WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year.
Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes provide an excellent starting point for anyone trying to develop an effective atomic warhead.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday March 03, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 42 words Type of Material: Correction
Pakistani scientist -- An article in Sunday's Section A about Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan said Congress had approved a request for a three-year, $3-billion package of economic and military assistance to Pakistan. The package is for a period of five years.
"This involved the spread of very sensitive nuclear knowledge, and it is the most serious form of proliferation," one of the specialists said. Both described the designs on condition that their names be withheld because the plans are classified.
The sale of the plans is particularly troubling to some investigators because the transaction occurred at least 18 months after U.S. and British intelligence agencies concluded that Khan was running an international nuclear smuggling ring and identified Libya as a suspected customer, according to U.S. officials and a British government assessment.
Interviews with current and former government officials and intelligence agents and outside experts in Washington, Europe and the Middle East reveal a lengthy pattern of watching and waiting when it came to Khan and his illicit network.
The trail dated back more than 20 years as Khan went from a secretive procurer of technology for Pakistan's atomic weapons program, which he headed, to history's biggest independent seller of nuclear weapons equipment and expertise.
For most of those years, Khan's primary customers were Iran and North Korea. In 2002, President Bush said the countries were part of an "axis of evil," in part because of nuclear programs nourished by Khan and his network.
Despite knowing at least the broad outlines of Khan's activities, American intelligence agencies regularly objected to shutting down his operations. And policymakers in Washington repeatedly prioritized other strategic goals over stopping him, according to current and former officials.
Some officials said that even as the picture of the threat posed by Khan's operation got clearer and bigger in 2000 and 2001, the intelligence was too limited to act on.
Other officials said the CIA and the National Security Agency, which eavesdropped on Khan's communications, were so addicted to gathering information and so worried about compromising their electronic sources that they rebuffed efforts to roll up the operation for years.
