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| Afghanistan/South Asia | |||
| Khan Claimed Nuke Equipment Was Old. | |||
| 2004-02-10 | |||
| L.A. Times, registration required. Edited for new stuff: An official involved in the investigation of Abdul Qadeer Khan said Monday that the Pakistani nuclear scientist has claimed that the equipment he sold to Iran and North Korea to enrich uranium was outdated.
Wonder who else "assisted" them? According to Pakistani officials involved in the investigation, Khan said in his signed confession that he supplied old and discarded centrifuges and other uranium-enrichment equipment to North Korea and Iran. By way of Malaysia, where they were "refurbished". One official, who spoke on condition that he not be named, identified the equipment as P-I and P-II centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium to fuel nuclear reactors and warheads. The P-I is thought to have been made using blueprints Khan is suspected of stealing while he was working at a uranium-enrichment plant in the Netherlands in the 1970s. The official said Khan had transferred P-I and P-II machines to North Korea along with drawings, sketches, technical data and depleted uranium hexafluoride gas — the feedstock for gas centrifuges and a crucial, difficult-to-obtain element. Was the gas outdated as well? Khan said he supplied equipment such as old P-I machines with drawings to Iran under pressure from the late Gen. Imtiaz when the general was defense advisor to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from December 1988 to August 1990. Since Imtiaz is dead, he can’t deny the charge. Khan also said he met Iranian scientists in the Pakistani city of Karachi at the request of another close Bhutto aide, identified as Dr. Niazi. He had meetings with Libyans in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1990, the officials said. And now we have the "Blame Bhutto" meme. Bhutto, who lives in exile in London and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said in an e-mail interview last week that she never had direct knowledge that Pakistanis were involved in nuclear proliferation while she was in power. Now she believes the military is trying to hide its complicity. One official said the nuclear leaks started in the late 1980s. There was a lack of strict command and control over Pakistan’s nuclear program for 20 years, the official said, until after Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup. You can see where Musharraf is going with this, it all started under somebody elses watch. The contention that Pakistan’s military and intelligence services were unaware of Khan’s activities contradicts assurances that Musharraf and senior Pakistani military leaders gave to U.S. officials. "Musharraf and people before him constantly assured us that this was something that the military had a firm grip on," a former U.S. intelligence official said Monday in a phone interview from Washington. Oh, I’m sure they did know exactly what was going on. Although relatives of the detained scientists have insisted that military intelligence officers strictly monitored employees of the laboratory and their families, the official interviewed Monday said it was "a one-man show" under an officer he identified only as Brig. Tajwar. The military’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency — which is widely believed to be present in virtually every corner of Pakistani society — was shut out of Khan’s nuclear facility. Sure they were. Khan’s direct shipments of bomb-making equipment went through a black market network with the assistance of two Sri Lankans, identified as Tahir and Farooq.
The hotels are better. North Korea — which has denied having a uranium-enrichment program — placed orders for P-I centrifuge components from 1997 to 1999, and Khan and his associates provided direct technical assistance to that country from 1998 to 2000, said an official involved in the probe. Paid for by helping with Pakistans missile program. Izaz Jaffery, the owner of an Islamabad nightclub called Hot Shot, has been arrested on suspicion of being an emissary between Khan and Iran, the source said. Izaz is now very expendable. | |||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #4 I imagine the equipment used to extract the Uranium used on the bomb we dropped on Japan (I forget which) is also obsolete by now... |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-2-10 3:46:22 PM |
| #3 This will really piss the Mullahs off. I noticed the other day that my three blade razor didn't cut as well as my two-blade. I'll pass on the four-blade for the time being. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-10 12:17:13 PM |
| #2 The question is, would it do what the buyers wanted it to do? Nothing like planting the seeds of doubt and seeing what grows. |
| Posted by: john 2004-2-10 12:01:58 PM |
| #1 An official involved in the investigation of Abdul Qadeer Khan said Monday that the Pakistani nuclear scientist has claimed that the equipment he sold to Iran and North Korea to enrich uranium was outdated. It doesn't matter whether the machinery was outdated. The question is, would it do what the buyers wanted it to do? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-2-10 11:47:21 AM |