Awhile back, I was just so pleased with myself for making the connection between “cars and centrifuges”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1923/rimz-of-mass-destruction — for example, how automakers are used as a false end-users for dual-use machine tools, hard-to-get materials, and the like.
It turns out this has been going on for decades. Take the case of “Van Doornes Transmissie”:http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=770085, which _Nucleonics Week_ flagged waaaaay back in 1981:
bq. THE DUTCH JUSTICE MINISTRY TURNED DOWN A REQUEST FOR A REPORT on the so-called Khan affair from the special parliamentary committee that intends to conduct its own probe into the matter. The Justice Ministry probe is known to concern two companies — Van Doornes Transmissie and Fysisch Dynamisch Onderzoekslaboratorium (FDO), a subsidiary of VMF Stork Nv. A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist, is alleged to have obtained uranium enrichment knowhow while working for Ultracentrifuge Nederland and FDO in the 1970s. The two companies named in the government probe are believed to be involved in the export of strategic goods to Pakistan. The Justice Ministry said it doesn’t know when its probe will be complete, though a member of Parliament concerned with nuclear affairs said he hopes the ministry’s work will be completed in two or three months.
VDT reportedly shipped thousands of maraging steel rotor tubes to Pakistan in the 1970s.
So, like it says up at the top, old news.
Of additional interest, at least to me, is that much like the “Madoff Scam” the world was not really taken by surprise when Pakistan tested Nuclear weapons or that Kahn had help from the West to develop Pakistan’s program.
Those who talk about 1998 as the “year” Pakistan arrived dismiss the 18 prior years during which they made the poor choice to become part of the club.
Josh replies: Are you thinking of Herman, or AQ? I don’t think we can say that Khan “had help from the West,” exactly; he had help from a handful of corrupt businessmen all over the world.