Khan network has sold nuclear bomb plans
Nothing to worry about - SI liberals assure us:
"But the simple truth is that terrorists of any kind are not much of a threat to America."
Tigerpaw
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The AQ Khan nuclear malaise has disseminated to places beyond the usual suspect countries, says a report in the New York Times.
Four years after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the leader of the world's largest black market in nuclear technology, was put under house arrest, much more shocking revelations are coming out of the scientist's network's computers.
Investigators now fear that the blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon could have been passed to many more countries.
Officials say the parts of the design were coded so that they could be transferred quickly to an automated manufacturing system.
Working in secret for two years, investigators have tracked the digitized blueprints to Khan computers in Switzerland [Images], Dubai, Malaysia and Thailand.
The blueprints are rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon that is relatively small and easy to hide, making it potentially attractive to terrorists, says the report.
As the development leaves the world worried, Pakistan, it seems, is in no mood to take the probe further. It is learnt that Pakistan is even thinking of setting him free. In recent weeks, American officials have privately warned the new government in Pakistan about the dangers of doing so, the report adds.
"We've been very direct with them that releasing Khan could cause a world of trouble," a senior US official who has been involved in the effort said last week.
"The problem with Pakistan these days is that you never know who is making the decision -- the army, the intelligence agencies, the president or the new government."
The illicit nuclear network run by Dr. Khan was busted in 2004. President Bush, eager for an intelligence victory after the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, declared that ending Dr. Khan's operation was a major coup for the United States.
Since then, evidence has emerged that the network sold uranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Investigators are still pursuing leads that he may have done business with other countries.
Only in recent months that officials have begun to confirm that they had found the design for a bomb itself among material seized from some of Dr. Khan's top lieutenants, a Swiss family, the Tinners, the report said.
The same design documents were found in computers in three other locations connected to Khan operatives, the report said.
The blueprints bear a strong resemblance to weapons tested by Pakistan a decade ago, said two diplomats involved in the investigation.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jun/16aqkhan.htm
pakistannews.net
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Bomb making blueprints missing at United Nations
By Judi McLeod
Friday, June 10, 2005
Toronto, ON-- Things tend to go missing from United Nations Manhattan headquarters.
............
Then there's UN goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie's missing $3-million.
The United Nations, as Bill O'Reilly points out, cannot account for any of the money donated by the actress to UN causes.
Now electronic drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have vanished from the UN and UN investigators are saying they could show up sale anytime on the international black market.
Things that go missing from UN headquarters are taking a dangerous turn.
"The blueprints, running to hundreds of pages, show how to make centrifuges for enriching uranium," The Guardian International reported yesterday. "In addition, the investigators have been unable to trace key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and fear that drawings have been secreted away and could be for sale."
"Inspectors at the UN's nuclear authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been investigating the worst nuclear smuggling racket ever uncovered," the Guardian explained.
Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan headed the smuggling racket. Two years ago, the operation was caught selling sensitive nuclear technology to Libya and Iran.
"A senior official said several sets of blueprints for uranium centrifuges--the so-called P-1 and more advanced P-2 systems which were peddled by the Khan network--have gone missing.
In terms of build-your-own-bomb know-how, the missing blueprints are the real McCoy.
"We know there were several sets of them prepared," said the official. "So who got those electronic drawings? We have only actually got the one full set from Libya. So who got the rest, the copies?
We can depend that blueprints for bomb making won't be found under spokesman Fred Eckhard's desk.
"We have no evidence they were destroyed," said the official. "One possibility is another client. "We just don't know where they are."
"A European diplomat privy to western intelligence on the Khan network added: `This is what keeps people awake at night. It's very sensitive. The fact that there are (nuclear) proliferation manuals kicking around is very disturbing,'" said The Guardian.
In essence, the missing blueprints detail how to manufacture the components for a uranium centrifuge, what materials are needed, how to assemble the machines, and how to test them.
"The big question is who else got this stuff (apart from Iran and Libya)," the European diplomat said.
"Another diplomat pointed out that the Khan network was based in the Middle East and that Khan was known as the father of the Islamic bomb. He suggested that Syria and Egypt could be potential customers for the materials if they were still being offered.
Regarded as a Judas by the west, Khan is a national hero for creating the Pakistan nuclear bomb, but is under house arrest in Islamabad since confessing to heading the network and being pardoned in February last year.
Although the Khan network's operations extended to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East, its official headquarters were in Dubai, where Khan maintained a luxury apartment.
After the network was discovered in October 2003, investigators turned up at the Dubai apartment only to find that it had been emptied, apparently by Khan's daughter, Dina.
With media fanfare, Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, confessed to his secret nuclear bomb program and gave it up in December 2003. But three months later in Tripoli, the UN inspectors were given two CD-ROMs and one computer hard drive. One CD contained a set of drawings and manuals for the P-1 centrifuge system, the other for the more advanced P-2.
Instructions with the missing blueprints come in English, Dutch and German, and the designs are from Urenco, the Dutch-British-German consortium which is a leader in centrifuge technology and is the source of Khan's know-how, garnered from his time working there in the 1970s. The CDs and hard drive are at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, where they have been analyzed. The investigators now know that the scanning of the original blueprints was done in Dubai and even when it was done.
In addition to these blueprints, Khan also supplied Libya with drawings for an old Chinese nuclear warhead design. The drawings, now in Washington under IAEA seal, were not complete, but were adequate to construct a crude nuclear device.
"We are still missing something from the picture in terms of critical equipment, certain parts of centrifuges …There is equipment missing important enough for us to search, an amount that makes us worried," said the official.
Around a dozen individuals, including engineers, businessmen, and middlemen, were key figures in the Khan network, with dozens of other companies operating at a secondary level, according to those in the know.
Alleged Khan associates have been arrested in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Dubai and Malaysia, although none of those cases has yet come to full trial. British customs is also conducting an investigation into a British suspect.
Meanwhile, we wonder why nuclear proliferation manuals were available to go missing from UN headquarters in the first place?
canadafreepress.com |
