25 Comments

1. Jeff M:

Interesting. I would make the following observations:

“When experts from the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency came upon blueprints for a 10-kiloton atomic bomb…”

The plans were Chinese in origin and were for a nuclear warhead suitable for delivery on a missile. This is acknowledged on page 3 of the article, why not in the opening paragraph? These are undoubtedly the same plans that Iran now possesses.

“…investigators recently uncovered an outpost in South Africa, where they seized 11 crates of equipment for enriching uranium.”

I think that we can safely read “gas centrifuge kits” in place of “equipment” here.

“”It is an unbelievable story, how this administration has given Pakistan a pass on the single worst case of proliferation in the past half century,” said Jack Pritchard, who worked for President Clinton…”

Oh? And just exactly what did the Clinton administration do about this problem? Especially after UNSCOM found materials in 1995 obtained from Khan in the possession of Saddam Hussein?

“But in late October 2003, the United States and its allies seized the BBC China, a freighter bearing centrifuge parts made in Malaysia, along with other products of Dr. Khan’s network, all bound for Libya.”

Yossef Bodansky has long maintained that Saddam was reconstituting his Nuclear program in Libya with Egyptian complicity.

“Federal and private experts said the suspected list of customers included Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, Kuwait, Myanmar and Abu Dhabi.”

All of these bad actors have Nuclear aspirations? Perhaps they were only middle-men?

“Federal officials said they were reluctant to give the I.A.E.A. classified information because the agency is too prone to leaks.”

Yeah, and they don’t trust al Baradei as far as they can spit. He is an Egyptian Arab and a Muslim. Given the Arab/Muslim supremacist overtones of the whole A Q Khan adventure shouldn’t that be cause for concern?

“Dr. ElBaradei, the head of the United Nations agency…”

Is this spelling of his name an attempt at obfuscation? (see above)

Dec 26, 2004 - 8:39 am 2. Ron Wrght:

Good Morning Roger,

Your up awlfully early for the day after Christmas.

Yes, the web of A.Q. Kahn’s black market of nuke tech for sale permeates all thru the “Axis of Evil” clients whether state or stateless.

See this link on our site:

Link Here

Browse some of the other links in this OP-ED piece but don’t miss:

Iraq, Libya, and N. Korea almost made Islamic Nuke

Whether you believe this war in Iraq is an isolated piece of the puzzle or actually a key battle in the larger War On Islamofascism, Kahn has let tne nuclear genie out of the bottle within the Islamic World. Further his tech involves the enrichment of uranium that makes monitoring the IAEA difficult if not impossible.

If nothing else good comes out of the war in Iraq, the “outing” of this little shop of horrors was worth something. It caused this house of cards to fall out in the open. The other players were betting the US would not call Suddam’s bluff. They all were “shitting bricks” when it became apparent the US would invade. Gee and remember what our old allies were saying at the UNSC. And now we know why after the UN Oil for Food Program was outed. France, Russia, and China in this order were the recepients of Saddam’s blessings in opposition to the worlds strategic interests re nuke tech.

Remember who changed his spots right after Suddam was dragged out of his rat hole, none other than Co. Gadhafi. The MSM has not sezied on this story and just what was seized out of his secret labs and tunnels – is another detective thriller – stored at the Oak Ridge Nat’l Lab.

Speaking of detective thrillers, human greed, lack of medical ethics, pharma industry raping your wallet, the wolves guarding the hen house, and screwing the “pooch” all roled into one, check out this story were tracking that Joe at WOC is hosting a discussion to find the truth. Joe’s got more nerve than the NY Times, WaPo, MSNBC, and other major players in the MSM all rolled into one. Blessed be for the Blogosphere!

This is one story the MSM needs to bite on. But they’re too timid to bite until someone else jumps in the pool first. They’re ready and willing to gaff this administration at every turn, but so far they have done nothing on this story.

This would be a major hit on this administration’s policies (mid level wonks run amuck again). The media needs to step up to the plate, research this story, objectively report the facts to the American people, and let them decide what is truth or fiction.

The consequences of this being true are too great to sit on the sidelines and worry about being right or wrong. They have a duty to be the watchdog for the American people:

We are putting the very lives of our children and their children at risk in this game of chicken.

[...]

Link Here

Ron Wright, Moderator

HSPIG Forums Site

http://www.hspig.org

Suport Team HSPIG in the Spirit of America’s Arabic Blogging Tool Challenge

Link Here

Dec 26, 2004 - 8:50 am 3. Ron Wrght:

Jeff,

Amen Brother!

Didn’t see your post before I got done with mine that is after yours.

Spoken as a true Amerrican Patriot. At least there is one other in the Blogosphere that has done some gumshoe work with Google and can connect the dots. The MSM has been too busy launching missles at the adm to see the forest for the trees.

DAH!

That’s what makes the related story in my post so dangerous. The wolves were left guarding the hen house, and now the chickens have all have eaten or flown the coup.

Ron Wright

Dec 26, 2004 - 8:58 am 4. Ron Wrght:

Still groggy last line above should read:

all been eaten or flown the coup.

Ron

Dec 26, 2004 - 9:00 am 5. Ron:

I keep waiting for the Saddam connection to surface in this. According to a story by William Safire about a year ago, Saddam was buying rocket propellant from China and having it transshipped through France into Syria. Saddam was also working with other terrorist states in the area, why not also with Col. Kadahfy. Saddam was certainly stealing enough money from the ÔøΩOil for FoodÔøΩ fiasco to front the money and he couldn’t build it in Iraq with the American flyovers and Satellite coverage. Plans for a 10 kiloton bomb, that would certainly give the AP a story wouldn’t it if they had their camera’s all set up for a ÔøΩdemonstrationÔøΩ say in New York. Wonder if they would tip off the police or would that also be against their ethics of being neutral?

Dec 26, 2004 - 9:44 am 6. PeterUK:

This is why the whole “There were no WMD” is nonsense,I always thought Saddam Hussein was outsourcing.It is the simplest and most logical thing to do,Germany outsourced some weapons production that was forbidden under the Treaty of Versailles.

Dec 26, 2004 - 10:14 am 7. Jeff Harrell:

Should I take this opportunity to self-promote by mentioning that I named A. Q. Khan my “Man of the Year” for 2004 a week ago?

I think maybe I should, yes.

Dec 26, 2004 - 10:15 am 8. Terrye:

An axis is an alignment between countries or groups for the purpose of promoting their purpose.

I think the Bushies do not trust al Baradei because he did not tell them about the extent of Lyibya’s program. He was either complicit or unaware, neither of which inspires confidence.

I think the purpose to the axis of evil was for each to do a part in the building of wmd.

Dec 26, 2004 - 10:20 am 9. Jeff M:

I mentioned Yossef Bodansky in a post above, and it occurs to me that some readers may not be familiar with his work. He has published several very detailed books on these issues and maintains a website with a wealth of free information. I invite you to mosey on over and take a look:

http://www.strategicstudies.org/

Go to the links at the upper right of the page entitled “Special Reports”.

Dec 26, 2004 - 10:40 am 10. M. Simon:

It really is much worse than this.

To set off a terrorist nuke in the city of your choice only requires ownership of a two story house with a basement. Pre-fabbed U-235 pieces. And stuff you can buy from Lowes.

It was outlined in an article in “Analog Science Fiction” magazine a number of years back when a college student got in trouble for publishing plans for a nuke in “The Progressive” magazine.

It is like the plans for rabbit stew. First catch a rabbit.

Bomb plans – if the bomb doesn’t have to be too sophisticated are easy. The trick is the fuel.

Here is an H-bomb plan that might work.

Any Naval Nuke (there are probably 50,000 to 100,000 of us out here) could design you a crude workable bomb.

The problem of the Khan network was not the bomb plans. It was the plans for making the fuel. I have a rather longish piece on how to do that here.

Dec 26, 2004 - 11:03 am 11. PeterUK:

Terrye,

Al Baradei cannot possibly be complicit,he does after all work for the UN.

Dec 26, 2004 - 11:27 am 12. chuck:

M Simon,

I believe the Analog article was titled How to Build an Atomic Bomb and Wake Up Your Neighborhood and it was actually pretty funny. ISTR that it was published back in the 70’s. I have looked for it on line in order to post a link but have never found it.

Dec 26, 2004 - 12:49 pm 13. Terrye:

Peter:

Well pilgrim, I hate to break it to you but some of those guys are just a little fishy….

Dec 26, 2004 - 1:05 pm 14. PeterUK:

Terrye,

But their building looks so clean and neat.

Bye the bye,weren’t we all enjoying this kind of thing as 007 movies not so long ago,I didn’t know they were documentaries

Dec 26, 2004 - 1:09 pm 15. Dishman:

M.Simon – H-bomb won’t work. A-bomb might.. or might pre-det.

The number who could likely get it right the first try is disturbingly high.

Fuel is, really, the only place we can control it.

Dec 26, 2004 - 1:10 pm 16. chuck:

Fuel is, really, the only place we can control it.

That was more or less the point of the Analog article. The bomb itself was a fission type using the gun design: plastic tube in concrete. The tough part was obtaining the fissionable material and machining it. I believe plutonium is not only toxic, but tends to burn when machined. Of course, some of these problems go away if you can get hold of skilled people who don’t care if they survive the process.

Dec 26, 2004 - 1:17 pm 17. M. Simon:

Chuck,

Thanks for the reminder.

It has been quite some time since I read the Analog article and my memory of it is a bit hazy.

The main damage caused by such a weapon would not be the blast although that would clear quite a radius around the explosion.

Since the explosion is near the ground the problem is that it would spew quite a bit of radioactive material around the neighborhood. In a word – fallout.

Dec 26, 2004 - 1:45 pm 18. Ed Poinsett:

IMHO if you apply Occam’s Razor to Saddam’s nuke program, it’s obvious it was outsourced to Libya.

Khaddafi caved on it immediately when he saw what was happening in Iraq. He didn’t need Bush breathing down his neck too. Also, he wasn’t about to fend off the USA with his all girl goon squads. Forgive me if all of this talk of diplomacy being the motivation makes me puke.

Must be reasons we don’t hear much about that entire business. We went in, grabbed the stuff, sent it to Oak Ridge and the lights went out on the story. There has to be a bunch more waiting to be told. Until then, I’m sticking with my theory that Libya had it.

Dec 26, 2004 - 2:46 pm 19. Ron Wrght:

Good thoughts everyone.

Think of this as a big detective strategy game. Blogos is vast neuro distributive computer network of growing dendritic synapse connections forming with mega parallel processing capabilities. This isn’t the exclusive perview of the gov’t, the Blogos can help in doing these little common sense excercises. Expecially when the govt seems to lack focus in these areas. Didn’t the 9/11 commissions come to this finding and conclusion.

AQ Kahn’s nuke tech can enrich uranium off the grid and out of site of normal IAEA monitoring processes.

The current treaties assumed those wishing to make a bomb would have to steal, covertly, or with permission siphon off from known stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU). Monitor these known sites and you can control who is or who is not in the nuclear club.

AQ Kahn changed all this with the poor man’s nuke. Enrich your own “yellow cake” or start from someone’s low enriched uranium (LEU) purchased for “civilian” nuke reactor purposes. Only the big powers had the tech to further push LEU to HEU. A difficult process. A Q Kahn made a “Chevie” version of what did require Cadillac caliber sci.

All you need to do is shield and insullate your centrifuges from view and sound. Then whistle while you work and produce HEU for small fision abomb. Granted small in the yield compared to hydro/fusion tech of the superpowers but still big enough to make the point and create mass panic in any US urban environment.

Now really you don’t even have to make a nuke just make a dirty bomb it will have the same impact and easier to move around undetected

For those of us in Southern California look at threat scenario laid out at:

link Here

Do a little risk analysis and target assessment using the Port of LA as a target and see the strategic hit the US economy would take.

Hint. This likely to come from land than sea. And yes, Michelle Malkin and others are quite right to be very concerned who might be slipping over the border in amongst the poor day laborers. AQ is very cunning and will exploit this PC weakness.

AQ is well aware of our great tolerance of other cultures and religions that make this country so great with its diversity. But at least during this war could we please be a little less PC before AQ rams it up our XXX where the son doesn’t shine?

The TSA still hasn’t thought thru the threat risk very well. They are still frisking old ladies with wire in their bras and having big debates about the propriety of pat down searches. The probable risk of any one old lady being a suicidal Islamfascist terrorist approaches zero. The odds of winning the California Lottery is probably shorter. AQ probably has noted there could be problems at the gates and will shift their tactics. But yes, Uncle Sam is still spending millions of our tax dollars to defend against a risk that may no longer exist.

A better investment of money is to do what Israel does in passenger screening. It asks several questions re where traveler is going. A terrorist is well prepared to answer questions about ID and questions along those line. But after several probitive key questions on travel plans they run out of prepared script and have to wing it. That is where they will trip up. Patting down old ladies may make everyone feel good but this is a false since of security.

If you want to consider real risks consider small aircraft or cargo craft with dirty bombs (FOX Series 24 Hours). Perhaps go vacationing in TJ and don’t enter via the US. Pick an outbound flight leaving TJ not bound over US airspace. HSPIG sources say these aircrews routinely fly with cockpit doors open. Low tech option wait until the aircraft completes take off roll. Run and gun cockpit. Take control of aircraft, and veer into US airspace. Then pick a target in the target rich environment in So Cal within 5 to 10 mins flight time and set course.

I will bet that even if we have hot F-16s on the runway at March RAFB or Miramar NAS, they could not intercept the aircraft in time. This considering the communication loop of air traffic control (ATC) realizing what was happening and making the appropriate notification to DOD chain and back again to pilot sitting on runway.

Just some out of the box thinking. I don’t think I’m telling tales out of church. AQ types vacationing in Mexico have profiled this already. I just hope our side has too and this is now a wash.

Ron

Dec 26, 2004 - 3:26 pm 20. M. Simon:

Ron,

More out of the box thinking:

Make it easier to cross the border. There will be fewer people smugglers and the people that come in illegally will be reduced from crowds to individuals.

For the same reason I’d legalize drugs. It would reduce the size of smuggler organizations.

Dec 26, 2004 - 4:29 pm 21. PeterUK:

Would it not be possible to have some kind of “dead mans lever” in aircraft as there is in locomotives?

Obviously it could not work in the same way and would be electronic,perhaps voice operated,that could analyse the pilots voice patterns for stress and notifying air traffic control.

Might just buy some time.

Dec 26, 2004 - 5:36 pm 22. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

A. Simon

The design presented would almost certainly fail as a thermonuclear weapon, and probably fail as a fission weapon.

There are much better designs, published on the net, for fission weapons using the gun approach. That is the only approach likely to be available to a terrorist group unless it gets validated plans for an implosion device, and has the capability to build that with enough precision. You can do implosion on either HEU or Pu.

The gun approach wastes a whole lot of HEU, which is the hard thing to get in the first place. To have a good explosion, you need well in excess of one critical mass. The gun design achieves that by using a lot of HEU. Implosion can use less and achieve 2x or more critical mass with less uranium (as you compress it, the required critical mass goes down).

There is also the issue of triggering. Implosion weapons require precise timing of a neutron pulse to guarantee a fast fission startup near maximum compression.

In any case, this is all on the net in one place. If I were at home rather than in Belize, I’d have the bookmark.

Especially ominous is the possiblity that the seized plans were for an implosion weapon, because good plans make such a weapon much more feasible.

As far as the IAEA, I certainly wouldn’t trust them with sensitive intelligence. Such an organization is an obvious target for penetration by many different entities, and very strong tactics are possible (feed us info or your family dies sort of stuff).

I would not be surprised, BTW, if Iran is feeding them information and letting them inspect Potemkin nuclear faciities, or more accurately, real facilities that have an actual purpose of attracting an attack – for internal political reasons.

In the case of Khan, the cows have already left the barn. The lesson to be learned is that money talks big time, and there are going to be nuclear experts who will take it. Knowledge of how to build a bomb (and Uranium enrichment) is now how there. All we can do is try to stop the acquisition or production of fissile material by terrorists and terror supporting countries, and figure out how to deal with the North Koreans (which includes getting the ABM system up to reasonable probabilities of operational success).

There is also a potential for proliferation into Brazil (which previously had a nuclear weapons program that it turned over to IAEA), and Venezuela, as an axis is forming there (with Cuba) against the west.

Dec 26, 2004 - 8:06 pm 23. M. Simon:

John,

I must admit I didn’t look closely at the hydrogen bomb url.

I think that the very sophisticated designs would not be used for a terrorist weapon in the USA. Getting the explosives right and timing their detonation properly would be difficult. I’d go with the gun design and waste the U-235.

The purpose of such a detonation would be fear and economic costs. Maximum efficiency would not be required.

Another important point is that a Plutonium weapon requires testing at least one or two – it gives the game away.

Dec 27, 2004 - 9:54 am 24. M. Simon:

I looked at the hydrogen bomb making link and found it to be of anarchist cook book quality.

i.e. the recipe is way more likely to kill you than lead to success.

In fact the “swinging bucket centrifuge” has got to be a joke.

Dec 27, 2004 - 10:11 am 25. M. Simon:

And stainless steel as a neutron reflector?

I don’t think so.

Dec 27, 2004 - 10:13 am

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