Smugglers Had Design For Advanced Warhead(AQ Khan; miniaturized nuke for N. Korea?)

WP ^ | 06/15/08 | Joby Warrick

[TigerLikesRooster]

Smugglers Had Design For Advanced Warhead

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, June 15, 2008; A01

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized -- were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were shared with others before their discovery, said the report's author, David Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years researching the smuggling network

[TigerLikesRooster]

Hmm.. N. Korea may be further ahead than many thought. Don't need years and years of research when you have a blueprint itself. The size of data, 1000 GB, suggests that they are quite detailed.

Is it really possible that NK's nuclear test in Oct. 2006 set off a miniature nuclear device?

It has a rather disturbing implication.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Think of the implications for Obama. His minister Rev. Wright, and Farrakhan, and some of Jesse Jacksons’ people, went to Libya in the 80’s to support its dictator Muammar Khaddafi. Obamie friends, all.

Looks like Khaddafi was lying all along about having peaceful intentions in the Middle East.

That makes Wright and company look like fools at the least, and cheerleaders for Khaddafi at the most, or even more.

That is the kind of guy Obama followed for years. We should be worried, big time.

[TheThinker]

Iran and North Korea with detailed plans for nuclear warheads? Why am I not surprised? Leftists are trying to kill us all while simultaneously demeaning and baiting those that care about American security. Just amazing.

[endthematrix]

There's also an allegation in a book claiming that the shredded info may have implicated the US government. I don't it.

[endthematrix]

I don’t DOUBT it.

[Pontiac]

The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized -- were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The design could easily be still sitting on rented space in an encrypted file on a server somewhere in cyberspace.

[Seeing More Clearly Now]

That is the kind of guy Obama followed for years. We should be worried, big time.

Obama is a Trojan Horse who has been prepped by handlers to seem so appealing that he’ll be brought into the White House.

[endthematrix]

I'll have to dig and post. The Swiss family network had business manufacturing centrifuges in Malaysia. Think the network on that end was shut down?

[nw_arizona_granny]

Thank you for posting this, not that it is a surprise, nothing surprises me anymore.

[wastoute]

Couldn’t be the W-99 plans Clinton gave the CHinese, could it?

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Think of the implications for Obama.

The only implications for Obama that worry me are the ones Hillary Clinton could work into the convention. If all goes well he simply returns to the Senate, and we have a few race riots next year.

But the compact nuke, that has implications. After the first time one is used (and it will be), everybody's going to want one.

[freeangel]

“that makes wright and company look like fools at the least, and cheerleaders for khaddafi...”

What do you mean, “looks like”? Wright and company ARE cheerleaders for everything anti-American and everything Marxist.

[Perdogg]

They are. I made the point before that it is possible that Pakistan tested a nuclear device for North Korea in 1998. If NK has this knowledge, the Iranians are sure to have it.

[theBuckwheat]

There is a big difference between having the blueprint for the physics package and having a physics package you can expect to work. Since would especially be true in a technology transfer situation where one party has only tested once or twice and the receiving party is building their first device.

All this implies a high degree of unreliability for the first use of any device built by those receiving the blueprints. An unsuccessful triggering will result in a “dirty bomb” that contaminates a relatively small area with the particulate residue of the physics package.

One can speculate that terrorists would detonate a real dirty bomb, that is a conventional explosive device that was intended to spread radioactive material. In such a device the conventional explosive will be a big as they can manage.

If we observe a “dirty bomb” but the explosion is curiously small, we may have really observed a failed attempt to trigger a nuclear device.

[LS]

I want to throw something out that I know Freepers won't like.

In the 1980s, the Reagan admin had a terrific plan to seep certain, critical technology to the Russkies . . . but it was secretly "wired" to fail at key points. It would be designed to pass all tests, then fail in operation due to a virus that was installed. One of the key uses of this was the Trans-Siberian Pipeline computing codes that the Russians "stole" which failed one year after installation and caused "the largest non-nuclear explosion ever detected from space."

Now, what if---as we all know---Clinton allowed Loral to give the Chinese a lot of stuff, but what if a lot of that deliberately contained those kinds of codes?

I know no one here likes to think anything good of Bubba, but think about this . . . the Chinese gave those to the NKs for them to test. Two years ago, the NK tests didn't come off so well. Actually, they failed. Hmmmmmmm.

[avacado]

"An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea..."

Why do I have the feeling that A.Q. Khan's black market for nuclear weapons technology also included Iraq but for some odd reason it isn't mentioned?

This is pure speculation on my part, but I sense that Saddam would have been in on this action. Saddam certainly had the cash via the oil-for-food scam.

[RightWhale]

We’re scared of this but not as scared as we are of beans.

[avacado]

Clinton did something like that in 'Operation Merlin.' He gave Iran blueprints for nuclear weapons that had design flaws. The Iranians figured out the flaws, and now have perfectly valid and very useful blueprints for nuclear weapons, compliments of Bubba, aka Slick Willy!

Operation Merlin

[Popman]

Clinton allowed Loral to give the Chinese a lot of stuff, but what if a lot of that deliberately contained those kinds of codes?

That may be true, but the fact remains the Clinton's did it for cold hard cash were as Reagan did for National security reasons