Blueprints for nuclear warheads found on smugglers' computers
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Blueprints for nuclear warheads found on smugglers' computers*
· Ex-weapons inspector fears rogue states bought plan
· Encrypted files linked to Pakistan's A Q Khan
* Ian Traynor, Europe editor
* The Guardian,
* Monday June 16 2008
Blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear warhead have been
found in the computers of the world's most notorious nuclear-smuggling
racket, according to a leading US researcher.
The digital designs, found in heavily encrypted computer files in
Switzerland, are believed to be in the possession of the US authorities
and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, but
investigators fear they could have been extensively copied and sold to
"rogue" states via the nuclear black market.
David Albright, a physicist, former UN weapons inspector and authority
on the nuclear smuggling ring run by the Pakistani metallurgist Abdul
Qadeer Khan, said the "construction plans" included previously
undisclosed designs for a compact warhead that could fit on Iran's
medium-range ballistic missiles.
"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off
to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," wrote Albright.
The Khan network was exposed in 2003, having been found to have supplied
clandestine nuclear projects in Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Albright
has been investigating the network ever since. The racketeers are known
to have provided Libya with an older, cruder, bomb design.
Albright said the network might have supplied Tehran or Pyongyang with
the more advanced and much more useful bomb blueprints that have now
surfaced. "They both faced struggles in building a nuclear warhead small
enough to fit atop their ballistic missiles, and these designs were for
a warhead that would fit," he stated in a report to be published this
week and which was leaked to the Washington Post. "These would have been
ideal for two of Khan's other major customers, Iran and North Korea."
The disclosures about the new weapons design arose from a Swiss
investigation into engineers awaiting trial for alleged involvement in
the Khan network.
The Guardian reported in May that nuclear investigators and experts were
alarmed that extremely sensitive information from the Swiss computers -
including warhead designs and details on making weapons-grade uranium -
were circulating on the nuclear black market.
In recent months the Swiss government has secretly destroyed 30,000
files and documents from the computers of Urs Tinner, a Swiss engineer
said to be heavily involved with the Khan operations and also alleged to
have spied for the CIA. Tinner has been in custody for four years
awaiting trial. His brother Marco is also in custody, while his father,
Friedrich, whose relationship with Khan goes back almost 30 years, has
been arrested and released.
"This was very proliferation-sensitive stuff," said a western diplomat.
The Swiss president, Pascal Couchepin, announcing the destruction of the
files last month, said: "There were detailed construction plans for
nuclear weapons, for gas ultracentrifuges to enrich weapons-grade
uranium as well as for guided missile delivery systems."
Albright found the blueprints included designs for a compact warhead
that could fit on Pyongyang's medium-range Nodong rockets as well as on
the Iranian Shahab-III missile.
Five years ago a boatload of uranium-enrichment equipment destined for
Libya was intercepted by US and British intelligence, and Libya's
leader, Colonel Muammar Qadafy abandoned his illicit nuclear project.
That development led to the exposure of the Khan network: when CIA and
MI6 agents examined the Libyan material they found designs, supplied by
the Khan network, for an older, larger, and simpler nuclear bomb of
Chinese vintage. The designs were put under IAEA seal and taken to the US.
The new designs, running to hundreds of pages, were found in 2006 when
the Swiss managed to break the codes on the Tinner computers. Also that
year, a German court heard testimony claiming Tinner had told
investigators he had nuclear bomb construction plans at his office in
eastern Switzerland. The designs were in digital form and believed to
have been copied on to the network's computers in Dubai, which served as
the hub for the Khan operations.
The testimony surfaced at the trial in Germany of Gotthard Lerch, a
German engineer also alleged to have played a central role in the Khan
network. The trial was quickly halted because of procedural
irregularities, but Lerch was put back on trial last week in Stuttgart
and evidence from the Tinner investigation is likely to be used in the case.
The Swiss told the IAEA and the Americans about their find in 2006.
Officials from the Vienna agency and Washington supervised the recent
destruction of the Swiss files.
But an expert on the nuclear network, Mark Fitzpatrick, of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, said he was certain
copies of the blueprint had been made and that no one knew where they were.
According to Albright, the advanced weapons design is similar to a
Pakistani bomb design. Khan has been under house arrest in Islamabad
since "confessing" in 2004, though there are moves to get him released.
The scientist is seen as a national hero in Pakistan.
In his first interview with the western media last month, Khan told the
Guardian his confession was not genuine; he specifically mentioned the
Swiss case to emphasise how easy it would be for any country to satisfy
its nuclear bomb ambitions.
International interrogation of Khan might clarify the provenance and
whereabouts of the new bomb blueprint, but the Pakistanis have refused
the US and the IAEA investigators access to Khan.