Posted on 02/20/2004 10:16:16 AM PST by HAL9000
VIENNA, Austria, Feb 20, 2004 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Using technology and know-how acquired through the black market, Libya was able to process uranium into plutonium, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Friday.Diplomats citing a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency said the country was able to "separate a small amount of plutonium." The report did not specify the amount, but it appeared to be less than the approximately three kilograms (nearly seven pounds) required to make a nuclear bomb.
The report was prepared by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei ahead of a board of governors' meeting of the agency next month. A separate report on Iran is due in the next few days.
Revelations in the confidential report that Libya was able to process plutonium, which is used in nuclear warheads, shed new light on how far the country was able to progress in its secret weapons program.
Libya announced in December it had engaged in researching programs of mass destruction and promised to scrap them. While U.S. and British intelligence had spoken of a fairly advanced program, the IAEA initially described Libya's nuclear activities as at the beginning stage.
The report also said Libya "imported nuclear material and conducted a wide variety of nuclear activities which it had failed to report," to the agency as required by agreements it had signed with the IAEA, according to the diplomats who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Much of the activity focused on enriching uranium, the report said. That - along with producing plutonium - is one way to develop the nuclear material used in warheads.
Between the early 1980s until the end of 2003, "Libya imported nuclear material and conducted a wide variety of (clandestine) nuclear activities," said the report.
Libya "failed to declare imports of UF 6" in 1985, 2000 and 2001, the report said. UF6 is a uranium compound used in the enrichment process.
A Sri Lankan businessman, Buhary Abu Syed Tahir, who is implicated in the nuclear black market, has said that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qaheer Khan, the head of the illicit network supplying rogue nations with nuclear technology, had told him of shipments to Libya of UF6.
After coming out in the open in December, Libya also surrendered drawings of a nuclear warhead to U.S. and British experts. The blueprints and accompanying documents are now in the United States under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Diplomats recently told the AP that the drawing detailed how to build a warhead for a large ballistic missile, using technology developed by the Chinese in the 1960s that triggers a nuclear blast by a small conventional explosion.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved
How can it "appear" to be anything when the report doesn't specify. I could just as easily say they appeared to convert 50 pounds of material, and be on the same footing.
Idiot reporters...
but we did find them in Libya, Iran and Dr. Khan says he sold it to N. Korea; the color of Sadaam's money must have been no good to the highly ethical Dr. Khan. /sarcasm off
Libya secretly made bomb-grade plutonium
THIS is why we couldn't take any chances with Iraq.
First of all, if Libya was making them, can anyone realistically believe that Iraq wasn't, and second of all, when it comes to WND we can't take the chance. As Condi Rice and Bush said, the final confirmation could be a mushroom cloud over a US city.
Any responsible person -- especially a President who has responsibility for the country and the American people, has to err on the side of caution. Suppose Bush didn't take over Iraq, and Saddam had unleashed some WMD on us? The Dems would be the ones demanding his immediate resignation and trial by a tribunal for neglecting his duty to protect us.
"The key thing here is the know-how, not the amount," said one Western diplomat who follows the agency's work.
This is very serious," David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said of the report.
"Whether they'd have finished (building a weapon) in a year or five years, they'd have finished. Thank God Libya decided to give that up," he told Reuters.
Libya secretly made bomb-grade plutonium
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I guess the statement "The key thing here is the know-how, not the amount," can be applied to Libya, but not Iraq. For Iraq, it would only count, if we had found tons and tons of it. The point is that the above statement is right. WIth WMD, once they know how to do it, have the equipment, they can produce large amounts very quickly and even small amounts can be very deadly.
Loose Nukes. Interview with DR. FRANK VON HIPPEL
Would you consider two coffee cans of plutonium as "small amount". It could be considered that -- but not in terms of the possible effect.
It's probably hard to make a lot of plutonium on the sly. You take "depleted" uranium 238 and bombard it with neutrons in a breeder reactor. Some of the U238 absorbs a neutron and begins a decay process that takes a couple of days to get to plutonium. Then I believe you still have to refine the plutonium out of the unreacted uranium and other decay products.
Then you have to know how to make a bomb out of it. (This part has probably got around widely by now.) This is what we used to do at the Hanford, WA plant starting back in WWII. We did it secretly, but no one knew to watch for signs of A-bomb making then anyway.
I didn't think you could store the stuff all together like that and not have it go critical on you.
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