Group: Tehran Received Nuke Bomb Drawings

[Tab]

VIENNA, Austria - Iran bought blueprints of a nuclear bomb from the same black-market network that gave Libya such diagrams and continues to enrich uranium despite a commitment to suspend the technology that can be used for atomic weapons, an Iranian opposition group said Wednesday.

Farid Soleimani, a senior official for the National Council for Resistance in Iran, said the diagram was provided by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani head of the nuclear network linked to clandestine programs in both Iran and Libya.

"He gave them the same weapons design he gave the Libyans as well as more in terms of weapons design," Soleimani told reporters in Vienna. He said the diagram and related material on how to make nuclear weapons was handed to the Iranians between 1994 and 1996.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=6&u=/ap/20041117/ap_on_re_mi_ea/nuclear_iran_opposition_2

[mac56]

1. Here we go.

Gotta invade now!

/sarcasm

[Ctrl_Alt_Del]

8. Drawings of Mass Destruction!!!!

This aggression will not stand!!!

I laugh, but I'm crying on the inside.

[MadHound]

2. It isn't like bomb designs aren't already easily available anyway

Hell, even a modest perusal of the internet will turn up a workable set of blueprints. Some kid in Ohio back in the late eighties found a set in his local library. This is just more hype and posturing in order to build up a case for what this misadministration is going to do anyway, invade Iran.

[Zero Gravitas]

7. Right

A basic A-Bomb is very simple. It's producing the right isotope of uranium that is difficult. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were of different designs. IIRC they didn't even bother testing the simple "gun" design before dropping the bomb, they only tested the implosion type plutonium bomb before hand.

[whistle]

3. Abdul Qadeer Khan is a friend of the Bush administration is he not...

...Snip> Abdul Qadeer Khan,

Pakistani scientist considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, admitted in February that he had passed on designs and technology for building nuclear weapons to other countries, including North Korea, Iran, and Libya. He emphatically denied that his government had sanctioned the transactions.


<snip>
November 17, 2004 Daily Times Pakistan

Did Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan offer nuclear assistance to Iraq?

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A nuclear think tank here said on Wednesday that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan might have tried to sell nuclear weapon design drawings to Iraq before the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

In a statement, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said a set of documents obtained by UN inspectors in Iraq in 1995 may indicate an effort by Abdul Qadeer Khan shortly before the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf War to sell Iraq nuclear weapon design drawings and gas centrifuge design information, facilitate the procurement of the equipment required to build these items, as well as provide on-going technological assistance.

<snip>

The ISIS concludes that although the IAEA investigation in the 1990s was inconclusive in its effort to confirm the authenticity of the offer, these documents provide additional indicators that Pakistani scientists may have offered assistance to a number of countries not only in uranium enrichment but also in nuclear weapon design and fabrication. The possibility that Pakistanis offered assistance in designing and building nuclear weapons to many countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria, is an “extremely disturbing” new development.


<link> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-2-2004_pg7_32

[ElectroPrincess]

4. Think about this ...

"Farid Soleimani, a senior official for the National Council for Resistance in Iran"

WHAT Chalbi's underlying agenda WAS to the Resistance in IRAQ

Soleimani's covert agenda IS to the Resistance in IRAN.

When will we ever learn?

[ladjf]

5. The stupid policies of the Bush administration are inviting

nuke attacks. Face it, nukes are getting cheaper and smaller.
Last week India test launched a missile from a ship deck. (any old
tramp steamer, 20 miles off shore would do.) Such an attack will happen unless America can be retaken by honest policy makers.

[hatrack]

6. Yes, and those Iranians are soostupid they could NEVER do it themselves!

Hey! Over there! It's an emigre think-tank member giving us SCARY intelligence!

[MaryH]

9. By Ashcroft's Rules that would make them guilty of

committing terrorism - or worse.

Don't ever get caught with a picture of a bomb in your house.

[alfredo]

10. No, they were smart enough to know that it is cheaper and quicker

to buy ready made plans than to develop a bomb from the ground up.

Anyway, wasn't this what Valerie Plame was trying to stop?

[EarlG]

11. But Bush "busted the AQ Khan network"

Not.

Bringing Them To Justice

In his very first rebuttal, Bush bragged that "the A.Q Khan network has been brought to justice." For those of you not familiar with A.Q Khan, he's a Pakistani nuclear physicist who back in February of this year admitted to exporting nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

Want to know how the Bush administration brought Khan to justice? Well, after owning up to his crimes, he was pardoned by President Musharraf. A month later, during a visit to Islamabad, Colin Powell designated Pakistan a major non-NATO ally - which allows them to purchase a wide array of U.S. weaponry - and refused to criticize Musharraf for letting Khan off the hook.

Why? According to the New Republic (or see Idiots 163), because the Bush administration was at the time putting heavy pressure on Pakistan to capture or kill "High Value Targets" - Al Qaeda leaders - before the election. Specifically, "it would be best if the arrest or killing of HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July."

Those dates, of course, happily coincided with the Democratic National Convention.

So now you know how the Bush administration brought A.Q. Khan to justice - by letting him go free so that the Pakistani government would announce terrorist captures on dates which were politically convenient for George W. Bush.

Fortunately, even the Bush administration couldn't be this brazen, and the plan never came to fruition. Well, unless you count Pakistan's subsequent capture of a top Al Qaeda terrorist, which just happened to be announced the day of John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Convention. But that was probably just a coincidence.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/04/173.html#7

Also see:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/04/163.html#4