VIENNA, Austria: The black market network supplying Iran, North Korea and Libya with illicit nuclear technology had substantial and sensitive information on how to make atomic arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday.
The agency, in a restricted report made available to The Associated Press, also said much of the network’s material was passed on to customers in electronic form — giving a potentially unlimited number of clients access, whether they were governments or individuals.
The IAEA’s information was contained in a report on Libya and based on investigations conducted since that country renounced its efforts to make nuclear weapons in 2003. The report was made available to the AP shortly after it was posted on the agency’s internal website for perusal by the IAEA’s 35-nation board.
While Libya is no longer a proliferation concern, the report’s revelations on the network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan are important because he also supplied Iran and North Korea with nuclear know-how and hardware and could therefore help in investigations of those countries’ programs.
Diplomats linked to the IAEA said the Libya investigation also revealed that the network had peddled more sophisticated information linked to making nuclear weapons than the agency had previously known. They demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the report.
North Korea went on to develop nuclear weapons but agreed to mothball its program last year before the disarmament process hit a recent snag over a dispute about verification of its atomic activities.
Iran has acknowledged buying from the Khan network but insists its nuclear programs are meant only to generate power — an assertion disputed by the United States and its allies, which insist Tehran wants to make the bomb.
Despite three sets of UN Security Council sanctions, Iran continues to expand its uranium enrichment program, which originated with purchases from the Khan ring and is able to create the material both for nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads.
The Libya report was prepared for a meeting of the IAEA board later this month where the main focus will be on Iran’s nuclear defiance. A separate restricted report on Iran is expected to be posted on the IAEA website early next week.
As expected, the 12-page Libya report gave the country a clean slate. “The agency has concluded that Libya’s current capabilities are not suited for the design or manufacturing of nuclear weapons components,” it said. “Nor has the agency found any indications of work related to nuclear weapons development.”
But the agency’s investigations “indicate that a substantial amount of sensitive information related to the fabrication of a nuclear weapon was available to members of the network” — including a document on how to cast uranium metal into warheads “that was more up to date than ... a related document found in Iran.”
Countries insisting that Iran’s nuclear activities are a cover for weapons ambitions have pointed to that document in buttressing their case. Tehran says it never asked for the blueprint but found it among a stack of other papers it purchased. Having such sensitive nuclear material in electronic form is clearly “a matter of serious concern to the Agency,” the report said.
A senior diplomat told the AP earlier this year the IAEA knew of the existence of a sophisticated nuclear weapons design being peddled electronically by the black-market ring as far back as 2005. The diplomat, who is familiar with the investigations into the Khan network, spoke on condition of anonymity. The Libya report also indicated that contacts to the Khan network go back further than previously thought — to about the time Iran had its first meeting with the same nuclear peddlers.
It noted that senior Libyan government officials met with Khan as far back as 1984. Then, after an 11-year hiatus, Libya re-established contacts in 1995 as it started building its secret nuclear program.
Unlike Iran, Libya never activated its nuclear program, but amassed tons of the material used as the feedstock for uranium enrichment as well as hundreds of centrifuges and related components needed to enrich. At the time Libya went public, it had orders for 10,000 more centrifuges as well as drawings of a nuclear warhead acquired through the black market network.
