Don't ban the bomb

摘要

"I want to become a nuclear engineer. I am greatly impressed by you. You are my ideal personality." Not in their wildest dreams could a British or American nuclear scientist hope to receive fan mail like this. But for Abdul Qadeer Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, tributes like this from a young college student come thick and fast. In Pakistan, not only do they revere their nuclear engineers, they also forgive them when they sell nuclear technology on the sly to Libya, North Korea and Iran, as this week Khan reportedly admitted doing. The Pakistani government has been investigating Khan and some of his colleagues since late last year, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under pressure from the US, passed on the names of several Pakistani scientists that Iran claims helped it with its nuclear programme.