Worry over fate of nuclear-bomb data

WASHINGTON — Four years after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the leader of the world's largest atomic black market, was put under house arrest and his operation declared over, international inspectors and Western officials were confronting a new mystery left by him, this time over who might have received blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon found on his network's computers. Working in secret for two years, investigators have tracked the digitized blueprints to Khan computers in Switzerland, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailand. The blueprints are electronic and could be rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon relatively small and easy to hide, making it attractive to terrorists. The revelation over the weekend that the Khan operation even had such a blueprint underscores the questions that remain about what the Pakistani metallurgist and the father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program, was selling and to whom. It also raises the possibility he may still have sensitive material in his possession. "These advanced nuclear-weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," said David Albright, a nuclear-weapons expert who spent four years researching Khan's smuggling network. He has written a draft report that is expected to be published this week about the blueprint's discovery in 2006. The smuggling ring was previously known to have provided Libya with design information for a nuclear bomb. But the blueprints found in 2006 are far more troubling, Albright said in his report. While Libya received plans for an older, relatively unsophisticated weapon that was bulky and difficult to deliver, the newly found blueprints gave instructions for building a compact device, the report said. The lethality of such a bomb would be little enhanced, but its smaller size might allow for delivery by ballistic missile. "To many of these countries, it's all about size and weight," Albright told The Washington Post. "They need to be able to fit the device on the missiles they have." The Swiss government acknowledged this month it had destroyed nuclear-related documents, including weapons-design details, under the direction of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency to keep them from falling into terrorists' hands. However, it has not been previously reported that the documents included hundreds of pages of specifications for a second, more advanced nuclear bomb. "These would have been ideal for two of Khan's other major customers, Iran and North Korea," wrote Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "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." It is unknown whether the designs were delivered to either country, or to anyone else, Albright said.The Pakistani government did not rebut the findings in the report but said it had cooperated extensively with U.N. investigators. Yet even as inspectors and intelligence officials press their investigation of Khan, Pakistani officials have declared the scandal over and have openly discussed the possibility of setting Khan free. In recent weeks, U.S. officials have privately warned the new government in Pakistan about the dangers of doing so. "We've been very direct with them that releasing Khan could cause a world of trouble," one senior administration official who has been involved in the effort said last week. "The problem with Pakistan these days is that you never know who is making the decision — the army, the intelligence agencies, the president or the new government." The illicit nuclear network run by Khan was broken up in early 2004. Since then, evidence has emerged that the network sold uranium-enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, and investigators are still pursuing leads that he may have done business with other countries as well. Khan is an expert in centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium for bomb fuel, and much of the technology he sold involved enrichment.