AP Enterprise: Nuclear Black Market Small, Covert and Tight-Knit

[rodbarnett]

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The nuclear black market that supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea is small, tight-knit and appears to have been badly hurt by the exposure of its reputed head, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, diplomats and weapons experts told The Associated Press.
They describe the network that circumvented international controls to sell blueprints, hardware and know-how to countries running covert nuclear programs as involving people closely dependent on one another.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, who founded Pakistan's nuclear program, is emerging as the head of the ring believed to have been the main supplier through middlemen over three continents. A Pakistani government official revealed Monday that Khan has acknowledged in a written statement transferring nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea

<snip>

The ring supplying Iran, North Korea and Libya was small - probably no more than around a dozen major players who knew details of what was being sold to whom, said the diplomats. Many of them were probably dependent on Khan for his contacts, first as an employee of Urenco, the West European uranium enrichment consortium and then as the architect of the clandestine weapons program that publicly established Pakistan as a nuclear power in 1998.

The fact that he is now sidelined has, in combination with the world focus on interdiction and monitoring countries under suspicion, probably crippled the supply chain, the diplomats said.

David Albright, a former Iraq nuclear weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security, agreed. With Khan exposed, the ring that accounted for much of the three countries' illicit nuclear hardware and know-how is "now busted up," he said.

"There are still remnants, and that has to be watched, but this is a major victory for nonproliferation," he said from Washington.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAKJUH07QD.html

[htuttle]

1. And thanks to the Bush Administration...

...we will know a lot less about it in the future.

This was the exact area that Valerie Plame's intelligence network was working in before they blew her cover.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. And who taught Pakistan how to do this stuff?

Between us and the Russians, we only have ourselves to blame.

[Caution]

3. There seems to be a country notably missing from that list.

No mention of Iraq? What a friggin shock. Now we find out that there was actually someone covertly trying to give WMD to countries and Hussein wouldn't even buy what the guy was selling. Bush is lucky as hell Hussein was a despot because if he has actually been a decent ruler Bush and Co would be looking at charges on treason.