Yesterday some questions and thoughts made me curious about Pakistan's nuclear program, and I started reading about various aspects of it. Some brief unstructured notes.
- 1947-58 ?
- 1965 Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) was established
- 1958-69 Ayub Khan
- 1960 Dr Ishrat Hussain Usmani appointed chairman of PAEC
- 1960-67 Under Dr Ishrat Usmani's chairmanship, PAEC set up crucial infrastructure (like PINSTECH and KANUPP) for development of nuclear energy (for peaceful purpose). He set up PAEC scholarship which sent hundreds of brilliant students abroad for doctorate studies in fields of physics, mathematics, and engineering for developing human capital necessary for massive scientific projects of the country.
- 1962 India's loss in Sino-Indian war increased political debate within India on development of nuclear weapon.
- 1964 Proponents of nuclear weapon within India ultimately achieved a green signal from India's Prime Minister in the name of so-called "peaceful nuclear explosive", accelerating the development
- 1965 Indo-Pak War
- 1965: Bhutto, then Foreign Minister met Pakistani scientist Munir Ahmad Khan in Vienna at IAEA meeting who informed him of India's development after which Bhutto started lobbying for development of nuclear weapons though Ayub Khan did not consider it.
"If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own. We have no other choice" - Bhutto - (unclear if Bhutto started lobbying after war before meeting Munir Ahmad Khan or after meeting him)
- 1969-71 Yahya Khan
- 1971-77 Bhutto
- 1971, Dec. Indo-Pak War after Bhutto Election
- 1972, Jan 24: Multan Meeting with scientists where Bhutto explicitly expressed his decision to develop nuclear weapons. Dr Ishrat Usmani objected, while all other scientists were in favor.
- 1972, Jan: Tensions had been escalating between Bhutto administration and Dr Ishrat Usmani who was proponent of non-proliferation. Munir Ahmad Khan was appointed chairman of PAEC who led Pakistan's nuclear weapon program.
- 1974 India's Pokhran-I nuclear test (public but declared as peaceful test)
- PK's Progress was slow before but it immediately increased with it
- 1974: Dr Abdul Qadir Khan who had worked on translation of URENCO's centrifuge designs wrote to Bhutto
- 1976: AQ Khan returned to Pakistan. Later friction developed between him and others at PAEC and then upon writing to Bhutto, ERL (later KRL) was established for Uranium enrichment (instead of plutonium which PAEC was attempting) and Khan was put in charge
- 1977-88 Zia ul Haq
- 1979: Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan and Pakistan's importance for US (US pressure to halt nuclear program was lifted off)
- 1983 March 11: Pakistan's first (confidential) Nuclear Weapon Cold Test
- 1988-90 Benazir
- 1990-93 Nawaz Sharif
- Munir Ahmad Khan retired as chairman of PAEC and Ishfaq Ahmed Khan took his role
- 1993-97 Benazir
- 1997-99 Nawaz Sharif
- 1998, May 11: India's Pokhran-II: Public Nuclear Weapon Test by which India claimed to be a nuclear state
- 1998, May 28: First Public Nuclear Test
- 1999-2007 Musharraf
- 2001: Both Dr Abdul Qadir Khan and Ishfaq Ahmed Khan were dismissed by Musharraf (from exactly what?)
- 2003, Oct: BBC China cargo ship was found with centrifuge machines sent to Libya
- Bush apparently handed over evidence of proliferation to Pakistan
- 2004, Feb 4: AQ Khan made public confession and apology
- Musharraf issued a pardon and AQ Khan was house-arrested with no further investigations
- 2008-13 PPP
- 2009: Court declared AQ Khan free citizen, ending his house arrest
- 2013-18 PMLN
- 2018-22 Imran Khan
- 2022-23 Coalition
- 2024- Coalition
One strange thing was how Dr Abdul Qadir Khan was (and still is) given publicity and much credit for development of the weapon even though he had role only in the Uranium enrichment process, which no doubt, is one of the most crucial step for the weapon but still, it is outright wrong to regard him as father of Pakistan's nuclear program. If there was someone who could have been given this label, it should be Munir Ahmad Khan. But still, it is not as startling that why Dr Abdul Qadir Khan was awarded such prominence, after realizing the role he had played in the fishy work [redacted] after Pakistan had developed the capabilities, and how easily [redacted] got away with it putting all the blame on a single person.
Some links (though I didn't save lot of them):
- https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Pakistan/PakOrigin.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160618211847/http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_79D2F752DA9944C8AFFF4D724FE6412C
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvAvsNaG7cE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDm9uzoY3JM
One thing that is needed when getting into these things, is that whenever reading any certain thing, you have to consider where does that specific person has a bias towards. It helps rectify exaggeratingly negative or positive statements, but you can still get objective information. And when you do it from all sides, you can then conclude what really happened by filtering all info to see what puzzle pieces actually match.