Tenet showed A. Q. Khan's nuke blueprints to Musharraf

Former Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet is reported to have convinced Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was heading an international ring of nuclear smugglers.

Washington, May 1 : Former Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet is reported to have convinced Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was heading an international ring of nuclear smugglers.

In his book 'At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA', Tenet writes that he met Musharraf in New York, on the sidelines of the 2003 U.N. General Assembly, and informed him of this startling development.

"We met in his (Musharraf's) hotel suite. It was what we in the intelligence business called a 'four yes' meeting - just the two of us. No handlers, no note takers."

"(Dr) A.Q. Khan, I said, is betraying your country. He has stolen some of your nation's most sensitive secrets and sold them to the highest bidders. (Dr) Khan has stolen your nuclear weapons secrets. We know this, because, we stole them from him." The Dawn quoted Tenet as saying.

Tenet says he then pulled out some blueprints and diagrams of nuclear designs stolen from the Pakistan Government from his briefcase, and specifically indicated the designs siphoned off from Islamabad.

"I had been briefed well enough by my team that I could point out markings on the drawings that would prove that these designs were supposed to be in a vault in Islamabad, not a hotel room in New York," Tenet says.

Tenet says he pulled out a blueprint of a Pakistan P-1 centrifuge design, and told Musharraf that Khan had "sold this to Iran."

Then he produced design for the next-generation P-2 centrifuge, and said that Khan had "sold this to several countries."

Without pause, he laid before Musharraf another document. "These are the drawings of a uranium processing plant that he sold to Libya."

Tenet says Musharraf betrayed no emotion during this interaction, although the latter later admitted that it was the most embarrassing moment of his public life.

Tenet says he suggested a few steps the US and Pakistan could take jointly to find out the full extent of Dr Khan's 'corruption' and to put and end it once and for all.

"President (Gen) Musharraf asked a few questions, and then simply said: 'Thank you, George, I will take care of this'."

ANI