrow

XYON said:


> Munir Ahmed Khan was an American covert deep implant in the PAEC from the beginning. His wife was a foreigner (as that of AQ Khan) and his prime purpose was to keep Pakistan Nuclear Program at a threshold not exceeding weaponization. When things got out his hand and decision was made at the top for advancement of weaponization in nukes, he started filtering inside information to the US CIA. This is the reason that Pakistani nuclear program faced a lot of problems post 1980's in import of dual use technologies from the US. It was his information that lead to many of the Pakistani nuke equipment purchase operatives working around the world were arrested by the US and other European Governments.
> 
> He was not the father of the nuke program rather a snake in the armpits of Pakistan! Dr. A Q Khan was his nemesis and which is the reason why Bhutto encouraged A Q Khan to set up the KRL labs as an independent entity. With all his short comings I have more respect for A Q Khan than I have for Munir Ahmed Khan. One was a spy with no trace of his family in Pakistan; and the other is still a patriot living amongst his own people!



Bullshit. Dr A Q Khan came late into the scene. It was Munir Khan and Dr Salaam who prepared the basis ground for Pakistan to go for nuclear. Munir Khan and Dr Salaam were better Pakistani than u and me.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## Bratva

Green Arrow said:


> Bullshit. Dr A Q Khan came late into the scene. It was Munir Khan and Dr Salaam who prepared the basis ground for Pakistan to go for nuclear. Munir Khan and Dr Salaam were better Pakistani than u and me.



Well such allegations are made not only by A Q khan about both Munir and Salaam but by Gen Naqvi as well, who was DG security of Nuke program at that time and I concur you havent read Profiles of Intelligence by brigadier tirmizi. Head of Counter Intel ISI from 76-81. It has a chapter dedicated to Munir khan pondering on the suspicious activities of Munir Khan



XiNiX said:


> Imagination ki bhi Had hoti hai Yar !



He isn't using his imagination. It is based on multiple accounts of various personalities namely A Q Khan, then (80's) DG security nuke program Gen Naqvi, then Counter Intel ISI head Brigadier tirmizi all had doubts about Munir khan motives, his suspicious activities.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## Chanakyaa

@omega , @supremme , @PWFI , @fjavaid , @JonAsad , @Spy Master , @HRK , @Horus , @dexter , @Usama78 , @Areesh , @raazh , @chauvunist , @rockstar08 , @Jf Thunder , @Jungibaaz , @slapshot , @mri1024 2 , @Bratva , @Rashid Mahmood , @MastanKhan , @Major Sam , @Ulla AUz , @Manticore , @Icarus , @Irfan Baloch , @Rain , @Norwegian , @Rafi , @Icewolf , @senses , @farhanalee7 

Guys, ur comments r most welcome.


----------



## RISING SUN

XiNiX said:


> He was a Good Metallurgical Engineer. Thats why he was at Eurenco.
> But Nuclear Technology ? and Bombs ? No way.
> 
> Actually he was a great Business Man who could manage to bring the elements needed for the bombs at one place.
> He even tried to Paralyze the Indegenious efforts of pakistan and the lesser known fact is that even the uranium plans were underway by the name of Project 706 b4 Khan Got In.


 Off topic but urgent mate. A UFO has been spotted 12:45 hours earlier today Pune airspace. What is this? First a UFO in Mumbai airspace and then Pune. We have our best air defence system here but still we can't track it. Is it stealth jet or anything else. I believe US has stealtg jet deployed just across Arabian sea. Near Mumbai airspace over sea may be possible for them but so much inside our airspace. I am not getting anything at all. Thank you.

Flight had taken off from Pune airport and was bound for Ahmadabad, incident has been registered in Mumbai ATC. Jet Airways flight flown by Pilot Mahima Chaudhary, object flying over 26000 feet as per plane altitude details. Object in green and white colour. Tri colour Su30 MKI? Your inputs?


----------



## Green Arrow

Bratva said:


> Well such allegations are made not only by A Q khan about both Munir and Salaam but by Gen Naqvi as well, who was DG security of Nuke program at that time and I concur you havent read Profiles of Intelligence by brigadier tirmizi. Head of Counter Intel ISI from 76-81. It has a chapter dedicated to Munir khan pondering on the suspicious activities of Munir Khan
> 
> 
> 
> Dr A Q Khan made allegations against most of his seniors and colleagues, so i don't take him seriously, even his own role is quite suspicious as well. Yes i know this book but haven't read it, though i met with brig. syed trimizi couple of times and had a good chat.


----------



## dilpakistani

the more i read him the more i feel less heroic about him.... his writing is full of self obsession. It is a fact that perhaps Uranium Enrichment couldn't have been done without him but we should all know that on May 1998 all devices used were PAEC made. The weapon(actual battle ready bomb) we tested on 30rth May was Plutonium based fission device. Missile delivery program with solid fuel propulsion which actually provide us robust mobility, accuracy and rapid second strike option is delivered to us by PAEC. KRL contribution in producing fuel cores is applaud able indeed but it was merely a fall back option. Two separate nuclear programs insured that we get this capability no matter what. By the grace of God both programs met enormous success.

Source: Pakistan Nuclear History- A Q Khan Version | Page 3


----------



## xyxmt

yar yeh stupidity kub tuk chalti rahey gi


----------



## burraak

*To know the real story must watch these youtube videos*

*Sultan Bashir Ud Din Mehmood Interview [1 of 5 parts]*





*Dr.Inam Ur rehman [1 of 14 parts]*


----------



## Hyperion

You don't know AQ Khan, that's why you say what you say..... he is nothing but a glorified clerk in our nuclear program! 



hunter_hunted said:


> There are many unsung heroes and I salute all of them also. But nice try to defame AQ khan.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## hunter_hunted

Hyperion said:


> You don't know AQ Khan, that's why you say what you say..... he is nothing but a glorified clerk in our nuclear program!



I agree i didnt know any thing about AQ Khan. But its upto guys like you to tell us whats the real story.... Im waiting for your reply ....


----------



## livingdead

link to original article please.


----------



## shah1398

AQ Khan was just a front man. Basically to look after for administrative issues and be a media icon to divert attention from the real working guys. He holds his directorate degree in field of mining and thats not even relevant to nuclear activities. It was said that just after 28th May, 1998 the security of Dr Samar Mubarakmand was increased manifolds and from there on-wards we kept on knowing who the real unsung heros were. And thats how professional intel Agencies work.Good cover up till end.


----------



## ayazahmad

Stolen or Original doesn't matter for us.....but kindly throw a light on indian technology...it is also stolen or begged from usa....your scientists were not enough intelligent.


----------



## Zibago

The other two unsung heroes are Abdusalam and Wladyslav Turowics


----------



## WAJsal

hunter_hunted said:


> I agree i didnt know any thing about AQ Khan. But its upto guys like you to tell us whats the real story.... Im waiting for your reply ....


We are working on it, for PDF database, could take a couple of weeks, wait till then, thank you. Everyone had a role to play, yes AQ Khan is glorified more than he should. Munir Ahmed deserves more credit than anyone. All in it together as a team.


ayazahmad said:


> Stolen or Original doesn't matter for us.


Was acquired, never stolen.



Bratva said:


> It is based on multiple accounts of various personalities namely A Q Khan, then (80's) DG security nuke program Gen Naqvi, then Counter Intel ISI head Brigadier tirmizi all had doubts about Munir khan motives, his suspicious activities.


Is there anything credible to state such a thing, we all know what sort of comments AQ Khan has made in the past, anything credible enough? he was the one in the initial stages who kick started this program. If you want i can share his other achievements too.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## syedali73

Hyperion said:


> You don't know AQ Khan, that's why you say what you say..... he is nothing but a glorified clerk in our nuclear program!


A glorified clerk? Thank God you did not declare him as a glorified peon otherwise who could have held you tongue.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Hyperion

Next time I need to rate a Pakistani microbiologist, I'll get your advice first.............. leave metallurgy and metallurgists to me! 



syedali73 said:


> A glorified clerk? Thank God you did not declare him as a glorified peon otherwise who could have held you tongue.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## hunter_hunted

WAJsal said:


> We are working on it, for PDF database, could take a couple of weeks, wait till then, thank you. Everyone had a role to play, yes AQ Khan is glorified more than he should. Munir Ahmed deserves more credit than anyone. All in it together as a team.
> 
> Was acquired, never stolen.
> 
> 
> Is there anything credible to state such a thing, we all know what sort of comments AQ Khan has made in the past, anything credible enough? he was the one in the initial stages who kick started this program. If you want i can share his other achievements too.



Thanks for update. Please do tag me when you add more information on this matter. I always wanted to know more. I know it was a team effort that led Pakistan to be a Nuclear state not just one man show.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Zeeshi

I Salute you Sir


----------



## Munir Awan

Yes all above story and characters mentioned therein are true but its very unfortunate that no one is ready to mention the name of real hero behind enrichment of uranium *"DR. G. D. ALAM (late)"*, who himself designed the centrifuge technology by his day and night efforts alongwith his small team comprising Mr. Anwar Ali and others. These persons are in fact patriots of Pakistan, who stayed very far from fame, cameras and politics. I have strong belief that we can manipulate the history as per our will to save our fame in this world but how will we hide the real heroes behind this mission. I asked Dr. G. D. Alam (in May 1998) about to speak in the press to tell the realities of this program but he refused saying that in fact this mission was from almighty Allah which has been completed successfully, I dont need appreciation in this world.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## barbarosa

All are respectable for us and we salute them
All has contributed according to his job.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## singlefighter

XiNiX said:


> *The Untold Story of Pakistani Nuclear Program*
> *The Real Father of Pakistani Bomb : Dr. M A Khan*​
> _Before i Knew Him, i was almost sure that Pakistani Nuclear program was nothing but a Stolen Eurenco Technology witha Chinese Weapon Design. But as i researched more on works of Munir Khan & Related Comparision with AQ Khan, a new dimension originates._
> 
> #1. The Real Father of Pakistani Nuclear Bomb is NOT AQ Khan, But Dr. Munir Ahmed Khan
> #2. Pakistan has Two Weapon Designs , Not Just the Uranium Design ( Stolen by AQ ) but a Plutonium Design.
> #3. Plutonium Research is the Real Indegeniuis Effort by Pakistan, under PAEC whic did the most of Nuclear Program
> 
> 
> Read on .... to know some Awesome Facts abt Munir Khan and Pakistani Nuclear program....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ​
> Bhutto began the nuclear quest with his characteristic sense of urgency. He had taken power in mid-December 1971, and in January he hastily called together some fifty of Pakistan's top scientists and government officials for what was to be a very secret meeting. At the time, the new government was still in a state of enormous confusion, and Bhutto's aides originally scheduled in the meeting for the town of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.
> 
> It was January, with winter storms blowing down from Afghanistan to the north, and Quetta had no facilities adequately heated for the selected scientists and bureaucrats to meet in. No one complained, when, the government laid on military planes to fly the freezing scientists south and east to the town of Multan. The day was sparkling clear, and Bhutto convened the meeting under a brightly coloured canvas canopy, on the lawn of a stately old Colonial mansion. The scientists and administrators who were there were far and away the best brains in Pakistan, and some were as good as could be found anywhere in the world. The Pakistani people and their Islamic forebears had historically nurtured a rich scientific tradition, and the country, though in some ways underdeveloped could count on a surprisingly strong scientific establishment. Three names are especially worth remembering.
> 
> Abdus Salam - the Professor to his worshipping younger colleagues - had founded the Third World-oriented International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.Dr. Ishrat Usmani had gained prominence as Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and would go on to build his reputation as an international civil servant specializing in energy questions at the United Nations.
> 
> And the man Bhutto would name to replace Usmani as head of the nuclear programme and the PAEC till his retirement in 1991, Munir Ahmed Khan, had just come with high marks from the staff of the very organization that is supposed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Munir Ahmed Khan was a nuclear engineer of international standing, and he spent nearly 14 years at the IAEA in Vienna, where he was the Head of Reactor Engineering, before joining PAEC, and he had organized more than twenty technical and international conferences on heavy water reactors, advanced gas cooled reactors, plutonium utilization, and small and medium power reactors.
> 
> In the late 1970s, Director General of IAEA offered him the post of Deputy Director General in Vienna, but he refused it to accomplish his mission in Pakistan.He was the first Asian scientist to be appointed at the IAEA and later in 1986, he was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IAEA in Vienna.There was great deal of enthusiasm and joy. Bhutto started slowly. He spoke of Pakistan's defeat in the war with India, and vowed that he would vindicate the country's honour. He said that he had always wanted Pakistan to take the nuclear road, but nobody had listened to him. Now fate had placed him in a position where he could make the decision, he had the people of Pakistan behind him, and he wanted to go ahead.
> 
> Pakistan was going to have the bomb, and the scientists sitting under the shamiana at Multan were going to make it for him.So Bhutto had all these boys together, these scientists, and there were senior people, very senior people, and junior people, and youngsters fresh with their PhDs in nuclear physics, and he said: Look, we're going to have the bomb.&#8221; He said &#8220;Can you give it to me?&#8221; So, they started saying &#8220;Oh yes, yes, yes. You can have it. You can have it.&#8221; But Bhutto wanted more. He paused them. &#8220;How long will it take?&#8221; he asked. There was a lively debate on the time needed to make the bomb, and finally one scientist dared to say that maybe it could be done in five years. Bhutto smiled, lifted his hand, and dramatically thrust forward three fingers.&#8221; Three years&#8221;, he said.&#8221; I want it in three years&#8221;.
> 
> The atmosphere suddenly became electric. It was then that one of the junior men - S.A.Butt, who under Munir Khan's guiding hand would come to play a major role in making the bomb possible - jumped to his feet and clamoured for his leader's attention. &#8220;It can be done in three years&#8221;, Butt shouted excitedly. Bhutto was very much amused and he said, &#8220;Well, much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, this is a very serious political decision, which Pakistan must make, and perhaps all Third World countries must make one day, because it is coming. So can you do it? &#8220;And they said, &#8220;Yes, we can do it, given the resources and given the facilities. &#8221;Bhutto's answer was simple.&#8221; I shall find you the resources and I shall find you the facilities&#8221;.
> 
> This then was the day the bomb was born, the meeting at Multan that set the seal on Pakistan's nuclear future. From that moment, Pakistan would begin a national crash programme to get the bomb. It was a historic move.The meeting set the stage and also helped select the actors. Most of the scientists came along. Few did not. Even Z.A.Bhutto, for all his powers of persuasion, could not convince some of the senior men, including the longtime friend and adviser, the future Nobel laureate Abdus Salam. Bhutto probably feared that any open condemnation of the project from Salam could severely split Pakistan's nuclear scientists, many of whom revered him. His opposition could also trigger alarm bells among the scientists and diplomats around the world. So some time after the meeting, a special emissary was sent to Salam, who had returned to his home in Britain, to brief him on the programme and to assure him that it was really peaceful in intent.
> 
> A second, lesser obstacle was the longtime head of the PAEC, Dr Ishrat Usmani, who had opposed the road to the bomb because at the time Pakistan did not have the necessary infrastructure needed for such a technologically giant and ambitious project. Given Usmani's reluctance, Bhutto fired Usmani, promoting him upstairs to the post of Secretary of the newly created Ministry of Science and Technology.He became a figurehead and soon left Pakistan, taking a post at the UN. In his place, as the new Chairman of the PAEC and the man who would make the nuclear dream come true, Bhutto named one of the enthusiasts of the Multan meeting, Munir Ahmed Khan. Trained at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States and a long time staff member of the IAEA, Munir Khan outlived his patron Bhutto to become the spirit and the symbol of the Third World nuclear ambitions, both on the civilian side and in the development of nuclear weapons.
> 
> If one is to go back to a founding figure, the PAEC considered the acquisition of nuclear technology capable of conversion to weapons technology as early as 1955, with the help of President Eisenhower's Atom's for Peace Programme.The foundation of any nuclear weapons programme is the production of the special nuclear materials required for weapons - plutonium or highly enriched uranium for a basic programme for producing fission weapons. Without these materials no weapons can be made. The initial direction taken by Pakistan was to pursue the use of plutonium.
> 
> *
> The Plutonium route to the Bomb​*
> A.Q. Khan always wanted Pakistan to work only on Uranium weapon as compared to Plutonium because (he thought and tried to convince Gen Zia) Plutonium route involved highly complex and sophisticated procedures and processes but PAEC knew better.Plutonium route and all the related activities to establish infrastructure (for eventual bomb) continued in full swing,against AQ Khan desire.A.Q. Khan sought to undermine Munir Khan by opposing the plutonium route because Munir was a plutonium expert, having spent 14 years as Head of Reactor Engineering at the IAEA before his joining PAEC in 1972, where PAEC under Munir Khan not only initiated the Kahuta Enrichment project before AQK, but continued to give crucial technical support.
> 
> Contrary to popular perception, Pakistan did not forego the plutonium route to the bomb, and pursued it along with the uranium route. Whether by intention to prepare a &#8220;nuclear option&#8221; or not, decisions made in the 1960s already provided a valuable basis for establishing a weapons programme. In 1971 the Canadian General Electric Co. completed a 137 MW (electrical) CANDU power reactor for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), which went critical in August 1971 and inaugurated by the man who would go on to become the architect of Nuclear Pakistan, the new Chairman, PAEC, Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan. It began commercial operation in October 1972. CGEC also provided a small heavy water production facility. These facilities had been contracted for in the mid-60s, thus predating Bhutto's drive for nuclear weapon capability, but perhaps influenced by him in a ministerial capacity.
> 
> The technology for KANUPP was the same natural uranium/heavy water technology used in the Indian Cirus and later Dhruva reactors used by India for producing weapons plutonium. The facilities were under IAEA safeguards, and have remained so; nonetheless it was the initial intent of the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme to use plutonium from this reactor as the key ingredient in their nuclear arsenal. But to do that Pakistan required a means of separating plutonium from spent fuel. Some advance preparation had occurred here also. In the late 1960s Pakistan had contracted with both British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Belgonucléaire to prepare studies and designs for pilot plutonium separation facilities. The BNFL design, capable of separating up 360 g of fuel a year. The plan for this plant was completed by 1971.
> 
> The centrepiece of the PAEC weapon's programme at this time was the effort to acquire a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from the fuel of KANUPP. The first step after Multan was to build a pilot reprocessing facility called the &#8220;New Labs&#8221; at PINSTECH, which was completed by 1981, and work on the KHUSHAB Plutonium production reactor started in the 1980s and it became operational in the 1990s. This facility (New Labs) was a larger and more ambitious project than the original BNFL plan. Belgonucléaire and the French corporation Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) built it in the early 70s.
> 
> The pilot plant was followed by a contract signed with SGN in March 1973 to prepare the basic design for a large-scale reprocessing plant, one with a capacity of 100 tons of fuel per year, considerably more than KANUPP would generate. SGN was the world's chief exporter of reprocessing technology and had previously built military plutonium facilities for France, the secret plutonium plant at Dimona in Israel, and contracted to provide similar plants to Taiwan, South Korea, and (later) Iraq. The Chashma plant, as it was known, would have the capability to produce 200 kg of weapons grade plutonium a year, if sufficient fuel were available to feed it. It would have provided Pakistan with the ability to &#8220;break safeguards&#8221; and quickly process accumulated fuel from KANUPP when it decided to openly declare itself a nuclear-armed state. One for the final detailed design and construction on October 18, 1974 followed the initial design contract. The original contract for this project did not include significant safeguards to discourage diversion of the separated plutonium, or controls on the technology
> 
> India's first nuclear test, known variously as &#8220;Smiling Buddha&#8221;, the PNE (for &#8220;Peaceful Nuclear Explosive&#8221, and most recently Pokhran-I, occurred on May 18 , 1974. It provided an additional stimulus to the Pakistani weapons programme. Bhutto increased the funding for the programme after the Indian test, but since arrangements to secure lavish funding had been underway for more than a year this would have occurred anyway. One consequence of the test was ironically to hamper Pakistan's programme as the test sharply escalated international attention to proliferation and led to increased restrictions on nuclear exports to all nations, not just India.
> 
> The French government began to show increased concern about the Chashma plant during 1976. A safeguards agreement for France brought the plant before the IAEA in February 1976, which was approved on March 18 and signed by Pakistan. This at least ensured that the plant would have monitoring so that diversion to military purposes could be made with impunity. Despite Bhutto's overthrow in 1977 by General Zia, the latter continued the project unabated, and continued to press the French to fulfil the Chashma contract. But France had begun gradually turning against the reprocessing plant.
> 
> In late 1977 the French proposed to Pakistan to alter the design of the plant so that it would produce a mixture of uranium and plutonium rather pure plutonium. This modification would not affect the plant's suitability for its declared purpose - producing mixed oxide fuel for power reactors - but would prevent its direct use for producing plutonium for weapons. Pakistan refused to accept the modification. But by that time Pakistan had received 95 percent of the detailed plans for the plant by SGN, and was thus in a position to secure components and build the plant itself, which it would later at KHUSHAB.
> 
> *
> The Uranium Route to the Bomb: PAEC's role in Uranium Enrichment*​
> Pakistan from the outset of the Multan conference was exploring both the Plutonium and Uranium routes to the bomb. During 1974-76, uranium enrichment was probably seen as a backup or at most a co-equal programme for fissile material production. Having two different technologies for production would make Pakistan more resistant to efforts to restrain its programme, and producing both U-235 and plutonium would give Pakistan greater flexibility in weapon design. Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud was only one of dozens of scientists and engineers (besides) AQ Khan who were working in Europe, Canada and the US in late sixties and early seventies that later became &#8220;Consortium Companies&#8221; to supply enriched uranium to European nuclear power plants. PAEC brought back dozens of scientists from Belgium to start this programme under Dr Bashiruddin long before
> 
> *AQ Khan came on board...*
> 
> Moreover, the PAEC was already considering the centrifuge problem, and there was one experiment in Lahore in the early 1970s involving centrifuges. Two pilot centrifuge plants were set up in Golra and Sihala before the actual uranium enrichment facility was established at Kahuta. Munir Ahmad Khan completed the site selection for the Kahuta enrichment plant, initial procurement of vital equipment, construction of its civil works, and recruitment of staff for it by 1976. The Kahuta Enrichment Project was called Project-706 of the PAEC, and as with the plutonium programme, it was under the overall control and supervision of Chairman Munir Khan. A.Q. Khan came to Pakistan and produced gas centrifuge designs and drawings from URENCO. He initially worked under Project Director Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmud.
> 
> Much of the buying for Kahuta of necessary materials and equipment before and after A.Q. Khan's arrival was done by a brilliant PAEC physicist-turned diplomat, S.A. Butt, who was also looking after the plutonium programmes' requirements. The best PAEC scientists and engineers staffed Kahuta. It must be remembered that the Plutonium contract with France had not been cancelled by the French government when the Enrichment Plant was being set up at Kahuta.
> When Canada in 1976 suspended the supply of heavy water fuel and spare parts for KANUPP, the PAEC under Munir Khan took up the challenge and using indigenous resources produced the feed for KANUPP. As a result the Muslim World's first nuclear reactor was not closed even for a single day for want of spare parts, fuel, and heavy water.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The technology Qadeer brought would have eventually been acquired.The work had been started by Bashir-ud-din on Nuclear Fuel cycle to make fuel for KANUPP and future nuclear plants two years prior to Qadeer's arrival in Pakistan.Dr. A.Q. Khan did not bring a magic wand from URENCO but still it was a vital link to the bomb. Under Munir Ahmed Khan, PAEC started an ambitious programme to master the technology of complete nuclear fuel cycle in which &#8220; Heavy Water&#8221; was one of the most important components.
> 
> Heavy Water which was so (prohibitively) expensive which Canada was charging Pakistan $27/lb (in early/mid-seventies), Pakistan's only nuclear power plant would die and our whole nuclear programme would come crashing in late 1970.Qadeer's contribution cannot be denied but should not be overblown.Centrifuge essentially a highly specialized mechanical component was a link in the long chain of enrichment technology.As Qadeer and his team stumbled on many occasions, he received vital technical support from PINSTECH and PAEC infrastructure and scientists. Dr N Ikram out of many (Punjab University, Institute Of Solid State Physics) was a rare specialist in this field and international authority who came to his rescue.
> 
> Qadeer's blueprints were based on first generation enrichment technology originally developed by the URENCO in late sixties and early seventies whose SWU (unit of the measurement to separate U-238 and U-235 in natural uranium in order to create final product that is richer in U-235 (atoms) was so low that thousands of centrifuge machines would have to be deployed for thousands of hours at performance levels much inferior to then installed centrifuges at URENCO. PAEC (under Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan) challenged its economic viability and presented a programme that will deploy the most efficient technology by setting up an infrastructure for advanced machine design for the next generation centrifuges and in the two decades that followed spent more than $3 billion on centrifuge technology and its support infrastructure.
> 
> PAEC used &#8220;proven technology&#8221; with heavy emphasis on R&D (not copy or stealing as US and western media says) with much higher SWU while reducing costs and improving efficiency through the use of state-of-the-art materials, control systems and manufacturing processes.
> By late 90s, KRL had conducted centrifuge development work costing hundreds of millions of dollars. PAEC enabled KRL to take advantage of commercial advances in construction materials (thanks to PAEC/PINSTECH's Scientists) and advanced manufacturing methods to develop a centrifuge machines that achieved several times SWU performance previously demonstrated by early KRL machines, but at substantially reduced cost. Today PAEC has a workhorse technology that capably serves Pakistan defence needs and since New Labs setup, much of the fuel needs of the future nuclear plants in Pakistan.
> 
> People might ask the significance of higher SWU? Natural uranium, in the form of uranium hexafluoride (natural UF6), is fed into an enrichment process. If (for example), you begin with 50 kilograms of natural uranium, it takes about 30 SWU to produce 5 kilograms of uranium enriched in U-235 to 4. -5%. It takes on the order of (roughly) 100,000 SWU of enriched uranium to fuel a typical 137 megawatt (MW) commercial nuclear reactor for a year. A 137 MW (KANUPP) plant can supply the electricity needs for a city of about 500,000 in a country like Pakistan.Moreover, the technology brought by A.Q. Khan was based on the URENCO designs of gas centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapon grade, also known as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). But again, A.Q. Khan's uranium enrichment was not independent of PAEC, even after having acquired total control and autonomy for KRL.
> 
> In order to enrich uranium to weapon grade, he needed the crucial Hexafluoride gas, known as UF-6. Concurrent to the plutonium programme and the setting up of Project-706, the PAEC was also setting up a plant to produce Uranium hexafluoride, which is a crucial ingredient for enriching uranium. Here is how UF6 produced and supplied by PAEC to KRL is critical to Enriching Uranium through gas centrifuges and it underlines the importance of this very important 'step' in a series of interconnected steps that lead to a bomb. KRL depends on PAEC for Enriching Uranium as is illustrated here. KRL's role in centrifuges and vacuum technology and material is not being denied here, but PAEC's role is highlighted which is unknown and unacknowledged and unsung and all praise only goes to A.Q. Khan.
> 
> The PAEC at its HEX PLANT produces Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). Here the natural uranium ore concentrate is sent to a conversion plant where it is chemically processed into Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). At ambient temperature, UF6 is a solid with a low residual vapour pressure. It is then handed over to KRL.At KRL enrichment plant, a centrifuge comprises an evacuated (vacuum) casing containing a cylindrical rotor, which rotates at very high speeds, in an almost friction free environment. The Uranium is fed into the rotor as gaseous Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6) where it takes up the rotational motion. The centrifugal forces push the heavier U-238 closer to the wall of the rotor than the lighter U-235. The gas closer to the wall becomes depleted in U-235 whereas the gas nearer the rotor axis is enriched in U-235.
> 
> The gas flow is produced by a temperature gradient over the length of the centrifuge. UF6 depleted in U-235 flows upwards adjacent to the rotor wall, whilst UF6 enriched in U-235 flows downwards close to the axis. The two gas streams are removed through small pipes.
> The enrichment effect of a single centrifuge is small, so centrifuge pumps are linked in-groups known as cascades. Passing through the successive centrifuges of cascades, the U-235 is gradually enriched to the required percentage - usually between 3 and 5% and the depleted uranium is reduced to 0.2 to 0.3% U-235. Enrichment achieved to 5% is non-weapon grade low enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants whereas HEU weapon grade is over 95%.
> 
> So Enriching Uranium does not start or end completely at KRL after which the enriched uranium is manufactured into a bomb, which involves very critical steps of developing the bomb design, implosion techniques, triggering mechanism etc. The work on the bomb itself had begun in earnest in the early 1970s by PAEC in a meeting called by Chairman Munir Khan, and attended by Dr. Ishfaq and other senior scientists at about the same time that the Indians exploded their Smiling Buddha. The Hex Plant was built by PAEC under Munir Khan's Chairmanship and it confirms the fact that this plant was built for providing UF6 to KRL, which was Project 706 of PAEC, developed under Bashiruddin Mahmud, before A.Q. Khan came.
> 
> There is no doubt that Munir Ahmad Khan was a true visionary, architect of Pakistan's uranium enrichment and plutonium programmes and way ahead of his time at PAEC or PINSTECH. He believed and worked tirelessly in building infrastructure that would fabricate nuclear fuel for Pakistan's nuclear plants and would be a springboard for Qadeer's fame and notoriety. Without getting hands around fuel cycle's first 3 crucial steps - 1) mining (uranium ore mining from mines), 2) milling (uranium ore into yellow cake), 3) conversion (yellow cake into hexafluoride) enrichment would be impossible for which PAEC laid solid ground work very early on. Enrichment, a step in increasing the concentration of U-235 isotopes from its natural level (0.5-.7%) to 5% level (fuel used in nuclear plants) was started by Bashiruddin Mahmud, under Munir Khan's directions. Dr. Bashiruddin did a complete feasibility of the project as early as 1974. Bashirudin was real enrichment (nuclear) expert not a metallurgist.These are two very different disciplines that should not be confused with each other.
> 
> Fuel fabrication (the 4th step) - the process of enriched uranium into uranium dioxide, sealing it into metal fuel rods and bundling into fuel assembly, and the last step - fuel fabrication (fuel into nuclear plants where U-235 starts fission producing heat and running the turbine etc) for power plants was again the work of PAEC.Technically speaking, KRL never built an atomic device for Pakistan but it did build lots of centrifuges, which is purely a mechanical device. PAEC provided technical assistance and guidance in all-important areas of enrichment (and much more) to KRL, as centrifuge was the &#8220;vehicle&#8221; to the enrichment process.
> 
> Much of the KRL time (as an organization) was spent designing, developing centrifuges, identifying and resolving the most difficult cascading and other problems to the very end of the programme. From the beginning, more than 75% of KRL scientists and engineers were from PAEC, although many more with rare expertise were recruited from a diverse pool of Pakistani scientists and engineers working in the US and Europe. PAEC played an important role from the very beginning, and thus their know-how became increasingly important in the overall programme. Without PAEC involvement, KRL abilities could not have grown beyond an advanced machine design shop.
> 
> PAEC knew how to make nuclear fuel for civil applications before KRL was established. Without PAEC /PINSTECH active guidance and participation, KRL centrifuges (in all likelihood) could only have produced low-enriched uranium, not the highly enriched material needed for an atomic weapons. Simply describing, production of low enriched to highly enriched Uranium is not a &#8220;linear&#8221; process, which means that if you can produce low enrich uranium, you cannot or may not (readily) produce HEU.After 30 years of research into the uranium enrichment, Pakistan is now one of the 12 major players in the world that has mastered gas centrifuge technology. This technology with its dozens if not hundreds of spin-off hold the key to the security of Pakistan, future nuclear energy and fuel requirements. People would be surprised to know that laser enrichment programme in the US and Europe and Israel recently hit a dead end.
> 
> The Indian Atomic Energy Commission and BARC (BARK) have fresh proposals to revive the development of the gas centrifuge technology, which never got off the ground in the first place, whereas Pakistan had a continuous and on-going development programme for three decades. We now have latest generation of machines in operation (Pakistan's sixth generation), which is as good as if not better than any European machine. The strategy and risks behind Pakistan development programme were too many and what PAEC did no organization in the world would have done it in view of the resources allocated and severe restrictions to import dual use technology.
> 
> Hence, it is clear that the Pakistani enrichment development was begun in 1974 by Chairman PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan, under several covert programmes and one based (URENCO early model) on the concept of a lightweight rotor operating on pin bearings and magnetic top bearings got the most publicity in the west. Other parallel programmes Pakistan started were based on better design parametres to achieve super-critical operating speed that would provide PAEC with wide base of advanced engineering (machine design) experience on which they helped KRL develop future generation of centrifuges.
> 
> PAEC policy was to run their programmes as economically as possible rather than just focusing on the technical benefits. This approach caused a major friction with KRL but forced KRL to shift its strategy from smuggling machines (not a reliable option) to R&D. KRL envisioned that future generations of machines would be developed from reverse engineering or they would make thousands of first generation machine, clearly a Russian approach wasting precious resources with low chances of success. KRL eventually was forced to undertake a long-term programme to develop significantly faster centrifuges through R&D under PAEC/PINSTECH guidance. While PAEC programmes were based much more on a series of &#8220;smaller projects&#8221; aimed at improving specific aspects of the current centrifuge either by manufacturing improvements to reduce the cost of manufacture or by taking advantage of improvements in materials.
> 
> In either case, all PAEC projects were evaluated from an economic point of view to ensure that lifetime cost improvements actually paid back the money committed to undertake the research and from a technical point of view to ensure that improvements were introduced as early as possible within the manufacturing phase as part of future generation. PAEC was always in favour of step by step approach in developing each centrifuge generation not just importing clandestinely some models and then reverse engineered them so they set out the development programme in three stages 1) R&D 2) Pilot and 3) Production. First step included design studies, testing of new materials, manufacture and very high stress testing of a small number of components and then building typically 20 or 30 centrifuges. The pilot phase was employed to prove that the centrifuges would operate successfully long term under all design parameters.
> 
> 
> *Preparing to Build the Bomb​*
> Pakistani work on weapon design began even before the start of work on uranium enrichment, under the auspices of the PAEC. Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC called a meeting, in March, 1974, to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Among those attending the meeting were Hafeez Qureshi, head of the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at PINSTECH (later to become Member Technical, PAEC), Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC.
> 
> The PAEC Chairman informed Qureshi that he was to work on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO). The word &#8220;bomb&#8221; was never used in the meeting but Qureshi exactly understood the objective. Their task would be to develop the design of a weapon implosion system. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), in the North West Frontier Province and conveniently close to Islamabad.
> 
> The work at Wah began under the undescriptive codename Research and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as &#8220;The Wah Group&#8221;. Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosive lenses to be used in the nuclear device. This expanded, however to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering of the system and the triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment where it could and developed its own technology where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment.
> 
> The first preparations for eventual nuclear tests also started early - in 1976. Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, and Member (Technical) and Dr. Samar Mubarak of the PAEC were dispatched to Balochistan to conduct helicopter reconnaissance of potential test sites with the assistance of the army 5 Corps located at Quetta. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khuzdar in the south and Naukundi-Kharan in the east.The PAEC requirement was for a mountain with a completely dry interior capable of withstanding an internal 20 kt nuclear explosion. A likely site was found in the form of a several hundred-metre tall granite mountain Koh Kambaran in the Ras Koh range (also referred to as the Ras Koh Hills).
> 
> The Ras Koh in the Chagai Division of Balochistan rise at their highest point to 3009 metres. After a one-year survey of the site, completed in 1977, plans were finalized for driving a horizontal tunnel under Koh Kambaran for a future test. (Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who had provided support to the PAEC survey team, was tasked by (now) President Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 with creating and leading the Special Development Works (SDW), which was entrusted, with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites.
> 
> The SDW was formally subordinate to the PAEC but directly reported to the Chief of the Army Staff. Meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and Zia-ul-Haq led to the decision to prepare a second site for a horizontal shaft. The site selected was located at Kharan, in a desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public.
> The Wah Group had a weapon design - an implosion system using the powerful but sensitive HMX as the principal explosive - ready for testing in 1983.
> 
> The first &#8220;cold test&#8221; of a weapon (i.e. a test of the implosion using inert natural uranium instead of highly enriched uranium) took place on March 11, 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed of the PAEC. This test was conducted in tunnels bored in the Kirana Hills near Sargodha, home of the Pakistan Air Force's main air base and the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD).The Kirana Hills test tunnels were reportedly bored by the SDW after the Chagai nuclear test sites, i.e. sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the tunnels had been sealed after construction to await tests. As Prior to the cold tests, an advance team opened and cleaned the tunnels.
> 
> After clearing the tunnels, a PAEC diagnostic team headed by Dr. Mubarakmand arrived on the scene with trailers fitted with computers and diagnostic equipment. This was followed by the arrival of the Wah Group with the nuclear device, in sub-assembly form. This was assembled and then placed inside the tunnel. A monitoring system was set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills.One of the principal objectives of the test was to determine whether the neutron initiator (probably a polonium beryllium design similar to those used in the first US, USSR, UK, and Indian bombs) to reliably start a fission chain reaction in the real bomb. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscilloscopes were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables.
> 
> At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscilloscopes confirmed that the neutrons had indeed been produced. A second cold test was undertaken soon afterwards which was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Lt. Gen. K.M. Arif and Munir Ahmed Khan.Between 1983 and 1990, the Wah Group developed an air deliverable bomb and conducted more than 24 cold tests of nuclear devices with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100-150 feet (30-50 m) in length which were bored inside the Kirana Hills. Later due to excessive US intelligence and satellite attention on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and the cold test facility was shifted to the Kala-Chitta Range. The bomb was small enough to be carried under the wing of a fighter/bomber such as the F-16 which Pakistan had obtained from the US.
> 
> The Wah Group worked alongside the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to evolve and perfect delivery techniques of the nuclear bomb using combat aircraft including &#8220;conventional freefall&#8221;, &#8220;loft bombing&#8221;, &#8220;toss bombing&#8221; and &#8220;low-level laydown&#8221; attack techniques, the latter requiring a sophisticated high speed parachute system. Today, the PAF has perfected all four techniques of nuclear weapons delivery using F-16, Mirage-V and A-5 combat aircraft.
> 
> 
> *Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC's other Achievements*​
> Therefore, we can say that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, under the Chairman Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan remained in-charge of the overall bomb programme, of all the numerous difficult steps, before and after uranium enrichment, and remained closely linked with uranium enrichment itself. They built and exploded the device. There is no getting around this fact. Nor did Pakistan forego the plutonium route, the choice of every other country with nuclear weapons because plutonium bombs are so much more powerful. We know this because of the recent disclosures about the Khushab plutonium production reactor.
> 
> This was driven during Munir Khan's 19-year tenure. All members (Technical), including Dr. Hafeez Qureshi of PINSTECH, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad (a theoretical physicist), Dr. Samar Mubarikmand (an experimental physicist) and others involved in critical technologies and projects like Dr. N.A. Javed, Dr. Abdul Majid (who designed the Khushab plutonium production reactor beginning in the 1980s, and an engineering accomplishment of greater significance for Pakistan than KRL), Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud, the Project Director of ERL/KRL at its inception, and all Members (Nuclear Power), worked as a team, and gave ultimate security to Pakistan.
> 
> The PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan not only went on to build the first generation of nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but also built the Chagai tunnels for nuclear tests, which were ready by early 1980s, and also the plant for the production of uranium hexafluoride gas, the crucial raw material from which enriched uranium is made. He also upgraded the research reactor at Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) and laid the groundwork for the 300MW nuclear power plant at Chashma, which has since been completed and commissioned.Among the first assignments that Munir undertook was the setting of the Centre for Nuclear Studies, later to become PIEAS (Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences), which has produced over two thousand trained nuclear scientists and engineers during the last over quarter of a century.
> 
> In addition a dozen nuclear medical centres and several atomic agricultural centres were set up. Specialized nuclear training centres were established at home and a large number of scientists and engineers were sent abroad for training to create a vast reservoir of trained manpower, the backbone of a self-sustaining nuclear programme.Munir Khan had some powerful detractors too who sought to undermine him. A bizarre incident of how he was undermined is the publication in early 80's of a book &#8220;Islamic Bomb&#8221; by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A Q Khan highlighting their contributions in the nuclear field.
> 
> But when Munir Khan's team conducted cold nuclear tests of its device in 1983,a new version of Islamic Bomb was clandestinely published and widely distributed gratis among army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists. In the doctored version all positive references to Munir Khan were deleted and replaced with negative and derogatory comments.For instance a reference to Munir Khan as 'a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland', in the original edition was doctored to read &#8220;Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan.&#8221;
> 
> At another place the original version read, &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the bomb project&#8221;. It was changed in the doctored edition to read as &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the reprocessing project&#8221;.The change made from the 'bomb project' to the 'reprocessing project' was striking as it sought to rob Munir Khan and his associates of any credit for the bomb project. The authors subsequently disowned the pirated version. It was all done at the behest of AQK, as Munir and his team had begun to get credit after the first cold tests conducted by PAEC in 1983.
> 
> Munir Khan's achievements must be seen in the backdrop of the anti-nuclear international environment of 70's and 80's when the United States, Canada and European countries passed domestic legislation to not only place restrictions on transfer of technology but even to renegotiate settled contracts.He refrained from advertising the Commission's achievements. Some of his colleagues thought the low profile policy were a mistake. They often complained that it had only encouraged others to hijack what actually they had performed. But Munir Ahmad Khan believed that bravado and brandishing nuclear capability would heighten negative international perceptions about Pakistan and make the objectives difficult to achieve.
> 
> The truth is that Munir Khan was very modest, and shied away from the counter-productive boasting of his rivals. He saw Pakistan's strength as lying in more than having a bomb, equally dependent on a secure economic and political future and non-isolation in the world.Munir Khan's role in developing the nuclear programme of Pakistan was in many ways akin to that of Homi Bhabha in India. Homi Bhabha had struck a synthesis with the political leadership soon after independence in 1947 and secured political commitment for his country's nuclear programme. Munir Khan achieved this synthesis with the political leadership in 1972 when he was picked up for the job in a conference of the country's scientists at Multan.
> 
> Since then the country's nuclear programme has enjoyed the bipartisan political support. And like Bhabha, Munir Khan also believed that a viable nuclear programme was not possible without a vast base of trained manpower and the indigenous development of some components, which were vital for the programme.To provide a solid base of trained manpower he set up the Centre for Nuclear Studies, which has now become a University (PIEAS), to train young nuclear scientists and engineers. By now the Centre has produced over 2,000 highly trained and qualified experts in various nuclear disciplines. In the early stages he fought hard with the bureaucracy and sent hundreds of scientists and engineers to Europe and America for training.
> 
> It is this trained manpower which has given Pakistan mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle ranging from uranium exploration and mining, fuel fabrication, making of hexafluoride gas for feeding the enrichment plant and also enriching uranium itself. And as is widely known the devices, which were tested in Chagai in May last, were made by the trainees of these training centres the foundations of which were laid by Munir Ahmad Khan. He accomplished all this because of his successful style of work, whereby he was obsessed with secrecy, whereas AQK regularly gave fat cheques to journalists, who wrote books and articles eulogizing AQK at the expense of PAEC and Munir Khan.
> 
> Munir Khan was a man who was obsessed with secrecy, which sometimes bordered on the paranoia, and he kept a very low profile. He believed that scientists working for the nuclear programme must maintain a distance from journalists and the public, due to the sensitivity of their job, and they had no business to issue any political statements. That would invite unnecessary and sometimes harmful attention from the enemies of the programme and endanger the security of the country.Today PAEC scientists and engineers can develop a new weapon design for a nuclear device every three months in a year. The National Development Complex was initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan in the beginning of the 1990s, and the last years of his Chairmanship as a project of PAEC of vital national significance under Dr. Samar Mubarik Mand, who had been the part of the team which conducted the cold test in 1983, and subsequently the leader of the team which conducted the hot tests in 1998.
> 
> The PAEC had conducted almost 24 cold tests from 1983 onwards till 1998, wherein they improved on the basic nuclear weapon design in the following cold tests.The KRL under Dr. A.Q. Khan was unable to come up with a credible design, and that is why PAEC's bomb was used for testing in 1998 and in all the cold tests carried out by PAEC.PAEC scientists and engineers had gained vast experience in nuclear weapon development and bomb testing, which it was engaged in for over 2 decades. KRL never had anything to do with the actual development of the weapon itself, and PAEC's success in making a viable bomb design and repeatedly testing various designs clearly speaks for the technical prowess of the PAEC and the sagacity of its leadership.
> 
> The making of nuclear weapons is a more challenging task than enriching uranium, as it involves a host of complicated processes and technologies including the triggering mechanism, design, implosion hydrodynamics and technologies, etc. which the PAEC conducted very successfully. Chairman PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan, General K.M. Arif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan witnessed the first cold test of 1983. At the time of the 1998 tests, Dr. A.Q. Khan was invited to the test site &#8220; to witness what a nuclear explosion looks like&#8221; in the words of Dr. Samar, and AQK left soon there after, and he arrived at the test site some 15 minutes before the explosions.
> 
> The greatest contribution that Munir Khan made to the making of nuclear Pakistan is that he made its nuclear programme self-sustaining and independent of himself. The infrastructure which he helped build and the reservoir of trained manpower which he gave, ensured the continuity of the programme after his retirement and is a guarantee that it will continue even after his death. This is unlike many of the great doers who claim sole monopoly over achievement, which essentially is collective.
> 
> Scientific journals in US and Europe recently reporting US companies having developed centrifuge machines that have achieved more than 300 SWU (Separative Work Units) per year, used in the gas centrifuge method for enriching uranium to weapon grade. This was possible because of advances in materials science and metallurgy etc; In Pakistan at GIKI and PAEC/PINSTECH, we now have material science and metallurgy departments offering PhD in material sciences. PINSTECH Nuclear Chemistry department offers BS/MS degrees specializing in heavy water chemistry. The worst US (and Indian/Israeli) fear is that if Pakistan has acquired this level of performance and yields from their machines then they may have ten times more highly enriched uranium to assemble 200 weapons.
> 
> Adding Pakistan's plutonium capability from Khushab reactor to weaponize, it has brought Pakistan in league with Israel and China in her ability to miniaturize nuclear weapon small enough for tactical and battlefields use. (Plutonium bombs are greater in yield, but smaller in size and plutonium is used to make advanced compact warheads that can easily be fitted onto aircraft and missiles). To add more fear to US/Indian nightmare if Pakistan has produced or (by all accounts Pakistan is producing enough) tritium then Pakistan have nuclear weapons whose yield could easily be increased between 100-180 Kiloton. Now Pakistan needs to achieve TRIAD capability to achieve complete surprise.
> 
> Constantly underestimating and trying to belittle Pakistan's ability to progressively enrich uranium and develop an advanced Plutonium programme despite the west's sanctions and the French backstabbing of the Reprocessing contract in the face of acute resource constraints, the West, and the people of Pakistan simply are unaware of the magnitude of capabilities of PAEC/PINSTECH/NDC/KRL and our scientists and engineers. Munir Ahmad Khan's 19 years in the PAEC saw the initiation, blossoming and development of these capabilities.
> 
> 
> PAEC and Nuclear Power Plants
> ​
> Pakistan and China initially agreed (back in 1980s) to commission at least 2 plants at the same site (CHASMA) with common auxiliary services feeding both plants as this is normal practice in the US and Europe. Common auxiliary facilities save a country lots of money. All engineering/design work for both plants was done simultaneously as hundreds of PAEC/PINSTECH engineers worked in China (at Chinese equivalent of US Oakridge labs and other facilities) but only ONE was started and completed per PAEC requirements because China did not have the experience to sustain such large and highly complex projects.
> 
> Chinese reactor safety and reliability was another overriding factor for the delay of second plant not what BBC has said. After CHASMA-I was completed, newly established PNRC (Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Commission) stopped PAEC from starting second plant right away as it wanted to monitor the plant for at least 3 years, first year and half for nominal power and rest of the time at full power as this is the most critical phase. Recently, PNRC has given the safety certificate to PAEC and IAEA.The second plant CHASMA-II will be completed in half the time, as the learning curve would be minimum and many of the 1st plant design anomalies would be fixed. Now I have heard from very reliable source that PAEC plan to build two 500-MW plants somewhere upstream of Indus River in next 7-10 years and another large (300MW) plutonium reactor and upgrading of Khushab reactor to unknown capacity.
> 
> Chinese are also convinced that Pakistan (PAEC) has the engineering know-how and the critical mass of manpower to design turbines, components of large capacity pumps, nuclear grade pipes/tubings as well as backup control systems for the reactor, so the opportunities for Pakistan are endless.As stated above, another PAEC scintillating achievement is Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) reactor in which PAEC engineers developed nuclear fuel used. This was first plant where PAEC took part as consultant and designer. This was light water reactor designed to generate 300 MW of electricity using 15 tonnes of enriched uranium annually.
> 
> The plant uses cooling water from the Chashma-Jhelum link canal and discharges it into the Indus similar to Chinese nuclear power station at Qinshan. As Chinese experience in the design of nuclear power stations for commercial purposes was limited, PAEC expertise came handy in procuring many of the components such as the giant steel pressure vessel, coolant pumps. The computerized control systems were designed in China with PAEC full participation specifications. Pakistan had also gained extensive experience in the safety systems running Karachi plant, so Chinese learnt a lot from Pakistan's experience and advised the Chinese in designing safety right from the scratch. PAEC designed and commissioned another reactor with a capacity of 72 MW at Joharabad in the Khushab district in Punjab.
> 
> This is an experimental reactor for the production of isotopes and heavy water required for its operation is manufactured in Pakistan. This reactor is not under IAEA safeguards. The designing of the project started in 1985 under the supervision of Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Canadian-European-trained, who was also in charge of starting the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant before AQK came from Holland. Another scientist instrumental in the design of the Khushab reactor, was the (late) Afzal Haq Rajput. Khushab produces weapons-grade Plutonium to make miniaturized nuclear warheads.
> 
> Whatever Khushab's activity and operational parameters it cannot be placed under the IAEA safeguards on the ground that it was a 100 per cent indigenous project. In 1996 N.A.Javed, a PAEC scientist and a heavy water expert, was decorated (Sitara-i-Imtiaz) for developing an indigenous facility for heavy water production, thereby freeing Pakistan from dependence on Canadian and Chinese supplies. There is one very important point to note that Pakistan even if it wanted, could not buy as much heavy water because our friend and master (US) suspected over-supplying heavy water to KANUPP would be diverted to Khushab.
> 
> 
> Conclusion​​
> From the above discussion, and in the light of the recent nuclear proliferation scandal involving Dr. A.Q. Khan, certain conclusions can be drawn. Because of the covert 1972-98 period, Qadeer was able to parley his position into unprecedented autonomy (financial, administrative and security, as Musharraf described it).
> 
> Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC followed the path of silently pursuing the nuclear goal for Pakistan in line with the country's stated policy of nuclear ambiguity, and refused to acknowledge or advertise that they were developing a nuclear weapons programme, and insisted, along with the government, that Pakistan's nuclear programme was strictly for peaceful purposes.
> 
> Second, because it was indeed a covert period, Qadeer was encouraged to pose as the Father of the Bomb, even though he was responsible for just one of 24 steps, each crucial to making nuclear weapons. Those responsible for the other 23 steps all worked under the Member (Technical) of the PAEC, who in turn reported to its Chairman.However, Qadeer was allowed to head his own set up, smaller than the PAEC, but dealing with the President directly and equal in status to the PAEC Chairman. Dr. Samar has said it on record that it was unthinkable for any scientist or engineer working in PAEC to indulge in proliferation or leakage of any materials or information or expertise, for money or cheap popularity, as they considered their work as a sacred trust, and scientists of one department would never divulge any unnecessary information to any other person in another department, and only that information was told to the people involved in various projects, as was required for their work.
> 
> On the other hand, Qadeer also demanded and got much more autonomy.It has been confirmed that the security restrictions on PAEC men, right up to the Chairman, which included surveillance (at times comically intrusive) and phone tapping, were not applied to Qadeer and certain senior colleagues. They went abroad for their own shopping for example. PAEC people were not allowed even to do that, until the intelligence operatives who did that job bought a lot of very expensive junk. However, the PAEC never enjoyed such sweeping autonomy. Perhaps because of that, the only proliferation charges relate to the one (relatively preliminary) step Qadeer was responsible for, and not for the other 23, including the more advanced and crucial steps, for which the PAEC remained responsible.
> 
> But history has been falsified, deliberately. Qadeer was used as a decoy to divert attention from the PAEC, where the real work was being done. KRL's scientists were only a fifth of the PAEC's, and perhaps KRL was overmanned. However, the myth-makers are stuck with the myth itself, and Qadeer has received adulation and honours. Even though it was clearly exposed in 1998 that his role in the nuclear programme was important but not major, the myth still persists. At the time of the Indian Brasstacks exercises, Dr. A.Q. Khan was picked up by the government to issue a statement that Pakistan had the bomb and would use it against India if its security was endangered.
> 
> That was the turning point in the sense that from then on, A.Q. Khan began an all out propaganda campaign and successfully cultivated the myth that he was the 'father' of the bomb, when in fact, he was made into a famous figure by the West, after he came to Pakistan with his URENCO gas-centrifuge designs. The West made him a villain, and the people, especially the media, and the government, went out of the way to portray him as hero, and at a time when the nation was in dire need of heroes. Our society being so gullible and prone to emotionalism and cult worship, started idolizing him to the extent that he became virtually above the law and could do anything, go anywhere, without fear of any accountability. The PAEC and Munir Khan kept their silence and publicly never admitted that they had anything to do with nuclear weapons, as it was state policy throughout the covert period of 1972-98, never to officially admit that Pakistan was a declared nuclear weapons state. This enabled AQ Khan to claim and get away with what was actually performed by PAEC. In short he stole the whole show from PAEC.
> 
> There is one important point to note while examining whether there was state approval of proliferation: only KRL was leaking. If there was state policy, the other 23 groups should have been leaking.The title of Father of the Bomb could apply at the political level to Bhutto (though the roles of Ayub, Zia and Ishaq must not be ignored), and at the technical level, Munir Ahmad Khan as Chairman, along with his team comprising all Members (Technical and Nuclear Power) share the real credit (not to forget Samar, who was Member Technical at the time of the Chaghai tests, and who was personally responsible for at least one of the 23 steps, every bit as crucial to the bomb's working as uranium enrichment). Qadeer only leaked what he could (the so-called Libyan blueprints might turn out to be the rival KRL design which could not be constructed).
> 
> This also validates the fact that the designs that he brought from URENCO were the first generation centrifuges (P1), which could not enrich uranium to weapon grade, and crucial technical input from PAEC enabled AQK to enrich uranium to the HEU level. Had this not been true, the designs and know how leaked to Libya and Iran would have enabled them to build the bomb, but they were unable to do it because numerous other processes and technologies involved in enrichment and the other 23 steps in the long chain to the bomb, were not available to them. Thus, without the selfless commitment, intense patriotic zeal and competent and inspiring leadership of PAEC and its leadership, the nuclear dream could never have been realized.
> 
> Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan (HI, NI & Bar) remains the only Pakistani who got the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, the highest civil award twice. He also got the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, along with Munir Ahmad Khan, in 1989. AQK got both his NI during President Ishaq's tenure, and now it has been reported that he had paid Rs. 150 crore to GIK for the latter's Institute, whereas Munir Khan paid a personal price by remaining unsung. Only Dr. Samar has come out in the spotlight now that Qadeer's fall from grace and fame, and he was awarded the NI this year. Munir's predecessor, I.H. Usmani and his successor Ishfaq Ahmad got the NI as well; the former got it posthumously, yet Munir Khan has been denied the NI even though 5 years have passed since his death and in spite of the fact that Munir remained the longest serving PAEC Chairman, and PAEC's accomplishments during 1972-1991 were all driven and initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan.
> 
> 
> He was known as the 'Father' in PAEC circles, but the nation has been kept in the dark about him, and his image has not been honestly portrayed in the public. In the final analysis, it is always the man at the top who counts the most, and in this respect, the PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan was the real architect of the nuclear programme, and he along with his team share the real credit as its father. Successful he has been, in his capacity as Chairman, but replaced he shall never be, with or without Nishan-i-Imtiaz. Today PAEC stands tall along with NESCOM/NDC and other strategic organizations involved with the strategic nuclear and missile programmes. Justice requires that the record be set straight for all times to come, and the falsification of history be rectified.



I think so many things in this article are confusing. If Pakistan bomb program was deliverd by munir ahmed khan and bashir u din mehmood then we have adress these points.
1 why Mr.Bhutto was so possesive for reprocessing plant.because that way was shown by Dr. Munir he said if we get plant we can make the fissile material for bomb but from where they will get this material for re process was a question mark because kanupp was giiving 300 g per year for reprocessing was it sufficient ..no.
2 when Dr. Khan came to Pakistan first time.1974 Christmas holidays. And he joins the bomb program and give some instructions to people who was part of project but after one year he came back with more information about the centrifuge technology.which was highly classified in that time only the three urenco partner countries have had the knowledge and Dr. Khan was a technology progress language translater he brings the complete knowledge of centrifuge technology in Pakistan when china and u.s was not success full in this technology.
3 anbd Gen K.m Arif was eye witness when Dr. Khan hand over the nuclear weapon design to president Zia because of fear of attack on kahuta in 1984.
4 if Dr. Khan is not a nuclear scientist then from where bashir u din mehmood is scientist he is an electrical engineer.
5 and Pakistan get the plutonium bomb technology from china not by munir ahmed and co.because that was a mutual understanding between the two countries Pakistan gave them centrifuge and they gave us chashma plant and latter on national fuel complex.
6 and if munir ahmed khan qas so competent then why ISI two time ask president Zia to terminate him from service and why he does not deaign a singal nuclear plant in his tenure on tyhe other hand dr.khan done so many things fissile material, nuclear weapon designs, manpad anza multiple rocket launcher and ghauri from blue prints to real missile threat to the enmy of the state.
7 if Dr. Khan was the seller of nuclear technology then how he send the centrifuges to n.korea , libya and iran from the 1988 to mushraf era all the govts and army chiefs was involve in this trade otherwise how can a single scientist ask air force C130 planes to deliver the complete centrifuges to an other country .where was the protocols and was ISI sleeping when dr. Khan was selling these items ...no big no all was involve but the blame was put on a simple man. Thank for the reading


----------



## barbarosa

singlefighter said:


> I think so many things in this article are confusing. If Pakistan bomb program was deliverd by munir ahmed khan and bashir u din mehmood then we have adress these points.
> 1 why Mr.Bhutto was so possesive for reprocessing plant.because that way was shown by Dr. Munir he said if we get plant we can make the fissile material for bomb but from where they will get this material for re process was a question mark because kanupp was giiving 300 g per year for reprocessing was it sufficient ..no.
> 2 when Dr. Khan came to Pakistan first time.1974 Christmas holidays. And he joins the bomb program and give some instructions to people who was part of project but after one year he came back with more information about the centrifuge technology.which was highly classified in that time only the three urenco partner countries have had the knowledge and Dr. Khan was a technology progress language translater he brings the complete knowledge of centrifuge technology in Pakistan when china and u.s was not success full in this technology.
> 3 anbd Gen K.m Arif was eye witness when Dr. Khan hand over the nuclear weapon design to president Zia because of fear of attack on kahuta in 1984.
> 4 if Dr. Khan is not a nuclear scientist then from where bashir u din mehmood is scientist he is an electrical engineer.
> 5 and Pakistan get the plutonium bomb technology from china not by munir ahmed and co.because that was a mutual understanding between the two countries Pakistan gave them centrifuge and they gave us chashma plant and latter on national fuel complex.
> 6 and if munir ahmed khan qas so competent then why ISI two time ask president Zia to terminate him from service and why he does not deaign a singal nuclear plant in his tenure on tyhe other hand dr.khan done so many things fissile material, nuclear weapon designs, manpad anza multiple rocket launcher and ghauri from blue prints to real missile threat to the enmy of the state.
> 7 if Dr. Khan was the seller of nuclear technology then how he send the centrifuges to n.korea , libya and iran from the 1988 to mushraf era all the govts and army chiefs was involve in this trade otherwise how can a single scientist ask air force C130 planes to deliver the complete centrifuges to an other country .where was the protocols and was ISI sleeping when dr. Khan was selling these items ...no big no all was involve but the blame was put on a simple man. Thank for the reading


It is Indian propaganda, Dr AQ khan is the real enemy of India because of it they always target him. USSR has provided ready made nuke bomb to India in 1974 for for nuke test, which they had tested in pokhran in 1974.


----------



## Scharfschütze

XiNiX said:


> *The Untold Story of Pakistani Nuclear Program
> The Real Father of Pakistani Bomb : Dr. M A Khan*​
> _Before i Knew Him, i was almost sure that Pakistani Nuclear program was nothing but a Stolen Eurenco Technology witha Chinese Weapon Design. But as i researched more on works of Munir Khan & Related Comparision with AQ Khan, a new dimension originates._
> 
> #1. The Real Father of Pakistani Nuclear Bomb is NOT AQ Khan, But Dr. Munir Ahmed Khan
> #2. Pakistan has Two Weapon Designs , Not Just the Uranium Design ( Stolen by AQ ) but a Plutonium Design.
> #3. Plutonium Research is the Real Indegeniuis Effort by Pakistan, under PAEC whic did the most of Nuclear Program
> 
> 
> Read on .... to know some Awesome Facts abt Munir Khan and Pakistani Nuclear program....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ​
> Bhutto began the nuclear quest with his characteristic sense of urgency. He had taken power in mid-December 1971, and in January he hastily called together some fifty of Pakistan's top scientists and government officials for what was to be a very secret meeting. At the time, the new government was still in a state of enormous confusion, and Bhutto's aides originally scheduled in the meeting for the town of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.
> 
> It was January, with winter storms blowing down from Afghanistan to the north, and Quetta had no facilities adequately heated for the selected scientists and bureaucrats to meet in. No one complained, when, the government laid on military planes to fly the freezing scientists south and east to the town of Multan. The day was sparkling clear, and Bhutto convened the meeting under a brightly coloured canvas canopy, on the lawn of a stately old Colonial mansion. The scientists and administrators who were there were far and away the best brains in Pakistan, and some were as good as could be found anywhere in the world. The Pakistani people and their Islamic forebears had historically nurtured a rich scientific tradition, and the country, though in some ways underdeveloped could count on a surprisingly strong scientific establishment. Three names are especially worth remembering.
> 
> Abdus Salam - the Professor to his worshipping younger colleagues - had founded the Third World-oriented International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.Dr. Ishrat Usmani had gained prominence as Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and would go on to build his reputation as an international civil servant specializing in energy questions at the United Nations.
> 
> And the man Bhutto would name to replace Usmani as head of the nuclear programme and the PAEC till his retirement in 1991, Munir Ahmed Khan, had just come with high marks from the staff of the very organization that is supposed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Munir Ahmed Khan was a nuclear engineer of international standing, and he spent nearly 14 years at the IAEA in Vienna, where he was the Head of Reactor Engineering, before joining PAEC, and he had organized more than twenty technical and international conferences on heavy water reactors, advanced gas cooled reactors, plutonium utilization, and small and medium power reactors.
> 
> In the late 1970s, Director General of IAEA offered him the post of Deputy Director General in Vienna, but he refused it to accomplish his mission in Pakistan.He was the first Asian scientist to be appointed at the IAEA and later in 1986, he was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IAEA in Vienna.There was great deal of enthusiasm and joy. Bhutto started slowly. He spoke of Pakistan's defeat in the war with India, and vowed that he would vindicate the country's honour. He said that he had always wanted Pakistan to take the nuclear road, but nobody had listened to him. Now fate had placed him in a position where he could make the decision, he had the people of Pakistan behind him, and he wanted to go ahead.
> 
> Pakistan was going to have the bomb, and the scientists sitting under the shamiana at Multan were going to make it for him.So Bhutto had all these boys together, these scientists, and there were senior people, very senior people, and junior people, and youngsters fresh with their PhDs in nuclear physics, and he said: Look, we're going to have the bomb.&#8221; He said &#8220;Can you give it to me?&#8221; So, they started saying &#8220;Oh yes, yes, yes. You can have it. You can have it.&#8221; But Bhutto wanted more. He paused them. &#8220;How long will it take?&#8221; he asked. There was a lively debate on the time needed to make the bomb, and finally one scientist dared to say that maybe it could be done in five years. Bhutto smiled, lifted his hand, and dramatically thrust forward three fingers.&#8221; Three years&#8221;, he said.&#8221; I want it in three years&#8221;.
> 
> The atmosphere suddenly became electric. It was then that one of the junior men - S.A.Butt, who under Munir Khan's guiding hand would come to play a major role in making the bomb possible - jumped to his feet and clamoured for his leader's attention. &#8220;It can be done in three years&#8221;, Butt shouted excitedly. Bhutto was very much amused and he said, &#8220;Well, much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, this is a very serious political decision, which Pakistan must make, and perhaps all Third World countries must make one day, because it is coming. So can you do it? &#8220;And they said, &#8220;Yes, we can do it, given the resources and given the facilities. &#8221;Bhutto's answer was simple.&#8221; I shall find you the resources and I shall find you the facilities&#8221;.
> 
> This then was the day the bomb was born, the meeting at Multan that set the seal on Pakistan's nuclear future. From that moment, Pakistan would begin a national crash programme to get the bomb. It was a historic move.The meeting set the stage and also helped select the actors. Most of the scientists came along. Few did not. Even Z.A.Bhutto, for all his powers of persuasion, could not convince some of the senior men, including the longtime friend and adviser, the future Nobel laureate Abdus Salam. Bhutto probably feared that any open condemnation of the project from Salam could severely split Pakistan's nuclear scientists, many of whom revered him. His opposition could also trigger alarm bells among the scientists and diplomats around the world. So some time after the meeting, a special emissary was sent to Salam, who had returned to his home in Britain, to brief him on the programme and to assure him that it was really peaceful in intent.
> 
> A second, lesser obstacle was the longtime head of the PAEC, Dr Ishrat Usmani, who had opposed the road to the bomb because at the time Pakistan did not have the necessary infrastructure needed for such a technologically giant and ambitious project. Given Usmani's reluctance, Bhutto fired Usmani, promoting him upstairs to the post of Secretary of the newly created Ministry of Science and Technology.He became a figurehead and soon left Pakistan, taking a post at the UN. In his place, as the new Chairman of the PAEC and the man who would make the nuclear dream come true, Bhutto named one of the enthusiasts of the Multan meeting, Munir Ahmed Khan. Trained at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States and a long time staff member of the IAEA, Munir Khan outlived his patron Bhutto to become the spirit and the symbol of the Third World nuclear ambitions, both on the civilian side and in the development of nuclear weapons.
> 
> If one is to go back to a founding figure, the PAEC considered the acquisition of nuclear technology capable of conversion to weapons technology as early as 1955, with the help of President Eisenhower's Atom's for Peace Programme.The foundation of any nuclear weapons programme is the production of the special nuclear materials required for weapons - plutonium or highly enriched uranium for a basic programme for producing fission weapons. Without these materials no weapons can be made. The initial direction taken by Pakistan was to pursue the use of plutonium.
> 
> *The Plutonium route to the Bomb*​
> A.Q. Khan always wanted Pakistan to work only on Uranium weapon as compared to Plutonium because (he thought and tried to convince Gen Zia) Plutonium route involved highly complex and sophisticated procedures and processes but PAEC knew better.Plutonium route and all the related activities to establish infrastructure (for eventual bomb) continued in full swing,against AQ Khan desire.A.Q. Khan sought to undermine Munir Khan by opposing the plutonium route because Munir was a plutonium expert, having spent 14 years as Head of Reactor Engineering at the IAEA before his joining PAEC in 1972, where PAEC under Munir Khan not only initiated the Kahuta Enrichment project before AQK, but continued to give crucial technical support.
> 
> Contrary to popular perception, Pakistan did not forego the plutonium route to the bomb, and pursued it along with the uranium route. Whether by intention to prepare a &#8220;nuclear option&#8221; or not, decisions made in the 1960s already provided a valuable basis for establishing a weapons programme. In 1971 the Canadian General Electric Co. completed a 137 MW (electrical) CANDU power reactor for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), which went critical in August 1971 and inaugurated by the man who would go on to become the architect of Nuclear Pakistan, the new Chairman, PAEC, Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan. It began commercial operation in October 1972. CGEC also provided a small heavy water production facility. These facilities had been contracted for in the mid-60s, thus predating Bhutto's drive for nuclear weapon capability, but perhaps influenced by him in a ministerial capacity.
> 
> The technology for KANUPP was the same natural uranium/heavy water technology used in the Indian Cirus and later Dhruva reactors used by India for producing weapons plutonium. The facilities were under IAEA safeguards, and have remained so; nonetheless it was the initial intent of the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme to use plutonium from this reactor as the key ingredient in their nuclear arsenal. But to do that Pakistan required a means of separating plutonium from spent fuel. Some advance preparation had occurred here also. In the late 1960s Pakistan had contracted with both British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Belgonucléaire to prepare studies and designs for pilot plutonium separation facilities. The BNFL design, capable of separating up 360 g of fuel a year. The plan for this plant was completed by 1971.
> 
> The centrepiece of the PAEC weapon's programme at this time was the effort to acquire a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from the fuel of KANUPP. The first step after Multan was to build a pilot reprocessing facility called the &#8220;New Labs&#8221; at PINSTECH, which was completed by 1981, and work on the KHUSHAB Plutonium production reactor started in the 1980s and it became operational in the 1990s. This facility (New Labs) was a larger and more ambitious project than the original BNFL plan. Belgonucléaire and the French corporation Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) built it in the early 70s.
> 
> The pilot plant was followed by a contract signed with SGN in March 1973 to prepare the basic design for a large-scale reprocessing plant, one with a capacity of 100 tons of fuel per year, considerably more than KANUPP would generate. SGN was the world's chief exporter of reprocessing technology and had previously built military plutonium facilities for France, the secret plutonium plant at Dimona in Israel, and contracted to provide similar plants to Taiwan, South Korea, and (later) Iraq. The Chashma plant, as it was known, would have the capability to produce 200 kg of weapons grade plutonium a year, if sufficient fuel were available to feed it. It would have provided Pakistan with the ability to &#8220;break safeguards&#8221; and quickly process accumulated fuel from KANUPP when it decided to openly declare itself a nuclear-armed state. One for the final detailed design and construction on October 18, 1974 followed the initial design contract. The original contract for this project did not include significant safeguards to discourage diversion of the separated plutonium, or controls on the technology
> 
> India's first nuclear test, known variously as &#8220;Smiling Buddha&#8221;, the PNE (for &#8220;Peaceful Nuclear Explosive&#8221, and most recently Pokhran-I, occurred on May 18 , 1974. It provided an additional stimulus to the Pakistani weapons programme. Bhutto increased the funding for the programme after the Indian test, but since arrangements to secure lavish funding had been underway for more than a year this would have occurred anyway. One consequence of the test was ironically to hamper Pakistan's programme as the test sharply escalated international attention to proliferation and led to increased restrictions on nuclear exports to all nations, not just India.
> 
> The French government began to show increased concern about the Chashma plant during 1976. A safeguards agreement for France brought the plant before the IAEA in February 1976, which was approved on March 18 and signed by Pakistan. This at least ensured that the plant would have monitoring so that diversion to military purposes could be made with impunity. Despite Bhutto's overthrow in 1977 by General Zia, the latter continued the project unabated, and continued to press the French to fulfil the Chashma contract. But France had begun gradually turning against the reprocessing plant.
> 
> In late 1977 the French proposed to Pakistan to alter the design of the plant so that it would produce a mixture of uranium and plutonium rather pure plutonium. This modification would not affect the plant's suitability for its declared purpose - producing mixed oxide fuel for power reactors - but would prevent its direct use for producing plutonium for weapons. Pakistan refused to accept the modification. But by that time Pakistan had received 95 percent of the detailed plans for the plant by SGN, and was thus in a position to secure components and build the plant itself, which it would later at KHUSHAB.
> 
> 
> *The Uranium Route to the Bomb: PAEC's role in Uranium Enrichment*​
> Pakistan from the outset of the Multan conference was exploring both the Plutonium and Uranium routes to the bomb. During 1974-76, uranium enrichment was probably seen as a backup or at most a co-equal programme for fissile material production. Having two different technologies for production would make Pakistan more resistant to efforts to restrain its programme, and producing both U-235 and plutonium would give Pakistan greater flexibility in weapon design. Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud was only one of dozens of scientists and engineers (besides) AQ Khan who were working in Europe, Canada and the US in late sixties and early seventies that later became &#8220;Consortium Companies&#8221; to supply enriched uranium to European nuclear power plants. PAEC brought back dozens of scientists from Belgium to start this programme under Dr Bashiruddin long before
> 
> *AQ Khan came on board...*
> 
> Moreover, the PAEC was already considering the centrifuge problem, and there was one experiment in Lahore in the early 1970s involving centrifuges. Two pilot centrifuge plants were set up in Golra and Sihala before the actual uranium enrichment facility was established at Kahuta. Munir Ahmad Khan completed the site selection for the Kahuta enrichment plant, initial procurement of vital equipment, construction of its civil works, and recruitment of staff for it by 1976. The Kahuta Enrichment Project was called Project-706 of the PAEC, and as with the plutonium programme, it was under the overall control and supervision of Chairman Munir Khan. A.Q. Khan came to Pakistan and produced gas centrifuge designs and drawings from URENCO. He initially worked under Project Director Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmud.
> 
> Much of the buying for Kahuta of necessary materials and equipment before and after A.Q. Khan's arrival was done by a brilliant PAEC physicist-turned diplomat, S.A. Butt, who was also looking after the plutonium programmes' requirements. The best PAEC scientists and engineers staffed Kahuta. It must be remembered that the Plutonium contract with France had not been cancelled by the French government when the Enrichment Plant was being set up at Kahuta.
> When Canada in 1976 suspended the supply of heavy water fuel and spare parts for KANUPP, the PAEC under Munir Khan took up the challenge and using indigenous resources produced the feed for KANUPP. As a result the Muslim World's first nuclear reactor was not closed even for a single day for want of spare parts, fuel, and heavy water.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The technology Qadeer brought would have eventually been acquired.The work had been started by Bashir-ud-din on Nuclear Fuel cycle to make fuel for KANUPP and future nuclear plants two years prior to Qadeer's arrival in Pakistan.Dr. A.Q. Khan did not bring a magic wand from URENCO but still it was a vital link to the bomb. Under Munir Ahmed Khan, PAEC started an ambitious programme to master the technology of complete nuclear fuel cycle in which &#8220; Heavy Water&#8221; was one of the most important components.
> 
> Heavy Water which was so (prohibitively) expensive which Canada was charging Pakistan $27/lb (in early/mid-seventies), Pakistan's only nuclear power plant would die and our whole nuclear programme would come crashing in late 1970.Qadeer's contribution cannot be denied but should not be overblown.Centrifuge essentially a highly specialized mechanical component was a link in the long chain of enrichment technology.As Qadeer and his team stumbled on many occasions, he received vital technical support from PINSTECH and PAEC infrastructure and scientists. Dr N Ikram out of many (Punjab University, Institute Of Solid State Physics) was a rare specialist in this field and international authority who came to his rescue.
> 
> Qadeer's blueprints were based on first generation enrichment technology originally developed by the URENCO in late sixties and early seventies whose SWU (unit of the measurement to separate U-238 and U-235 in natural uranium in order to create final product that is richer in U-235 (atoms) was so low that thousands of centrifuge machines would have to be deployed for thousands of hours at performance levels much inferior to then installed centrifuges at URENCO. PAEC (under Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan) challenged its economic viability and presented a programme that will deploy the most efficient technology by setting up an infrastructure for advanced machine design for the next generation centrifuges and in the two decades that followed spent more than $3 billion on centrifuge technology and its support infrastructure.
> 
> PAEC used &#8220;proven technology&#8221; with heavy emphasis on R&D (not copy or stealing as US and western media says) with much higher SWU while reducing costs and improving efficiency through the use of state-of-the-art materials, control systems and manufacturing processes.
> By late 90s, KRL had conducted centrifuge development work costing hundreds of millions of dollars. PAEC enabled KRL to take advantage of commercial advances in construction materials (thanks to PAEC/PINSTECH's Scientists) and advanced manufacturing methods to develop a centrifuge machines that achieved several times SWU performance previously demonstrated by early KRL machines, but at substantially reduced cost. Today PAEC has a workhorse technology that capably serves Pakistan defence needs and since New Labs setup, much of the fuel needs of the future nuclear plants in Pakistan.
> 
> People might ask the significance of higher SWU? Natural uranium, in the form of uranium hexafluoride (natural UF6), is fed into an enrichment process. If (for example), you begin with 50 kilograms of natural uranium, it takes about 30 SWU to produce 5 kilograms of uranium enriched in U-235 to 4. -5%. It takes on the order of (roughly) 100,000 SWU of enriched uranium to fuel a typical 137 megawatt (MW) commercial nuclear reactor for a year. A 137 MW (KANUPP) plant can supply the electricity needs for a city of about 500,000 in a country like Pakistan.Moreover, the technology brought by A.Q. Khan was based on the URENCO designs of gas centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapon grade, also known as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). But again, A.Q. Khan's uranium enrichment was not independent of PAEC, even after having acquired total control and autonomy for KRL.
> 
> In order to enrich uranium to weapon grade, he needed the crucial Hexafluoride gas, known as UF-6. Concurrent to the plutonium programme and the setting up of Project-706, the PAEC was also setting up a plant to produce Uranium hexafluoride, which is a crucial ingredient for enriching uranium. Here is how UF6 produced and supplied by PAEC to KRL is critical to Enriching Uranium through gas centrifuges and it underlines the importance of this very important 'step' in a series of interconnected steps that lead to a bomb. KRL depends on PAEC for Enriching Uranium as is illustrated here. KRL's role in centrifuges and vacuum technology and material is not being denied here, but PAEC's role is highlighted which is unknown and unacknowledged and unsung and all praise only goes to A.Q. Khan.
> 
> The PAEC at its HEX PLANT produces Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). Here the natural uranium ore concentrate is sent to a conversion plant where it is chemically processed into Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). At ambient temperature, UF6 is a solid with a low residual vapour pressure. It is then handed over to KRL.At KRL enrichment plant, a centrifuge comprises an evacuated (vacuum) casing containing a cylindrical rotor, which rotates at very high speeds, in an almost friction free environment. The Uranium is fed into the rotor as gaseous Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6) where it takes up the rotational motion. The centrifugal forces push the heavier U-238 closer to the wall of the rotor than the lighter U-235. The gas closer to the wall becomes depleted in U-235 whereas the gas nearer the rotor axis is enriched in U-235.
> 
> The gas flow is produced by a temperature gradient over the length of the centrifuge. UF6 depleted in U-235 flows upwards adjacent to the rotor wall, whilst UF6 enriched in U-235 flows downwards close to the axis. The two gas streams are removed through small pipes.
> The enrichment effect of a single centrifuge is small, so centrifuge pumps are linked in-groups known as cascades. Passing through the successive centrifuges of cascades, the U-235 is gradually enriched to the required percentage - usually between 3 and 5% and the depleted uranium is reduced to 0.2 to 0.3% U-235. Enrichment achieved to 5% is non-weapon grade low enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants whereas HEU weapon grade is over 95%.
> 
> So Enriching Uranium does not start or end completely at KRL after which the enriched uranium is manufactured into a bomb, which involves very critical steps of developing the bomb design, implosion techniques, triggering mechanism etc. The work on the bomb itself had begun in earnest in the early 1970s by PAEC in a meeting called by Chairman Munir Khan, and attended by Dr. Ishfaq and other senior scientists at about the same time that the Indians exploded their Smiling Buddha. The Hex Plant was built by PAEC under Munir Khan's Chairmanship and it confirms the fact that this plant was built for providing UF6 to KRL, which was Project 706 of PAEC, developed under Bashiruddin Mahmud, before A.Q. Khan came.
> 
> There is no doubt that Munir Ahmad Khan was a true visionary, architect of Pakistan's uranium enrichment and plutonium programmes and way ahead of his time at PAEC or PINSTECH. He believed and worked tirelessly in building infrastructure that would fabricate nuclear fuel for Pakistan's nuclear plants and would be a springboard for Qadeer's fame and notoriety. Without getting hands around fuel cycle's first 3 crucial steps - 1) mining (uranium ore mining from mines), 2) milling (uranium ore into yellow cake), 3) conversion (yellow cake into hexafluoride) enrichment would be impossible for which PAEC laid solid ground work very early on. Enrichment, a step in increasing the concentration of U-235 isotopes from its natural level (0.5-.7%) to 5% level (fuel used in nuclear plants) was started by Bashiruddin Mahmud, under Munir Khan's directions. Dr. Bashiruddin did a complete feasibility of the project as early as 1974. Bashirudin was real enrichment (nuclear) expert not a metallurgist.These are two very different disciplines that should not be confused with each other.
> 
> Fuel fabrication (the 4th step) - the process of enriched uranium into uranium dioxide, sealing it into metal fuel rods and bundling into fuel assembly, and the last step - fuel fabrication (fuel into nuclear plants where U-235 starts fission producing heat and running the turbine etc) for power plants was again the work of PAEC.Technically speaking, KRL never built an atomic device for Pakistan but it did build lots of centrifuges, which is purely a mechanical device. PAEC provided technical assistance and guidance in all-important areas of enrichment (and much more) to KRL, as centrifuge was the &#8220;vehicle&#8221; to the enrichment process.
> 
> Much of the KRL time (as an organization) was spent designing, developing centrifuges, identifying and resolving the most difficult cascading and other problems to the very end of the programme. From the beginning, more than 75% of KRL scientists and engineers were from PAEC, although many more with rare expertise were recruited from a diverse pool of Pakistani scientists and engineers working in the US and Europe. PAEC played an important role from the very beginning, and thus their know-how became increasingly important in the overall programme. Without PAEC involvement, KRL abilities could not have grown beyond an advanced machine design shop.
> 
> PAEC knew how to make nuclear fuel for civil applications before KRL was established. Without PAEC /PINSTECH active guidance and participation, KRL centrifuges (in all likelihood) could only have produced low-enriched uranium, not the highly enriched material needed for an atomic weapons. Simply describing, production of low enriched to highly enriched Uranium is not a &#8220;linear&#8221; process, which means that if you can produce low enrich uranium, you cannot or may not (readily) produce HEU.After 30 years of research into the uranium enrichment, Pakistan is now one of the 12 major players in the world that has mastered gas centrifuge technology. This technology with its dozens if not hundreds of spin-off hold the key to the security of Pakistan, future nuclear energy and fuel requirements. People would be surprised to know that laser enrichment programme in the US and Europe and Israel recently hit a dead end.
> 
> The Indian Atomic Energy Commission and BARC (BARK) have fresh proposals to revive the development of the gas centrifuge technology, which never got off the ground in the first place, whereas Pakistan had a continuous and on-going development programme for three decades. We now have latest generation of machines in operation (Pakistan's sixth generation), which is as good as if not better than any European machine. The strategy and risks behind Pakistan development programme were too many and what PAEC did no organization in the world would have done it in view of the resources allocated and severe restrictions to import dual use technology.
> 
> Hence, it is clear that the Pakistani enrichment development was begun in 1974 by Chairman PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan, under several covert programmes and one based (URENCO early model) on the concept of a lightweight rotor operating on pin bearings and magnetic top bearings got the most publicity in the west. Other parallel programmes Pakistan started were based on better design parametres to achieve super-critical operating speed that would provide PAEC with wide base of advanced engineering (machine design) experience on which they helped KRL develop future generation of centrifuges.
> 
> PAEC policy was to run their programmes as economically as possible rather than just focusing on the technical benefits. This approach caused a major friction with KRL but forced KRL to shift its strategy from smuggling machines (not a reliable option) to R&D. KRL envisioned that future generations of machines would be developed from reverse engineering or they would make thousands of first generation machine, clearly a Russian approach wasting precious resources with low chances of success. KRL eventually was forced to undertake a long-term programme to develop significantly faster centrifuges through R&D under PAEC/PINSTECH guidance. While PAEC programmes were based much more on a series of &#8220;smaller projects&#8221; aimed at improving specific aspects of the current centrifuge either by manufacturing improvements to reduce the cost of manufacture or by taking advantage of improvements in materials.
> 
> In either case, all PAEC projects were evaluated from an economic point of view to ensure that lifetime cost improvements actually paid back the money committed to undertake the research and from a technical point of view to ensure that improvements were introduced as early as possible within the manufacturing phase as part of future generation. PAEC was always in favour of step by step approach in developing each centrifuge generation not just importing clandestinely some models and then reverse engineered them so they set out the development programme in three stages 1) R&D 2) Pilot and 3) Production. First step included design studies, testing of new materials, manufacture and very high stress testing of a small number of components and then building typically 20 or 30 centrifuges. The pilot phase was employed to prove that the centrifuges would operate successfully long term under all design parameters.
> 
> 
> *Preparing to Build the Bomb*​
> Pakistani work on weapon design began even before the start of work on uranium enrichment, under the auspices of the PAEC. Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC called a meeting, in March, 1974, to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Among those attending the meeting were Hafeez Qureshi, head of the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at PINSTECH (later to become Member Technical, PAEC), Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC.
> 
> The PAEC Chairman informed Qureshi that he was to work on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO). The word &#8220;bomb&#8221; was never used in the meeting but Qureshi exactly understood the objective. Their task would be to develop the design of a weapon implosion system. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), in the North West Frontier Province and conveniently close to Islamabad.
> 
> The work at Wah began under the undescriptive codename Research and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as &#8220;The Wah Group&#8221;. Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosive lenses to be used in the nuclear device. This expanded, however to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering of the system and the triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment where it could and developed its own technology where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment.
> 
> The first preparations for eventual nuclear tests also started early - in 1976. Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, and Member (Technical) and Dr. Samar Mubarak of the PAEC were dispatched to Balochistan to conduct helicopter reconnaissance of potential test sites with the assistance of the army 5 Corps located at Quetta. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khuzdar in the south and Naukundi-Kharan in the east.The PAEC requirement was for a mountain with a completely dry interior capable of withstanding an internal 20 kt nuclear explosion. A likely site was found in the form of a several hundred-metre tall granite mountain Koh Kambaran in the Ras Koh range (also referred to as the Ras Koh Hills).
> 
> The Ras Koh in the Chagai Division of Balochistan rise at their highest point to 3009 metres. After a one-year survey of the site, completed in 1977, plans were finalized for driving a horizontal tunnel under Koh Kambaran for a future test. (Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who had provided support to the PAEC survey team, was tasked by (now) President Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 with creating and leading the Special Development Works (SDW), which was entrusted, with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites.
> 
> The SDW was formally subordinate to the PAEC but directly reported to the Chief of the Army Staff. Meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and Zia-ul-Haq led to the decision to prepare a second site for a horizontal shaft. The site selected was located at Kharan, in a desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public.
> The Wah Group had a weapon design - an implosion system using the powerful but sensitive HMX as the principal explosive - ready for testing in 1983.
> 
> The first &#8220;cold test&#8221; of a weapon (i.e. a test of the implosion using inert natural uranium instead of highly enriched uranium) took place on March 11, 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed of the PAEC. This test was conducted in tunnels bored in the Kirana Hills near Sargodha, home of the Pakistan Air Force's main air base and the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD).The Kirana Hills test tunnels were reportedly bored by the SDW after the Chagai nuclear test sites, i.e. sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the tunnels had been sealed after construction to await tests. As Prior to the cold tests, an advance team opened and cleaned the tunnels.
> 
> After clearing the tunnels, a PAEC diagnostic team headed by Dr. Mubarakmand arrived on the scene with trailers fitted with computers and diagnostic equipment. This was followed by the arrival of the Wah Group with the nuclear device, in sub-assembly form. This was assembled and then placed inside the tunnel. A monitoring system was set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills.One of the principal objectives of the test was to determine whether the neutron initiator (probably a polonium beryllium design similar to those used in the first US, USSR, UK, and Indian bombs) to reliably start a fission chain reaction in the real bomb. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscilloscopes were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables.
> 
> At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscilloscopes confirmed that the neutrons had indeed been produced. A second cold test was undertaken soon afterwards which was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Lt. Gen. K.M. Arif and Munir Ahmed Khan.Between 1983 and 1990, the Wah Group developed an air deliverable bomb and conducted more than 24 cold tests of nuclear devices with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100-150 feet (30-50 m) in length which were bored inside the Kirana Hills. Later due to excessive US intelligence and satellite attention on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and the cold test facility was shifted to the Kala-Chitta Range. The bomb was small enough to be carried under the wing of a fighter/bomber such as the F-16 which Pakistan had obtained from the US.
> 
> The Wah Group worked alongside the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to evolve and perfect delivery techniques of the nuclear bomb using combat aircraft including &#8220;conventional freefall&#8221;, &#8220;loft bombing&#8221;, &#8220;toss bombing&#8221; and &#8220;low-level laydown&#8221; attack techniques, the latter requiring a sophisticated high speed parachute system. Today, the PAF has perfected all four techniques of nuclear weapons delivery using F-16, Mirage-V and A-5 combat aircraft.
> 
> 
> *Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC's other Achievements*​
> Therefore, we can say that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, under the Chairman Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan remained in-charge of the overall bomb programme, of all the numerous difficult steps, before and after uranium enrichment, and remained closely linked with uranium enrichment itself. They built and exploded the device. There is no getting around this fact. Nor did Pakistan forego the plutonium route, the choice of every other country with nuclear weapons because plutonium bombs are so much more powerful. We know this because of the recent disclosures about the Khushab plutonium production reactor.
> 
> This was driven during Munir Khan's 19-year tenure. All members (Technical), including Dr. Hafeez Qureshi of PINSTECH, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad (a theoretical physicist), Dr. Samar Mubarikmand (an experimental physicist) and others involved in critical technologies and projects like Dr. N.A. Javed, Dr. Abdul Majid (who designed the Khushab plutonium production reactor beginning in the 1980s, and an engineering accomplishment of greater significance for Pakistan than KRL), Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud, the Project Director of ERL/KRL at its inception, and all Members (Nuclear Power), worked as a team, and gave ultimate security to Pakistan.
> 
> The PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan not only went on to build the first generation of nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but also built the Chagai tunnels for nuclear tests, which were ready by early 1980s, and also the plant for the production of uranium hexafluoride gas, the crucial raw material from which enriched uranium is made. He also upgraded the research reactor at Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) and laid the groundwork for the 300MW nuclear power plant at Chashma, which has since been completed and commissioned.Among the first assignments that Munir undertook was the setting of the Centre for Nuclear Studies, later to become PIEAS (Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences), which has produced over two thousand trained nuclear scientists and engineers during the last over quarter of a century.
> 
> In addition a dozen nuclear medical centres and several atomic agricultural centres were set up. Specialized nuclear training centres were established at home and a large number of scientists and engineers were sent abroad for training to create a vast reservoir of trained manpower, the backbone of a self-sustaining nuclear programme.Munir Khan had some powerful detractors too who sought to undermine him. A bizarre incident of how he was undermined is the publication in early 80's of a book &#8220;Islamic Bomb&#8221; by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A Q Khan highlighting their contributions in the nuclear field.
> 
> But when Munir Khan's team conducted cold nuclear tests of its device in 1983,a new version of Islamic Bomb was clandestinely published and widely distributed gratis among army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists. In the doctored version all positive references to Munir Khan were deleted and replaced with negative and derogatory comments.For instance a reference to Munir Khan as 'a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland', in the original edition was doctored to read &#8220;Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan.&#8221;
> 
> At another place the original version read, &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the bomb project&#8221;. It was changed in the doctored edition to read as &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the reprocessing project&#8221;.The change made from the 'bomb project' to the 'reprocessing project' was striking as it sought to rob Munir Khan and his associates of any credit for the bomb project. The authors subsequently disowned the pirated version. It was all done at the behest of AQK, as Munir and his team had begun to get credit after the first cold tests conducted by PAEC in 1983.
> 
> Munir Khan's achievements must be seen in the backdrop of the anti-nuclear international environment of 70's and 80's when the United States, Canada and European countries passed domestic legislation to not only place restrictions on transfer of technology but even to renegotiate settled contracts.He refrained from advertising the Commission's achievements. Some of his colleagues thought the low profile policy were a mistake. They often complained that it had only encouraged others to hijack what actually they had performed. But Munir Ahmad Khan believed that bravado and brandishing nuclear capability would heighten negative international perceptions about Pakistan and make the objectives difficult to achieve.
> 
> The truth is that Munir Khan was very modest, and shied away from the counter-productive boasting of his rivals. He saw Pakistan's strength as lying in more than having a bomb, equally dependent on a secure economic and political future and non-isolation in the world.Munir Khan's role in developing the nuclear programme of Pakistan was in many ways akin to that of Homi Bhabha in India. Homi Bhabha had struck a synthesis with the political leadership soon after independence in 1947 and secured political commitment for his country's nuclear programme. Munir Khan achieved this synthesis with the political leadership in 1972 when he was picked up for the job in a conference of the country's scientists at Multan.
> 
> Since then the country's nuclear programme has enjoyed the bipartisan political support. And like Bhabha, Munir Khan also believed that a viable nuclear programme was not possible without a vast base of trained manpower and the indigenous development of some components, which were vital for the programme.To provide a solid base of trained manpower he set up the Centre for Nuclear Studies, which has now become a University (PIEAS), to train young nuclear scientists and engineers. By now the Centre has produced over 2,000 highly trained and qualified experts in various nuclear disciplines. In the early stages he fought hard with the bureaucracy and sent hundreds of scientists and engineers to Europe and America for training.
> 
> It is this trained manpower which has given Pakistan mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle ranging from uranium exploration and mining, fuel fabrication, making of hexafluoride gas for feeding the enrichment plant and also enriching uranium itself. And as is widely known the devices, which were tested in Chagai in May last, were made by the trainees of these training centres the foundations of which were laid by Munir Ahmad Khan. He accomplished all this because of his successful style of work, whereby he was obsessed with secrecy, whereas AQK regularly gave fat cheques to journalists, who wrote books and articles eulogizing AQK at the expense of PAEC and Munir Khan.
> 
> Munir Khan was a man who was obsessed with secrecy, which sometimes bordered on the paranoia, and he kept a very low profile. He believed that scientists working for the nuclear programme must maintain a distance from journalists and the public, due to the sensitivity of their job, and they had no business to issue any political statements. That would invite unnecessary and sometimes harmful attention from the enemies of the programme and endanger the security of the country.Today PAEC scientists and engineers can develop a new weapon design for a nuclear device every three months in a year. The National Development Complex was initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan in the beginning of the 1990s, and the last years of his Chairmanship as a project of PAEC of vital national significance under Dr. Samar Mubarik Mand, who had been the part of the team which conducted the cold test in 1983, and subsequently the leader of the team which conducted the hot tests in 1998.
> 
> The PAEC had conducted almost 24 cold tests from 1983 onwards till 1998, wherein they improved on the basic nuclear weapon design in the following cold tests.The KRL under Dr. A.Q. Khan was unable to come up with a credible design, and that is why PAEC's bomb was used for testing in 1998 and in all the cold tests carried out by PAEC.PAEC scientists and engineers had gained vast experience in nuclear weapon development and bomb testing, which it was engaged in for over 2 decades. KRL never had anything to do with the actual development of the weapon itself, and PAEC's success in making a viable bomb design and repeatedly testing various designs clearly speaks for the technical prowess of the PAEC and the sagacity of its leadership.
> 
> The making of nuclear weapons is a more challenging task than enriching uranium, as it involves a host of complicated processes and technologies including the triggering mechanism, design, implosion hydrodynamics and technologies, etc. which the PAEC conducted very successfully. Chairman PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan, General K.M. Arif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan witnessed the first cold test of 1983. At the time of the 1998 tests, Dr. A.Q. Khan was invited to the test site &#8220; to witness what a nuclear explosion looks like&#8221; in the words of Dr. Samar, and AQK left soon there after, and he arrived at the test site some 15 minutes before the explosions.
> 
> The greatest contribution that Munir Khan made to the making of nuclear Pakistan is that he made its nuclear programme self-sustaining and independent of himself. The infrastructure which he helped build and the reservoir of trained manpower which he gave, ensured the continuity of the programme after his retirement and is a guarantee that it will continue even after his death. This is unlike many of the great doers who claim sole monopoly over achievement, which essentially is collective.
> 
> Scientific journals in US and Europe recently reporting US companies having developed centrifuge machines that have achieved more than 300 SWU (Separative Work Units) per year, used in the gas centrifuge method for enriching uranium to weapon grade. This was possible because of advances in materials science and metallurgy etc; In Pakistan at GIKI and PAEC/PINSTECH, we now have material science and metallurgy departments offering PhD in material sciences. PINSTECH Nuclear Chemistry department offers BS/MS degrees specializing in heavy water chemistry. The worst US (and Indian/Israeli) fear is that if Pakistan has acquired this level of performance and yields from their machines then they may have ten times more highly enriched uranium to assemble 200 weapons.
> 
> Adding Pakistan's plutonium capability from Khushab reactor to weaponize, it has brought Pakistan in league with Israel and China in her ability to miniaturize nuclear weapon small enough for tactical and battlefields use. (Plutonium bombs are greater in yield, but smaller in size and plutonium is used to make advanced compact warheads that can easily be fitted onto aircraft and missiles). To add more fear to US/Indian nightmare if Pakistan has produced or (by all accounts Pakistan is producing enough) tritium then Pakistan have nuclear weapons whose yield could easily be increased between 100-180 Kiloton. Now Pakistan needs to achieve TRIAD capability to achieve complete surprise.
> 
> Constantly underestimating and trying to belittle Pakistan's ability to progressively enrich uranium and develop an advanced Plutonium programme despite the west's sanctions and the French backstabbing of the Reprocessing contract in the face of acute resource constraints, the West, and the people of Pakistan simply are unaware of the magnitude of capabilities of PAEC/PINSTECH/NDC/KRL and our scientists and engineers. Munir Ahmad Khan's 19 years in the PAEC saw the initiation, blossoming and development of these capabilities.
> 
> 
> PAEC and Nuclear Power Plants
> ​
> Pakistan and China initially agreed (back in 1980s) to commission at least 2 plants at the same site (CHASMA) with common auxiliary services feeding both plants as this is normal practice in the US and Europe. Common auxiliary facilities save a country lots of money. All engineering/design work for both plants was done simultaneously as hundreds of PAEC/PINSTECH engineers worked in China (at Chinese equivalent of US Oakridge labs and other facilities) but only ONE was started and completed per PAEC requirements because China did not have the experience to sustain such large and highly complex projects.
> 
> Chinese reactor safety and reliability was another overriding factor for the delay of second plant not what BBC has said. After CHASMA-I was completed, newly established PNRC (Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Commission) stopped PAEC from starting second plant right away as it wanted to monitor the plant for at least 3 years, first year and half for nominal power and rest of the time at full power as this is the most critical phase. Recently, PNRC has given the safety certificate to PAEC and IAEA.The second plant CHASMA-II will be completed in half the time, as the learning curve would be minimum and many of the 1st plant design anomalies would be fixed. Now I have heard from very reliable source that PAEC plan to build two 500-MW plants somewhere upstream of Indus River in next 7-10 years and another large (300MW) plutonium reactor and upgrading of Khushab reactor to unknown capacity.
> 
> Chinese are also convinced that Pakistan (PAEC) has the engineering know-how and the critical mass of manpower to design turbines, components of large capacity pumps, nuclear grade pipes/tubings as well as backup control systems for the reactor, so the opportunities for Pakistan are endless.As stated above, another PAEC scintillating achievement is Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) reactor in which PAEC engineers developed nuclear fuel used. This was first plant where PAEC took part as consultant and designer. This was light water reactor designed to generate 300 MW of electricity using 15 tonnes of enriched uranium annually.
> 
> The plant uses cooling water from the Chashma-Jhelum link canal and discharges it into the Indus similar to Chinese nuclear power station at Qinshan. As Chinese experience in the design of nuclear power stations for commercial purposes was limited, PAEC expertise came handy in procuring many of the components such as the giant steel pressure vessel, coolant pumps. The computerized control systems were designed in China with PAEC full participation specifications. Pakistan had also gained extensive experience in the safety systems running Karachi plant, so Chinese learnt a lot from Pakistan's experience and advised the Chinese in designing safety right from the scratch. PAEC designed and commissioned another reactor with a capacity of 72 MW at Joharabad in the Khushab district in Punjab.
> 
> This is an experimental reactor for the production of isotopes and heavy water required for its operation is manufactured in Pakistan. This reactor is not under IAEA safeguards. The designing of the project started in 1985 under the supervision of Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Canadian-European-trained, who was also in charge of starting the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant before AQK came from Holland. Another scientist instrumental in the design of the Khushab reactor, was the (late) Afzal Haq Rajput. Khushab produces weapons-grade Plutonium to make miniaturized nuclear warheads.
> 
> Whatever Khushab's activity and operational parameters it cannot be placed under the IAEA safeguards on the ground that it was a 100 per cent indigenous project. In 1996 N.A.Javed, a PAEC scientist and a heavy water expert, was decorated (Sitara-i-Imtiaz) for developing an indigenous facility for heavy water production, thereby freeing Pakistan from dependence on Canadian and Chinese supplies. There is one very important point to note that Pakistan even if it wanted, could not buy as much heavy water because our friend and master (US) suspected over-supplying heavy water to KANUPP would be diverted to Khushab.
> 
> 
> Conclusion​
> 
> From the above discussion, and in the light of the recent nuclear proliferation scandal involving Dr. A.Q. Khan, certain conclusions can be drawn. Because of the covert 1972-98 period, Qadeer was able to parley his position into unprecedented autonomy (financial, administrative and security, as Musharraf described it).
> 
> Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC followed the path of silently pursuing the nuclear goal for Pakistan in line with the country's stated policy of nuclear ambiguity, and refused to acknowledge or advertise that they were developing a nuclear weapons programme, and insisted, along with the government, that Pakistan's nuclear programme was strictly for peaceful purposes.
> 
> Second, because it was indeed a covert period, Qadeer was encouraged to pose as the Father of the Bomb, even though he was responsible for just one of 24 steps, each crucial to making nuclear weapons. Those responsible for the other 23 steps all worked under the Member (Technical) of the PAEC, who in turn reported to its Chairman.However, Qadeer was allowed to head his own set up, smaller than the PAEC, but dealing with the President directly and equal in status to the PAEC Chairman. Dr. Samar has said it on record that it was unthinkable for any scientist or engineer working in PAEC to indulge in proliferation or leakage of any materials or information or expertise, for money or cheap popularity, as they considered their work as a sacred trust, and scientists of one department would never divulge any unnecessary information to any other person in another department, and only that information was told to the people involved in various projects, as was required for their work.
> 
> On the other hand, Qadeer also demanded and got much more autonomy.It has been confirmed that the security restrictions on PAEC men, right up to the Chairman, which included surveillance (at times comically intrusive) and phone tapping, were not applied to Qadeer and certain senior colleagues. They went abroad for their own shopping for example. PAEC people were not allowed even to do that, until the intelligence operatives who did that job bought a lot of very expensive junk. However, the PAEC never enjoyed such sweeping autonomy. Perhaps because of that, the only proliferation charges relate to the one (relatively preliminary) step Qadeer was responsible for, and not for the other 23, including the more advanced and crucial steps, for which the PAEC remained responsible.
> 
> But history has been falsified, deliberately. Qadeer was used as a decoy to divert attention from the PAEC, where the real work was being done. KRL's scientists were only a fifth of the PAEC's, and perhaps KRL was overmanned. However, the myth-makers are stuck with the myth itself, and Qadeer has received adulation and honours. Even though it was clearly exposed in 1998 that his role in the nuclear programme was important but not major, the myth still persists. At the time of the Indian Brasstacks exercises, Dr. A.Q. Khan was picked up by the government to issue a statement that Pakistan had the bomb and would use it against India if its security was endangered.
> 
> That was the turning point in the sense that from then on, A.Q. Khan began an all out propaganda campaign and successfully cultivated the myth that he was the 'father' of the bomb, when in fact, he was made into a famous figure by the West, after he came to Pakistan with his URENCO gas-centrifuge designs. The West made him a villain, and the people, especially the media, and the government, went out of the way to portray him as hero, and at a time when the nation was in dire need of heroes. Our society being so gullible and prone to emotionalism and cult worship, started idolizing him to the extent that he became virtually above the law and could do anything, go anywhere, without fear of any accountability. The PAEC and Munir Khan kept their silence and publicly never admitted that they had anything to do with nuclear weapons, as it was state policy throughout the covert period of 1972-98, never to officially admit that Pakistan was a declared nuclear weapons state. This enabled AQ Khan to claim and get away with what was actually performed by PAEC. In short he stole the whole show from PAEC.
> 
> There is one important point to note while examining whether there was state approval of proliferation: only KRL was leaking. If there was state policy, the other 23 groups should have been leaking.The title of Father of the Bomb could apply at the political level to Bhutto (though the roles of Ayub, Zia and Ishaq must not be ignored), and at the technical level, Munir Ahmad Khan as Chairman, along with his team comprising all Members (Technical and Nuclear Power) share the real credit (not to forget Samar, who was Member Technical at the time of the Chaghai tests, and who was personally responsible for at least one of the 23 steps, every bit as crucial to the bomb's working as uranium enrichment). Qadeer only leaked what he could (the so-called Libyan blueprints might turn out to be the rival KRL design which could not be constructed).
> 
> This also validates the fact that the designs that he brought from URENCO were the first generation centrifuges (P1), which could not enrich uranium to weapon grade, and crucial technical input from PAEC enabled AQK to enrich uranium to the HEU level. Had this not been true, the designs and know how leaked to Libya and Iran would have enabled them to build the bomb, but they were unable to do it because numerous other processes and technologies involved in enrichment and the other 23 steps in the long chain to the bomb, were not available to them. Thus, without the selfless commitment, intense patriotic zeal and competent and inspiring leadership of PAEC and its leadership, the nuclear dream could never have been realized.
> 
> Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan (HI, NI & Bar) remains the only Pakistani who got the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, the highest civil award twice. He also got the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, along with Munir Ahmad Khan, in 1989. AQK got both his NI during President Ishaq's tenure, and now it has been reported that he had paid Rs. 150 crore to GIK for the latter's Institute, whereas Munir Khan paid a personal price by remaining unsung. Only Dr. Samar has come out in the spotlight now that Qadeer's fall from grace and fame, and he was awarded the NI this year. Munir's predecessor, I.H. Usmani and his successor Ishfaq Ahmad got the NI as well; the former got it posthumously, yet Munir Khan has been denied the NI even though 5 years have passed since his death and in spite of the fact that Munir remained the longest serving PAEC Chairman, and PAEC's accomplishments during 1972-1991 were all driven and initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan.
> 
> 
> He was known as the 'Father' in PAEC circles, but the nation has been kept in the dark about him, and his image has not been honestly portrayed in the public. In the final analysis, it is always the man at the top who counts the most, and in this respect, the PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan was the real architect of the nuclear programme, and he along with his team share the real credit as its father. Successful he has been, in his capacity as Chairman, but replaced he shall never be, with or without Nishan-i-Imtiaz. Today PAEC stands tall along with NESCOM/NDC and other strategic organizations involved with the strategic nuclear and missile programmes. Justice requires that the record be set straight for all times to come, and the falsification of history be rectified.


Looking at indian flag of the poster always prevents me from reading further... must be another bullshit..


----------



## xyxmt

Oscar said:


> AQ Khan has been overbloated in his capabilities..
> Just a media pet.. nothing more.
> In that way, he has served his purpose well..
> He gets to be the one taking the limelight.. but also the first one to be taken down ..
> so the actual intellect is spared and may continue their work.



you raise someone's status to protect you real assets. Dr AQ khan is Expert in Material Science and we cannot dispute his contribution in uranium enrichment centrifuge designs and our initial missile research and designs.


----------



## Bilal Khan 777

it suited and Pakistan and PAEC for AQK to make all the ridiculous claims, write books, give interviews, so attention stayed away from the real scientists and the core work. You can say that AQK is and has always been the decoy to keep the attention away from the core of the AW program.

Reactions: Like Like:
3


----------



## YeBeWarned

Bilal Khan 777 said:


> it suited and Pakistan and PAEC for AQK to make all the ridiculous claims, write books, give interviews, so attention stayed away from the real scientists and the core work. You can say that AQK is and has always been the decoy to keep the attention away from the core of the AW program.



" the closer you look , the lesser you see " 
He is a good man as my uncle has meet him in person, in fact he was also invited on family dinner .. unfortunately i wasn't there ..

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## The Accountant

There are so much professionals still I don't understand why we can't understand that a complex thing like Nuclear Weapon can't be work of a single person ... Who claims it was a work of Munir Khan or AQK are making rediculous claims ...

In such a complex design there are always multiple scientists involved in multiple parts ... 

So all of those who contributed there life and blood for achieving this capability needs respect and we should refrain for speculating about individual contributions ...


----------



## CHI RULES

Green Arrow said:


> Bullshit. Dr A Q Khan came late into the scene. It was Munir Khan and Dr Salaam who prepared the basis ground for Pakistan to go for nuclear. Munir Khan and Dr Salaam were better Pakistani than u and me.


Dr Salaam was against Pakistan Nuclear Bomb project stop spreading false news on the basis of your own beliefs.


----------



## war&peace

The Deterrent said:


> Though it is an article based on facts, but the author bashed AQ Khan a little too much. Every person who worked for this program of national importance deserves credit for his efforts.


Not just little bit but that lot of disrespect...the author is nothing but an idiot ....I have read about Pakistan's nuclear program from multiple sources and even met some of the scientists and I can say very confidently that if it was not Dr. AQ Khan's work, Pakistan won't be a nuclear power today PERIOD۔ Though they all made big contributions but it was Dr AQ Khan who did the real part and especially in a very short time and limited budget...while the rest of these old styled scientists cum bureaucrats were sapping the juice but doing nothing..that's why ZAB created a separated commission that was totally independent from PAEC and directly under supervision of PM of Pakistan. These disgruntled bureaucrats have this grudge against Dr A Q Khan...Just go to KRL and ask any of the employees and they love Dr. A. Q. Khan while none of them ever commanded such respect and love from their subordinates.


----------



## sonicboom

Pervaiz Musharaf Views about Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan


----------



## Hakikat ve Hikmet

If it's true that AQ shared some staffs with the Iranians then it should also top his achievements for his designs failed the "_Bazari Mollas_" to have the bomb. Imagine the situation of Iranian proxies + the bomb!!!!


----------



## Chanakyaa

@Windjammer @BHarwana


----------



## BHarwana

XiNiX said:


> @Windjammer @BHarwana


Yes dear what is it?


----------



## MastanKhan

war&peace said:


> Not just little bit but that lot of disrespect...the author is nothing but an idiot ....I have read about Pakistan's nuclear program from multiple sources and even met some of the scientists and I can say very confidently that if it was not Dr. AQ Khan's work, Pakistan won't be a nuclear power today PERIOD۔ Though they all made big contributions but it was Dr AQ Khan who did the real part and especially in a very short time and limited budget...while the rest of these old styled scientists cum bureaucrats were sapping the juice but doing nothing..that's why ZAB created a separated commission that was totally independent from PAEC and directly under supervision of PM of Pakistan. These disgruntled bureaucrats have this grudge against Dr A Q Khan...Just go to KRL and ask any of the employees and they love Dr. A. Q. Khan while none of them ever commanded such respect and love from their subordinates.




Hi,

Oh stop the nonsense---. I have almost first hand view of nuc development in pakistan---. My uncle was one of those pioneer PhD's in nuc physics who started this program---. He was at one time princial at the Reactor school for students pursuing nuc physics at Nylore---.

I lived with my uncle during my college years---and met most of these guys personally at my uncle's house over tea or dinner---and Dr. AQK was nowhere on the scene---. I remember meeting Dr Ishfaq---Dr Bashiruddin---Samar was next door neighbor---met Butt---and many others whose names I don't remember---.

In 1983 when my uncle was visiting my grandfather's house with my aunt---my maternal uncle asked him the most imp question---'do we have it or not'---. He just smiled at that time and did not say anything else---.

So---pleas kindly---don't make AQK into what he never was---.



Hakikat ve Hikmet said:


> If it's true that AQ shared some staffs with the Iranians then it should also top his achievements for his designs failed the "_Bazari Mollas_" to have the bomb. Imagine the situation of Iranian proxies + the bomb!!!!



Hi,

They were about to get it just before the fall of Shah---. But the stupid Khomeini followers and dumb iranian mullahs scr-ewed it up for Iran---.

They were so dumb---they had no clue who they were holding in custody---and even if they knew---they had no clue abut its importance---.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## war&peace

MastanKhan said:


> Hi,
> 
> Oh stop the bullsh-it---. I have almost first hand view of nuc development in pakistan---. My uncle was one of those pioneer PhD's in nuc physics who started this program---. He was at one time princial at the Reactor school for students pursuing nuc physics at Nylore---.
> 
> I lived with my uncle during my college years---and met most of these guys personally at my uncle's house over tea or dinner---and Dr. AQK was nowhere on the scene---. I remember meeting Dr Ishfaq---Dr Bashiruddin---Samar was next door neighbor---met Butt---and many others whose names I don't remember---.
> 
> In 1983 when my uncle was visiting my grandfather's house with my aunt---my maternal uncle asked him the most imp question---'do we have it or not'---. He just smiled at that time and did not say anything else---.
> 
> So---pleas kindly---don't make AQK into what he never was---.


Naah, matey, it isn't so simple as put it. What you are narrating is the typical one-sided version from any PAEC guys. I know Pakistan had the nuclear program since 1950's but it was squarely aimed at producing radio-isotopes for medical and engineering applications, producing electricity and research. The nuke bomb dimension was added when the reports of India's nuke came and especially when she tested in 1974. I know PAEC had great scientists but they were well qualified but the route they were familiar with was the conventional Plutonium bomb but it required a huge investment, time and facilities that were purely nuclear oriented and hence would be almost impossible to acquire. And that's reprocessing plant from France was cancelled. While Dr. AQ Khan was working on a very different technology that relied on enriching a different isotope of Uranium using centrifuges. That was unconventional, faster, cheaper and a lot of components were dual use so those could be obtained under the guise of the civilian tech. And Pakistan was able to do that with limited engineering base in a pretty quick manner by 1983, Pakistan had a working design which was cold-tested and by 1986 there were a few devices ready to be used and a per reports Pakistan tested a device through a friendly nation because it was already testing its own devices. If it was not for Dr. A.Q. contribution, Pakistan won't be a nuclear power until the end of Afghan war after which US and western hammer hit the anvil and thus it won't be allowed to become nuke power PERIOD.

Reactions: Like Like:
2


----------



## BHarwana

MastanKhan said:


> Hi,
> 
> Oh stop the nonsense---. I have almost first hand view of nuc development in pakistan---. My uncle was one of those pioneer PhD's in nuc physics who started this program---. He was at one time princial at the Reactor school for students pursuing nuc physics at Nylore---.
> 
> I lived with my uncle during my college years---and met most of these guys personally at my uncle's house over tea or dinner---and Dr. AQK was nowhere on the scene---. I remember meeting Dr Ishfaq---Dr Bashiruddin---Samar was next door neighbor---met Butt---and many others whose names I don't remember---.
> 
> In 1983 when my uncle was visiting my grandfather's house with my aunt---my maternal uncle asked him the most imp question---'do we have it or not'---. He just smiled at that time and did not say anything else---.
> 
> So---pleas kindly---don't make AQK into what he never was---.
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> They were about to get it just before the fall of Shah---. But the stupid Khomeini followers and dumb iranian mullahs scr-ewed it up for Iran---.
> 
> They were so dumb---they had no clue who they were holding in custody---and even if they knew---they had no clue abut its importance---.



Chacha Jee why so much anger towards AQ-Khan? Even Americans acknowledge he is the father of Pakistani nuclear bomb. Do you even know how much literate he is nuclear physics?

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## MastanKhan

And as for AQ Khan---it was recognized very early by the pak military that due to the sensitivity of the nature of the program---a diversion was needed---a diversion that was very real but not real enough---and that diversion was in the form of AQ Khan---the supposed known face of the pak nuc program---.

It was a coupe de grace of the pak intel agencies---the unsung heroes who created a reality of this diversion---and thru media and paper made Dr AQ to what he was not---. The pak intel agy's were so successful in their endeavor that they made AQ believe in what he was doing to be the actual thing---they let the world folow his lead the pak other program kept on moving silently and smoothly till the day it happened---.



BHarwana said:


> Chacha Jee why so much anger towards AQ-Khan? Even Americans acknowledge he is the father of Pakistani nuclear bomb. Do you even know how much literate he is nuclear physics?



Hi,

Off course they recognize him to be the father of the program---because our intel agencies projected him to be---to divert the attention from the real program---.

There is no nation in the world which gives a media hype to its nuc program---why would pakistan do that---other than to deceive.

The world fell for the AQ sleight of hand as did the US intel agy's---.

@Hakikat ve Hikmet


----------



## BHarwana

MastanKhan said:


> And as for AQ Khan---it was recognized very early by the pak military that due to the sensitivity of the nature of the program---a diversion was needed---a diversion that was very real but not real enough---and that diversion was in the form of AQ Khan---the supposed known face of the pak nuc program---.
> 
> It was a coupe de grace of the pak intel agencies---the unsung heroes who created a reality of this diversion---and thru media and paper made Dr AQ to what he was not---. The pak intel agy's were so successful in their endeavor that they made AQ believe in what he was doing to be the actual thing---they let the world folow his lead the pak other program kept on moving silently and smoothly till the day it happened---.
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Off course they recognize him to be the father of the program---because our intel agencies projected him to be---to divert the attention from the real program---.
> 
> There is no nation in the world which gives a media hype to its nuc program---why would pakistan do that---other than to deceive.
> 
> The world fell for the AQ sleight of hand as did the US intel agy's---.



Now sir you are showing the true American conspiracy theory.
If he had nothing to do with nuclear physics what was he doing in Netherlands nuke research lab? Even his colleagues from Netherlands acknowledge him of being capable of producing a nuclear thermal device. The current atomic watch dog inspectors also acknowledge his know how and research. He is not just Pioneer of a-bomb but also gas centrifuges which west acknowledge was impossible to produce even for them. So please think before you post.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Riz

For us.. Every single person is our hero who participated verbally or physically in this program.. Regardless it was stolen or researched the point is we got it..

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## MastanKhan

BHarwana said:


> Now sir you are showing the true American conspiracy theory.
> If he had nothing to do with nuclear physics what was he doing in Netherlands nuke research lab? Even his colleagues from Netherlands acknowledge him of being capable of producing a nuclear thermal device. The current atomic watch dog inspectors also acknowledge his know how and research. He is not just Pioneer of a-bomb but also gas centrifuges which west acknowledge was impossible to produce even for them. So please think before you post.



Hi,

See---you are making a mountain out of a mole hill---. AQ Khan was a genuine engineer---he had a genuine program running---his engineers and scientists were genuine---they were working to the best of their ability to do their best believing in what they were doing and believing that their's was the only true program---. Their's was a true program as true that it could be---.

But then there was a truer program than theirs---which when became evident and was shown to the world---the world was shocked---. all those foreign agencies did not want to believe that they had been duped by these poor grass eating pakistani military---. 

And to save their faces from embarrassment of being called a failure---they also pushed ahead and stated that AQ was the real thing---thus sabotaging their own efforts---because their reputations---their careers---their jobs---their income---the welfare of their families and children and their's as well depended pushing the anvil of their belief further---so the lie became the truth---.

And pakistan's " other scietists " came out of it unscathed---. The fall guy was made a hero---he believed he was a hero---he still believes that he is a hero---and it is all happening in front of your faces---where you all believe that he is a hero and the real thing---.

Most of you will never know about the true heroes of the program---it is like the wall in the agency---where the names of the true fallen heroes of the cause are written and only those who work there know who the true heroes are and the nation does not know anything---.

Pak military intel created the ultimate illusion---because everything they showed was real---nothing was fake---.


----------



## BHarwana

MastanKhan said:


> Hi,
> 
> See---you are making a mountain out of a mole hill---. AQ Khan was a genuine engineer---he had a genuine program running---his engineers and scientists were genuine---they were working to the best of their ability to do their best believing in what they were doing and believing that their's was the only true program---. Their's was a true program as true that it could be---.
> 
> But then there was a truer program than theirs---which when became evident and was shown to the world---the world was shocked---. all those foreign agencies did not want to believe that they had been duped by these poor grass eating pakistani military---.
> 
> And to save their faces from embarrassment of being called a failure---they also pushed ahead and stated that AQ was the real thing---thus sabotaging their own efforts---because their reputations---their careers---their jobs---their income---the welfare of their families and children and their's as well depended pushing the anvil of their belief further---so the lie became the truth---.
> 
> And pakistan's " other scietists " came out of it unscathed---. The fall guy was made a hero---he believed he was a hero---he still believes that he is a hero---and it is all happening in front of your faces---where you all believe that he is a hero and the real thing---.
> 
> Most of you will never know about the true heroes of the program---it is like the wall in the agency---where the names of the true fallen heroes of the cause are written and only those who work there know who the true heroes are and the nation does not know anything---.
> 
> Pak military intel created the ultimate illusion---because everything they showed was real---nothing was fake---.



Sir what is the point of all this even if it 0.000000001% true every one has acknowledged him already and he is a hero so why go against the tide?

What ever you say at this old age will be looked upon as a conspiracy theory. He has his name already written all over the nukes of Pakistan and no one can deny him that fame. Please don't fool your self. Yes Pakistanis have very old connection to nukes even the world's very first nuke under Manhattan project has a Pakistani foot print.


----------



## war&peace

MastanKhan said:


> And as for AQ Khan---it was recognized very early by the pak military that due to the sensitivity of the nature of the program---a diversion was needed---a diversion that was very real but not real enough---and that diversion was in the form of AQ Khan---the supposed known face of the pak nuc program---.
> 
> It was a coupe de grace of the pak intel agencies---the unsung heroes who created a reality of this diversion---and thru media and paper made Dr AQ to what he was not---. The pak intel agy's were so successful in their endeavor that they made AQ believe in what he was doing to be the actual thing---they let the world folow his lead the pak other program kept on moving silently and smoothly till the day it happened---.


Sir, on this I must beg you to tell us..what are you smoking. It sounds dope. What he worked on was 100% real and the other route (Plutonium based) has been added relatively recently and now Pakistan has both and shifting more and more to the U238. I can explain the physics if required.


----------



## MastanKhan

BHarwana said:


> Sir what is the point of all this even if it 0.000000001% true every one has acknowledged him already and he is a hero so why go against the tide?
> 
> What ever you say at this old age will be looked upon as a conspiracy theory. He has his name already written all over the nukes of Pakistan and no one can deny him that fame. Please don't fool your self. Yes Pakistanis have very old connection to nukes even the world's very first nuke under Manhattan project has a Pakistani foot print.



Hi,

Gen Musharraf made it very clear that he was not the father of the program---and many others have too---. But some cling to their beliefs and have a hard time believing otherwise---.


----------



## GHALIB

somebozo said:


> You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.



Quite intelligent Idea to protect scientists .


----------



## The Accountant

war&peace said:


> Sir, on this I must beg you to tell us..what are you smoking. It sounds dope. What he worked on was 100% real and the other route (Plutonium based) has been added relatively recently and now Pakistan has both and shifting more and mo
> 
> 
> BHarwana said:
> 
> 
> 
> Sir what is the point of all this even if it 0.000000001% true every one has acknowledged him already and he is a hero so why go against the tide?
> 
> What ever you say at this old age will be looked upon as a conspiracy theory. He has his name already written all over the nukes of Pakistan and no one can deny him that fame. Please don't fool your self. Yes Pakistanis have very old connection to nukes even the world's very first nuke under Manhattan project has a Pakistani foot print.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> re to the U238. I can explain the physics if required.
Click to expand...



@MastanKhan is right with slight correction ... nuke production is a long process and required efforts from alot of departments ... so while we were having two programs i.e. plotinium based and uranium based ... uranium was the first to get success as this was relatively easier to design but much less efficient ...

Dr. AQK key achievement was to achieve uranium enrichment to weapon grade level at the time when no one was expecting ... i remember interview of one of the british company official who sold us voltage stabilizing machines that were required to power centrifuges ... they were of the opinion that Pakistani will never be able to use those machines and they will eventually rust down ... AQK did achieve enriched uranium at the time we did not had even the triggering mechanisim but rest of all the components i.e. bomb designing triggering mechanisim was designed by other scientists ... so it was a combined efforts ... unfortunately there was lot of politics because AQK was an outsider whereas others were working togather from decades ... so AQK did resolved one of the core problem area of nuclear bomb but he is not acknowledged by others as he was not part of the original team and out if jealousy as well as AQK was given credit of more than he deserved and he didnt acknowledged the achievements of others

In short AQK did provide critical breakthrough but it was a team effort so giving him credit alone is injustice to others and not recognizing his part is injustice to him ...

Reactions: Like Like:
3


----------



## BHarwana

MastanKhan said:


> Hi,
> 
> Gen Musharraf made it very clear that he was not the father of the program---and many others have too---. But some cling to their beliefs and have a hard time believing otherwise---.



 what gen said is just a statement with no head or tail. You need a whole story of events around it to make it a truth until then it is a conspiracy theory. If you can understand what I mean. Now any story can be believed or rejected in this regard because we can never know this secret so it is better to live with the official story.


----------



## GHALIB

Officially AQ KHAN was jailed for leaking secrets and selling nukes to iran, so he is father of the nuke bomb.


----------



## MastanKhan

GHALIB said:


> Officially AQ KHAN was jailed for leaking secrets and selling nukes to iran, so he is father of the nuke bomb.



Hi,

Thank you for believing in that---because that is what we wanted you to believe---.



BHarwana said:


> what gen said is just a statement with no head or tail. You need a whole story of events around it to make it a truth until then it is a conspiracy theory. If you can understand what I mean. Now any story can be believed or rejected in this regard because we can never know this secret so it is better to live with the official story.



Hi,

A you learnt that in the world of deceit and deception---there is no such thing as a " whole story "---and there is no such thing as a true story---.



somebozo said:


> You Indians are slow on IQ, we do not want to expose our top brass engineers to targeted assassinations by CIA and RAW much like like it is happening to Iranian scientist. AQ Khan is just an escape goat cheapster nothing else.



Hi,

Thank you very much---. What I have not been able to explain in many pages of writing---you have explained it in 4 lines---.

Thank you again---.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## war&peace

MastanKhan said:


> Hi,
> 
> See---you are making a mountain out of a mole hill---. AQ Khan was a genuine engineer---he had a genuine program running---his engineers and scientists were genuine---they were working to the best of their ability to do their best believing in what they were doing and believing that their's was the only true program---. Their's was a true program as true that it could be---.
> 
> But then there was a truer program than theirs---which when became evident and was shown to the world---the world was shocked---. all those foreign agencies did not want to believe that they had been duped by these poor grass eating pakistani military---.
> 
> And to save their faces from embarrassment of being called a failure---they also pushed ahead and stated that AQ was the real thing---thus sabotaging their own efforts---because their reputations---their careers---their jobs---their income---the welfare of their families and children and their's as well depended pushing the anvil of their belief further---so the lie became the truth---.
> 
> And pakistan's " other scietists " came out of it unscathed---. The fall guy was made a hero---he believed he was a hero---he still believes that he is a hero---and it is all happening in front of your faces---where you all believe that he is a hero and the real thing---.
> 
> Most of you will never know about the true heroes of the program---it is like the wall in the agency---where the names of the true fallen heroes of the cause are written and only those who work there know who the true heroes are and the nation does not know anything---.
> 
> Pak military intel created the ultimate illusion---because everything they showed was real---nothing was fake---.


I think reading a lot of third grade fictional novels have messed up with your brain matey...you have no idea of the reality..


----------



## MastanKhan

war&peace said:


> I think reading a lot of third grade fictional novels have messed up with your brain matey...you have no idea of the reality..



Hi,

There is hardly any fictional material on the subject matter---.

I have said more than I want to---.


----------



## war&peace

MastanKhan said:


> Hi,
> 
> There is hardly any fictional material on the subject matter---.
> 
> I have said more than I want to---.


Sir!!! let's agree to disagree on this matter.


----------



## fitpOsitive

XiNiX said:


> *The Untold Story of Pakistani Nuclear Program
> The Real Father of Pakistani Bomb : Dr. M A Khan*​
> _Before i Knew Him, i was almost sure that Pakistani Nuclear program was nothing but a Stolen Eurenco Technology witha Chinese Weapon Design. But as i researched more on works of Munir Khan & Related Comparision with AQ Khan, a new dimension originates._
> 
> #1. The Real Father of Pakistani Nuclear Bomb is NOT AQ Khan, But Dr. Munir Ahmed Khan
> #2. Pakistan has Two Weapon Designs , Not Just the Uranium Design ( Stolen by AQ ) but a Plutonium Design.
> #3. Plutonium Research is the Real Indegeniuis Effort by Pakistan, under PAEC whic did the most of Nuclear Program
> 
> 
> Read on .... to know some Awesome Facts abt Munir Khan and Pakistani Nuclear program....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ​
> Bhutto began the nuclear quest with his characteristic sense of urgency. He had taken power in mid-December 1971, and in January he hastily called together some fifty of Pakistan's top scientists and government officials for what was to be a very secret meeting. At the time, the new government was still in a state of enormous confusion, and Bhutto's aides originally scheduled in the meeting for the town of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.
> 
> It was January, with winter storms blowing down from Afghanistan to the north, and Quetta had no facilities adequately heated for the selected scientists and bureaucrats to meet in. No one complained, when, the government laid on military planes to fly the freezing scientists south and east to the town of Multan. The day was sparkling clear, and Bhutto convened the meeting under a brightly coloured canvas canopy, on the lawn of a stately old Colonial mansion. The scientists and administrators who were there were far and away the best brains in Pakistan, and some were as good as could be found anywhere in the world. The Pakistani people and their Islamic forebears had historically nurtured a rich scientific tradition, and the country, though in some ways underdeveloped could count on a surprisingly strong scientific establishment. Three names are especially worth remembering.
> 
> Abdus Salam - the Professor to his worshipping younger colleagues - had founded the Third World-oriented International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.Dr. Ishrat Usmani had gained prominence as Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and would go on to build his reputation as an international civil servant specializing in energy questions at the United Nations.
> 
> And the man Bhutto would name to replace Usmani as head of the nuclear programme and the PAEC till his retirement in 1991, Munir Ahmed Khan, had just come with high marks from the staff of the very organization that is supposed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Munir Ahmed Khan was a nuclear engineer of international standing, and he spent nearly 14 years at the IAEA in Vienna, where he was the Head of Reactor Engineering, before joining PAEC, and he had organized more than twenty technical and international conferences on heavy water reactors, advanced gas cooled reactors, plutonium utilization, and small and medium power reactors.
> 
> In the late 1970s, Director General of IAEA offered him the post of Deputy Director General in Vienna, but he refused it to accomplish his mission in Pakistan.He was the first Asian scientist to be appointed at the IAEA and later in 1986, he was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IAEA in Vienna.There was great deal of enthusiasm and joy. Bhutto started slowly. He spoke of Pakistan's defeat in the war with India, and vowed that he would vindicate the country's honour. He said that he had always wanted Pakistan to take the nuclear road, but nobody had listened to him. Now fate had placed him in a position where he could make the decision, he had the people of Pakistan behind him, and he wanted to go ahead.
> 
> Pakistan was going to have the bomb, and the scientists sitting under the shamiana at Multan were going to make it for him.So Bhutto had all these boys together, these scientists, and there were senior people, very senior people, and junior people, and youngsters fresh with their PhDs in nuclear physics, and he said: Look, we're going to have the bomb.&#8221; He said &#8220;Can you give it to me?&#8221; So, they started saying &#8220;Oh yes, yes, yes. You can have it. You can have it.&#8221; But Bhutto wanted more. He paused them. &#8220;How long will it take?&#8221; he asked. There was a lively debate on the time needed to make the bomb, and finally one scientist dared to say that maybe it could be done in five years. Bhutto smiled, lifted his hand, and dramatically thrust forward three fingers.&#8221; Three years&#8221;, he said.&#8221; I want it in three years&#8221;.
> 
> The atmosphere suddenly became electric. It was then that one of the junior men - S.A.Butt, who under Munir Khan's guiding hand would come to play a major role in making the bomb possible - jumped to his feet and clamoured for his leader's attention. &#8220;It can be done in three years&#8221;, Butt shouted excitedly. Bhutto was very much amused and he said, &#8220;Well, much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, this is a very serious political decision, which Pakistan must make, and perhaps all Third World countries must make one day, because it is coming. So can you do it? &#8220;And they said, &#8220;Yes, we can do it, given the resources and given the facilities. &#8221;Bhutto's answer was simple.&#8221; I shall find you the resources and I shall find you the facilities&#8221;.
> 
> This then was the day the bomb was born, the meeting at Multan that set the seal on Pakistan's nuclear future. From that moment, Pakistan would begin a national crash programme to get the bomb. It was a historic move.The meeting set the stage and also helped select the actors. Most of the scientists came along. Few did not. Even Z.A.Bhutto, for all his powers of persuasion, could not convince some of the senior men, including the longtime friend and adviser, the future Nobel laureate Abdus Salam. Bhutto probably feared that any open condemnation of the project from Salam could severely split Pakistan's nuclear scientists, many of whom revered him. His opposition could also trigger alarm bells among the scientists and diplomats around the world. So some time after the meeting, a special emissary was sent to Salam, who had returned to his home in Britain, to brief him on the programme and to assure him that it was really peaceful in intent.
> 
> A second, lesser obstacle was the longtime head of the PAEC, Dr Ishrat Usmani, who had opposed the road to the bomb because at the time Pakistan did not have the necessary infrastructure needed for such a technologically giant and ambitious project. Given Usmani's reluctance, Bhutto fired Usmani, promoting him upstairs to the post of Secretary of the newly created Ministry of Science and Technology.He became a figurehead and soon left Pakistan, taking a post at the UN. In his place, as the new Chairman of the PAEC and the man who would make the nuclear dream come true, Bhutto named one of the enthusiasts of the Multan meeting, Munir Ahmed Khan. Trained at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States and a long time staff member of the IAEA, Munir Khan outlived his patron Bhutto to become the spirit and the symbol of the Third World nuclear ambitions, both on the civilian side and in the development of nuclear weapons.
> 
> If one is to go back to a founding figure, the PAEC considered the acquisition of nuclear technology capable of conversion to weapons technology as early as 1955, with the help of President Eisenhower's Atom's for Peace Programme.The foundation of any nuclear weapons programme is the production of the special nuclear materials required for weapons - plutonium or highly enriched uranium for a basic programme for producing fission weapons. Without these materials no weapons can be made. The initial direction taken by Pakistan was to pursue the use of plutonium.
> 
> *The Plutonium route to the Bomb*​
> A.Q. Khan always wanted Pakistan to work only on Uranium weapon as compared to Plutonium because (he thought and tried to convince Gen Zia) Plutonium route involved highly complex and sophisticated procedures and processes but PAEC knew better.Plutonium route and all the related activities to establish infrastructure (for eventual bomb) continued in full swing,against AQ Khan desire.A.Q. Khan sought to undermine Munir Khan by opposing the plutonium route because Munir was a plutonium expert, having spent 14 years as Head of Reactor Engineering at the IAEA before his joining PAEC in 1972, where PAEC under Munir Khan not only initiated the Kahuta Enrichment project before AQK, but continued to give crucial technical support.
> 
> Contrary to popular perception, Pakistan did not forego the plutonium route to the bomb, and pursued it along with the uranium route. Whether by intention to prepare a &#8220;nuclear option&#8221; or not, decisions made in the 1960s already provided a valuable basis for establishing a weapons programme. In 1971 the Canadian General Electric Co. completed a 137 MW (electrical) CANDU power reactor for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), which went critical in August 1971 and inaugurated by the man who would go on to become the architect of Nuclear Pakistan, the new Chairman, PAEC, Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan. It began commercial operation in October 1972. CGEC also provided a small heavy water production facility. These facilities had been contracted for in the mid-60s, thus predating Bhutto's drive for nuclear weapon capability, but perhaps influenced by him in a ministerial capacity.
> 
> The technology for KANUPP was the same natural uranium/heavy water technology used in the Indian Cirus and later Dhruva reactors used by India for producing weapons plutonium. The facilities were under IAEA safeguards, and have remained so; nonetheless it was the initial intent of the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme to use plutonium from this reactor as the key ingredient in their nuclear arsenal. But to do that Pakistan required a means of separating plutonium from spent fuel. Some advance preparation had occurred here also. In the late 1960s Pakistan had contracted with both British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Belgonucléaire to prepare studies and designs for pilot plutonium separation facilities. The BNFL design, capable of separating up 360 g of fuel a year. The plan for this plant was completed by 1971.
> 
> The centrepiece of the PAEC weapon's programme at this time was the effort to acquire a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from the fuel of KANUPP. The first step after Multan was to build a pilot reprocessing facility called the &#8220;New Labs&#8221; at PINSTECH, which was completed by 1981, and work on the KHUSHAB Plutonium production reactor started in the 1980s and it became operational in the 1990s. This facility (New Labs) was a larger and more ambitious project than the original BNFL plan. Belgonucléaire and the French corporation Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) built it in the early 70s.
> 
> The pilot plant was followed by a contract signed with SGN in March 1973 to prepare the basic design for a large-scale reprocessing plant, one with a capacity of 100 tons of fuel per year, considerably more than KANUPP would generate. SGN was the world's chief exporter of reprocessing technology and had previously built military plutonium facilities for France, the secret plutonium plant at Dimona in Israel, and contracted to provide similar plants to Taiwan, South Korea, and (later) Iraq. The Chashma plant, as it was known, would have the capability to produce 200 kg of weapons grade plutonium a year, if sufficient fuel were available to feed it. It would have provided Pakistan with the ability to &#8220;break safeguards&#8221; and quickly process accumulated fuel from KANUPP when it decided to openly declare itself a nuclear-armed state. One for the final detailed design and construction on October 18, 1974 followed the initial design contract. The original contract for this project did not include significant safeguards to discourage diversion of the separated plutonium, or controls on the technology
> 
> India's first nuclear test, known variously as &#8220;Smiling Buddha&#8221;, the PNE (for &#8220;Peaceful Nuclear Explosive&#8221, and most recently Pokhran-I, occurred on May 18 , 1974. It provided an additional stimulus to the Pakistani weapons programme. Bhutto increased the funding for the programme after the Indian test, but since arrangements to secure lavish funding had been underway for more than a year this would have occurred anyway. One consequence of the test was ironically to hamper Pakistan's programme as the test sharply escalated international attention to proliferation and led to increased restrictions on nuclear exports to all nations, not just India.
> 
> The French government began to show increased concern about the Chashma plant during 1976. A safeguards agreement for France brought the plant before the IAEA in February 1976, which was approved on March 18 and signed by Pakistan. This at least ensured that the plant would have monitoring so that diversion to military purposes could be made with impunity. Despite Bhutto's overthrow in 1977 by General Zia, the latter continued the project unabated, and continued to press the French to fulfil the Chashma contract. But France had begun gradually turning against the reprocessing plant.
> 
> In late 1977 the French proposed to Pakistan to alter the design of the plant so that it would produce a mixture of uranium and plutonium rather pure plutonium. This modification would not affect the plant's suitability for its declared purpose - producing mixed oxide fuel for power reactors - but would prevent its direct use for producing plutonium for weapons. Pakistan refused to accept the modification. But by that time Pakistan had received 95 percent of the detailed plans for the plant by SGN, and was thus in a position to secure components and build the plant itself, which it would later at KHUSHAB.
> 
> 
> *The Uranium Route to the Bomb: PAEC's role in Uranium Enrichment*​
> Pakistan from the outset of the Multan conference was exploring both the Plutonium and Uranium routes to the bomb. During 1974-76, uranium enrichment was probably seen as a backup or at most a co-equal programme for fissile material production. Having two different technologies for production would make Pakistan more resistant to efforts to restrain its programme, and producing both U-235 and plutonium would give Pakistan greater flexibility in weapon design. Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud was only one of dozens of scientists and engineers (besides) AQ Khan who were working in Europe, Canada and the US in late sixties and early seventies that later became &#8220;Consortium Companies&#8221; to supply enriched uranium to European nuclear power plants. PAEC brought back dozens of scientists from Belgium to start this programme under Dr Bashiruddin long before
> 
> *AQ Khan came on board...*
> 
> Moreover, the PAEC was already considering the centrifuge problem, and there was one experiment in Lahore in the early 1970s involving centrifuges. Two pilot centrifuge plants were set up in Golra and Sihala before the actual uranium enrichment facility was established at Kahuta. Munir Ahmad Khan completed the site selection for the Kahuta enrichment plant, initial procurement of vital equipment, construction of its civil works, and recruitment of staff for it by 1976. The Kahuta Enrichment Project was called Project-706 of the PAEC, and as with the plutonium programme, it was under the overall control and supervision of Chairman Munir Khan. A.Q. Khan came to Pakistan and produced gas centrifuge designs and drawings from URENCO. He initially worked under Project Director Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmud.
> 
> Much of the buying for Kahuta of necessary materials and equipment before and after A.Q. Khan's arrival was done by a brilliant PAEC physicist-turned diplomat, S.A. Butt, who was also looking after the plutonium programmes' requirements. The best PAEC scientists and engineers staffed Kahuta. It must be remembered that the Plutonium contract with France had not been cancelled by the French government when the Enrichment Plant was being set up at Kahuta.
> When Canada in 1976 suspended the supply of heavy water fuel and spare parts for KANUPP, the PAEC under Munir Khan took up the challenge and using indigenous resources produced the feed for KANUPP. As a result the Muslim World's first nuclear reactor was not closed even for a single day for want of spare parts, fuel, and heavy water.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The technology Qadeer brought would have eventually been acquired.The work had been started by Bashir-ud-din on Nuclear Fuel cycle to make fuel for KANUPP and future nuclear plants two years prior to Qadeer's arrival in Pakistan.Dr. A.Q. Khan did not bring a magic wand from URENCO but still it was a vital link to the bomb. Under Munir Ahmed Khan, PAEC started an ambitious programme to master the technology of complete nuclear fuel cycle in which &#8220; Heavy Water&#8221; was one of the most important components.
> 
> Heavy Water which was so (prohibitively) expensive which Canada was charging Pakistan $27/lb (in early/mid-seventies), Pakistan's only nuclear power plant would die and our whole nuclear programme would come crashing in late 1970.Qadeer's contribution cannot be denied but should not be overblown.Centrifuge essentially a highly specialized mechanical component was a link in the long chain of enrichment technology.As Qadeer and his team stumbled on many occasions, he received vital technical support from PINSTECH and PAEC infrastructure and scientists. Dr N Ikram out of many (Punjab University, Institute Of Solid State Physics) was a rare specialist in this field and international authority who came to his rescue.
> 
> Qadeer's blueprints were based on first generation enrichment technology originally developed by the URENCO in late sixties and early seventies whose SWU (unit of the measurement to separate U-238 and U-235 in natural uranium in order to create final product that is richer in U-235 (atoms) was so low that thousands of centrifuge machines would have to be deployed for thousands of hours at performance levels much inferior to then installed centrifuges at URENCO. PAEC (under Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan) challenged its economic viability and presented a programme that will deploy the most efficient technology by setting up an infrastructure for advanced machine design for the next generation centrifuges and in the two decades that followed spent more than $3 billion on centrifuge technology and its support infrastructure.
> 
> PAEC used &#8220;proven technology&#8221; with heavy emphasis on R&D (not copy or stealing as US and western media says) with much higher SWU while reducing costs and improving efficiency through the use of state-of-the-art materials, control systems and manufacturing processes.
> By late 90s, KRL had conducted centrifuge development work costing hundreds of millions of dollars. PAEC enabled KRL to take advantage of commercial advances in construction materials (thanks to PAEC/PINSTECH's Scientists) and advanced manufacturing methods to develop a centrifuge machines that achieved several times SWU performance previously demonstrated by early KRL machines, but at substantially reduced cost. Today PAEC has a workhorse technology that capably serves Pakistan defence needs and since New Labs setup, much of the fuel needs of the future nuclear plants in Pakistan.
> 
> People might ask the significance of higher SWU? Natural uranium, in the form of uranium hexafluoride (natural UF6), is fed into an enrichment process. If (for example), you begin with 50 kilograms of natural uranium, it takes about 30 SWU to produce 5 kilograms of uranium enriched in U-235 to 4. -5%. It takes on the order of (roughly) 100,000 SWU of enriched uranium to fuel a typical 137 megawatt (MW) commercial nuclear reactor for a year. A 137 MW (KANUPP) plant can supply the electricity needs for a city of about 500,000 in a country like Pakistan.Moreover, the technology brought by A.Q. Khan was based on the URENCO designs of gas centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapon grade, also known as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). But again, A.Q. Khan's uranium enrichment was not independent of PAEC, even after having acquired total control and autonomy for KRL.
> 
> In order to enrich uranium to weapon grade, he needed the crucial Hexafluoride gas, known as UF-6. Concurrent to the plutonium programme and the setting up of Project-706, the PAEC was also setting up a plant to produce Uranium hexafluoride, which is a crucial ingredient for enriching uranium. Here is how UF6 produced and supplied by PAEC to KRL is critical to Enriching Uranium through gas centrifuges and it underlines the importance of this very important 'step' in a series of interconnected steps that lead to a bomb. KRL depends on PAEC for Enriching Uranium as is illustrated here. KRL's role in centrifuges and vacuum technology and material is not being denied here, but PAEC's role is highlighted which is unknown and unacknowledged and unsung and all praise only goes to A.Q. Khan.
> 
> The PAEC at its HEX PLANT produces Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). Here the natural uranium ore concentrate is sent to a conversion plant where it is chemically processed into Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). At ambient temperature, UF6 is a solid with a low residual vapour pressure. It is then handed over to KRL.At KRL enrichment plant, a centrifuge comprises an evacuated (vacuum) casing containing a cylindrical rotor, which rotates at very high speeds, in an almost friction free environment. The Uranium is fed into the rotor as gaseous Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6) where it takes up the rotational motion. The centrifugal forces push the heavier U-238 closer to the wall of the rotor than the lighter U-235. The gas closer to the wall becomes depleted in U-235 whereas the gas nearer the rotor axis is enriched in U-235.
> 
> The gas flow is produced by a temperature gradient over the length of the centrifuge. UF6 depleted in U-235 flows upwards adjacent to the rotor wall, whilst UF6 enriched in U-235 flows downwards close to the axis. The two gas streams are removed through small pipes.
> The enrichment effect of a single centrifuge is small, so centrifuge pumps are linked in-groups known as cascades. Passing through the successive centrifuges of cascades, the U-235 is gradually enriched to the required percentage - usually between 3 and 5% and the depleted uranium is reduced to 0.2 to 0.3% U-235. Enrichment achieved to 5% is non-weapon grade low enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants whereas HEU weapon grade is over 95%.
> 
> So Enriching Uranium does not start or end completely at KRL after which the enriched uranium is manufactured into a bomb, which involves very critical steps of developing the bomb design, implosion techniques, triggering mechanism etc. The work on the bomb itself had begun in earnest in the early 1970s by PAEC in a meeting called by Chairman Munir Khan, and attended by Dr. Ishfaq and other senior scientists at about the same time that the Indians exploded their Smiling Buddha. The Hex Plant was built by PAEC under Munir Khan's Chairmanship and it confirms the fact that this plant was built for providing UF6 to KRL, which was Project 706 of PAEC, developed under Bashiruddin Mahmud, before A.Q. Khan came.
> 
> There is no doubt that Munir Ahmad Khan was a true visionary, architect of Pakistan's uranium enrichment and plutonium programmes and way ahead of his time at PAEC or PINSTECH. He believed and worked tirelessly in building infrastructure that would fabricate nuclear fuel for Pakistan's nuclear plants and would be a springboard for Qadeer's fame and notoriety. Without getting hands around fuel cycle's first 3 crucial steps - 1) mining (uranium ore mining from mines), 2) milling (uranium ore into yellow cake), 3) conversion (yellow cake into hexafluoride) enrichment would be impossible for which PAEC laid solid ground work very early on. Enrichment, a step in increasing the concentration of U-235 isotopes from its natural level (0.5-.7%) to 5% level (fuel used in nuclear plants) was started by Bashiruddin Mahmud, under Munir Khan's directions. Dr. Bashiruddin did a complete feasibility of the project as early as 1974. Bashirudin was real enrichment (nuclear) expert not a metallurgist.These are two very different disciplines that should not be confused with each other.
> 
> Fuel fabrication (the 4th step) - the process of enriched uranium into uranium dioxide, sealing it into metal fuel rods and bundling into fuel assembly, and the last step - fuel fabrication (fuel into nuclear plants where U-235 starts fission producing heat and running the turbine etc) for power plants was again the work of PAEC.Technically speaking, KRL never built an atomic device for Pakistan but it did build lots of centrifuges, which is purely a mechanical device. PAEC provided technical assistance and guidance in all-important areas of enrichment (and much more) to KRL, as centrifuge was the &#8220;vehicle&#8221; to the enrichment process.
> 
> Much of the KRL time (as an organization) was spent designing, developing centrifuges, identifying and resolving the most difficult cascading and other problems to the very end of the programme. From the beginning, more than 75% of KRL scientists and engineers were from PAEC, although many more with rare expertise were recruited from a diverse pool of Pakistani scientists and engineers working in the US and Europe. PAEC played an important role from the very beginning, and thus their know-how became increasingly important in the overall programme. Without PAEC involvement, KRL abilities could not have grown beyond an advanced machine design shop.
> 
> PAEC knew how to make nuclear fuel for civil applications before KRL was established. Without PAEC /PINSTECH active guidance and participation, KRL centrifuges (in all likelihood) could only have produced low-enriched uranium, not the highly enriched material needed for an atomic weapons. Simply describing, production of low enriched to highly enriched Uranium is not a &#8220;linear&#8221; process, which means that if you can produce low enrich uranium, you cannot or may not (readily) produce HEU.After 30 years of research into the uranium enrichment, Pakistan is now one of the 12 major players in the world that has mastered gas centrifuge technology. This technology with its dozens if not hundreds of spin-off hold the key to the security of Pakistan, future nuclear energy and fuel requirements. People would be surprised to know that laser enrichment programme in the US and Europe and Israel recently hit a dead end.
> 
> The Indian Atomic Energy Commission and BARC (BARK) have fresh proposals to revive the development of the gas centrifuge technology, which never got off the ground in the first place, whereas Pakistan had a continuous and on-going development programme for three decades. We now have latest generation of machines in operation (Pakistan's sixth generation), which is as good as if not better than any European machine. The strategy and risks behind Pakistan development programme were too many and what PAEC did no organization in the world would have done it in view of the resources allocated and severe restrictions to import dual use technology.
> 
> Hence, it is clear that the Pakistani enrichment development was begun in 1974 by Chairman PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan, under several covert programmes and one based (URENCO early model) on the concept of a lightweight rotor operating on pin bearings and magnetic top bearings got the most publicity in the west. Other parallel programmes Pakistan started were based on better design parametres to achieve super-critical operating speed that would provide PAEC with wide base of advanced engineering (machine design) experience on which they helped KRL develop future generation of centrifuges.
> 
> PAEC policy was to run their programmes as economically as possible rather than just focusing on the technical benefits. This approach caused a major friction with KRL but forced KRL to shift its strategy from smuggling machines (not a reliable option) to R&D. KRL envisioned that future generations of machines would be developed from reverse engineering or they would make thousands of first generation machine, clearly a Russian approach wasting precious resources with low chances of success. KRL eventually was forced to undertake a long-term programme to develop significantly faster centrifuges through R&D under PAEC/PINSTECH guidance. While PAEC programmes were based much more on a series of &#8220;smaller projects&#8221; aimed at improving specific aspects of the current centrifuge either by manufacturing improvements to reduce the cost of manufacture or by taking advantage of improvements in materials.
> 
> In either case, all PAEC projects were evaluated from an economic point of view to ensure that lifetime cost improvements actually paid back the money committed to undertake the research and from a technical point of view to ensure that improvements were introduced as early as possible within the manufacturing phase as part of future generation. PAEC was always in favour of step by step approach in developing each centrifuge generation not just importing clandestinely some models and then reverse engineered them so they set out the development programme in three stages 1) R&D 2) Pilot and 3) Production. First step included design studies, testing of new materials, manufacture and very high stress testing of a small number of components and then building typically 20 or 30 centrifuges. The pilot phase was employed to prove that the centrifuges would operate successfully long term under all design parameters.
> 
> 
> *Preparing to Build the Bomb*​
> Pakistani work on weapon design began even before the start of work on uranium enrichment, under the auspices of the PAEC. Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC called a meeting, in March, 1974, to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Among those attending the meeting were Hafeez Qureshi, head of the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at PINSTECH (later to become Member Technical, PAEC), Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC.
> 
> The PAEC Chairman informed Qureshi that he was to work on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO). The word &#8220;bomb&#8221; was never used in the meeting but Qureshi exactly understood the objective. Their task would be to develop the design of a weapon implosion system. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), in the North West Frontier Province and conveniently close to Islamabad.
> 
> The work at Wah began under the undescriptive codename Research and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as &#8220;The Wah Group&#8221;. Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosive lenses to be used in the nuclear device. This expanded, however to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering of the system and the triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment where it could and developed its own technology where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment.
> 
> The first preparations for eventual nuclear tests also started early - in 1976. Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, and Member (Technical) and Dr. Samar Mubarak of the PAEC were dispatched to Balochistan to conduct helicopter reconnaissance of potential test sites with the assistance of the army 5 Corps located at Quetta. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khuzdar in the south and Naukundi-Kharan in the east.The PAEC requirement was for a mountain with a completely dry interior capable of withstanding an internal 20 kt nuclear explosion. A likely site was found in the form of a several hundred-metre tall granite mountain Koh Kambaran in the Ras Koh range (also referred to as the Ras Koh Hills).
> 
> The Ras Koh in the Chagai Division of Balochistan rise at their highest point to 3009 metres. After a one-year survey of the site, completed in 1977, plans were finalized for driving a horizontal tunnel under Koh Kambaran for a future test. (Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who had provided support to the PAEC survey team, was tasked by (now) President Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 with creating and leading the Special Development Works (SDW), which was entrusted, with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites.
> 
> The SDW was formally subordinate to the PAEC but directly reported to the Chief of the Army Staff. Meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and Zia-ul-Haq led to the decision to prepare a second site for a horizontal shaft. The site selected was located at Kharan, in a desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public.
> The Wah Group had a weapon design - an implosion system using the powerful but sensitive HMX as the principal explosive - ready for testing in 1983.
> 
> The first &#8220;cold test&#8221; of a weapon (i.e. a test of the implosion using inert natural uranium instead of highly enriched uranium) took place on March 11, 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed of the PAEC. This test was conducted in tunnels bored in the Kirana Hills near Sargodha, home of the Pakistan Air Force's main air base and the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD).The Kirana Hills test tunnels were reportedly bored by the SDW after the Chagai nuclear test sites, i.e. sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the tunnels had been sealed after construction to await tests. As Prior to the cold tests, an advance team opened and cleaned the tunnels.
> 
> After clearing the tunnels, a PAEC diagnostic team headed by Dr. Mubarakmand arrived on the scene with trailers fitted with computers and diagnostic equipment. This was followed by the arrival of the Wah Group with the nuclear device, in sub-assembly form. This was assembled and then placed inside the tunnel. A monitoring system was set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills.One of the principal objectives of the test was to determine whether the neutron initiator (probably a polonium beryllium design similar to those used in the first US, USSR, UK, and Indian bombs) to reliably start a fission chain reaction in the real bomb. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscilloscopes were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables.
> 
> At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscilloscopes confirmed that the neutrons had indeed been produced. A second cold test was undertaken soon afterwards which was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Lt. Gen. K.M. Arif and Munir Ahmed Khan.Between 1983 and 1990, the Wah Group developed an air deliverable bomb and conducted more than 24 cold tests of nuclear devices with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100-150 feet (30-50 m) in length which were bored inside the Kirana Hills. Later due to excessive US intelligence and satellite attention on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and the cold test facility was shifted to the Kala-Chitta Range. The bomb was small enough to be carried under the wing of a fighter/bomber such as the F-16 which Pakistan had obtained from the US.
> 
> The Wah Group worked alongside the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to evolve and perfect delivery techniques of the nuclear bomb using combat aircraft including &#8220;conventional freefall&#8221;, &#8220;loft bombing&#8221;, &#8220;toss bombing&#8221; and &#8220;low-level laydown&#8221; attack techniques, the latter requiring a sophisticated high speed parachute system. Today, the PAF has perfected all four techniques of nuclear weapons delivery using F-16, Mirage-V and A-5 combat aircraft.
> 
> 
> *Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC's other Achievements*​
> Therefore, we can say that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, under the Chairman Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan remained in-charge of the overall bomb programme, of all the numerous difficult steps, before and after uranium enrichment, and remained closely linked with uranium enrichment itself. They built and exploded the device. There is no getting around this fact. Nor did Pakistan forego the plutonium route, the choice of every other country with nuclear weapons because plutonium bombs are so much more powerful. We know this because of the recent disclosures about the Khushab plutonium production reactor.
> 
> This was driven during Munir Khan's 19-year tenure. All members (Technical), including Dr. Hafeez Qureshi of PINSTECH, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad (a theoretical physicist), Dr. Samar Mubarikmand (an experimental physicist) and others involved in critical technologies and projects like Dr. N.A. Javed, Dr. Abdul Majid (who designed the Khushab plutonium production reactor beginning in the 1980s, and an engineering accomplishment of greater significance for Pakistan than KRL), Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud, the Project Director of ERL/KRL at its inception, and all Members (Nuclear Power), worked as a team, and gave ultimate security to Pakistan.
> 
> The PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan not only went on to build the first generation of nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but also built the Chagai tunnels for nuclear tests, which were ready by early 1980s, and also the plant for the production of uranium hexafluoride gas, the crucial raw material from which enriched uranium is made. He also upgraded the research reactor at Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) and laid the groundwork for the 300MW nuclear power plant at Chashma, which has since been completed and commissioned.Among the first assignments that Munir undertook was the setting of the Centre for Nuclear Studies, later to become PIEAS (Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences), which has produced over two thousand trained nuclear scientists and engineers during the last over quarter of a century.
> 
> In addition a dozen nuclear medical centres and several atomic agricultural centres were set up. Specialized nuclear training centres were established at home and a large number of scientists and engineers were sent abroad for training to create a vast reservoir of trained manpower, the backbone of a self-sustaining nuclear programme.Munir Khan had some powerful detractors too who sought to undermine him. A bizarre incident of how he was undermined is the publication in early 80's of a book &#8220;Islamic Bomb&#8221; by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A Q Khan highlighting their contributions in the nuclear field.
> 
> But when Munir Khan's team conducted cold nuclear tests of its device in 1983,a new version of Islamic Bomb was clandestinely published and widely distributed gratis among army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists. In the doctored version all positive references to Munir Khan were deleted and replaced with negative and derogatory comments.For instance a reference to Munir Khan as 'a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland', in the original edition was doctored to read &#8220;Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan.&#8221;
> 
> At another place the original version read, &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the bomb project&#8221;. It was changed in the doctored edition to read as &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the reprocessing project&#8221;.The change made from the 'bomb project' to the 'reprocessing project' was striking as it sought to rob Munir Khan and his associates of any credit for the bomb project. The authors subsequently disowned the pirated version. It was all done at the behest of AQK, as Munir and his team had begun to get credit after the first cold tests conducted by PAEC in 1983.
> 
> Munir Khan's achievements must be seen in the backdrop of the anti-nuclear international environment of 70's and 80's when the United States, Canada and European countries passed domestic legislation to not only place restrictions on transfer of technology but even to renegotiate settled contracts.He refrained from advertising the Commission's achievements. Some of his colleagues thought the low profile policy were a mistake. They often complained that it had only encouraged others to hijack what actually they had performed. But Munir Ahmad Khan believed that bravado and brandishing nuclear capability would heighten negative international perceptions about Pakistan and make the objectives difficult to achieve.
> 
> The truth is that Munir Khan was very modest, and shied away from the counter-productive boasting of his rivals. He saw Pakistan's strength as lying in more than having a bomb, equally dependent on a secure economic and political future and non-isolation in the world.Munir Khan's role in developing the nuclear programme of Pakistan was in many ways akin to that of Homi Bhabha in India. Homi Bhabha had struck a synthesis with the political leadership soon after independence in 1947 and secured political commitment for his country's nuclear programme. Munir Khan achieved this synthesis with the political leadership in 1972 when he was picked up for the job in a conference of the country's scientists at Multan.
> 
> Since then the country's nuclear programme has enjoyed the bipartisan political support. And like Bhabha, Munir Khan also believed that a viable nuclear programme was not possible without a vast base of trained manpower and the indigenous development of some components, which were vital for the programme.To provide a solid base of trained manpower he set up the Centre for Nuclear Studies, which has now become a University (PIEAS), to train young nuclear scientists and engineers. By now the Centre has produced over 2,000 highly trained and qualified experts in various nuclear disciplines. In the early stages he fought hard with the bureaucracy and sent hundreds of scientists and engineers to Europe and America for training.
> 
> It is this trained manpower which has given Pakistan mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle ranging from uranium exploration and mining, fuel fabrication, making of hexafluoride gas for feeding the enrichment plant and also enriching uranium itself. And as is widely known the devices, which were tested in Chagai in May last, were made by the trainees of these training centres the foundations of which were laid by Munir Ahmad Khan. He accomplished all this because of his successful style of work, whereby he was obsessed with secrecy, whereas AQK regularly gave fat cheques to journalists, who wrote books and articles eulogizing AQK at the expense of PAEC and Munir Khan.
> 
> Munir Khan was a man who was obsessed with secrecy, which sometimes bordered on the paranoia, and he kept a very low profile. He believed that scientists working for the nuclear programme must maintain a distance from journalists and the public, due to the sensitivity of their job, and they had no business to issue any political statements. That would invite unnecessary and sometimes harmful attention from the enemies of the programme and endanger the security of the country.Today PAEC scientists and engineers can develop a new weapon design for a nuclear device every three months in a year. The National Development Complex was initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan in the beginning of the 1990s, and the last years of his Chairmanship as a project of PAEC of vital national significance under Dr. Samar Mubarik Mand, who had been the part of the team which conducted the cold test in 1983, and subsequently the leader of the team which conducted the hot tests in 1998.
> 
> The PAEC had conducted almost 24 cold tests from 1983 onwards till 1998, wherein they improved on the basic nuclear weapon design in the following cold tests.The KRL under Dr. A.Q. Khan was unable to come up with a credible design, and that is why PAEC's bomb was used for testing in 1998 and in all the cold tests carried out by PAEC.PAEC scientists and engineers had gained vast experience in nuclear weapon development and bomb testing, which it was engaged in for over 2 decades. KRL never had anything to do with the actual development of the weapon itself, and PAEC's success in making a viable bomb design and repeatedly testing various designs clearly speaks for the technical prowess of the PAEC and the sagacity of its leadership.
> 
> The making of nuclear weapons is a more challenging task than enriching uranium, as it involves a host of complicated processes and technologies including the triggering mechanism, design, implosion hydrodynamics and technologies, etc. which the PAEC conducted very successfully. Chairman PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan, General K.M. Arif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan witnessed the first cold test of 1983. At the time of the 1998 tests, Dr. A.Q. Khan was invited to the test site &#8220; to witness what a nuclear explosion looks like&#8221; in the words of Dr. Samar, and AQK left soon there after, and he arrived at the test site some 15 minutes before the explosions.
> 
> The greatest contribution that Munir Khan made to the making of nuclear Pakistan is that he made its nuclear programme self-sustaining and independent of himself. The infrastructure which he helped build and the reservoir of trained manpower which he gave, ensured the continuity of the programme after his retirement and is a guarantee that it will continue even after his death. This is unlike many of the great doers who claim sole monopoly over achievement, which essentially is collective.
> 
> Scientific journals in US and Europe recently reporting US companies having developed centrifuge machines that have achieved more than 300 SWU (Separative Work Units) per year, used in the gas centrifuge method for enriching uranium to weapon grade. This was possible because of advances in materials science and metallurgy etc; In Pakistan at GIKI and PAEC/PINSTECH, we now have material science and metallurgy departments offering PhD in material sciences. PINSTECH Nuclear Chemistry department offers BS/MS degrees specializing in heavy water chemistry. The worst US (and Indian/Israeli) fear is that if Pakistan has acquired this level of performance and yields from their machines then they may have ten times more highly enriched uranium to assemble 200 weapons.
> 
> Adding Pakistan's plutonium capability from Khushab reactor to weaponize, it has brought Pakistan in league with Israel and China in her ability to miniaturize nuclear weapon small enough for tactical and battlefields use. (Plutonium bombs are greater in yield, but smaller in size and plutonium is used to make advanced compact warheads that can easily be fitted onto aircraft and missiles). To add more fear to US/Indian nightmare if Pakistan has produced or (by all accounts Pakistan is producing enough) tritium then Pakistan have nuclear weapons whose yield could easily be increased between 100-180 Kiloton. Now Pakistan needs to achieve TRIAD capability to achieve complete surprise.
> 
> Constantly underestimating and trying to belittle Pakistan's ability to progressively enrich uranium and develop an advanced Plutonium programme despite the west's sanctions and the French backstabbing of the Reprocessing contract in the face of acute resource constraints, the West, and the people of Pakistan simply are unaware of the magnitude of capabilities of PAEC/PINSTECH/NDC/KRL and our scientists and engineers. Munir Ahmad Khan's 19 years in the PAEC saw the initiation, blossoming and development of these capabilities.
> 
> 
> PAEC and Nuclear Power Plants
> ​
> Pakistan and China initially agreed (back in 1980s) to commission at least 2 plants at the same site (CHASMA) with common auxiliary services feeding both plants as this is normal practice in the US and Europe. Common auxiliary facilities save a country lots of money. All engineering/design work for both plants was done simultaneously as hundreds of PAEC/PINSTECH engineers worked in China (at Chinese equivalent of US Oakridge labs and other facilities) but only ONE was started and completed per PAEC requirements because China did not have the experience to sustain such large and highly complex projects.
> 
> Chinese reactor safety and reliability was another overriding factor for the delay of second plant not what BBC has said. After CHASMA-I was completed, newly established PNRC (Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Commission) stopped PAEC from starting second plant right away as it wanted to monitor the plant for at least 3 years, first year and half for nominal power and rest of the time at full power as this is the most critical phase. Recently, PNRC has given the safety certificate to PAEC and IAEA.The second plant CHASMA-II will be completed in half the time, as the learning curve would be minimum and many of the 1st plant design anomalies would be fixed. Now I have heard from very reliable source that PAEC plan to build two 500-MW plants somewhere upstream of Indus River in next 7-10 years and another large (300MW) plutonium reactor and upgrading of Khushab reactor to unknown capacity.
> 
> Chinese are also convinced that Pakistan (PAEC) has the engineering know-how and the critical mass of manpower to design turbines, components of large capacity pumps, nuclear grade pipes/tubings as well as backup control systems for the reactor, so the opportunities for Pakistan are endless.As stated above, another PAEC scintillating achievement is Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) reactor in which PAEC engineers developed nuclear fuel used. This was first plant where PAEC took part as consultant and designer. This was light water reactor designed to generate 300 MW of electricity using 15 tonnes of enriched uranium annually.
> 
> The plant uses cooling water from the Chashma-Jhelum link canal and discharges it into the Indus similar to Chinese nuclear power station at Qinshan. As Chinese experience in the design of nuclear power stations for commercial purposes was limited, PAEC expertise came handy in procuring many of the components such as the giant steel pressure vessel, coolant pumps. The computerized control systems were designed in China with PAEC full participation specifications. Pakistan had also gained extensive experience in the safety systems running Karachi plant, so Chinese learnt a lot from Pakistan's experience and advised the Chinese in designing safety right from the scratch. PAEC designed and commissioned another reactor with a capacity of 72 MW at Joharabad in the Khushab district in Punjab.
> 
> This is an experimental reactor for the production of isotopes and heavy water required for its operation is manufactured in Pakistan. This reactor is not under IAEA safeguards. The designing of the project started in 1985 under the supervision of Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Canadian-European-trained, who was also in charge of starting the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant before AQK came from Holland. Another scientist instrumental in the design of the Khushab reactor, was the (late) Afzal Haq Rajput. Khushab produces weapons-grade Plutonium to make miniaturized nuclear warheads.
> 
> Whatever Khushab's activity and operational parameters it cannot be placed under the IAEA safeguards on the ground that it was a 100 per cent indigenous project. In 1996 N.A.Javed, a PAEC scientist and a heavy water expert, was decorated (Sitara-i-Imtiaz) for developing an indigenous facility for heavy water production, thereby freeing Pakistan from dependence on Canadian and Chinese supplies. There is one very important point to note that Pakistan even if it wanted, could not buy as much heavy water because our friend and master (US) suspected over-supplying heavy water to KANUPP would be diverted to Khushab.
> 
> 
> Conclusion​
> 
> From the above discussion, and in the light of the recent nuclear proliferation scandal involving Dr. A.Q. Khan, certain conclusions can be drawn. Because of the covert 1972-98 period, Qadeer was able to parley his position into unprecedented autonomy (financial, administrative and security, as Musharraf described it).
> 
> Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC followed the path of silently pursuing the nuclear goal for Pakistan in line with the country's stated policy of nuclear ambiguity, and refused to acknowledge or advertise that they were developing a nuclear weapons programme, and insisted, along with the government, that Pakistan's nuclear programme was strictly for peaceful purposes.
> 
> Second, because it was indeed a covert period, Qadeer was encouraged to pose as the Father of the Bomb, even though he was responsible for just one of 24 steps, each crucial to making nuclear weapons. Those responsible for the other 23 steps all worked under the Member (Technical) of the PAEC, who in turn reported to its Chairman.However, Qadeer was allowed to head his own set up, smaller than the PAEC, but dealing with the President directly and equal in status to the PAEC Chairman. Dr. Samar has said it on record that it was unthinkable for any scientist or engineer working in PAEC to indulge in proliferation or leakage of any materials or information or expertise, for money or cheap popularity, as they considered their work as a sacred trust, and scientists of one department would never divulge any unnecessary information to any other person in another department, and only that information was told to the people involved in various projects, as was required for their work.
> 
> On the other hand, Qadeer also demanded and got much more autonomy.It has been confirmed that the security restrictions on PAEC men, right up to the Chairman, which included surveillance (at times comically intrusive) and phone tapping, were not applied to Qadeer and certain senior colleagues. They went abroad for their own shopping for example. PAEC people were not allowed even to do that, until the intelligence operatives who did that job bought a lot of very expensive junk. However, the PAEC never enjoyed such sweeping autonomy. Perhaps because of that, the only proliferation charges relate to the one (relatively preliminary) step Qadeer was responsible for, and not for the other 23, including the more advanced and crucial steps, for which the PAEC remained responsible.
> 
> But history has been falsified, deliberately. Qadeer was used as a decoy to divert attention from the PAEC, where the real work was being done. KRL's scientists were only a fifth of the PAEC's, and perhaps KRL was overmanned. However, the myth-makers are stuck with the myth itself, and Qadeer has received adulation and honours. Even though it was clearly exposed in 1998 that his role in the nuclear programme was important but not major, the myth still persists. At the time of the Indian Brasstacks exercises, Dr. A.Q. Khan was picked up by the government to issue a statement that Pakistan had the bomb and would use it against India if its security was endangered.
> 
> That was the turning point in the sense that from then on, A.Q. Khan began an all out propaganda campaign and successfully cultivated the myth that he was the 'father' of the bomb, when in fact, he was made into a famous figure by the West, after he came to Pakistan with his URENCO gas-centrifuge designs. The West made him a villain, and the people, especially the media, and the government, went out of the way to portray him as hero, and at a time when the nation was in dire need of heroes. Our society being so gullible and prone to emotionalism and cult worship, started idolizing him to the extent that he became virtually above the law and could do anything, go anywhere, without fear of any accountability. The PAEC and Munir Khan kept their silence and publicly never admitted that they had anything to do with nuclear weapons, as it was state policy throughout the covert period of 1972-98, never to officially admit that Pakistan was a declared nuclear weapons state. This enabled AQ Khan to claim and get away with what was actually performed by PAEC. In short he stole the whole show from PAEC.
> 
> There is one important point to note while examining whether there was state approval of proliferation: only KRL was leaking. If there was state policy, the other 23 groups should have been leaking.The title of Father of the Bomb could apply at the political level to Bhutto (though the roles of Ayub, Zia and Ishaq must not be ignored), and at the technical level, Munir Ahmad Khan as Chairman, along with his team comprising all Members (Technical and Nuclear Power) share the real credit (not to forget Samar, who was Member Technical at the time of the Chaghai tests, and who was personally responsible for at least one of the 23 steps, every bit as crucial to the bomb's working as uranium enrichment). Qadeer only leaked what he could (the so-called Libyan blueprints might turn out to be the rival KRL design which could not be constructed).
> 
> This also validates the fact that the designs that he brought from URENCO were the first generation centrifuges (P1), which could not enrich uranium to weapon grade, and crucial technical input from PAEC enabled AQK to enrich uranium to the HEU level. Had this not been true, the designs and know how leaked to Libya and Iran would have enabled them to build the bomb, but they were unable to do it because numerous other processes and technologies involved in enrichment and the other 23 steps in the long chain to the bomb, were not available to them. Thus, without the selfless commitment, intense patriotic zeal and competent and inspiring leadership of PAEC and its leadership, the nuclear dream could never have been realized.
> 
> Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan (HI, NI & Bar) remains the only Pakistani who got the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, the highest civil award twice. He also got the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, along with Munir Ahmad Khan, in 1989. AQK got both his NI during President Ishaq's tenure, and now it has been reported that he had paid Rs. 150 crore to GIK for the latter's Institute, whereas Munir Khan paid a personal price by remaining unsung. Only Dr. Samar has come out in the spotlight now that Qadeer's fall from grace and fame, and he was awarded the NI this year. Munir's predecessor, I.H. Usmani and his successor Ishfaq Ahmad got the NI as well; the former got it posthumously, yet Munir Khan has been denied the NI even though 5 years have passed since his death and in spite of the fact that Munir remained the longest serving PAEC Chairman, and PAEC's accomplishments during 1972-1991 were all driven and initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan.
> 
> 
> He was known as the 'Father' in PAEC circles, but the nation has been kept in the dark about him, and his image has not been honestly portrayed in the public. In the final analysis, it is always the man at the top who counts the most, and in this respect, the PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan was the real architect of the nuclear programme, and he along with his team share the real credit as its father. Successful he has been, in his capacity as Chairman, but replaced he shall never be, with or without Nishan-i-Imtiaz. Today PAEC stands tall along with NESCOM/NDC and other strategic organizations involved with the strategic nuclear and missile programmes. Justice requires that the record be set straight for all times to come, and the falsification of history be rectified.



AQ Khan just brought a *how to do* knowledge. The background knowledge and already done work was already there. As AQ Khan many times said that engineers made the bomb, and he brought engineering related knowledge with him. 
It was a team effort, already there, and AQ Khan just perfected it, *enriched it*. 
So, if any body wants to call anyone the father of the bomb then he can choose the person of his choice.

Reactions: Like Like:
1


----------



## Chanakyaa

fitpOsitive said:


> AQ Khan just brought a *how to do* knowledge. The background knowledge and already done work was already there. As AQ Khan many times said that engineers made the bomb, and he brought engineering related knowledge with him.
> It was a team effort, already there, and AQ Khan just perfected it, *enriched it*.
> So, if any body wants to call anyone the father of the bomb then he can choose the person of his choice.



No.

AQ Khan Brought Some Knowledge for URANIUM route. Then Coupled it with Chinese Design. He has NOTHING to do with the Plutonium Weapon.

Plutonium Route seems to be fully Indigenous work of Pakistan. Thats a Great Achievement.


----------



## The Accountant

XiNiX said:


> No.
> 
> AQ Khan Brought Some Knowledge for URANIUM route. Then Coupled it with Chinese Design. He has NOTHING to do with the Plutonium Weapon.
> 
> Plutonium Route seems to be fully Indigenous work of Pakistan. Thats a Great Achievement.



A little correction ... the weapon design of uranium was never a problem ... uranium based designs were the most simplistic ones ...the problem was to manufacture weapon grade fuel ...

Qadir khan was incharge of uranium fuel development whereas PAEC was incharge of everything else ... so the main bottleneck that was manufacturing weapon grade uranium was achieved in leadership of khan but even for that he was helped by PAEC and he should acknowledge it ...

Weapon designs, cold tests almost every other important task was being done by PAEC and without help of other countries except in terms of finances ...


----------



## valkyr_96

It a shame the book eating grass has been out for quite a while


----------



## MIRauf

I can never find or verify the following: Which University did AQ Khan get his nuclear Physics Degree in ? What was his thesis about to get the Phd in Physics to be called / qualify as Dr. A.Q. Khan ? I am just asking for my self knowledge as he is referred to as Dr. AQ Khan. Nuclear Scientist, in west we don't call our metallurgist as  nuclear scientist.


----------



## Reichsmarschall

XiNiX said:


> *The Untold Story of Pakistani Nuclear Program
> The Real Father of Pakistani Bomb : Dr. M A Khan*​
> _Before i Knew Him, i was almost sure that Pakistani Nuclear program was nothing but a Stolen Eurenco Technology witha Chinese Weapon Design. But as i researched more on works of Munir Khan & Related Comparision with AQ Khan, a new dimension originates._
> 
> #1. The Real Father of Pakistani Nuclear Bomb is NOT AQ Khan, But Dr. Munir Ahmed Khan
> #2. Pakistan has Two Weapon Designs , Not Just the Uranium Design ( Stolen by AQ ) but a Plutonium Design.
> #3. Plutonium Research is the Real Indegeniuis Effort by Pakistan, under PAEC whic did the most of Nuclear Program
> 
> 
> Read on .... to know some Awesome Facts abt Munir Khan and Pakistani Nuclear program....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ​
> Bhutto began the nuclear quest with his characteristic sense of urgency. He had taken power in mid-December 1971, and in January he hastily called together some fifty of Pakistan's top scientists and government officials for what was to be a very secret meeting. At the time, the new government was still in a state of enormous confusion, and Bhutto's aides originally scheduled in the meeting for the town of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.
> 
> It was January, with winter storms blowing down from Afghanistan to the north, and Quetta had no facilities adequately heated for the selected scientists and bureaucrats to meet in. No one complained, when, the government laid on military planes to fly the freezing scientists south and east to the town of Multan. The day was sparkling clear, and Bhutto convened the meeting under a brightly coloured canvas canopy, on the lawn of a stately old Colonial mansion. The scientists and administrators who were there were far and away the best brains in Pakistan, and some were as good as could be found anywhere in the world. The Pakistani people and their Islamic forebears had historically nurtured a rich scientific tradition, and the country, though in some ways underdeveloped could count on a surprisingly strong scientific establishment. Three names are especially worth remembering.
> 
> Abdus Salam - the Professor to his worshipping younger colleagues - had founded the Third World-oriented International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.Dr. Ishrat Usmani had gained prominence as Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and would go on to build his reputation as an international civil servant specializing in energy questions at the United Nations.
> 
> And the man Bhutto would name to replace Usmani as head of the nuclear programme and the PAEC till his retirement in 1991, Munir Ahmed Khan, had just come with high marks from the staff of the very organization that is supposed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Munir Ahmed Khan was a nuclear engineer of international standing, and he spent nearly 14 years at the IAEA in Vienna, where he was the Head of Reactor Engineering, before joining PAEC, and he had organized more than twenty technical and international conferences on heavy water reactors, advanced gas cooled reactors, plutonium utilization, and small and medium power reactors.
> 
> In the late 1970s, Director General of IAEA offered him the post of Deputy Director General in Vienna, but he refused it to accomplish his mission in Pakistan.He was the first Asian scientist to be appointed at the IAEA and later in 1986, he was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IAEA in Vienna.There was great deal of enthusiasm and joy. Bhutto started slowly. He spoke of Pakistan's defeat in the war with India, and vowed that he would vindicate the country's honour. He said that he had always wanted Pakistan to take the nuclear road, but nobody had listened to him. Now fate had placed him in a position where he could make the decision, he had the people of Pakistan behind him, and he wanted to go ahead.
> 
> Pakistan was going to have the bomb, and the scientists sitting under the shamiana at Multan were going to make it for him.So Bhutto had all these boys together, these scientists, and there were senior people, very senior people, and junior people, and youngsters fresh with their PhDs in nuclear physics, and he said: Look, we're going to have the bomb.&#8221; He said &#8220;Can you give it to me?&#8221; So, they started saying &#8220;Oh yes, yes, yes. You can have it. You can have it.&#8221; But Bhutto wanted more. He paused them. &#8220;How long will it take?&#8221; he asked. There was a lively debate on the time needed to make the bomb, and finally one scientist dared to say that maybe it could be done in five years. Bhutto smiled, lifted his hand, and dramatically thrust forward three fingers.&#8221; Three years&#8221;, he said.&#8221; I want it in three years&#8221;.
> 
> The atmosphere suddenly became electric. It was then that one of the junior men - S.A.Butt, who under Munir Khan's guiding hand would come to play a major role in making the bomb possible - jumped to his feet and clamoured for his leader's attention. &#8220;It can be done in three years&#8221;, Butt shouted excitedly. Bhutto was very much amused and he said, &#8220;Well, much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, this is a very serious political decision, which Pakistan must make, and perhaps all Third World countries must make one day, because it is coming. So can you do it? &#8220;And they said, &#8220;Yes, we can do it, given the resources and given the facilities. &#8221;Bhutto's answer was simple.&#8221; I shall find you the resources and I shall find you the facilities&#8221;.
> 
> This then was the day the bomb was born, the meeting at Multan that set the seal on Pakistan's nuclear future. From that moment, Pakistan would begin a national crash programme to get the bomb. It was a historic move.The meeting set the stage and also helped select the actors. Most of the scientists came along. Few did not. Even Z.A.Bhutto, for all his powers of persuasion, could not convince some of the senior men, including the longtime friend and adviser, the future Nobel laureate Abdus Salam. Bhutto probably feared that any open condemnation of the project from Salam could severely split Pakistan's nuclear scientists, many of whom revered him. His opposition could also trigger alarm bells among the scientists and diplomats around the world. So some time after the meeting, a special emissary was sent to Salam, who had returned to his home in Britain, to brief him on the programme and to assure him that it was really peaceful in intent.
> 
> A second, lesser obstacle was the longtime head of the PAEC, Dr Ishrat Usmani, who had opposed the road to the bomb because at the time Pakistan did not have the necessary infrastructure needed for such a technologically giant and ambitious project. Given Usmani's reluctance, Bhutto fired Usmani, promoting him upstairs to the post of Secretary of the newly created Ministry of Science and Technology.He became a figurehead and soon left Pakistan, taking a post at the UN. In his place, as the new Chairman of the PAEC and the man who would make the nuclear dream come true, Bhutto named one of the enthusiasts of the Multan meeting, Munir Ahmed Khan. Trained at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States and a long time staff member of the IAEA, Munir Khan outlived his patron Bhutto to become the spirit and the symbol of the Third World nuclear ambitions, both on the civilian side and in the development of nuclear weapons.
> 
> If one is to go back to a founding figure, the PAEC considered the acquisition of nuclear technology capable of conversion to weapons technology as early as 1955, with the help of President Eisenhower's Atom's for Peace Programme.The foundation of any nuclear weapons programme is the production of the special nuclear materials required for weapons - plutonium or highly enriched uranium for a basic programme for producing fission weapons. Without these materials no weapons can be made. The initial direction taken by Pakistan was to pursue the use of plutonium.
> 
> *The Plutonium route to the Bomb*​
> A.Q. Khan always wanted Pakistan to work only on Uranium weapon as compared to Plutonium because (he thought and tried to convince Gen Zia) Plutonium route involved highly complex and sophisticated procedures and processes but PAEC knew better.Plutonium route and all the related activities to establish infrastructure (for eventual bomb) continued in full swing,against AQ Khan desire.A.Q. Khan sought to undermine Munir Khan by opposing the plutonium route because Munir was a plutonium expert, having spent 14 years as Head of Reactor Engineering at the IAEA before his joining PAEC in 1972, where PAEC under Munir Khan not only initiated the Kahuta Enrichment project before AQK, but continued to give crucial technical support.
> 
> Contrary to popular perception, Pakistan did not forego the plutonium route to the bomb, and pursued it along with the uranium route. Whether by intention to prepare a &#8220;nuclear option&#8221; or not, decisions made in the 1960s already provided a valuable basis for establishing a weapons programme. In 1971 the Canadian General Electric Co. completed a 137 MW (electrical) CANDU power reactor for the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP), which went critical in August 1971 and inaugurated by the man who would go on to become the architect of Nuclear Pakistan, the new Chairman, PAEC, Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan. It began commercial operation in October 1972. CGEC also provided a small heavy water production facility. These facilities had been contracted for in the mid-60s, thus predating Bhutto's drive for nuclear weapon capability, but perhaps influenced by him in a ministerial capacity.
> 
> The technology for KANUPP was the same natural uranium/heavy water technology used in the Indian Cirus and later Dhruva reactors used by India for producing weapons plutonium. The facilities were under IAEA safeguards, and have remained so; nonetheless it was the initial intent of the Pakistani nuclear weapons programme to use plutonium from this reactor as the key ingredient in their nuclear arsenal. But to do that Pakistan required a means of separating plutonium from spent fuel. Some advance preparation had occurred here also. In the late 1960s Pakistan had contracted with both British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Belgonucléaire to prepare studies and designs for pilot plutonium separation facilities. The BNFL design, capable of separating up 360 g of fuel a year. The plan for this plant was completed by 1971.
> 
> The centrepiece of the PAEC weapon's programme at this time was the effort to acquire a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from the fuel of KANUPP. The first step after Multan was to build a pilot reprocessing facility called the &#8220;New Labs&#8221; at PINSTECH, which was completed by 1981, and work on the KHUSHAB Plutonium production reactor started in the 1980s and it became operational in the 1990s. This facility (New Labs) was a larger and more ambitious project than the original BNFL plan. Belgonucléaire and the French corporation Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) built it in the early 70s.
> 
> The pilot plant was followed by a contract signed with SGN in March 1973 to prepare the basic design for a large-scale reprocessing plant, one with a capacity of 100 tons of fuel per year, considerably more than KANUPP would generate. SGN was the world's chief exporter of reprocessing technology and had previously built military plutonium facilities for France, the secret plutonium plant at Dimona in Israel, and contracted to provide similar plants to Taiwan, South Korea, and (later) Iraq. The Chashma plant, as it was known, would have the capability to produce 200 kg of weapons grade plutonium a year, if sufficient fuel were available to feed it. It would have provided Pakistan with the ability to &#8220;break safeguards&#8221; and quickly process accumulated fuel from KANUPP when it decided to openly declare itself a nuclear-armed state. One for the final detailed design and construction on October 18, 1974 followed the initial design contract. The original contract for this project did not include significant safeguards to discourage diversion of the separated plutonium, or controls on the technology
> 
> India's first nuclear test, known variously as &#8220;Smiling Buddha&#8221;, the PNE (for &#8220;Peaceful Nuclear Explosive&#8221, and most recently Pokhran-I, occurred on May 18 , 1974. It provided an additional stimulus to the Pakistani weapons programme. Bhutto increased the funding for the programme after the Indian test, but since arrangements to secure lavish funding had been underway for more than a year this would have occurred anyway. One consequence of the test was ironically to hamper Pakistan's programme as the test sharply escalated international attention to proliferation and led to increased restrictions on nuclear exports to all nations, not just India.
> 
> The French government began to show increased concern about the Chashma plant during 1976. A safeguards agreement for France brought the plant before the IAEA in February 1976, which was approved on March 18 and signed by Pakistan. This at least ensured that the plant would have monitoring so that diversion to military purposes could be made with impunity. Despite Bhutto's overthrow in 1977 by General Zia, the latter continued the project unabated, and continued to press the French to fulfil the Chashma contract. But France had begun gradually turning against the reprocessing plant.
> 
> In late 1977 the French proposed to Pakistan to alter the design of the plant so that it would produce a mixture of uranium and plutonium rather pure plutonium. This modification would not affect the plant's suitability for its declared purpose - producing mixed oxide fuel for power reactors - but would prevent its direct use for producing plutonium for weapons. Pakistan refused to accept the modification. But by that time Pakistan had received 95 percent of the detailed plans for the plant by SGN, and was thus in a position to secure components and build the plant itself, which it would later at KHUSHAB.
> 
> 
> *The Uranium Route to the Bomb: PAEC's role in Uranium Enrichment*​
> Pakistan from the outset of the Multan conference was exploring both the Plutonium and Uranium routes to the bomb. During 1974-76, uranium enrichment was probably seen as a backup or at most a co-equal programme for fissile material production. Having two different technologies for production would make Pakistan more resistant to efforts to restrain its programme, and producing both U-235 and plutonium would give Pakistan greater flexibility in weapon design. Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud was only one of dozens of scientists and engineers (besides) AQ Khan who were working in Europe, Canada and the US in late sixties and early seventies that later became &#8220;Consortium Companies&#8221; to supply enriched uranium to European nuclear power plants. PAEC brought back dozens of scientists from Belgium to start this programme under Dr Bashiruddin long before
> 
> *AQ Khan came on board...*
> 
> Moreover, the PAEC was already considering the centrifuge problem, and there was one experiment in Lahore in the early 1970s involving centrifuges. Two pilot centrifuge plants were set up in Golra and Sihala before the actual uranium enrichment facility was established at Kahuta. Munir Ahmad Khan completed the site selection for the Kahuta enrichment plant, initial procurement of vital equipment, construction of its civil works, and recruitment of staff for it by 1976. The Kahuta Enrichment Project was called Project-706 of the PAEC, and as with the plutonium programme, it was under the overall control and supervision of Chairman Munir Khan. A.Q. Khan came to Pakistan and produced gas centrifuge designs and drawings from URENCO. He initially worked under Project Director Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmud.
> 
> Much of the buying for Kahuta of necessary materials and equipment before and after A.Q. Khan's arrival was done by a brilliant PAEC physicist-turned diplomat, S.A. Butt, who was also looking after the plutonium programmes' requirements. The best PAEC scientists and engineers staffed Kahuta. It must be remembered that the Plutonium contract with France had not been cancelled by the French government when the Enrichment Plant was being set up at Kahuta.
> When Canada in 1976 suspended the supply of heavy water fuel and spare parts for KANUPP, the PAEC under Munir Khan took up the challenge and using indigenous resources produced the feed for KANUPP. As a result the Muslim World's first nuclear reactor was not closed even for a single day for want of spare parts, fuel, and heavy water.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The technology Qadeer brought would have eventually been acquired.The work had been started by Bashir-ud-din on Nuclear Fuel cycle to make fuel for KANUPP and future nuclear plants two years prior to Qadeer's arrival in Pakistan.Dr. A.Q. Khan did not bring a magic wand from URENCO but still it was a vital link to the bomb. Under Munir Ahmed Khan, PAEC started an ambitious programme to master the technology of complete nuclear fuel cycle in which &#8220; Heavy Water&#8221; was one of the most important components.
> 
> Heavy Water which was so (prohibitively) expensive which Canada was charging Pakistan $27/lb (in early/mid-seventies), Pakistan's only nuclear power plant would die and our whole nuclear programme would come crashing in late 1970.Qadeer's contribution cannot be denied but should not be overblown.Centrifuge essentially a highly specialized mechanical component was a link in the long chain of enrichment technology.As Qadeer and his team stumbled on many occasions, he received vital technical support from PINSTECH and PAEC infrastructure and scientists. Dr N Ikram out of many (Punjab University, Institute Of Solid State Physics) was a rare specialist in this field and international authority who came to his rescue.
> 
> Qadeer's blueprints were based on first generation enrichment technology originally developed by the URENCO in late sixties and early seventies whose SWU (unit of the measurement to separate U-238 and U-235 in natural uranium in order to create final product that is richer in U-235 (atoms) was so low that thousands of centrifuge machines would have to be deployed for thousands of hours at performance levels much inferior to then installed centrifuges at URENCO. PAEC (under Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan) challenged its economic viability and presented a programme that will deploy the most efficient technology by setting up an infrastructure for advanced machine design for the next generation centrifuges and in the two decades that followed spent more than $3 billion on centrifuge technology and its support infrastructure.
> 
> PAEC used &#8220;proven technology&#8221; with heavy emphasis on R&D (not copy or stealing as US and western media says) with much higher SWU while reducing costs and improving efficiency through the use of state-of-the-art materials, control systems and manufacturing processes.
> By late 90s, KRL had conducted centrifuge development work costing hundreds of millions of dollars. PAEC enabled KRL to take advantage of commercial advances in construction materials (thanks to PAEC/PINSTECH's Scientists) and advanced manufacturing methods to develop a centrifuge machines that achieved several times SWU performance previously demonstrated by early KRL machines, but at substantially reduced cost. Today PAEC has a workhorse technology that capably serves Pakistan defence needs and since New Labs setup, much of the fuel needs of the future nuclear plants in Pakistan.
> 
> People might ask the significance of higher SWU? Natural uranium, in the form of uranium hexafluoride (natural UF6), is fed into an enrichment process. If (for example), you begin with 50 kilograms of natural uranium, it takes about 30 SWU to produce 5 kilograms of uranium enriched in U-235 to 4. -5%. It takes on the order of (roughly) 100,000 SWU of enriched uranium to fuel a typical 137 megawatt (MW) commercial nuclear reactor for a year. A 137 MW (KANUPP) plant can supply the electricity needs for a city of about 500,000 in a country like Pakistan.Moreover, the technology brought by A.Q. Khan was based on the URENCO designs of gas centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapon grade, also known as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). But again, A.Q. Khan's uranium enrichment was not independent of PAEC, even after having acquired total control and autonomy for KRL.
> 
> In order to enrich uranium to weapon grade, he needed the crucial Hexafluoride gas, known as UF-6. Concurrent to the plutonium programme and the setting up of Project-706, the PAEC was also setting up a plant to produce Uranium hexafluoride, which is a crucial ingredient for enriching uranium. Here is how UF6 produced and supplied by PAEC to KRL is critical to Enriching Uranium through gas centrifuges and it underlines the importance of this very important 'step' in a series of interconnected steps that lead to a bomb. KRL depends on PAEC for Enriching Uranium as is illustrated here. KRL's role in centrifuges and vacuum technology and material is not being denied here, but PAEC's role is highlighted which is unknown and unacknowledged and unsung and all praise only goes to A.Q. Khan.
> 
> The PAEC at its HEX PLANT produces Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). Here the natural uranium ore concentrate is sent to a conversion plant where it is chemically processed into Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6). At ambient temperature, UF6 is a solid with a low residual vapour pressure. It is then handed over to KRL.At KRL enrichment plant, a centrifuge comprises an evacuated (vacuum) casing containing a cylindrical rotor, which rotates at very high speeds, in an almost friction free environment. The Uranium is fed into the rotor as gaseous Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6) where it takes up the rotational motion. The centrifugal forces push the heavier U-238 closer to the wall of the rotor than the lighter U-235. The gas closer to the wall becomes depleted in U-235 whereas the gas nearer the rotor axis is enriched in U-235.
> 
> The gas flow is produced by a temperature gradient over the length of the centrifuge. UF6 depleted in U-235 flows upwards adjacent to the rotor wall, whilst UF6 enriched in U-235 flows downwards close to the axis. The two gas streams are removed through small pipes.
> The enrichment effect of a single centrifuge is small, so centrifuge pumps are linked in-groups known as cascades. Passing through the successive centrifuges of cascades, the U-235 is gradually enriched to the required percentage - usually between 3 and 5% and the depleted uranium is reduced to 0.2 to 0.3% U-235. Enrichment achieved to 5% is non-weapon grade low enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants whereas HEU weapon grade is over 95%.
> 
> So Enriching Uranium does not start or end completely at KRL after which the enriched uranium is manufactured into a bomb, which involves very critical steps of developing the bomb design, implosion techniques, triggering mechanism etc. The work on the bomb itself had begun in earnest in the early 1970s by PAEC in a meeting called by Chairman Munir Khan, and attended by Dr. Ishfaq and other senior scientists at about the same time that the Indians exploded their Smiling Buddha. The Hex Plant was built by PAEC under Munir Khan's Chairmanship and it confirms the fact that this plant was built for providing UF6 to KRL, which was Project 706 of PAEC, developed under Bashiruddin Mahmud, before A.Q. Khan came.
> 
> There is no doubt that Munir Ahmad Khan was a true visionary, architect of Pakistan's uranium enrichment and plutonium programmes and way ahead of his time at PAEC or PINSTECH. He believed and worked tirelessly in building infrastructure that would fabricate nuclear fuel for Pakistan's nuclear plants and would be a springboard for Qadeer's fame and notoriety. Without getting hands around fuel cycle's first 3 crucial steps - 1) mining (uranium ore mining from mines), 2) milling (uranium ore into yellow cake), 3) conversion (yellow cake into hexafluoride) enrichment would be impossible for which PAEC laid solid ground work very early on. Enrichment, a step in increasing the concentration of U-235 isotopes from its natural level (0.5-.7%) to 5% level (fuel used in nuclear plants) was started by Bashiruddin Mahmud, under Munir Khan's directions. Dr. Bashiruddin did a complete feasibility of the project as early as 1974. Bashirudin was real enrichment (nuclear) expert not a metallurgist.These are two very different disciplines that should not be confused with each other.
> 
> Fuel fabrication (the 4th step) - the process of enriched uranium into uranium dioxide, sealing it into metal fuel rods and bundling into fuel assembly, and the last step - fuel fabrication (fuel into nuclear plants where U-235 starts fission producing heat and running the turbine etc) for power plants was again the work of PAEC.Technically speaking, KRL never built an atomic device for Pakistan but it did build lots of centrifuges, which is purely a mechanical device. PAEC provided technical assistance and guidance in all-important areas of enrichment (and much more) to KRL, as centrifuge was the &#8220;vehicle&#8221; to the enrichment process.
> 
> Much of the KRL time (as an organization) was spent designing, developing centrifuges, identifying and resolving the most difficult cascading and other problems to the very end of the programme. From the beginning, more than 75% of KRL scientists and engineers were from PAEC, although many more with rare expertise were recruited from a diverse pool of Pakistani scientists and engineers working in the US and Europe. PAEC played an important role from the very beginning, and thus their know-how became increasingly important in the overall programme. Without PAEC involvement, KRL abilities could not have grown beyond an advanced machine design shop.
> 
> PAEC knew how to make nuclear fuel for civil applications before KRL was established. Without PAEC /PINSTECH active guidance and participation, KRL centrifuges (in all likelihood) could only have produced low-enriched uranium, not the highly enriched material needed for an atomic weapons. Simply describing, production of low enriched to highly enriched Uranium is not a &#8220;linear&#8221; process, which means that if you can produce low enrich uranium, you cannot or may not (readily) produce HEU.After 30 years of research into the uranium enrichment, Pakistan is now one of the 12 major players in the world that has mastered gas centrifuge technology. This technology with its dozens if not hundreds of spin-off hold the key to the security of Pakistan, future nuclear energy and fuel requirements. People would be surprised to know that laser enrichment programme in the US and Europe and Israel recently hit a dead end.
> 
> The Indian Atomic Energy Commission and BARC (BARK) have fresh proposals to revive the development of the gas centrifuge technology, which never got off the ground in the first place, whereas Pakistan had a continuous and on-going development programme for three decades. We now have latest generation of machines in operation (Pakistan's sixth generation), which is as good as if not better than any European machine. The strategy and risks behind Pakistan development programme were too many and what PAEC did no organization in the world would have done it in view of the resources allocated and severe restrictions to import dual use technology.
> 
> Hence, it is clear that the Pakistani enrichment development was begun in 1974 by Chairman PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan, under several covert programmes and one based (URENCO early model) on the concept of a lightweight rotor operating on pin bearings and magnetic top bearings got the most publicity in the west. Other parallel programmes Pakistan started were based on better design parametres to achieve super-critical operating speed that would provide PAEC with wide base of advanced engineering (machine design) experience on which they helped KRL develop future generation of centrifuges.
> 
> PAEC policy was to run their programmes as economically as possible rather than just focusing on the technical benefits. This approach caused a major friction with KRL but forced KRL to shift its strategy from smuggling machines (not a reliable option) to R&D. KRL envisioned that future generations of machines would be developed from reverse engineering or they would make thousands of first generation machine, clearly a Russian approach wasting precious resources with low chances of success. KRL eventually was forced to undertake a long-term programme to develop significantly faster centrifuges through R&D under PAEC/PINSTECH guidance. While PAEC programmes were based much more on a series of &#8220;smaller projects&#8221; aimed at improving specific aspects of the current centrifuge either by manufacturing improvements to reduce the cost of manufacture or by taking advantage of improvements in materials.
> 
> In either case, all PAEC projects were evaluated from an economic point of view to ensure that lifetime cost improvements actually paid back the money committed to undertake the research and from a technical point of view to ensure that improvements were introduced as early as possible within the manufacturing phase as part of future generation. PAEC was always in favour of step by step approach in developing each centrifuge generation not just importing clandestinely some models and then reverse engineered them so they set out the development programme in three stages 1) R&D 2) Pilot and 3) Production. First step included design studies, testing of new materials, manufacture and very high stress testing of a small number of components and then building typically 20 or 30 centrifuges. The pilot phase was employed to prove that the centrifuges would operate successfully long term under all design parameters.
> 
> 
> *Preparing to Build the Bomb*​
> Pakistani work on weapon design began even before the start of work on uranium enrichment, under the auspices of the PAEC. Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman PAEC called a meeting, in March, 1974, to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Among those attending the meeting were Hafeez Qureshi, head of the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at PINSTECH (later to become Member Technical, PAEC), Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC.
> 
> The PAEC Chairman informed Qureshi that he was to work on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO). The word &#8220;bomb&#8221; was never used in the meeting but Qureshi exactly understood the objective. Their task would be to develop the design of a weapon implosion system. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), in the North West Frontier Province and conveniently close to Islamabad.
> 
> The work at Wah began under the undescriptive codename Research and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as &#8220;The Wah Group&#8221;. Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosive lenses to be used in the nuclear device. This expanded, however to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering of the system and the triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment where it could and developed its own technology where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment.
> 
> The first preparations for eventual nuclear tests also started early - in 1976. Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, and Member (Technical) and Dr. Samar Mubarak of the PAEC were dispatched to Balochistan to conduct helicopter reconnaissance of potential test sites with the assistance of the army 5 Corps located at Quetta. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khuzdar in the south and Naukundi-Kharan in the east.The PAEC requirement was for a mountain with a completely dry interior capable of withstanding an internal 20 kt nuclear explosion. A likely site was found in the form of a several hundred-metre tall granite mountain Koh Kambaran in the Ras Koh range (also referred to as the Ras Koh Hills).
> 
> The Ras Koh in the Chagai Division of Balochistan rise at their highest point to 3009 metres. After a one-year survey of the site, completed in 1977, plans were finalized for driving a horizontal tunnel under Koh Kambaran for a future test. (Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who had provided support to the PAEC survey team, was tasked by (now) President Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 with creating and leading the Special Development Works (SDW), which was entrusted, with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites.
> 
> The SDW was formally subordinate to the PAEC but directly reported to the Chief of the Army Staff. Meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and Zia-ul-Haq led to the decision to prepare a second site for a horizontal shaft. The site selected was located at Kharan, in a desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public.
> The Wah Group had a weapon design - an implosion system using the powerful but sensitive HMX as the principal explosive - ready for testing in 1983.
> 
> The first &#8220;cold test&#8221; of a weapon (i.e. a test of the implosion using inert natural uranium instead of highly enriched uranium) took place on March 11, 1983 under the leadership of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed of the PAEC. This test was conducted in tunnels bored in the Kirana Hills near Sargodha, home of the Pakistan Air Force's main air base and the Central Ammunition Depot (CAD).The Kirana Hills test tunnels were reportedly bored by the SDW after the Chagai nuclear test sites, i.e. sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the tunnels had been sealed after construction to await tests. As Prior to the cold tests, an advance team opened and cleaned the tunnels.
> 
> After clearing the tunnels, a PAEC diagnostic team headed by Dr. Mubarakmand arrived on the scene with trailers fitted with computers and diagnostic equipment. This was followed by the arrival of the Wah Group with the nuclear device, in sub-assembly form. This was assembled and then placed inside the tunnel. A monitoring system was set up with around 20 cables linking various parts of the device with oscillators in diagnostic vans parked near the Kirana Hills.One of the principal objectives of the test was to determine whether the neutron initiator (probably a polonium beryllium design similar to those used in the first US, USSR, UK, and Indian bombs) to reliably start a fission chain reaction in the real bomb. However, when the button was pushed, most of the wires connecting the device to the oscilloscopes were severed due to errors committed in the preparation of the cables.
> 
> At first, it was thought that the device had malfunctioned but closer scrutiny of two of the oscilloscopes confirmed that the neutrons had indeed been produced. A second cold test was undertaken soon afterwards which was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Lt. Gen. K.M. Arif and Munir Ahmed Khan.Between 1983 and 1990, the Wah Group developed an air deliverable bomb and conducted more than 24 cold tests of nuclear devices with the help of mobile diagnostic equipment. These tests were carried out in 24 tunnels measuring 100-150 feet (30-50 m) in length which were bored inside the Kirana Hills. Later due to excessive US intelligence and satellite attention on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and the cold test facility was shifted to the Kala-Chitta Range. The bomb was small enough to be carried under the wing of a fighter/bomber such as the F-16 which Pakistan had obtained from the US.
> 
> The Wah Group worked alongside the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to evolve and perfect delivery techniques of the nuclear bomb using combat aircraft including &#8220;conventional freefall&#8221;, &#8220;loft bombing&#8221;, &#8220;toss bombing&#8221; and &#8220;low-level laydown&#8221; attack techniques, the latter requiring a sophisticated high speed parachute system. Today, the PAF has perfected all four techniques of nuclear weapons delivery using F-16, Mirage-V and A-5 combat aircraft.
> 
> 
> *Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC's other Achievements*​
> Therefore, we can say that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, under the Chairman Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan remained in-charge of the overall bomb programme, of all the numerous difficult steps, before and after uranium enrichment, and remained closely linked with uranium enrichment itself. They built and exploded the device. There is no getting around this fact. Nor did Pakistan forego the plutonium route, the choice of every other country with nuclear weapons because plutonium bombs are so much more powerful. We know this because of the recent disclosures about the Khushab plutonium production reactor.
> 
> This was driven during Munir Khan's 19-year tenure. All members (Technical), including Dr. Hafeez Qureshi of PINSTECH, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad (a theoretical physicist), Dr. Samar Mubarikmand (an experimental physicist) and others involved in critical technologies and projects like Dr. N.A. Javed, Dr. Abdul Majid (who designed the Khushab plutonium production reactor beginning in the 1980s, and an engineering accomplishment of greater significance for Pakistan than KRL), Dr. Bashiruddin Mahmud, the Project Director of ERL/KRL at its inception, and all Members (Nuclear Power), worked as a team, and gave ultimate security to Pakistan.
> 
> The PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan not only went on to build the first generation of nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but also built the Chagai tunnels for nuclear tests, which were ready by early 1980s, and also the plant for the production of uranium hexafluoride gas, the crucial raw material from which enriched uranium is made. He also upgraded the research reactor at Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) and laid the groundwork for the 300MW nuclear power plant at Chashma, which has since been completed and commissioned.Among the first assignments that Munir undertook was the setting of the Centre for Nuclear Studies, later to become PIEAS (Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences), which has produced over two thousand trained nuclear scientists and engineers during the last over quarter of a century.
> 
> In addition a dozen nuclear medical centres and several atomic agricultural centres were set up. Specialized nuclear training centres were established at home and a large number of scientists and engineers were sent abroad for training to create a vast reservoir of trained manpower, the backbone of a self-sustaining nuclear programme.Munir Khan had some powerful detractors too who sought to undermine him. A bizarre incident of how he was undermined is the publication in early 80's of a book &#8220;Islamic Bomb&#8221; by some foreign publisher. It detailed Pakistan's clandestine efforts to make the bomb and made several mentions of Munir Ahmad Khan and also of A Q Khan highlighting their contributions in the nuclear field.
> 
> But when Munir Khan's team conducted cold nuclear tests of its device in 1983,a new version of Islamic Bomb was clandestinely published and widely distributed gratis among army generals, bureaucrats, government leaders and leading scientists. In the doctored version all positive references to Munir Khan were deleted and replaced with negative and derogatory comments.For instance a reference to Munir Khan as 'a patriot and a man who would do anything and everything to bring atomic power and atomic weapons to his homeland', in the original edition was doctored to read &#8220;Mr. Munir Khan is not a patriot, would do anything to keep atomic weapons away from Pakistan.&#8221;
> 
> At another place the original version read, &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the bomb project&#8221;. It was changed in the doctored edition to read as &#8220;Yet he (Munir Khan) is still the man in charge of the reprocessing project&#8221;.The change made from the 'bomb project' to the 'reprocessing project' was striking as it sought to rob Munir Khan and his associates of any credit for the bomb project. The authors subsequently disowned the pirated version. It was all done at the behest of AQK, as Munir and his team had begun to get credit after the first cold tests conducted by PAEC in 1983.
> 
> Munir Khan's achievements must be seen in the backdrop of the anti-nuclear international environment of 70's and 80's when the United States, Canada and European countries passed domestic legislation to not only place restrictions on transfer of technology but even to renegotiate settled contracts.He refrained from advertising the Commission's achievements. Some of his colleagues thought the low profile policy were a mistake. They often complained that it had only encouraged others to hijack what actually they had performed. But Munir Ahmad Khan believed that bravado and brandishing nuclear capability would heighten negative international perceptions about Pakistan and make the objectives difficult to achieve.
> 
> The truth is that Munir Khan was very modest, and shied away from the counter-productive boasting of his rivals. He saw Pakistan's strength as lying in more than having a bomb, equally dependent on a secure economic and political future and non-isolation in the world.Munir Khan's role in developing the nuclear programme of Pakistan was in many ways akin to that of Homi Bhabha in India. Homi Bhabha had struck a synthesis with the political leadership soon after independence in 1947 and secured political commitment for his country's nuclear programme. Munir Khan achieved this synthesis with the political leadership in 1972 when he was picked up for the job in a conference of the country's scientists at Multan.
> 
> Since then the country's nuclear programme has enjoyed the bipartisan political support. And like Bhabha, Munir Khan also believed that a viable nuclear programme was not possible without a vast base of trained manpower and the indigenous development of some components, which were vital for the programme.To provide a solid base of trained manpower he set up the Centre for Nuclear Studies, which has now become a University (PIEAS), to train young nuclear scientists and engineers. By now the Centre has produced over 2,000 highly trained and qualified experts in various nuclear disciplines. In the early stages he fought hard with the bureaucracy and sent hundreds of scientists and engineers to Europe and America for training.
> 
> It is this trained manpower which has given Pakistan mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle ranging from uranium exploration and mining, fuel fabrication, making of hexafluoride gas for feeding the enrichment plant and also enriching uranium itself. And as is widely known the devices, which were tested in Chagai in May last, were made by the trainees of these training centres the foundations of which were laid by Munir Ahmad Khan. He accomplished all this because of his successful style of work, whereby he was obsessed with secrecy, whereas AQK regularly gave fat cheques to journalists, who wrote books and articles eulogizing AQK at the expense of PAEC and Munir Khan.
> 
> Munir Khan was a man who was obsessed with secrecy, which sometimes bordered on the paranoia, and he kept a very low profile. He believed that scientists working for the nuclear programme must maintain a distance from journalists and the public, due to the sensitivity of their job, and they had no business to issue any political statements. That would invite unnecessary and sometimes harmful attention from the enemies of the programme and endanger the security of the country.Today PAEC scientists and engineers can develop a new weapon design for a nuclear device every three months in a year. The National Development Complex was initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan in the beginning of the 1990s, and the last years of his Chairmanship as a project of PAEC of vital national significance under Dr. Samar Mubarik Mand, who had been the part of the team which conducted the cold test in 1983, and subsequently the leader of the team which conducted the hot tests in 1998.
> 
> The PAEC had conducted almost 24 cold tests from 1983 onwards till 1998, wherein they improved on the basic nuclear weapon design in the following cold tests.The KRL under Dr. A.Q. Khan was unable to come up with a credible design, and that is why PAEC's bomb was used for testing in 1998 and in all the cold tests carried out by PAEC.PAEC scientists and engineers had gained vast experience in nuclear weapon development and bomb testing, which it was engaged in for over 2 decades. KRL never had anything to do with the actual development of the weapon itself, and PAEC's success in making a viable bomb design and repeatedly testing various designs clearly speaks for the technical prowess of the PAEC and the sagacity of its leadership.
> 
> The making of nuclear weapons is a more challenging task than enriching uranium, as it involves a host of complicated processes and technologies including the triggering mechanism, design, implosion hydrodynamics and technologies, etc. which the PAEC conducted very successfully. Chairman PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan, General K.M. Arif and Ghulam Ishaq Khan witnessed the first cold test of 1983. At the time of the 1998 tests, Dr. A.Q. Khan was invited to the test site &#8220; to witness what a nuclear explosion looks like&#8221; in the words of Dr. Samar, and AQK left soon there after, and he arrived at the test site some 15 minutes before the explosions.
> 
> The greatest contribution that Munir Khan made to the making of nuclear Pakistan is that he made its nuclear programme self-sustaining and independent of himself. The infrastructure which he helped build and the reservoir of trained manpower which he gave, ensured the continuity of the programme after his retirement and is a guarantee that it will continue even after his death. This is unlike many of the great doers who claim sole monopoly over achievement, which essentially is collective.
> 
> Scientific journals in US and Europe recently reporting US companies having developed centrifuge machines that have achieved more than 300 SWU (Separative Work Units) per year, used in the gas centrifuge method for enriching uranium to weapon grade. This was possible because of advances in materials science and metallurgy etc; In Pakistan at GIKI and PAEC/PINSTECH, we now have material science and metallurgy departments offering PhD in material sciences. PINSTECH Nuclear Chemistry department offers BS/MS degrees specializing in heavy water chemistry. The worst US (and Indian/Israeli) fear is that if Pakistan has acquired this level of performance and yields from their machines then they may have ten times more highly enriched uranium to assemble 200 weapons.
> 
> Adding Pakistan's plutonium capability from Khushab reactor to weaponize, it has brought Pakistan in league with Israel and China in her ability to miniaturize nuclear weapon small enough for tactical and battlefields use. (Plutonium bombs are greater in yield, but smaller in size and plutonium is used to make advanced compact warheads that can easily be fitted onto aircraft and missiles). To add more fear to US/Indian nightmare if Pakistan has produced or (by all accounts Pakistan is producing enough) tritium then Pakistan have nuclear weapons whose yield could easily be increased between 100-180 Kiloton. Now Pakistan needs to achieve TRIAD capability to achieve complete surprise.
> 
> Constantly underestimating and trying to belittle Pakistan's ability to progressively enrich uranium and develop an advanced Plutonium programme despite the west's sanctions and the French backstabbing of the Reprocessing contract in the face of acute resource constraints, the West, and the people of Pakistan simply are unaware of the magnitude of capabilities of PAEC/PINSTECH/NDC/KRL and our scientists and engineers. Munir Ahmad Khan's 19 years in the PAEC saw the initiation, blossoming and development of these capabilities.
> 
> 
> PAEC and Nuclear Power Plants
> ​
> Pakistan and China initially agreed (back in 1980s) to commission at least 2 plants at the same site (CHASMA) with common auxiliary services feeding both plants as this is normal practice in the US and Europe. Common auxiliary facilities save a country lots of money. All engineering/design work for both plants was done simultaneously as hundreds of PAEC/PINSTECH engineers worked in China (at Chinese equivalent of US Oakridge labs and other facilities) but only ONE was started and completed per PAEC requirements because China did not have the experience to sustain such large and highly complex projects.
> 
> Chinese reactor safety and reliability was another overriding factor for the delay of second plant not what BBC has said. After CHASMA-I was completed, newly established PNRC (Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Commission) stopped PAEC from starting second plant right away as it wanted to monitor the plant for at least 3 years, first year and half for nominal power and rest of the time at full power as this is the most critical phase. Recently, PNRC has given the safety certificate to PAEC and IAEA.The second plant CHASMA-II will be completed in half the time, as the learning curve would be minimum and many of the 1st plant design anomalies would be fixed. Now I have heard from very reliable source that PAEC plan to build two 500-MW plants somewhere upstream of Indus River in next 7-10 years and another large (300MW) plutonium reactor and upgrading of Khushab reactor to unknown capacity.
> 
> Chinese are also convinced that Pakistan (PAEC) has the engineering know-how and the critical mass of manpower to design turbines, components of large capacity pumps, nuclear grade pipes/tubings as well as backup control systems for the reactor, so the opportunities for Pakistan are endless.As stated above, another PAEC scintillating achievement is Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) reactor in which PAEC engineers developed nuclear fuel used. This was first plant where PAEC took part as consultant and designer. This was light water reactor designed to generate 300 MW of electricity using 15 tonnes of enriched uranium annually.
> 
> The plant uses cooling water from the Chashma-Jhelum link canal and discharges it into the Indus similar to Chinese nuclear power station at Qinshan. As Chinese experience in the design of nuclear power stations for commercial purposes was limited, PAEC expertise came handy in procuring many of the components such as the giant steel pressure vessel, coolant pumps. The computerized control systems were designed in China with PAEC full participation specifications. Pakistan had also gained extensive experience in the safety systems running Karachi plant, so Chinese learnt a lot from Pakistan's experience and advised the Chinese in designing safety right from the scratch. PAEC designed and commissioned another reactor with a capacity of 72 MW at Joharabad in the Khushab district in Punjab.
> 
> This is an experimental reactor for the production of isotopes and heavy water required for its operation is manufactured in Pakistan. This reactor is not under IAEA safeguards. The designing of the project started in 1985 under the supervision of Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Canadian-European-trained, who was also in charge of starting the Kahuta uranium enrichment plant before AQK came from Holland. Another scientist instrumental in the design of the Khushab reactor, was the (late) Afzal Haq Rajput. Khushab produces weapons-grade Plutonium to make miniaturized nuclear warheads.
> 
> Whatever Khushab's activity and operational parameters it cannot be placed under the IAEA safeguards on the ground that it was a 100 per cent indigenous project. In 1996 N.A.Javed, a PAEC scientist and a heavy water expert, was decorated (Sitara-i-Imtiaz) for developing an indigenous facility for heavy water production, thereby freeing Pakistan from dependence on Canadian and Chinese supplies. There is one very important point to note that Pakistan even if it wanted, could not buy as much heavy water because our friend and master (US) suspected over-supplying heavy water to KANUPP would be diverted to Khushab.
> 
> 
> Conclusion​
> 
> From the above discussion, and in the light of the recent nuclear proliferation scandal involving Dr. A.Q. Khan, certain conclusions can be drawn. Because of the covert 1972-98 period, Qadeer was able to parley his position into unprecedented autonomy (financial, administrative and security, as Musharraf described it).
> 
> Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC followed the path of silently pursuing the nuclear goal for Pakistan in line with the country's stated policy of nuclear ambiguity, and refused to acknowledge or advertise that they were developing a nuclear weapons programme, and insisted, along with the government, that Pakistan's nuclear programme was strictly for peaceful purposes.
> 
> Second, because it was indeed a covert period, Qadeer was encouraged to pose as the Father of the Bomb, even though he was responsible for just one of 24 steps, each crucial to making nuclear weapons. Those responsible for the other 23 steps all worked under the Member (Technical) of the PAEC, who in turn reported to its Chairman.However, Qadeer was allowed to head his own set up, smaller than the PAEC, but dealing with the President directly and equal in status to the PAEC Chairman. Dr. Samar has said it on record that it was unthinkable for any scientist or engineer working in PAEC to indulge in proliferation or leakage of any materials or information or expertise, for money or cheap popularity, as they considered their work as a sacred trust, and scientists of one department would never divulge any unnecessary information to any other person in another department, and only that information was told to the people involved in various projects, as was required for their work.
> 
> On the other hand, Qadeer also demanded and got much more autonomy.It has been confirmed that the security restrictions on PAEC men, right up to the Chairman, which included surveillance (at times comically intrusive) and phone tapping, were not applied to Qadeer and certain senior colleagues. They went abroad for their own shopping for example. PAEC people were not allowed even to do that, until the intelligence operatives who did that job bought a lot of very expensive junk. However, the PAEC never enjoyed such sweeping autonomy. Perhaps because of that, the only proliferation charges relate to the one (relatively preliminary) step Qadeer was responsible for, and not for the other 23, including the more advanced and crucial steps, for which the PAEC remained responsible.
> 
> But history has been falsified, deliberately. Qadeer was used as a decoy to divert attention from the PAEC, where the real work was being done. KRL's scientists were only a fifth of the PAEC's, and perhaps KRL was overmanned. However, the myth-makers are stuck with the myth itself, and Qadeer has received adulation and honours. Even though it was clearly exposed in 1998 that his role in the nuclear programme was important but not major, the myth still persists. At the time of the Indian Brasstacks exercises, Dr. A.Q. Khan was picked up by the government to issue a statement that Pakistan had the bomb and would use it against India if its security was endangered.
> 
> That was the turning point in the sense that from then on, A.Q. Khan began an all out propaganda campaign and successfully cultivated the myth that he was the 'father' of the bomb, when in fact, he was made into a famous figure by the West, after he came to Pakistan with his URENCO gas-centrifuge designs. The West made him a villain, and the people, especially the media, and the government, went out of the way to portray him as hero, and at a time when the nation was in dire need of heroes. Our society being so gullible and prone to emotionalism and cult worship, started idolizing him to the extent that he became virtually above the law and could do anything, go anywhere, without fear of any accountability. The PAEC and Munir Khan kept their silence and publicly never admitted that they had anything to do with nuclear weapons, as it was state policy throughout the covert period of 1972-98, never to officially admit that Pakistan was a declared nuclear weapons state. This enabled AQ Khan to claim and get away with what was actually performed by PAEC. In short he stole the whole show from PAEC.
> 
> There is one important point to note while examining whether there was state approval of proliferation: only KRL was leaking. If there was state policy, the other 23 groups should have been leaking.The title of Father of the Bomb could apply at the political level to Bhutto (though the roles of Ayub, Zia and Ishaq must not be ignored), and at the technical level, Munir Ahmad Khan as Chairman, along with his team comprising all Members (Technical and Nuclear Power) share the real credit (not to forget Samar, who was Member Technical at the time of the Chaghai tests, and who was personally responsible for at least one of the 23 steps, every bit as crucial to the bomb's working as uranium enrichment). Qadeer only leaked what he could (the so-called Libyan blueprints might turn out to be the rival KRL design which could not be constructed).
> 
> This also validates the fact that the designs that he brought from URENCO were the first generation centrifuges (P1), which could not enrich uranium to weapon grade, and crucial technical input from PAEC enabled AQK to enrich uranium to the HEU level. Had this not been true, the designs and know how leaked to Libya and Iran would have enabled them to build the bomb, but they were unable to do it because numerous other processes and technologies involved in enrichment and the other 23 steps in the long chain to the bomb, were not available to them. Thus, without the selfless commitment, intense patriotic zeal and competent and inspiring leadership of PAEC and its leadership, the nuclear dream could never have been realized.
> 
> Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan (HI, NI & Bar) remains the only Pakistani who got the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, the highest civil award twice. He also got the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, along with Munir Ahmad Khan, in 1989. AQK got both his NI during President Ishaq's tenure, and now it has been reported that he had paid Rs. 150 crore to GIK for the latter's Institute, whereas Munir Khan paid a personal price by remaining unsung. Only Dr. Samar has come out in the spotlight now that Qadeer's fall from grace and fame, and he was awarded the NI this year. Munir's predecessor, I.H. Usmani and his successor Ishfaq Ahmad got the NI as well; the former got it posthumously, yet Munir Khan has been denied the NI even though 5 years have passed since his death and in spite of the fact that Munir remained the longest serving PAEC Chairman, and PAEC's accomplishments during 1972-1991 were all driven and initiated by Munir Ahmad Khan.
> 
> 
> He was known as the 'Father' in PAEC circles, but the nation has been kept in the dark about him, and his image has not been honestly portrayed in the public. In the final analysis, it is always the man at the top who counts the most, and in this respect, the PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan was the real architect of the nuclear programme, and he along with his team share the real credit as its father. Successful he has been, in his capacity as Chairman, but replaced he shall never be, with or without Nishan-i-Imtiaz. Today PAEC stands tall along with NESCOM/NDC and other strategic organizations involved with the strategic nuclear and missile programmes. Justice requires that the record be set straight for all times to come, and the falsification of history be rectified.


bombs are not humans they dont have father mother chacha mama


----------



## khansaheeb

भारतम् said:


> Just Go throught a simple reading of Both Khans ( on Wiki ) and it speaks volumes.
> 
> A Pakistani Sciecntist has gone on record to state that AQ knows nothing of Nuclear Science, apart from Basic Details.
> 
> What really surprises me is that PAEC has made Awesome Achievements , using fundamental research. More over this man never cared for Fame.. but Results... no doubt Sir. Munir is a Tru Patriot.


A Pakistani Sciecntist has gone on record to state that AQ knows nothing of Nuclear Science
Thay's because he is a metallurgist?


----------

