- Electronic drawings that give comprehensive details of
how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have
vanished and could be put up for sale on the international black market,
according to UN investigators.
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- The blueprints, running to hundreds of pages, show how
to make centrifuges for enriching uranium. In addition, the investigators
have been unable to trace key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and
fear that drawings for a nuclear warhead have been secreted away and could
be for sale.
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- Inspectors at the UN's nuclear authority, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, have been investigating the worst nuclear smuggling
racket ever uncovered, headed by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The operation was discovered two years ago to be selling sensitive nuclear
technology to Libya and Iran.
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- 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.
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- "We know there were several sets of them prepared,"
said the official. "So who got those electronic drawings? We have
only actually got to the one full set from Libya. So who got the rest,
the copies?
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- "We have no evidence they were destroyed. One possibility
is another client. We just don't know where they are."
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- 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 deeply disturbing."
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- The 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 centrifuges are the main route to producing
bomb-grade uranium. Uranium concentrate is converted into uranium hexafluoride
gas which can be spun through cascades of centrifuges at super-high speeds
to be enriched to weapons grade.
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- "The big question is who else got this stuff [apart
from Iran and Libya]," the European diplomat said.
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- 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.
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- Khan is a national hero for creating the Pakistani nuclear
bomb but is under house arrest in Islamabad since confessing to heading
the network and being pardoned in February last year.
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- Although the network's operations extended to Europe,
Africa, the Middle East, and the far east, its headquarters were in Dubai.
Khan maintained a luxury apartment in Dubai.
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- Following the uncovering of the network in October 2003,
investigators went to the Dubai apartment only to find that it had been
emptied, apparently by Khan's daughter Dina.
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- The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, confessed
to his secret nuclear bomb programme and gave it up in December 2003. Three
months later in Tripoli, the UN inspectors were given two CD-roms and one
computer hard drive. One CD contained aset of drawings and manuals for
the P-1 centrifuge system, the other for the more advanced P-2.
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- The instructions are 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 knowhow
from his time working there in the 1970s. The CDs and hard drive are at
IAEA headquarters in Vienna, where they have been analysed. The investigators
now know that the scanning of the original blueprints was done in Dubai
and when.
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- 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, say sources, but
were adequate to construct a crude nuclear device.
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- Investigators suspect that the warhead design was also
copied into electronic form and is still available to prospective clients.
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- "There is reason to believe that there might even
be some drawings related to nuclear weaponisation in electronic form,"
said the senior official.
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- It is now also clear that multiple components secretly
made for Libya's $100m (£54.6m) centrifuge programme did not reach
Libya and have gone missing.
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- From their investigations of the nuclear programmes in
Libya and Iran, the IAEA has concluded that pieces of the nuclear jigsaw
have not been located.
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- "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.
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- 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 familiar with
the investigation.
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- 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.
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1502378,00.html
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