One-Click Nuclear Shopping - Why 'Anti-Proliferation' is Doomed

That, it seems, is what the nuclear-technology-smuggling ring led by renegade Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan allowed its customers to do, for the right price.

A former top UN nuclear-weapons expert revealed Sunday that laptops captured from the Khan ring contained a step-by-step blueprint for building a modern nuke.

Bottom line: In the digital age, the know-how to become a nuclear power is only a mouse click away for a rogue nation like Iran.

The ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 prompted Libya's Moammar Khadafy to cut a deal with the West, abandoning his own nuclear program.

Libya's disclosures in turn revealed that a clandestine network headed by Khan was selling crucial nuclear technologies to the highest bidder - including Libya, North Korea and Iran.

And in 2005 the International Atomic Energy Agency finally cracked the code to the hard drives of laptops seized from members of the network in Switzerland and Bangkok.

Among the terabytes of data was an electronic blueprint for an advanced nuclear bomb far more sophisticated than the one Khan sold Khadafy in 2003.

The laptops held no indication who, if anyone, had purchased and downloaded a copy. Nor of how many other digital copies might be in circulation.

This is the nuclear-proliferation nightmare that has haunted insiders since the 1970s. The plans are for a bomb half the size, and twice the destructive power, of the one Khadafy had hoped to build. It would fit on Iran's intermediate-range Shahab II missile, or North Korea's version, the Nodong.

We know Iran bought uranium-enrichment technologies from the Khan ring. It could easily have bought this blueprint, as well - or, perhaps, stolen a copy from an unwary ring operative.

Why 'Anti-Proliferation' Is NOT Doomed:

MOP (30,000 lb. Massive Ordinance Penetrator) static tunnel test.

Hope that helped... ;-)

(Now, granted, if laser uranium enrichment or some other "small facility" method were developed, striking production facilities might not be practical. While we're not there with nuclear weapons, we sure are with biological weapons. It's getting to be a more dangerous world all the time.)

This is the nuclear-proliferation nightmare that has haunted insiders since the 1970s.

Yep. Everyone in the biz knew perfectly well that non-proliferation was only going to last so long as the technology remained either too expensive or otherwise unavailable, (i.e. the details successfully classified). Only a matter of time. At the moment production of the fissile material is still a major industrial undertaking, although the possession of a breeder reactor makes it much easier than starting with dirt and ending up with a bomb as the original Big Five had to do.

We don't have a lot of details on this "blueprint," at least not in the public domain. The time taken off the development and testing cycle by its (their?) presence is going to be a function of just how detailed it/they really are. But if they are detailed enough, including tolerances, then it becomes a matter of manufacturing, not development, and that's really bad news. If they are less so, or if the Iranians have difficulty building to them, we might anticipate results similar to those in North Korea: the fizzle of incomplete fission.

This little tidbit was really good, though:

That led him [Clinton] to sign the Iraq Liberation Act in October 1998 - making regime change in Iraq the official policy of the United States.

It won't make much difference to the "Bush lied" crowd or to Rockefeller's Dems, who are only interested in analyzing the antecedents of the war back as far as Bush's speeches, but this is one very big reason why we are where we are. It was always about nukes more than anything else. And unfortunately the proliferation of nuclear weapons into private hands is limited by precisely the same factors as it is into state hands; that is, less every day. "What a brave new world..."

Whether people believe we are living in the End Times from a Christian belief or not, this should be proof enough that even from a secular standpoint we are living in the End Times. We can thank Islam for that. It is the religion of Satan. Too many Muslims are demon possessed and they want to destroy everyone who is not a Muslim. Now that it is possible for them to have nukes, it’s just a matter of time before they use them on America, Israel and any other nation that they consider to be inhabited by “infidels.” They don’t even care if they kill other Muslims.

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