Nuclear Ring Reportedly Had Advanced Design
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — American and international investigators say that they have found the electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, but that they have not been able to determine whether they were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring’s other customers.
The plans appear to closely resemble a nuclear weapon that was built by Pakistan and first tested exactly a decade ago. But when confronted with the design by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, Pakistani officials insisted that Dr. Khan, who has been lobbying in recent months to be released from the loose house arrest that he has been under since 2004, did not have access to Pakistan’s weapons designs.
In interviews in Vienna, Islamabad and Washington over the past year, officials have said that the weapons design was far more sophisticated than the blueprints discovered in Libya in 2003, when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi gave up his country’s nuclear weapons program. Those blueprints were for a Chinese nuclear weapon that dated to the mid-1960s, and investigators found that Libya had obtained them from the Khan network.
But the latest design found on Khan network computers in Switzerland, Bangkok and several other cities around the world is half the size and twice the power of the Chinese weapon, with far more modern electronics, the investigators say. The design is in electronic form, they said, making it easy to copy — and they have no idea how many copies of it are now in circulation.
Investigators said the evidence that the Khan network was trafficking in a tested, compact and efficient bomb design was particularly alarming, because if a country or group obtained the bomb design, the technological information would significantly shorten the time needed to build a weapon. Among the missiles that could carry the smaller weapon, according to some weapons experts, is the Iranian Shahab III, which is based on a North Korean design.
However, in recent days top American intelligence officials, who declined to speak about the discovery on the record because the information is classified, said that they had been unable to determine whether Iran or other countries had obtained the weapons design. Pakistan has refused to allow American investigators to directly interview Dr. Khan, who is considered a hero there as the father of its nuclear program. In recent weeks the only communications about him between the United States and Pakistan’s new government have been warnings from Washington not to allow him to be released.
Dr. Khan’s illicit nuclear network was broken up in early 2004; President Bush declared that shattering the operation was a major intelligence coup for the United States. Since then, evidence has emerged that the network sold uranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, and investigators are still pursing leads that he may have done business with other countries as well.
While Libya gave up its nuclear program, North Korea and Iran have not, despite intense international pressure, sanctions, and repeated offers of incentives to do so.
On Sunday, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said that the administration remained concerned about the possibility that additional plans have been disseminated, but he did not address any of the latest revelations about the Khan network.
“We’re very concerned about the A.Q. Khan network, both in terms of what they were doing by purveying enrichment technology and also the possibility that there would be weapons-related technology associated with it,” he told reporters traveling with Mr. Bush from Paris to London on Sunday.
“That was a concern. That’s one of the reasons we rolled up the network here three years or so ago, and fairly successfully. And part of that rolling up was to roll up the network and part of it was to pursue what kind of relationship the A.Q. Khan network had to individual countries with which they are dealing.”
The existence of the compact bomb design began to become public in recent weeks after Switzerland announced that it had destroyed a huge stockpile of documents, including a weapons design, that were found in the computers of a family in Switzerland, the Tinners, who over the years played critical roles in Khan’s operation.
In May, Switzerland’s president, Pascal Couchepin, announced that more than 30,000 documents had been shredded, saying the government acted to keep them from “getting into the hands of a terrorist organization or an unauthorized state,” according to Swiss news accounts.
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Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from London.
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But American and I.A.E.A. officials say that destroying one copy of an electronic file was more satisfying to the Swiss than it was reassuring to them. It is unclear whether the Swiss knew that some of the same material had been found in other countries by I.A.E.A. investigators.
Some details of the Swiss action and the bomb design have appeared recently in Swiss newspapers and The Guardian of London and in The Washington Post on Sunday.
The Swiss have provided little information about exactly what they destroyed, but I.A.E.A. inspectors watched the destruction and American intelligence officials were deeply involved. “We were very happy they were destroyed,” one senior intelligence official said Friday. But he added that “what else is out there” remains a mystery. The Swiss destruction of the equipment came in response in the case of Urs Tinner, who has been in custody for more than four years but has not yet stood trial.
Two former Bush administration officials said they believed Mr. Tinner had provided information to the Central Intelligence Agency while he was still working for Dr. Khan, including some of the information that helped American and British officials intercept shipments of centrifuges on their way to Libya in 2003.
When news of that interception became public and Libya turned its $100 million program over to American and I.A.E.A. officials, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan forced Dr. Khan to issue a vague confession and then placed him under house arrest. Dr. Khan has since renounced that confession in Pakistani and Western media, saying he made it only to save Pakistan greater embarrassment.
It was not until 2005 that officials of the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna, finally cracked the hard drives on the Khan computers recovered around the world. And as they sifted through files and images on the hard drives, investigators found tons of material — orders for equipment, names and places where the Khan network operated, even old love letters. In all, they found several terabytes of data, a huge amount to sift through.
“There was stuff about dealing with Iranians in 2003, about how to avoid intelligence agents,” said one official who had reviewed it. But the most important document was a digitized design for a nuclear bomb, one that investigators quickly recognized as Pakistani. “It was plain where this came from,” one senior official of the I.A.E.A. said. “But the Pakistanis want to argue that the Khan case is closed, and so they have said very little.”
In public statements, Pakistani officials have insisted that the Khan “incident,” as the call it, is now history, and they publicly declared nearly two years ago that their investigations are over.
A senior Pakistani official, interviewed in Islamabad in April, said that the information provided by the I.A.E.A. was “vague and incomplete,” and he insisted that because Dr. Khan’s laboratories specialized in the manufacture of the equipment needed to enrich uranium, “he was not involved in weapons designs.”
But investigators have no doubt that he was the source of the digitized bomb design. “Clearly, someone had tried to modernize it, to improve the electronics,” one said. “There were handwritten references to the electronics, and the question is, who was working on this?”
The officials said that parts of the design were coded so that they could be transferred quickly to an automated manufacturing system for the production of parts.
Full Version: Nuclear Ring Reportedly Had Advanced Design
US found secrete document of Qadeer with regard to nuclear smuggling, claimed NYT report
WASHINGTON: American and international investigators say that they have found the electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist but that they have not been able to determine whether they were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring’s other customers, reported by New York Times.
The plans appear to closely resemble a nuclear weapon that was built by Pakistan and first tested exactly a decade ago. But when confronted with the design by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, Pakistani officials insisted that Dr. Khan, who has been lobbying in recent months to be released from the loose house arrest that he has been under since 2004, did not have access to Pakistan’s weapons designs, the report said.
In interviews in Vienna, Islamabad and Washington over the past year, officials have said that the weapons design was far more sophisticated than the blueprints discovered in Libya in 2003, when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi gave up his country’s nuclear weapons program. Those blueprints were for a Chinese nuclear weapon that dated to the mid-1960s, and investigators found that Libya had obtained them from the Khan network.
But the latest design found on Khan network computers in Switzerland, Bangkok and several other cities around the world is half the size and twice the power of the Chinese weapon, with far more modern electronics, the investigators say. The design is in electronic form, they said, making it easy to copy — and they have no idea how many copies of it are now in circulation.
Investigators said the evidence that the Khan network was trafficking in a tested, compact and efficient bomb design was particularly alarming, because if a country or group obtained the bomb design, the technological information would significantly shorten the time needed to build a weapon. Among the missiles that could carry the smaller weapon, according to some weapons experts, is the Iranian Shahab III, which is based on a North Korean design.
However, in recent days top American intelligence officials, who declined to speak about the discovery on the record because the information is classified, said that they had been unable to determine whether Iran or other countries had obtained the weapons design.
Pakistan has refused to allow American investigators to directly interview Dr. Khan, who is considered a hero there as the father of its nuclear program.
In recent weeks the only communications about him between the United States and Pakistan’s new government have been warnings from Washington not to allow him to be released.
The existence of the compact bomb design began to become public in recent weeks after Switzerland announced that it had destroyed a huge stockpile of documents, including a weapons design, that were found in the computers of a family in Switzerland, the Tinners, who over the years played critical roles in Khan’s operation.
WASHINGTON: American and international investigators say that they have found the electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist but that they have not been able to determine whether they were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring’s other customers, reported by New York Times.
The plans appear to closely resemble a nuclear weapon that was built by Pakistan and first tested exactly a decade ago. But when confronted with the design by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, Pakistani officials insisted that Dr. Khan, who has been lobbying in recent months to be released from the loose house arrest that he has been under since 2004, did not have access to Pakistan’s weapons designs, the report said.
In interviews in Vienna, Islamabad and Washington over the past year, officials have said that the weapons design was far more sophisticated than the blueprints discovered in Libya in 2003, when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi gave up his country’s nuclear weapons program. Those blueprints were for a Chinese nuclear weapon that dated to the mid-1960s, and investigators found that Libya had obtained them from the Khan network.
But the latest design found on Khan network computers in Switzerland, Bangkok and several other cities around the world is half the size and twice the power of the Chinese weapon, with far more modern electronics, the investigators say. The design is in electronic form, they said, making it easy to copy — and they have no idea how many copies of it are now in circulation.
Investigators said the evidence that the Khan network was trafficking in a tested, compact and efficient bomb design was particularly alarming, because if a country or group obtained the bomb design, the technological information would significantly shorten the time needed to build a weapon. Among the missiles that could carry the smaller weapon, according to some weapons experts, is the Iranian Shahab III, which is based on a North Korean design.
However, in recent days top American intelligence officials, who declined to speak about the discovery on the record because the information is classified, said that they had been unable to determine whether Iran or other countries had obtained the weapons design.
Pakistan has refused to allow American investigators to directly interview Dr. Khan, who is considered a hero there as the father of its nuclear program.
In recent weeks the only communications about him between the United States and Pakistan’s new government have been warnings from Washington not to allow him to be released.
The existence of the compact bomb design began to become public in recent weeks after Switzerland announced that it had destroyed a huge stockpile of documents, including a weapons design, that were found in the computers of a family in Switzerland, the Tinners, who over the years played critical roles in Khan’s operation.
One of the designs would end up on rapidshare to be downloaded. 
What a load of crap. They know all the information about Dr AK as they had against Osama and famous speech about WMD in UN. Look at now even Karazi is barking!!!!!!!
Another round of anti-pakistan and anti- A.Q.Khan propaganda. They the American media , this zion controlled Liars, periodically refresh anti-muslim aanti-Pakistan hysteria. They have made it clear they are siding with the zionists against muslim countries and continue to brainwash their masses accordingly. This is without doubt a clash of civilisations , the christian world taken on a clash with the muslim world by the ruling zion bankers and industrilaists.
Is it going to be too late before Pakistan government realises this? WE MUST CHANGE OUR DIRECTION, before USA and Indian flags fly over Islamabad.
Is it going to be too late before Pakistan government realises this? WE MUST CHANGE OUR DIRECTION, before USA and Indian flags fly over Islamabad.
Another round of anti-pakistan and anti- A.Q.Khan propaganda. They the American media , this zion controlled Liars, periodically refresh anti-muslim aanti-Pakistan hysteria. They have made it clear they are siding with the zionists against muslim countries and continue to brainwash their masses accordingly. This is without doubt a clash of civilisations , the christian world taken on a clash with the muslim world by the ruling zion bankers and industrilaists.
Is it going to be too late before Pakistan government realises this? WE MUST CHANGE OUR DIRECTION, before USA and Indian flags fly over Islamabad.
Is it going to be too late before Pakistan government realises this? WE MUST CHANGE OUR DIRECTION, before USA and Indian flags fly over Islamabad.
Totally agree with you Raja....
Pakistani May Have Delivered Advanced Nuclear Designs
By JAY SOLOMON
June 16, 2008; Page A8
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and Western governments are voicing renewed fears that advanced nuclear-weapon designs may have been provided to Iran and North Korea through the smuggling network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
These fears have been stoked by evidence obtained by Swiss authorities who are prosecuting three European members of Mr. Khan's network in Bern, Western diplomats said.
Swiss President Pascal Couchepin announced last month that his government had destroyed computer files and other data seized from these men because they posed a national-security risk. The Swiss leader noted that the files contained "detailed construction plans for nuclear weapons, for ultracentrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium as well as for guided missile-delivery systems."
In 2003, the U.S. and allied governments broke up Mr. Khan's smuggling network, which had delivered centrifuge equipment for uranium-enrichment work to Tehran and Pyongyang and Chinese-based nuclear-weapons designs to Libya.
As a result of the intervention, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi agreed to dismantle his nuclear program and share intelligence with the U.S., United Kingdom and International Atomic Energy Agency.
Western diplomats said the documents destroyed recently by the Swiss detailed more-advanced nuclear-weapons designs obtained by the Khan network than those found in Libya. Such designs could be used to develop compact nuclear warheads that could be affixed to North Korean and Iranian long-range missile systems.
The fact that the designs were contained on computer files also means they could be shared more easily with potential buyers, whether from governments or terrorist networks, these officials said.
U.S. counterproliferation officials said the intelligence highlighted why additional efforts needed to be made to interview Mr. Khan in Islamabad to get a greater understanding of his network's activities. Mr. Khan is under house arrest, but Pakistan's newly elected civilian government has suggested that the scientist could be released.
"We don't know for certain if Khan gave the designs to Iran or North Korea," said a U.S. counterproliferation official who worked extensively on the Libya case. "But why would you give them to the Libyans and not the North Koreans?"
The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank focused on proliferation threats, is expected to release a report this week detailing the Khan syndicate's possession of the advanced nuclear-weapons designs. The Washington Post and New York Times reported Sunday on the concerns raised by the Swiss intelligence.
Iran's possible possession of the Khan network's weapons designs particularly worries U.S. and Western counterproliferation experts. A U.S. intelligence study released in November found that in 2003 Tehran ceased developing a nuclear-weapon capability, even as it accelerated its attempts to master the nuclear fuel cycle.
But counterproliferation experts in Washington and Europe have voiced skepticism about the U.S. intelligence community's report and note that developing nuclear weapons is relatively easy once the fuel cycle has been developed.
International efforts to pressure Iran to halt its nuclear program, meanwhile, have gained little momentum in recent months. Last week, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, offered Tehran new economic incentives in exchange for its freezing its uranium-enrichment work.
Tehran gave few signs over the weekend that it would agree to the offer, which included assistance in developing a civilian nuclear program.
"If the package includes suspension it is not debatable at all," government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told reporters Saturday in Tehran.
U.S. diplomats said Iran's rejection of the deal would force Washington to develop a new round of sanctions against Tehran, both unilaterally and through the United Nations. Among the measures being discussed, according to Western diplomats, is a clampdown on the shipments of oil and other refined petroleum projects into Iran, as well as a greater sanctioning of Iran's financial sector.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
War on terror se kitna fiada horaha hai hamein?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1213587503...=googlenews_wsj
Do these guys have access to Pakistani warhead design that they know that these blueprints are of the same design?
Good on you Bilal, spot on.
Over the last years I have seen a pattern of lies which a few select news sources seem to throw up at the same time and at critical periods and to the advantage of the neo-con agenda.
the news sources I am talking about include The New York times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Age (Australia), BBC etc.
Quite a coordinated effort.
the news sources I am talking about include The New York times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Age (Australia), BBC etc.
Quite a coordinated effort.
AQ Khan must be questioned over nuclear blueprints: ex-UN inspector
* David Albright suspects Khan of spreading nuclear plans
* Says Khan must be questioned thoroughly by US and IAEA
WASHINGTON: United States and the United Nation’s (UN) atomic watchdog must be allowed to question Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to learn if he sold blueprints to Iran or North Korea, Former UN Arms Inspector David Albright said on Monday.
David Albright now suspects Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, who was placed under house arrest for overseeing a network that sold nuclear weapons’ secrets and equipment, for spreading the plans for an advanced nuclear warhead in a new report. After details of the report appeared in US newspapers, Albright said that there was a danger that Khan might be released without answering questions about the sensitive blueprints, which show how to build a warhead compact enough to fit on a ballistic missile.
“Khan may be released from house arrest, and we may never get to the bottom of this,” Albright told CNN television. “So I think it’s very important that we start to put pressure on the governments involved to find a way to get to the bottom of it. “It was “imperative” that Khan’s associates cooperate with investigators and
Questioning: “Khan needs to be interviewed by the United States, by the International Atomic Agency,” he said.
The United States and European allies have never been permitted to question Khan directly. In February 2004, Khan said in a televised confession that he had run a ring that passed atomic secrets and smuggled equipment and technological advice to Iran, North Korea and Libya over a period of 15 years.
But according to Albright, the blueprints dating to 2006 are far more troubling, because they offered instructions for building a coveted compact device.
Such information would be extremely valuable for countries with nuclear ambitions such as Iran or North Korea, providing a shortcut to making smaller atomic weapons, Albright said.
After years of work, Pakistan learned to make the nuclear weapons smaller and lighter. And so for many countries like Iran, North Korea, that’s really the challenge.
“It’s not hard to make a nuclear weapon per se if you have the nuclear explosive material but it can be a challenge to make it small enough to fit on the ballistic missiles they have. This is that type,” he said.
Albright said files found on computers by Swiss authorities prosecuting three members of Khan’s network contained information about the compact nuclear warheads. “It looks like Khan did steal them (blueprints) and try to peddle them.”
Last month, the Swiss government reportedly announced that computer files and other data seized from three men contained detailed plans for building nuclear weapons and that the files were destroyed because they posed a risk to national security and could fall into the wrong hands. afp
* David Albright suspects Khan of spreading nuclear plans
* Says Khan must be questioned thoroughly by US and IAEA
WASHINGTON: United States and the United Nation’s (UN) atomic watchdog must be allowed to question Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to learn if he sold blueprints to Iran or North Korea, Former UN Arms Inspector David Albright said on Monday.
David Albright now suspects Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, who was placed under house arrest for overseeing a network that sold nuclear weapons’ secrets and equipment, for spreading the plans for an advanced nuclear warhead in a new report. After details of the report appeared in US newspapers, Albright said that there was a danger that Khan might be released without answering questions about the sensitive blueprints, which show how to build a warhead compact enough to fit on a ballistic missile.
“Khan may be released from house arrest, and we may never get to the bottom of this,” Albright told CNN television. “So I think it’s very important that we start to put pressure on the governments involved to find a way to get to the bottom of it. “It was “imperative” that Khan’s associates cooperate with investigators and
Questioning: “Khan needs to be interviewed by the United States, by the International Atomic Agency,” he said.
The United States and European allies have never been permitted to question Khan directly. In February 2004, Khan said in a televised confession that he had run a ring that passed atomic secrets and smuggled equipment and technological advice to Iran, North Korea and Libya over a period of 15 years.
But according to Albright, the blueprints dating to 2006 are far more troubling, because they offered instructions for building a coveted compact device.
Such information would be extremely valuable for countries with nuclear ambitions such as Iran or North Korea, providing a shortcut to making smaller atomic weapons, Albright said.
After years of work, Pakistan learned to make the nuclear weapons smaller and lighter. And so for many countries like Iran, North Korea, that’s really the challenge.
“It’s not hard to make a nuclear weapon per se if you have the nuclear explosive material but it can be a challenge to make it small enough to fit on the ballistic missiles they have. This is that type,” he said.
Albright said files found on computers by Swiss authorities prosecuting three members of Khan’s network contained information about the compact nuclear warheads. “It looks like Khan did steal them (blueprints) and try to peddle them.”
Last month, the Swiss government reportedly announced that computer files and other data seized from three men contained detailed plans for building nuclear weapons and that the files were destroyed because they posed a risk to national security and could fall into the wrong hands. afp
Making the case to invade FATA.
Link
Libya had contact with Dr Khan earlier than thought: IAEA
Saturday, September 13, 2008
VIENNA: Libya, which abandoned a clandestine nuclear weapons programme in 2003, was in contact with the black market network of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan much earlier than first thought, a new report by the UN atomic watchdog revealed on Friday.
According to a restricted report by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, Libya's contacts with Dr Khan date back to 1984, more than 10 years earlier than previously assumed. The report, which was circulated to the IAEA's board of governors on Friday, said that Libyan officials met with Khan in January 1984.
"During this meeting, Dr Khan described to a senior Libyan official the technologies for acquiring nuclear material, and the necessary resources and capabilities, and offered to sell Libya centrifuge enrichment technology," the report said.
Uranium gas centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, which can be used to make the fissile material for an atomic bomb. However, "according to Libya, the Libyan official felt that the scientific and industrial requirements were too demanding for Libya in terms of resources and technological capabilities at that time, and a decision was made not to pursue the offer," it said.
Further "senior level contacts" took place between Libya and Khan between 1989 and 1991, in which Libya acquired information on first-generation centrifuges. "According to Libya, however, the Libyan authorities felt that the value of the information provided by Khan was not commensurate with what Libya had paid for it. No complete centrifuges were delivered to Libya as part of this deal."
It was only in 1995 that Libya re-established contact with Khan and his network to acquire more efficient second-generation centrifuges, the report said. In December 2003, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi stunned the world by renouncing Tripoli's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. Libya's subsequent cooperation with IAEA inspectors has helped unravel Khan's network.
In its report on Friday, the IAEA said that Khan's network possessed "a substantial amount of sensitive information related to the fabrication of a nuclear weapon." Much of this sensitive information existed in electronic form, the agency said, a fact which the IAEA found "disturbing" because it would make the information easier to disseminate and to hide.
Libya insists it has never carried out any work on the study or development of an actual nuclear weapon. And in its report, the IAEA confirmed that it had indeed found no evidence of such work.
A result, ElBaradei concluded there were no outstanding issues in the IAEA's investigation of Tripoli's weapons programme and praised Libya's cooperation in the inspectors' probe. For the past five years, the IAEA has similarly been investigating Iran's nuclear programme, which western countries fear is being used as a guise to develop an atomic bomb. Unlike Libya's case, agency officials have often complained about Iran's lack of openness and perceived foot-dragging in investigations.
Libya had contact with Dr Khan earlier than thought: IAEA
Saturday, September 13, 2008
VIENNA: Libya, which abandoned a clandestine nuclear weapons programme in 2003, was in contact with the black market network of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan much earlier than first thought, a new report by the UN atomic watchdog revealed on Friday.
According to a restricted report by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, Libya's contacts with Dr Khan date back to 1984, more than 10 years earlier than previously assumed. The report, which was circulated to the IAEA's board of governors on Friday, said that Libyan officials met with Khan in January 1984.
"During this meeting, Dr Khan described to a senior Libyan official the technologies for acquiring nuclear material, and the necessary resources and capabilities, and offered to sell Libya centrifuge enrichment technology," the report said.
Uranium gas centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, which can be used to make the fissile material for an atomic bomb. However, "according to Libya, the Libyan official felt that the scientific and industrial requirements were too demanding for Libya in terms of resources and technological capabilities at that time, and a decision was made not to pursue the offer," it said.
Further "senior level contacts" took place between Libya and Khan between 1989 and 1991, in which Libya acquired information on first-generation centrifuges. "According to Libya, however, the Libyan authorities felt that the value of the information provided by Khan was not commensurate with what Libya had paid for it. No complete centrifuges were delivered to Libya as part of this deal."
It was only in 1995 that Libya re-established contact with Khan and his network to acquire more efficient second-generation centrifuges, the report said. In December 2003, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi stunned the world by renouncing Tripoli's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. Libya's subsequent cooperation with IAEA inspectors has helped unravel Khan's network.
In its report on Friday, the IAEA said that Khan's network possessed "a substantial amount of sensitive information related to the fabrication of a nuclear weapon." Much of this sensitive information existed in electronic form, the agency said, a fact which the IAEA found "disturbing" because it would make the information easier to disseminate and to hide.
Libya insists it has never carried out any work on the study or development of an actual nuclear weapon. And in its report, the IAEA confirmed that it had indeed found no evidence of such work.
A result, ElBaradei concluded there were no outstanding issues in the IAEA's investigation of Tripoli's weapons programme and praised Libya's cooperation in the inspectors' probe. For the past five years, the IAEA has similarly been investigating Iran's nuclear programme, which western countries fear is being used as a guise to develop an atomic bomb. Unlike Libya's case, agency officials have often complained about Iran's lack of openness and perceived foot-dragging in investigations.
Link
Nothing new in IAEA’s report: FO
Saturday, September 13, 2008
ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq on Friday commenting on the IAEA report said there is nothing new in the report.
"It essentially summarises the results of the IAEA verification activities in Libya and provides an overview of Libya's past nuclear programme," he said in a statement. Referring to the provision of nuclear equipment and related design, he said it does not reveal any new information.
"They simply refer to transfers which took place in the past and the conclusions drawn by the agency as a result of its follow up verification activities." He said Pakistan has already extended cooperation to the IAEA in this regard and "it is incorrect to project this report as fresh or current information."
Nothing new in IAEA’s report: FO
Saturday, September 13, 2008
ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq on Friday commenting on the IAEA report said there is nothing new in the report.
"It essentially summarises the results of the IAEA verification activities in Libya and provides an overview of Libya's past nuclear programme," he said in a statement. Referring to the provision of nuclear equipment and related design, he said it does not reveal any new information.
"They simply refer to transfers which took place in the past and the conclusions drawn by the agency as a result of its follow up verification activities." He said Pakistan has already extended cooperation to the IAEA in this regard and "it is incorrect to project this report as fresh or current information."
They are stirring a close issue enabling them to get hold of Dr. AQ Khan for blackmailing us later on.
We should resists their thurst at all costs.
We should resists their thurst at all costs.
the same BS,ghuma phira k
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