Nuclear Proliferation

Just to show how much damage a single person can do, here's a report on nuclear proliferation to the really bad guys.

The Bush administration and Western governments are voicing renewed fears that advanced nuclear-weapon designs may have been provided to Iran and North Korea through the smuggling network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

These fears have been stoked by evidence obtained by Swiss authorities who are prosecuting three European members of Mr. Khan's network in Bern, Western diplomats said.

Swiss President Pascal Couchepin announced last month that his government had destroyed computer files and other data seized from these men because they posed a national-security risk. The Swiss leader noted that the files contained "detailed construction plans for nuclear weapons, for ultracentrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium as well as for guided missile-delivery systems."

In 2003, the U.S. and allied governments broke up Mr. Khan's smuggling network, which had delivered centrifuge equipment for uranium-enrichment work to Tehran and Pyongyang and Chinese-based nuclear-weapons designs to Libya.

And this note on how the Pakistani government will now deal with Kahn.

U.S. counterproliferation officials said the intelligence highlighted why additional efforts needed to be made to interview Mr. Khan in Islamabad to get a greater understanding of his network's activities. Mr. Khan is under house arrest, but Pakistan's newly elected civilian government has suggested that the scientist could be released.

"We don't know for certain if Khan gave the designs to Iran or North Korea," said a U.S. counterproliferation official who worked extensively on the Libya case. "But why would you give them to the Libyans and not the North Koreans?"

Brilliant. Next they'll be giving him his computers back and sending him on trips to Iran.

Well, maybe he and Barry will have time to get together with the Ayatollahs next year.