When Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons in 1988 Khan's popularity soared to an all time high. The Kahuta Laboratories was renamed the Khan Research Laboratories and he himself was compared to Albert Einstein.
Never mind that the technology he had mastered was based on stolen documents, or that he had sold this stolen expertise to whomsoever was prepared to pay, regardless of whether it was Iran, Libya, North Korea or even, ultimately, Al Qa'eda
When the US was considering what to do with the threat posed by Iraq, "we had the difficult problem with the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. At the time, it was known to us through intelligence sources that there was an organisation headed up by a man named A Q Khan", Cheney said at a town hall meeting in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
"Khan was the father of the Pakistan nuclear programme. He had developed nuclear weapons for Pakistan. Once he completed that process, he then diverted that suppliers' network that he put together and began to supply nuclear weapons technology to some of the world's less attractive regimes: North Korea, Iran and Libya," he said.
Khan was "spreading the world's deadliest technology to some of the world's most questionable regimes", he added.
Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi, Khan's "best customer", was spending "millions to require that capability, that technology", he said.
Image: A supporter of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan kisses his picture in Karachi.
Photograph: Zahid Hussein/Reuters.
Also see: I will make Dr A Q Khan available to IAEA: Bhutto
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