Shopping for Bombs; Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A. Q. Khan Network

Corera, Gordon

ISBN 10: 0195304950 / ISBN 13: 9780195304954

Published by Oxford University Press, New York, 2006

About this Item

xvi, 288 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Gordon Corera (born 1974), is a British author and journalist. He is the BBC's Security Correspondent and specializes in computer technology. Corera worked on the re-election campaign of President Bill Clinton. He joined the BBC in 1997 as a researcher and later became a reporter. He has worked on Radio 4's The World Tonight, BBC2's Newsnight, and worked in the US as the BBC's State Department correspondent and as an analyst for the BBC's coverage of the 2000 US presidential election. In 2001 he became the foreign reporter for Radio 4's Today programme. He was appointed BBC News' security correspondent in 2004. Corera presented the 2009 Radio 4 programme MI6: A Century in the Shadows, a three-part history of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. Corera wrote The Art of Betrayal: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, Orion 2011 about MI6, and Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network, September 2006. ISBN 0-19-530495-0, about Abdul Qadeer Khan and Pakistan's nuclear programme. He wrote Intercept: The Secret History of Computers and Spies (Orion 2015), also Cyberspies: The Secret History of Surveillance, Hacking, and Digital Espionage (Pegasus Books 2016). A.Q. Khan was the world's leading black market dealer in nuclear technology, described by a former CIA Director as "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden." A hero in Pakistan and revered as the Father of the Bomb, Khan built a global clandestine network that sold the most closely guarded nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Abdul Qadeer Khan NI, HI, FPAS (born 27 April 1936), known as A. Q. Khan, is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a metallurgical engineer, who founded the uranium enrichment program for Pakistan's atomic bomb project. Khan founded and established the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) in 1976, serving as both its senior scientist and Director-General until he retired in 2001. Khan was also a figure in other Pakistani national science projects, making research contributions to molecular morphology, the physics of martensite alloys, condensed matter physics, and materials physics. In January 2004, the Pakistani government summoned Khan for a debriefing on his active role in nuclear weapons technology proliferation in other countries after the United States provided evidence of it to the Pakistanis. Khan formally admitted his responsibility for these activities a month later. The Pakistani government dismisses allegations that Pakistani authorities sanctioned Khan's activities. After years of official house arrest during and following his debriefing, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on 6 February 2009 declared Abdul Qadeer Khan to be a free citizen of Pakistan, allowing him free movement inside the country. The verdict was rendered by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam. In September 2009, concerned because the decision also ended all security restrictions on Khan, the United States warned that Khan still remained a "serious proliferation risk"Here for the first time is the riveting inside story of the rise and fall of A.Q. Khan and his role in the devastating spread of nuclear technology over the last thirty years. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players in Islamabad, London, and Washington, as well as with members of Khan's own network, BBC journalist Gordon Corera paints a truly unsettling picture of the ultimate arms bazaar. Corera reveals how Khan operated within a world of shadowy deals among rogue states and how his privileged position in Pakistan provided him with the protection to build his unique and deadly business empire. It explains why and how he was able to operate so freely for so many years. Brimming with revelations, the book provides new insight into Iran's nuclear ambitions and how close Tehran may be to the bomb. In addition, the book contains startling new information on how the CIA and MI6 penetrate.

Seller Inventory # 72914

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shopping for Bombs; Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A. Q. Khan Network
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195304950
• ISBN 13: 9780195304954
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Printing [Stated].
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: very good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • CIA
  • Proliferation
  • Terrorism
  • Atomic Energy

About this title

Synopsis

A.Q. Khan was the world's leading black market dealer in nuclear technology, described by a former CIA Director as "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden." A hero in Pakistan and revered as the Father of the Bomb, Khan built a global clandestine network that sold the most closely guarded nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

Here for the first time is the riveting inside story of the rise and fall of A.Q. Khan and his role in the devastating spread of nuclear technology over the last thirty years. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players in Islamabad, London, and Washington, as well as with members of Khan's own network, BBC journalist Gordon Corera paints a truly unsettling picture of the ultimate arms bazaar. Corera reveals how Khan operated within a world of shadowy deals among rogue states and how his privileged position in Pakistan provided him with the protection to build his unique and deadly business empire. It explains why and how he was able to operate so freely for so many years. Brimming with revelations, the book provides new insight into Iran's nuclear ambitions and how close Tehran may be to the bomb.

In addition, the book contains startling new information on how the CIA and MI6 penetrated Khan's network, how the U.S. and UK ultimately broke Khan's ring, and how they persuaded Pakistan's President Musharraf to arrest a national hero. The book also provides the first detailed account of the high-wire dealings with Muammar Gadaffi, which led to Libya's renunciation of nuclear weapons and which played a key role in Khan's downfall.

The spread of nuclear weapons technology around the globe presents the greatest security challenge of our time. Shopping for Bombs presents a unique window into the challenges of stopping a new nuclear arms race, a race that A.Q. Khan himself did more than any other individual to promote.

About the Author

Gordon Corera is a Security Correspondent for BBC News. He covers counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and international security issues for BBC TV, Radio, and Online. He has writen extensively on the British and American intelligence community and has worked as a foreign affairs reporter for Britain's Today show. He was educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities and joined the BBC in 1997.