The New York Times is trying to sell the story that Iran was the primary client of the A.Q. Khan nuclear network, and received miniaturized warhead designs. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/world/as... That is about as accurate as Judith Miller's stories that Iraq had WMDs.

The fact is, Khan's nuclear program was originally part of the 1976 deal that CIA Director George H.W. Bush made with Princes Kamal Adham and Turki al-Faisal, co-heads of Saudi external intelligence, the GID. In exchange for Saudi funding of U.S. intelligence operations banned by the Democratic Congress since the Church Commmittee hearings, the Agency looked the other way as the Saudis implemented their own covert operations around the world, including Pakistan's bomb program, influence operations and financial frauds inside the U.S., which included BCCI and the S&L scandals.


BCCI was created as the funding vehicle for this joint intelligence operation, called the Safari Club. In addition to bank takeovers, BCCI funded Khan's program to build the Islamic atomic bomb and the develpment of a global Jihadist paramilitary, programs managed by Pakistani ISI intelligence. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

The Pakistanis developed a working bomb during the Reagan-Bush era. Khan then began peddling uranium enrichment centrifuges. Customers included North Korea, Iran, and Libya. These machines were of poor quality, broke down constantly, and generally delayed the progress of those who operated them. Khan's machines also required specialized parts manufactured in third-countries, the importation which the CIA used to monitor the progress of Khan's customers. Khan also peddled A-bomb plans of dubious quality - the North Korean device tested in October 2006 didn't work. The CIA, which worked with Khan, tried to do the same with Iran in the late 1990s -- this was called Operation Merlin -- but the Iranians caught on that the plans were bogus. When Cheney outed Plame, he destroyed the CIA unit that was working with Khan on these Clinton-era deception operations. See, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

The paramilitary aspect of this also deserves mention. In the late 1970s, the CIA commenced Operation Cyclone , working with GID and ISI to train and equip Islamic fighters in Afghanistan, operations that continued in Bosnia as it eventually morphed into what we know today as al-Qaeda. Key 9/11 leaders were part of ongoing joint CIA-ISI-GID operations in the secret war against the Russians in Chechnya, which allowed these al-Qaeda operatives to freely travel in and out of the US under the sponsorship of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center. The failure of Bush to roll up these CIA-ISI-GID paramilitary operations inside the US -- in spite of the urgings to do so by the CIA during the summer of 2001 -- was the direct cause of the 9/11 attacks. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

Iran is entirely peripheral to all this.