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Smuggling Ring Had Nuclear Weapon Design

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The New York Times

Published: June 16, 2008

Updated: 06/16/2008 12:22 am

WASHINGTON - U.S. and international investigators say that they have found electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to a nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist.

However, they have not been able to determine whether it was sold to Iran or the smuggling ring's other customers.

The plans appear to closely resemble a nuclear weapon built by Pakistan and first tested a decade ago. But when confronted with the design by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, Pakistani officials insisted that Khan, who has been lobbying in recent months to be released from the loose house arrest under which he has lived since 2004, did not have access to Pakistan's weapons designs.

In interviews in Vienna, Islamabad and Washington during the past year, officials have said the weapons design was far more sophisticated than the blueprints discovered in Libya in 2003, when Col. Muammer el-Qadafi gave up his country's nuclear weapons program.

At that time he turned over blueprints of a large Chinese nuclear weapon that dated to the mid-1960's, which investigators tied to Khan's network.

The design found on Khan network computers in Switzerland, Bangkok and several other cities around the world, however, is a weapon that is half the size and twice the power of the Chinese version, with far more modern electronics, the investigators say.

The design is in electronic form, they said, making it easy to copy - and they have no idea how many copies of it are in circulation.

Among the missiles that could carry the smaller weapon, according to some weapons experts, is the Iranian Shahab III, which is based on a North Korean design.

However, in recent days, top U.S. intelligence officials who declined to speak about the discovery on the record said that they have been unable to determine whether Iran obtained the weapons design.

Pakistan has refused to allow U.S. investigators to directly interview Khan, considered a hero in his country, and in recent weeks the only communications about him between the United States and Pakistan's new government have been warnings from Washington not to allow his release.

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