WEBVTT - AQ Khan: How to Live Dangerously 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.480 Hey, I'm welcome into the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.520 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.279 Should Know, Foreign Policy Edition. 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:21.800 That's right, take it away. 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:28.440 Okay, So Chuck, we're talking today. Well let me start differently, Chuck. Yes, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.639 have you ever met Aq Khan? 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:33.360 I had never heard of Aq Khn? 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:34.680 What do you think of him? Now? 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.040 You know, seems like a guy that made a lot 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:45.840 of money helping countries develop their nuclear program. 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.160 Sure, but I think that leaves out some very important stuff. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.840 This was in flagrant violation of UN non proliferation treaties. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.760 Who was generally illegal, and he was even doing it 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:02.440 on the side. He had an underground clandestine proliferation network, 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.840 which is I mean, that's very few people have ever 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.760 done that in the world. Over here in the West, Chuck, 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.800 he's viewed as a villain, and in other parts of 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.280 the world, especially Pakistan where he's from, he's hailed as 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:21.440 a hero. He's very complex, complicated, and at the end 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.160 of the day, he may essentially be generally a fall 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.560 guy for a much larger cabal of people who were 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:29.680 actually doing. 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:33.160 This, Yeah, for sure. I guess we can go back 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.640 and talk a little bit about how he got there, right, Yeah. 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:37.600 I think so. 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.520 He was born in India in nineteen thirty six and 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.920 in nineteen fifty two moved to West Pakistan and he 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.880 was into metallurgy and studied at a few different universities 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.880 in a few different countries. He eventually graduated initially in 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.320 nineteen sixty from the University of Karachi, but then got 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:01.680 a doctorate in metallurgical engineering in nineteen seventy two. In 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.680 that time, he got married, had a couple of daughters, 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.600 and then eventually he found his way with his family 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.640 in the early seventies and the Netherlands working for a 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:19.040 company called Physical Dynamic Research Laboratory which was doing uranium 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:24.360 enrichment for another company called Urinko, which was a consortium 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:29.119 of a few different countries Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.040 and they were, you know, they were running ultracentrifuges and 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.120 he was pretty good at snooping around. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.080 It seems like, yeah, in ultracentrifuge r centrifugias in general 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.239 is used to enricheranium in your rich uranium to a 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.000 certain extent to use for nuclear power. But if you 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.959 keep going, you can use that enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. Right, 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.720 So I think that these companies were doing this for 0:02:55.440 --> 0:03:00.000 power for power generation. But regardless, he wasn't a particular 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.920 like brilliant physicists or metal or just or anything like that. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.320 He was just kind of a dude. He just had 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.120 a will that was unlike other people's typically. So when 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.400 he started out, he had a very low level security clearance, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.040 but he very quickly like started making waves and catching 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.680 the attention of Dutch intelligence agencies for asking a lot 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.560 of questions that did not have much of anything to 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:27.600 do with the work he was supposed to be doing. 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.320 Yeah, so they started monitoring him, and this is something 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.080 that kind of continued at at least as far as 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.960 Dutch intelligence, and then you know, eventually other countries would 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.080 start monitoring as well, because you know, like I said, 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.680 he got pretty good at snooping around. And in nineteen 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.880 seventy one there was a conflict between East and West 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:55.560 Pakistan and that led to a pretty brief war with India, 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.000 and just for our purposes, what that eventually meant was 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:04.760 a khan and a lot of Pakistan were kind of 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.280 humiliated at the whole thing, and we're like, we're still 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.920 under the thumb of India here, and kind of just 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:15.840 sort of got that I guess national Pakistani pride going, 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.680 as you know, wanting to get out from under that thumb. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.760 Yeah, I saw that that in that thirteen day war, 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.760 Pakistan lost half its navy, a quarter of its air force, 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.080 and a third of its army. So it was very 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.600 much a humiliating defeat. And yeah, I saw that. Up 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.800 to this point, aq Kan was just a generally average person, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.360 but that seemed to have really started to get him going. 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.800 So he decided he was going to use what expertise 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.720 he had to help build a bomb for Pakistan. So 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.520 he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.680 Zulfa kar Ali Bhutto, who was running the show at 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.279 the time, and said, Hey, I want to help build 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.479 a nuclear bomb for Pakistan. We clearly need one. And 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.200 if you said back and look at it, chuck like, 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.279 this is just some random dude that the Prime Minister 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.839 had never heard of who wrote him a letter and 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.200 said like, hey, let's build a bomb. And I heard 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.120 the first time he was ignored and the second time, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:12.719 they were like, all right, let's see what this guy 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:13.400 has to say. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.400 Yeah, because he was lobbying for uranium and that was 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.880 his expertise, was enriching uranium and at the time, Pakistan 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.880 was trying to enrich and produce plutonium. And he was like, 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:27.880 that's not the way. Uranium is the way to go. 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.159 And just a couple of months after that, Bhutto met 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:35.400 with him and over about the next eleven or twelve months, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:36.760 con was like, all right, I'm going to make a 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.239 little grocery shopping list of what we need, the parts 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.800 that we need to get a nuclear program started here 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:44.359 in earnest and I'm going to make a list of 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.679 companies and suppliers and who can get us this stuff. 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.240 And he basically got all of this information while he 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.240 was working for that Dutch company, right, you know, making 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.600 copies of blueprints and sneaking them out and supply lists, 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.240 suppers lists and stuff like that. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.880 Yeah, he was very well known around the office or 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:05.520 be like making capies. 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:06.640 Yeah. 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:11.360 So he well, I just dated myself. Can we just 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.240 do a little science minute off to the side. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:14.720 Sure. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.240 So you said that there was a course that Pakistan 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.440 was already on for making a bomb out of plutonium. Right. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.960 Aq Con was all about enriching uranium. There are two 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.520 routes you can use to make a nuclear bomb, and 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.240 the background and training khan Head was in uranium enrichment, 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.839 and he loved to like talk trash about plutonium and 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.880 the people in Pakistan running the plutonium program. But just 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.120 the upshot of it is this, if you want to 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.880 get weapons grade uranium, you need about ninety percent pure 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:52.560 uranium in nature. The U two thirty five uranium that 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.040 you're looking for occurs about three quarters of a percent 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.599 of any natural lump of uranium. So there's two ways 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.280 to get that purified U two thirty five. One is enrichment, 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.400 where you spin it in centrifugias that go so fast 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.400 that it actually separates the different kinds of uranium isotopes 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.080 and then you just kind of siphon off the stuff 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.840 you want. Or with plutonium, you bombard it with neutron 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.240 so that uranium two thirty eight eventually turns into two 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.760 thirty nine, decays into neptunium and then plutonium. They're both 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.480 like great ways of creating nuclear material to blow up 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.280 the world with, but they're just two totally different tracks. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:32.880 Yeah, so we did a whole episode on that. If 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.520 you're interested in like the finer details, seek that one out. 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.600 Was that the one that we did after Fukushima? 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:42.320 I don't know, but we did a whole episode on 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.800 how to that whole process. I can't remember what it 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:45.560 was called, though. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.680 Well I can't help but talk about it. I love 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.880 that for some reason, really like tickles me. 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.840 Yeah. So in October of seventy five, the Dutch authorities 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.640 who had been watching him this whole time, noting all 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.160 this sort of suspicious stuff that he was doing at work, 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.920 all right, we're going to transfer you out of these 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:08.800 enrichment projects because we think you're, you know, you're clearly 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.120 some sort of a snoop or a thread or something. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.000 And just a couple of months after that, and I 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.040 guess late nineteen seventy five, in December, he left the 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:23.000 company all together and had you know, basically under his 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.640 in his banker's box on the way out the door. 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.920 He had a bunch of sensitive documents, blueprints and those 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.600 supplier lists, and he said, don't bother looking in these 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.600 banker boxes. The lid is on, right. 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.719 He just kind of vanished and showed back up in 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.720 Pakistan and he was very quickly put in charge of 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.480 the uranium project. And there was a guy named Manir 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.480 Ahmad Khan who was essentially his rival in the quest 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.120 to build Pakistan a bomb. The other Cohn was involved 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:55.280 in the plutonium wing of the whole thing. Khn eventually 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.200 got Bhutto and then the guy who overthrew Bhuto over 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.280 to his side in favor of uranium enrichment, but also 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.040 in favor of aq Con. From what I could tell, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.480 he had a really big ego and he wanted to 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.400 be like the top dog in getting Pakistan the bomb, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.720 and so he was working on the project called Project 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.720 seven oh six. It was the uranium Enrichment project, and 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.720 by nineteen eighty two, I think they managed to produce 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.240 the highly enriched uranium that you need to make a bomb, 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.679 very very small amount at first, you need several kilograms 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.240 to actually make a bomb, but they were successful at 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.840 doing it through that uranium enrichment program by nineteen eighty 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:38.880 two for the first time. 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.679 Yeah, and as they're doing this, are also researching how 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.000 to get this thing into a missile. So you know, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.839 as you'll see, I mean, if you just look back 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:53.200 at the history of enriching uranium or for nuclear energy. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.240 It's usually a country is like, hey, you know, we 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.520 just want to have a nuclear energy company and we 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.680 want to get a to speed on that. But what 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.480 they're also trying to do is get a nuclear bomb. 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:07.079 They're also making copies. 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.520 Yeah, it kind of just happens over and over and 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.360 over where they're like, no, no, no, we just want nuclear 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.440 energy and don't worry about what's in that bunker over there. 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.360 Right and again I kind of I mentioned it at 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.080 the outset. The reason that countries have to do it 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.880 like that is because there's a huge treaty from the 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.440 sixties that said, Okay, the people who already have the bomb, 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.520 they're agreeing to disassemble it. People who don't have the bomb, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.880 they're going to agree not to seek the bomb. And 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.679 it's still in effect and it's still enforced. So that's 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.760 why you have to do it right exactly. But it's 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.480 just been so just kind of nibble that and worn 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.000 down and just flagrantly ignored that. It doesn't really seem 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.040 to have that much teeth, but I guess it's enough 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.559 to make countries feel like they have to be subversive 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.200 when they're trying to create a nuclear weapons program. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.319 Yeah, exactly. So while he's doing all this, and you 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.439 mentioned at the beginning that he had a side gig, 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.920 you know, getting rich off of selling these secrets and 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.120 blueprints and helping other countries, you know, get in touch 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.199 with the right. As you'll see, he worked with a 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.680 lot of middlemen over the years and spoke a bunch 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.080 of different languages, so he was really kind of the 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.400 perfect dude to do this. And while he was doing this, 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.400 he developed that side gig as importing and exporting all 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.800 these components and plans that you know, some of which 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:30.840 he just outright stole. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.000 Yeah, And he was able to do this in large 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.600 part because he had by this time garnered so much 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.559 respect in Pakistan among the leadership of Pakistan, emerging as 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.600 the guy who was giving the bomb or developing the 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.360 bomb for Pakistan that they just weren't. They were like, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.439 just go, here's a blank check, do whatever you need 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.280 to do. So he started ordering doubles of the stuff yeah, 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.640 that he was he needed to set up Pakistan's uranium 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.080 enrichment program, and then he would take the stuff that 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.840 he didn't need and turn around and essentially reverse the 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.959 way that it got there. He would use Pakistani military 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.600 planes cargo planes to take those parts, the extra parts 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.800 back to middlemen, and then he'd tell the middlemen what 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.800 buyers to direct it to, and then he'd pocket the money. 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.959 Yeah, and it was very lucrative, as we'll see, he 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.600 ended up making a ton of money doing this. He 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.840 ended up having a few kind of major clients. No 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.720 one really knows how many countries he really dealt with, 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.880 because I think they found out he traveled to many 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:39.080 more countries than they officially sort of accused him of 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.560 dealing with. But the first country to step up and 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.800 say hey, I really want to do business with you 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.600 was Iran, and this was in nineteen eighty seven. He 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:55.959 helped them build up to fifty thousand centrifuges P one 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.640 types Pakistan won. There are a couple of different types, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.679 Pakistan one and the P two, the Pakistan two. Those 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.679 the P twos are much faster. And the belief at 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.160 the time is that he was just kind of sending 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.720 the stuff that they didn't need anymore to Iran and 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.280 it was kind of outdated equipment that wasn't going to 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:15.280 help him that much. 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.600 Yeah, for sure, that's how it started out. They were 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.840 they because Pakistan upgraded their setup from what I saw. 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.920 And the reason why you need fifty thousand centrifuges is 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.360 because when you spin that uranium to separate it and 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:33.080 you siphon off the stuff you want, you have to 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.319 do it again and again and again and again, and 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.240 it can take weeks and months and sometimes years depending 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.760 on what kind of centrifuges you're working with. But if 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:45.320 you have fifty thousand centrifuges like Iran supposedly got, you 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:50.520 can make a lot of highly enriched uranium fairly fast. Which, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.200 let me know, wonder, Chuck, like, what is taking Iran 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.800 so long? If they still don't have a nuke and 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.840 they started in nineteen eighty seven, What's what's the deal there? 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:02.960 And the best answer I could come up with is 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.880 that back in the nineties, the Ayatola issued a fatois 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.360 like a ruling on Sharia law that basically said no nukes, 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.800 Iran's not going to have any nukes, and that it 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.080 wasn't until twenty twenty four that Iran said that they 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:19.080 were starting to rethink it. So I guess just because 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.240 the leadership said they weren't going to have nukes. That 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.280 is the reason Iran doesn't have a nuke right now. 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.720 Yeah, interesting, I thought so too. So he was dealing 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:33.200 with their government. Supposedly until nineteen ninety one there was 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.480 a final shipment of the p ones, but other people 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.800 have said no, no, no. That continued for at least 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.480 another four years through the mid nineties, and those P 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:48.080 two centerfuges started flowing in. Iran wanted this potential bomb 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.480 because they were at war with Iraq at the time 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.520 in the eighties, over the course of about eight years, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.880 So Khan over the businessman, was like, hey, Iraq, I've 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.880 been helping Iran developed their You could probably use a 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.360 little with my help in stolen documents as well. 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.560 Yeah, what's crazy is Iroq was like very suspicious of 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.840 this from the outset, and I guess they asked for 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.280 a sample and they couldn't find what sample they were given. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.640 Just that con was like, don't taste this, that's not 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:21.080 that kind of sample. 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.600 Right, And I think you dab your pinky in it, Yeah, exactly, 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:25.440 put it on your tongue. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.160 It's like, don't do that. So I guess a rock 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.920 thought that this is some sort of maybe international un 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.440 sting operation. And then around the same time, the first 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.360 Gulf War broke out and they were like, we don't 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.960 have time for this, so they moved on. And I 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.960 guess he never managed to get a bomb or the 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.040 information a rock needed to a rock. 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.160 Yeah, but there were documents that said, hey, this little 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.320 you know, the paperwork was there. This will cost you 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.200 five million bucks and a ten percent commission on materials 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.440 right through my network, So I can you know, pay 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.040 people off basically. But yeah, like you said, it seems 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.560 like it never ended up happening, and Iraq was probably 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.960 wise to think that that was a sting operation even 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:10.520 though it wasn't. 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.280 Well, what something I saw that was kind of funny 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.720 was Iran paid three million dollars for THEIRS and they 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.120 actually were like ten percent commission. That seems steep, So 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.840 they went and started calling up the list of suppliers 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.160 that aq Con had for him, rather than dealing with him, 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.280 because they were bargain shopping for their nuclear. 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.880 Pro Well apparently, well maybe that has something to do 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:33.320 with it too. 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.880 Their nuclear centrifuges were held together bubble gum and duct tape. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.640 Should we take a break. Yeah's all right, we'll come 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:45.840 back and talk about a couple of more clients right 0:16:45.880 --> 0:17:17.080 after this. All right, so we're back, and we promised 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.200 to talk about new clients. This is where North Korea 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.560 enters a picture. It's the mid nineties, and with a 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.119 deal with the United States, North Korea said, you know what, 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.080 we're going to stop building our nuclear reactors. We're going 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:35.199 to stop producing plutonium again. We're just trying to get 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.800 nuclear energy going. But all right, we'll stop doing that. 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.080 But what we're really going to do is very quietly 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.360 start looking to continue that process, just on the down load. 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.480 Right, But Kim Jung il had his fingers crossed behind 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.480 his back, so none of that counted. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:53.520 That's right. And so who do they turn to? Of 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.600 course they turned to Pakistan and aq Kan. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:18:00.400 Yeah, so this is where it really seems like Pakistan. 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.639 Pakistani officials were definitely involved in this, even though later on, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:06.320 as we'll see, they're like, we had nothing to do 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.920 with this. But Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test in 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.000 nineteen ninety eight, which really surprised the world, and even 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.960 more dramatically, they did it in response to a test 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.600 that India had carried out two weeks before and during 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.280 this test. One of the groups that was there was 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.159 a delegation of North Koreans who were invited to watch 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.160 the whole thing. And the common wisdom among the intelligence 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.240 community is that this was a group of nuclear scientists 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.600 from North Korea's nuclear program who are basically being you know, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.320 run through the motions of how this is working. I 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.240 don't know if we said or not. Also, a q 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.840 Khan was known to have gone to North Korea at 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:52.560 least thirteen times that were documented. Something really weird happened 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.160 during this nuclear test with the North Korean delegation though, 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.560 and that was that one of them, a woman who 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.840 was among this group died. Mys seriously. She was shot 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.359 and eventually sent back to North Korea. Her body was 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.159 but on the cargo plane were centrifuges and other things 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.960 for North Korea's nuclear program too. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.760 Yeah, was that just like, Hey, we've got this plane going, 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.600 so why don't we just double dip and get some 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.200 stuff moved, maybe transporting this body. 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:29.399 Maybe Pakistan is the bargain shop as well. 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.280 So, like you said, he went to North Korea at 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.640 least thirteen times that intelligence knows about. And while he 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.879 was helping North Korea sort of develop their enrichment program. 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.159 They were supplying Pakistan. It was a bit of a 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.959 quid pro quo. They're like, hey, we've got long distance 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.119 missile technology that you don't have, and so we're perfect 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:51.000 bedfellows here. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.920 Yeah, and so they got the missiles from North Korea 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.000 through a guy named Kang. He was on paper the 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:03.240 dip the astor to Pakistan for North Korea. In reality, 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.399 he was the husband of the woman who was murdered. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.080 She turned out to be murdered during the missile test 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.400 because she was spying for the US, but her husband 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.119 managed to hang in there and it turns out he 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.560 was an armstealer for North Korea. He was the one 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.400 who provided the missiles. So again, all this time, North 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:22.600 Korea is saying like, we don't have a nuclear program. 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.399 Pakistan's like, we don't even know what anybody's talking about. 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.000 This is all in retrospect, like this is not on 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.399 a lot of people's radar right now. And as a 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.040 matter of fact, Aq Khan was on the radar of 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.720 international intelligence communities again all the way back to the 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.600 with the seventies, when the Dutch started watching him but somehow, 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.520 some way, the global intelligence community missed the fact that 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:52.119 he was a rogue nuclear weapons technology salesman, which is 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.640 one of the weirdest things ever. But it turned out 0:20:55.680 --> 0:21:00.199 that it was his next business venture in Libya that 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:01.600 led to his downfall. 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.639 Yeah, I mean there were you know, later on they 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:06.560 were they were like, yeah, we knew he was ordering 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.960 double the amount of everything, and we just couldn't figure 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:11.440 out why. 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.119 Right, it makes zero. There's a lot about this that 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.000 just really smells like a kind of a poorly constructed 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.120 cover up internationally, not just from Pakistan. 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.359 Yeah, for sure. So yeah, the next client step forward, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.800 and that was Libya. And this was in the late nineties, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.640 like nineteen ninety six, ninety seven. He started trading centrifuges 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.840 and the equipment and the components getting them over to Libya. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.800 This there's a guy here named Peter Griffin. Not what 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.680 you're thinking from family guy is a real life human. 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:48.840 It was a British engineer who was involved in this 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.320 operation who was like, man, I've been I've been given 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.520 or not giving, but I've been selling material to Pakistan 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.439 for you know, twenty years or more like this has 0:21:58.480 --> 0:21:59.840 been going on for a long time. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.320 Yeah, and that was a huge thing that allowed this 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.120 to go on. Is like the international community would ban 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.520 parts for like centrifuges or breeder reactors that you made 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.359 plutonium with, and then people like Iq Khan would be like, well, fine, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.600 we're going to start shipping the parts to make those 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.400 parts and then assemble the parts at the at the end. 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.320 So they were legitimately allowed to do this stuff. It 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.000 was just they still had to fake what the overall 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.040 purpose was. So yeah, guys like Peter Griffin were like, 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.639 I actually wasn't breaking any laws. It was more like 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.080 an international more that was broken where he knew he 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:39.960 was helping states that should not have nuclear bombs get 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:41.480 nuclear bombs essentially. 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:46.000 Yeah, for sure. So Peter Griffin, Peter Griffin. 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:48.159 There's just no way that couldn't do something. 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.359