The rapidly expanding probe into a Pakistani-led nuclear trafficking network extended to at least seven nations Saturday as investigators said they had traced businesses from Africa, Asia and Europe to the smuggling ring controlled by Pakistani mad scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Three days after Khan confessed on television to selling his country’s nuclear secrets, Western diplomats and intelligence officials said they were just beginning to understand the scale of the network, a global enterprise that supplied nuclear technology and parts to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly others. "Dr. Khan was not working alone. Dr. Khan was part of a process," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. agency that is conducting the probe along with U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies.
| And that somehow overlooked the international nuclear black market for all these years. Perhaps an investigation is in order? |
"There were items that were manufactured in other countries. There were items that were assembled in a different country."
| That must be how they missed it, no matter how diligently they searched. Oh, how they searched! They searched high, they searched low. They looked under beds and in closets... |
Meanwhile, Pakistani officials disclosed that they had launched their own probe of Khan’s activities in October after the Bush administration presented what one senior official described as "mind-boggling" evidence that Khan was peddling nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and had attempted to do the same with Iraq and Syria.
| Syria didn't need it because they'd get it from Iran. Iraq didn't need it because they had their own program. |
The evidence included detailed records of Khan’s travels to Libya, Iran, North Korea and other nations, along with intercepted phone conversations, financial documents and accounts of meetings with foreign businessmen involved in illicit nuclear sales. Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was personally briefed on the evidence on Oct. 6 by a U.S. delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, made a similar presentation to Pakistani political and military leaders, the officials said. "This was the most important development for us since 9/11," one of the Pakistani officials said. "One more time, the ball was in the court of General Pervez Musharraf."
| And the ball was on fire. In his lap. |
U.S. and U.N. investigators say Khan’s nuclear trading network represents one of the most egregious cases of nuclear proliferation ever discovered. Using suppliers and middlemen scattered across three continents, the network delivered a variety of machines and technology for enriching uranium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. In the case of Libya, at least, it provided blueprints for the bombs themselves. Khan’s network provided "one-stop shopping" for nuclear technology and parts, said a senior U.S. official, who described how supply met demand in what amounted to a centralized ordering system. "If I want to buy an IBM computer, I don’t have to go to every single element of IBM," the official said, by way of analogy. "I can go to their salesman, and he fixes me up just fine."
| Likewise, you want to buy a bomb that can kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, you go to a Pak mad scientist... |
Diplomats familiar with the Pakistan operation say Khan and his closest associates were the "salesmen" who filled orders for Libya and other customers. In the case of Libya, representatives of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi contacted the Pakistanis, who relayed the requests to middlemen. The middlemen, in turn, found suppliers to produce the necessary components. Finished parts were then shipped to a firm in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, which arranged for delivery to Libya. The interception of a significant shipment of components in Italy last fall led to Gaddafi’s decision to eliminate his nonconventional weapons programs. Companies or individuals in at least seven countries, including Pakistan, were involved. Among the countries known to be involved are Malaysia, South Africa, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Germany. A company in another European country was also involved, two diplomats said.
| That doesn't guarantee guilt on the part of all the companies. Most probably only saw a part of the picture, with the whole thing being managed by the Khan group... |
The commodities produced for Libya ranged from electronics and vacuum systems to high-strength metals used in manufacturing gas centrifuges, which are used in making enriched uranium. "It was a remarkable network that was able in the end to provide a turn-key gas centrifuge facility and the wherewithal to make more centrifuges," said former IAEA inspector David Albright, a physicist who has studied the nuclear procurement networks of Iran and Libya. "The technology holder was always Khan. Suppliers came and went, but Khan was always there."
Libya and Iran have already given investigators the names of many of the companies and middlemen involved, and are continuing to offer more, according to Western diplomats familiar with the investigation. Two German businessmen identified by Libya as alleged suppliers of centrifuge technology -- Otto Heilingbrunner and Gotthard Lerch -- have been interviewed by IAEA investigators but not charged with any crimes, according to two officials close to the investigation. A third German named by Libya, Heinz Mebus, is now deceased. All were formerly employed by companies that manufacture equipment used in gas centrifuges. Heilingbrunner, reached by phone at his home in southern Germany, said he tried to sell aircraft parts to Iran in the 1980s, but said he never sold nuclear technology to anyone. "I never did business with this junk," said Heilingbrunner. "I do not know how they came up with me."
"Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!"
"Hokay." |
A senior Bush administration official said the Khan connection may have provided everything Libya acquired for its nascent nuclear program, including weapons designs. The designs were later handed to U.S., British and IAEA officials in Tripoli and are now being studied in the United States.
| That was when toilet paper consumption in Pakland spiked. There were shortages, people lined up for miles, just waiting for their ration... |
The disclosure of Armitage’s October visit by Pakistani officials provides new details of a claim made this week in a speech by CIA Director George J. Tenet. Tenet said the intelligence agency had successfully penetrated Khan’s network long before the IAEA went to Pakistan in November with evidence of illicit technology transfers to Iran. Two Pakistani officials said Armitage presented the case against Khan and several other associates during a meeting with Musharraf at his official army residence in the city of Rawalpindi. The Americans asked Pakistan to verify the information independently and to take action against those involved, the officials said. "We were told that Pakistan’s failure to take action will most certainly jeopardize its ties with the United States and other important nations," one of the Pakistani officials said.
| ... wiping the sweat from his face with the end of his turban. |
The U.S. officials warned Pakistan that failure to act on the information could lead to sanctions by the United States and the United Nations. Musharraf was said to be stunned by the detailed evidence against Khan and his associates. "It seemed that the Americans had a tracker planted on Khan’s body," a Pakistani official said. "They know much more than us about Dr. Khan’s wealth spread all over the globe." Among other things, he added, the U.S. officials presented evidence of Khan’s alleged attempts to sell nuclear secrets to Saddam Hussein when he was president of Iraq and reported that Khan had traveled to Beirut for a clandestine meeting with a top Syrian official in the mid-1990s. During the second week in November, an Iranian delegation led by a deputy foreign minister, Gholam Ali Khoshru, arrived in Islamabad, according to a third senior Pakistani official. "They used a very careful formulation," the official recalled of the visit. "They said they had acquired components and designs in ’87 from the black market -- they mentioned Dubai -- and said two of the individuals involved were of South Asian origin, though not from the same country. They hinted they were under scrutiny from the IAEA and would have to make these declarations" about who had supplied the technology. Shortly afterward, the IAEA delivered its findings on Iran in a two-page letter, and Pakistan’s investigation began in earnest. Musharraf ordered the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and Strategic Planning and Development Cell to check out the evidence that had been provided by the United States and the U.N. agency, the officials said. ISI officials traveled to Malaysia, Dubai, Iran and Libya and "found that evidence against Dr. Khan was accurate," one of the officials said. |