Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan’s proliferation network operated for years before the world fully grasped how far its reach extended. For the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), uncovering and dismantling that system became one of its most intricate counter-proliferation challenges, involving deception operations, technical sabotage and sensitive diplomatic exchanges.
In a detailed interview with news agency ANI, former CIA operations officer James Lawler, who helped spearhead Washington’s counter-proliferation efforts, offered a rare account of how the United States pieced together the network, infiltrated it, sabotaged it and eventually confronted Pakistan with what he described as “absolutely incontrovertible evidence”.
How the CIA first realised Abdul Qadeer Khan was running a global trafficking network
Lawler said the United States had tracked Khan’s role in Pakistan’s domestic nuclear programme for years, but intelligence agencies underestimated how rapidly he was expanding his reach beyond the country.
“We were very slow. We thought it was serious that he was supplying Pakistan, but we did not imagine he was going to turn around and become an outward proliferator,” he said.
The scale of outward proliferation, such as centrifuge designs, components, missile technology and even a Chinese atomic bomb blueprint, only became clear in the 1990s when analysts began to piece together procurement patterns across different continents. Lawler would later describe Khan as the “Merchant of Death”, capturing the shift from buyer to global supplier.
Inside the Pakistan briefing: the evidence that forced Pervez Musharraf to act
According to Lawler, the decisive turning point came when then-CIA director George Tenet personally confronted then-Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf with proof that Khan was selling nuclear secrets to foreign programmes.
Tenet briefed Musharraf that Khan “was betraying Pakistan’s nuclear secrets to at least the Libyans and maybe others.” Lawler recalled the Pakistani leader’s immediate, visceral response: “I’m going to kill that son of a b***h.”
Musharraf ultimately placed Khan under years-long house arrest, which prevented further overt proliferation. Lawler noted that Khan had “certain Pakistani generals and leaders on his payroll”, but emphasised that individual involvement did not necessarily constitute official state policy.
The covert methods: front companies, sabotage operations and ‘becoming a proliferator’
Lawler’s approach to counter-proliferation took shape during an early posting in what he called a “beautiful Alpine country”, a hub for high-technology procurement. When he returned to CIA headquarters in 1994, he was tasked with developing operations to infiltrate and disrupt nuclear supply chains.
Drawing inspiration from Felix Dzerzhinsky’s historic “Trust” deception operation, he concluded: “If I want to defeat proliferation and proliferators, I need to become a proliferator.”
The CIA established covert overseas front companies that appeared to be legitimate vendors of nuclear-related components.
These fronts supplied deliberately compromised equipment designed to slow or cripple illicit programmes.
“We took the reverse of the Hippocratic oath. We always did harm,” Lawler said.
Despite the operation’s global scope, he noted that only “no more than 10 people” at CIA headquarters worked exclusively on the mission, supported by officers deployed abroad.
Why James Lawler called Abdul Qadeer Khan the ‘Merchant of Death’
Lawler said Khan’s transformation mirrored the expansion of his network. What began as procurement for Pakistan’s own programme grew into a commercial system that provided centrifuge models, engineering drawings and weapons-related know-how to multiple states.
“Instead of being a consumer of this technology, they became a purveyor of the technology,” he said, noting Khan’s popularity within Pakistan and his ability to cultivate influential backers.
The Libya breakthrough: the BBC China seizure and Muammar Gaddafi’s climbdown
One of the operation’s most dramatic successes came with the interception of the BBC China freighter, which was carrying “hundreds of thousands of nuclear components” for Libya.
Lawler described the moment United States negotiators presented the seized material to Libyan officials.
“You could have heard a pin drop,” he recalled.
When confronted, Libyan representatives admitted, “By Allah, you’re right. We did have a nuclear program.”
Libya later dismantled it, a development Lawler said prompted him to do “a little happy jig” beside the containers, convinced the move had prevented a future nuclear crisis.
How Iran used stolen URENCO designs spread through Khan’s network
Lawler said Iran’s programme relied on P1 and P2 centrifuge models based on designs originally stolen from URENCO, passed on through Khan’s network. Alongside these, he said Khan had also transferred ballistic missile technology and a Chinese atomic bomb design.
“I think they got all of it,” he warned.
This underpins his broader concern that a nuclear-armed Iran could set off what he called a “nuclear pandemic”, prompting regional states to seek their own deterrents.
Why the US moved slowly in the 1970s and 1980s, and what changed in the 1990s
Lawler pushed back against suggestions that Saudi pressure influenced American caution. Instead, he attributed delays to limited resources and overlapping Cold War crises, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, instability in Latin America and competing intelligence priorities.
According to him, counter-proliferation did not gain central urgency until the 1990s. After the September 11 attacks, the CIA also monitored Pakistan’s nuclear assets closely to ensure Khan had no links to al Qaeda.
What alarmed Washington
Lawler said the risk was not only a single nuclear-armed state but the cascade it could trigger. Once Iran obtained a weapon, he argued, it would be “almost inevitable” that other regional powers would pursue their own programmes, sharply escalating the chance of a nuclear incident, accidental or otherwise.
The origin of Lawler’s nickname ‘Mad Dog’
Lawler traced his unusual nickname to an incident in France in the late 1980s, when a German shepherd attacked him during a morning run. After fighting the dog off, he was warned it was likely rabid.
“I made a list of all the people who I was going to bite in case I got rabies,” he said. “That led to my nickname, which I come by quite honestly.”
The name, he joked, remains in use among former colleagues.
What Lawler says today about India–United States cooperation
Lawler described past India–United States relations as “in between”, neither adversarial nor fully aligned. He argued that stronger strategic cooperation today is essential for stability in the region, warning that a nuclear exchange in South Asia would leave “only losers” and cause devastation well beyond the subcontinent.
The legacy of a 25-year CIA career shaped by counter-proliferation
Lawler served in the CIA from 1980 to 2005 and now writes spy novels based on his experiences, all cleared by the Agency’s review board. Looking back, he said he had few regrets.
“Stopping countries from getting nuclear weapons — nobody should really argue with that,” he said.