Posted on 06/16/2008 8:42:30 AM PDT by vietvet67
WASHINGTON: Four years after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the leader of the world's largest atomic black market, was put under house arrest and his operation declared over, international inspectors and Western officials are confronting a new mystery left by him, this time over who may have received blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon found on his network's computers.
Working in secret for two years, investigators have tracked the digitized blueprints to Khan computers in Switzerland, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailand. The blueprints are electronic and rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon that is relatively small and easy to hide, making it potentially attractive to terrorists.
The revelation this weekend that the Khan operation even had such a bomb blueprint underscores the questions that remain about what Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist and father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, was selling and to whom. It also raises the possibility that he may still have sensitive material in his possession.
Yet even as inspectors and intelligence officials press their investigation of Khan, officials in Pakistan have declared the scandal over and have discussed the possibility of setting him free. In recent weeks, American officials have privately warned the new government in Pakistan about the dangers of doing so.
"We've been very direct with them that releasing Khan could cause a world of trouble," a senior administration 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
I am not into conspiracy theories but do find it logically hard to believe that Saddam didn’t have his nose somewhere in this nuclear black market too. Certainly he didn’t want to be left out and he certainly he would have been a prime customer for someone selling such material.
Nasty stuff, if some “group” gets their hands on a nuke and lets say they set one off in Las Vegas. Who do we go after? Especially if no one particular group claims responsibility.
Thank god Islam is a religion of peace or I’d be worried. :D
the plans for nuclear weapons has been widely available for decades now.......crip, we had a boy scout design and almost build a nuclear reactor for an eagle scout project....the problem has always been the manufacturing technology and equipment, that is why iran is such a concern right now..this is old, recycled crap news, designed to promote hysteria among the people and cloud them from the real issue, that a confirmed socialist is running for president
This is a case for water boarding. This guy should be in prison..for the sake of humanity. Water board him to tell what he has done.
At some point, maybe after a dozen threads this ceases to be news. There is nothing to this.
Are these plans before OR after klintoon/hitlery?
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the design was a CIA plant, one that self destructs at the moment of completion??
The only problem is, the plans that Khan had acquired were altered, and therefore useless. The plans were known to be a Chinese design, but were probably worthless when Khan got them.
Not knowing any better, the North Koreans followed the design to a tee, and their nuke probably did not even reach critical mass, and ruined all the work (and the Plutonium produced) up to that point. Without a clue as to what went wrong, the NKs were back at square one, with no road map forward. It explains why the NKs were open to giving up their quest for the bomb.
I imagine that there were some high fives in Intelligence circles when the NK nuke failed.
I would not worry about it too much, unless someone “In the know” were to point out the problems.
Unlikely, that.
Why hasn't the CIA put this guy down for a permanent dirt nap?
“Why hasn’t the CIA put this guy down for a permanent dirt nap?”
Or Israel for that matter.
“Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the design was a CIA plant, one that self destructs at the moment of completion??”
Plans drawn up by Mad Magazine.. :-)
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