"Without state cooperation we have a difficult time. The whole process is so slow," said another senior European diplomat.
Ineffective export controls also appear to be a continuing problem, the investigation has found. Shipments of sensitive material from Malaysia, Dubai, Spain, Turkey and Pakistan have turned up in Libya.
Two officials said they were especially concerned about former Soviet republics and China, which provided assistance to Iran's nuclear program.
The Western diplomat said investigators wanted to question South African officials after The Times reported last week that a complete, ready-for-assembly control system for a Libyan uranium enrichment plant was built undetected near Johannesburg, in part with imported supplies. He questioned whether the Pretoria government should have known more and shared more information about suspicious imports and exports.
But the diplomat said evidence in the Khan case indicated that the problem was much more widespread.
"Some countries say their own customs people wouldn't know a centrifuge rotor from a banana," the Western diplomat said. "The fact that this [black market] trade could have gone undetected in some countries raises doubts about whether it would be noticed next time."
Investigators are uncovering ever more alarming evidence about the reach and sophistication of the Khan network in selling nuclear equipment and knowledge to Iran and Libya over a 15-year period.
A senior investigator said that he was stunned this year when he visited the workshop set up in Libya to manufacture components for the uranium enrichment plant.
"These guys were really organized," said the investigator, who has a long involvement with the nuclear industry and provided a detailed description of the operation.
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Machine Shop 1001
The enrichment plant was based on designs provided by Khan. It involved using the centrifuges, an array of spinning cylinders, to purify a uranium gas to produce enriched material for a bomb. Nearly 100 different pieces of machinery from all over the world had been assembled before the scheme was uncovered in late 2003.
Among the machinery were two specialized lathes from Spain, a furnace from Italy, power supply units from Turkey and centrifuge components from Malaysia and Pakistan, the investigator said.
