Officials fear design of nuclear bomb went to others

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 are confronting a new mystery left by him, this time over who may 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 rapidly reproducible for creating a weapon that is relatively small and easy to hide, making it potentially attractive to terrorists. The revelation this weekend that the Khan operation even had such a bomb blueprint underscores the questions that remain about what Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist and father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, was selling and to whom. It also raises the possibility that he may still have sensitive material in his possession. Yet even as inspectors and intelligence officials press their investigation of Khan, officials in Pakistan have declared the scandal over and have discussed the possibility of setting him free. In recent weeks, American 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," a 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. President George W. Bush declared that shattering the operation was a major intelligence coup for the United States. Since then, evidence has emerged that the network sold uranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. 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. But it was only in recent days that officials disclosed that they had found the electronic design for a bomb itself among material seized from some of Khan's top lieutenants, a Swiss family, the Tinners. The same design documents were found in computers in three other locations connected to Khan operatives, according to a senior foreign diplomat involved in the investigation. American officials and inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency say they have been unable to determine if the weapon blueprints were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring's other customers. The bomb blueprints bear a strong resemblance to weapons tested by Pakistan a decade ago, said two senior diplomats involved in the investigation. Pakistani officials have balked at providing much information about the newly revealed warhead design, just as they have refused to allow the CIA or international atomic inspectors to directly interrogate Khan, who is still considered a national hero in Pakistan for helping it become a nuclear weapons state... IHT