Khan's Nuclear Network, A Criminal Gang (Pakistan gov't "not involved")

[Barrett808]

Khan's Nuclear Network, A Criminal Gang
Washington (UPI) Oct 13, 2004

The Pakistani government was not involved with the network of nuclear proliferators who supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, but did allow this criminal gang to function, says a recent report released by a Washington-based nuclear watchdog.

In the report, Uncovering the Nuclear Black Market, the Institute for Science and International Security observes: The Pakistani government was not directing this network. It (the network) was essentially a criminal operation.

But the report also says the fact that a group of individuals was able to run such a network for so long without being noticed by the international community was more disturbing and dangerous than if it had been a secret government-controlled effort.

The report, however, warns that investigators have not yet been able to determine the exact involvement of Pakistani government officials in the network and the extent of their awareness of the activities of A.Q. Khan and his associates.

Khan, who enabled Pakistan to conduct nuclear tests in May 1998, days after similar tests by rival India, confessed in February to running a private network of nuclear proliferators and to supplying nuclear technology to some of America's declared enemies.

(more)

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-blackmarket-04j.html

[cosmicone]

1. Yeah and pigs are flying out of Bush's ass

Pakistan's ISI fiercely guards the nuclear establishments and AQ Khan could not have maintained a clandestine operation without the tacit approval and knowledge of the leadership including President Strongman Musharraf.

Pakistan needed missiles and couldn't pay for them. North Korea needed nukes and couldn't pay for them. Then came the alliance where they exchanged the respective technologies.

The Bush administration was either clueless or naïve and the military hardware provided "to fight terror" (including a C130 transport) were used for these exchanges.

Pakistan is the MAIN terrorist state. Now the bushbots are trying to cover it up.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Pigs flying.... geezus.... funny.... I wonder if anyone remembers

this and how the bushbots square this with the myth just fed to the public....

Oh and another thing... have you noticed how we have only attacked countries who DO NOT have nuclear weapons?? Proven ties to terrorism or not.

http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/armitageISIatta.htm
"If the 9-11 Commission is really looking for a smoking gun, it should look no further than at Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, the director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at the time. In early October 2001, Indian intelligence learned that Mahmoud had ordered flamboyant Saeed Sheikh - the convicted mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl - to wire US$100,000 from Dubai to one of hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts in Florida.... Mahmoud's involvement in September 11 might be dismissed as only Indian propaganda. But Indian intelligence swears by it, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has confirmed the whole story: Indian intelligence even supplied Saeed's cellular-phone numbers. Nobody has bothered to check what really happened.

[Fovea]

3. Strategically, though

we are backing the Islamic nuclear states into a corner.
I cannot imagine that Iran, for example, will not deploy nukes
against the any percieved invasion.

Where and how is what worries me.

If I were the Iranians, or a radical Saudi group (I am operating on the assumption that their has been substantial leakage of former soviet weaponry. These things have a shelf life, after all.)
and if I were an Islamist who had two or three of the things, I know what my targets would be.
I suspect part of the knowlege that Khan was giving out, was how to service older devices. How much would those manuals cost on the black market, I wonder?

It takes a pretty hard to hide supply system to make nukes. But reconditioning and refitting older weapons is far easier. Further, a state or group might be able to make a large amount of money doing this, then turn around and 'surrender' their facilities once the heat was on. Two candidates come to mind here.

What is my point? My point is America has proven that the bomb is the only guarantor of safety for smaller states from Imperialist America.
More bombs, in this current state of affairs, where the state is weak and the ideology is strong means detonations, and a whole new meaning of the term terror.

[Barrett808]

4. I often say Saudi Arabia and Pakistan attacked us on 9/11

And we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. One for a pipeline... one for the fields. Not to complicated. I just

watched F911.... Mike did a great job on his documentary.. excellent job. He will be remembered as a true patriot when all is said and done... and the criminals are once again exterminated from D.C.

[Barrett808]

7. From your keyboard to God(dess)'s ears n/t

[seemslikeadream]

5. A Q Khan ‘aide’ held in Germany

CRAIG WHITLOCK AND SHANNON SMILEY

Posted online: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 at 0210 hours IST

BERLIN, OCTOBER 12: German prosecutors have arrested an engineer on suspicion that he helped Libya in its efforts to build a nuclear weapons program. Eight months ago Urs Tinner, 39, was named by authorities in Malaysia as a key figure in Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan’s network that spread nuclear secrets around the world.

The man was arrested last week in the central German state of Hesse, according to the German federal prosecutor’s office. Officials said Tinner was the member of a Swiss engineering family that has drawn scrutiny from European authorities and nonproliferation experts for more than two decades.

In February, Malaysian officials identified Tinner as a middleman in Khan’s network that supplied Libya with gas centrifuge parts that could be used in the enrichment of uranium. German prosecutors said in a statement that they were preparing to charge Tinner, a Swiss citizen, with conspiracy to commit treason.

Swiss export-control officials said that they recently completed an inquiry into the business activities of Tinner and his family, based on the allegations made in February by Malaysian police
more
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=56860

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

8. Obligatory Star Trek reference.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!