Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Quanto di più pazza può divenire la situazione?: 'Smugglers Had Design For Advanced Warhead'

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran
and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear
weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that
suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of
countries or rogue groups.
The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen,
included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could
be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen
developing countries, the report states.
The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized --
were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the
U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct
smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were
shared with others before their discovery, said the report's author, David
Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years
researching the smuggling network.
"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to
some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," Albright wrote in a
draft report about the blueprint's discovery. A copy of the report, expected
to be published later this week, was provided to The Washington Post.
The A.Q. Khan 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 was given
plans for an older and relatively unsophisticated weapon that was bulky and
difficult to deliver, the newly discovered blueprints offered 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 said
in an interview. "They need to be able to fit the device on the missiles
they have."
The Swiss government acknowledged this month that it 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, now 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. "The government of
Pakistan has adequately investigated allegations of nuclear proliferation by
A.Q. Khan and shared the information with IAEA," Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman
for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said yesterday. "It considers the
A.Q. Khan affair to be over."
A CIA official, informed of the essential details of Albright's report, said
the agency would not comment because of the extreme diplomatic and security
sensitivities of the matter. In his 2007 memoir, former CIA director George
Tenet acknowledged the agency's extensive involvement in tracking the Khan
network over more than a decade.
Albright, a former IAEA inspector in Iraq, has published detailed analyses
of the nuclear programs of numerous states, including Iran and North Korea.
His institute was the first to publicly identify the location of an alleged
Syrian nuclear reactor that was destroyed by Israeli warplanes last
September.
A design for a compact, missile-ready nuclear weapon could help an aspiring
nuclear power overcome a major technical hurdle and vastly increase its
options for delivery of a nuclear explosive. Such a design could
theoretically help North Korea -- which detonated a nuclear device in a 2006
test -- to couple a nuclear warhead with its Nodong missile, which has a
proven range of 1,300 kilometers (about 800 miles).
Iran also possesses medium-range ballistic missiles and is believed by U.S.
government officials to be seeking the capability to build nuclear weapons
in the future, although an assessment late last year by U.S. intelligence
agencies concluded that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in
2003. Weapons experts have long puzzled over whether Tehran might have
previously acquired a weapons design from the Khan network, which sold the
Iranian government numerous other nuclear-related items, including designs
for uranium-enrichment equipment.
The computers that contained the drawings were owned by three members of the
Tinner family -- brothers Marco and Urs and their father, Friedrich -- all
Swiss businessmen who have been identified by U.S. and IAEA officials as key
participants in Khan's nuclear black market. The smuggling ring operated
from the mid-1980s until 2003, when it was exposed after a years-long probe
by the U.S. and British intelligence agencies.
Khan, who apologized for his role in the smuggling network in a 2004 speech
broadcast in Pakistan, was officially pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf
without being formally charged with crimes. The Tinner brothers are in Swiss
prisons awaiting trial on charges related to their alleged involvement in
the network. They and their father are the focus of an ongoing probe by
Swiss authorities, who discovered the blueprints while exploring the heavily
encrypted contents of the Tinners' computers, the report said. Several
published reports have asserted that Urs Tinner became an informant for U.S.
intelligence before the breakup of the smuggling ring, but that has not been
officially confirmed.
Switzerland shared the finding with the IAEA as well as the United States,
which asked for copies of the blueprints, the report states. The IAEA has
acknowledged that it oversaw the destruction of nuclear-design material by
Swiss authorities in November 2007. However, IAEA officials would neither
confirm nor deny the existence of a second weapons design or comment on
Albright's report.
Albright, citing information provided by IAEA investigators, said the
designs were similar to that of a nuclear device built by Pakistan. He
contends in the report that IAEA officials confronted Pakistan's government
shortly after the discovery, adding that the private reaction of government
officials was astonishment. The Pakistanis "were genuinely shocked; Khan may
have transferred his own country's most secret and dangerous information to
foreign smugglers so that they could sell it for a profit," Albright said,
relating a description of the encounter given to him by IAEA officials.
Pakistan has previously denied that Khan stole the country's weapons plans.
Musharraf has not allowed IAEA experts to interview Khan, an engineer who is
regarded as a national hero for his role in establishing Pakistan's nuclear
weapons program. Khan, in interviews last month with The Post and several
other publications, asserted that the allegations of nuclear smuggling were
false.
Albright said it remains critical that investigators press Khan and others
for details about how the blueprints were obtained and who might have them.
Because the plans were stored electronically, they may have been copied many
times, he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/14/AR2008061402032.html?hpid=topnews
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Colpite ADESSO, avanti che sia troppo tardi.
-- 
Give us back our countries: Stop the criminal multiculturalism ideology
enforced upon the white world against the will of its peoples, leading to
mass immigration from the third-world: Mul-cul + pol-corr = lethal mixture
for the white world. And give us back our freedom: Dismantle all
surveillance technology.

In italiano:
http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=269255
"Michael Laudahn eOpposition" <nuke.is...@your.earliest.convenience> 
schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1v07hk....@news.alt.net...



E mò.. che è questo? Da dove scappa fuori questo nick? É forse 
l'ineffabile ex Clas, è forse qualche altro plonkato.. ? :D
-- 
EU®