Back in the summer of 2002, Colin Powell arrived in Pakistan with an unusual request: that President Musharraf arrest a man Powell said had sold nuclear secrets to North Korea. Musharaff refused. Powell returned home. And Pakistan resumed its place as America’s ally in the war on terror.
So earlier this week, when Abdul Qadder Khan, the so-called father of the Islamic bomb and a national hero in Pakistan, admitted to, and apologized for, selling nuclear secrets, the news created its own kind of diplomatic mushroom cloud. Khan had done business not just with North Korea but with Iran and Libya. Leaders in Pakistan and America say they accept the apology, but just what the fallout might be is anyone’s guess. Pakistan’s dirty secret and America’s new quandary.
Guests:
Paul Anderson, BBC correspondent based in Islamabad, Pakistan;
Kathy Gannon, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, on leave as Associated Press bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan
Ahmed Rashid, correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, in Lahore, Pakistan.