Operators of the World’s Most Successful Atomic Smuggling Ring Worked for CIA

[Peter Lemkin]

Fascinating stuff. Here, from the last two pages of text Carsten posted. These plans must be in the hands of just about everyone/anyone. With a little effort and a lot of uranium you too can have a nuke....just like everyone else. As for who was granted the plans and parts it is a complex web, IMO, of playing both sides - allowing the declared enemies, as well as friends to get the 'knowledge'. Deep Political shit on the nuclear level....... after all, after you give them the plans you have a great excuse to attack them JUST before they have a workable nuke.

SIDEBAR: More on the Bomb Documents
Khan likely planned to sell Libya and other countries the wherewithal to make a nuclear warhead. He himself gave a bag full of bomb drawings and instruction manuals to the Libyans in late 2001 or early 2002 at a meeting in Dubai. In that meeting, Khan told a senior Libyan official that when Libya progresses further with enrichment, the documents would become very helpful.41 The documents described in detail how to make a nuclear warhead and the designs that Pakistan acquired from China in the early 1980s.
Khan also appeared willing to go considerably further than just supplying drawings and technical documents for the Chinese-origin warhead; he appears to have sought to lay the basis for a second wave of assistancethe actual construction of nuclear weapons using weapon-grade uranium produced in the Libyan enrichment plant.
The files seized from the Tinners contained a digitized and more thoroughly documented version of what Khan handed that Libyan official in Dubai. But the set also contained drawings for the components of two smaller, more advanced nuclear weapons. One was much more modern than the other two, dating to the 1990s, although only a few drawings for this design were on the computers. Although Pakistan developed its first nuclear weapons from the Chinese-supplied design, it had gone further in designing warheads that were lighter and smaller than the Chinese design.
After learning about the discovery of the hard copies of the Pakistani bomb design in Libya in 2004, Pakistani officials asserted categorically that Khan did not sell their nuclear weapon designs. If true, this would mean that Khan sold other countries' bomb designs but did not sell Pakistan's. Soon after learning about the more advanced weapon drawings found in Switzerland, a senior IAEA official told Pakistani government officials. They were upset realizing that the designs had to be from their nuclear weapons arsenal. The officials were genuinely shocked; Khan may have transferred his own country's most secret and dangerous information to foreign smugglers so they could together sell it for a profit. The advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long since been sold off to other, treacherous regimes.
During subsequent questioning by Pakistani authorities, Khan acknowledged the existence of the nuclear weapons drawings, saying that he "may have had such stuff" in Dubai. According to a senior official close to the IAEA, Khan likely brought the drawings to Dubai in order to arrange the manufacturing of certain parts for Pakistan's own nuclear weapons using his procurement network. This could help explain why the designs were not complete for the two newer designs; he only needed certain parts built overseas.
Yet Pakistan's own procurement efforts for the designs likely dated to the 1980s and 1990s. Why then did the Tinners have the drawings on so many computers that were seized in 2006? The Tinners were not interested in nuclear weapons designs per se; they only made components for a profit. According to a senior official close to the IAEA who viewed the drawings, the Tinners' work on the drawings appeared to be aimed at selling finished drawings and accompanying manufacturing instruction manuals. The plan might have gone further. It might have included selling the equipment and materials necessary to make the warhead itself. Such sales would be far more lucrative, involving much larger contracts and commissions than just selling the designs.
The Tinners were scanning these drawings onto hard discs in preparation for turning them into computer-aided design (CAD) drawings and developing manufacturing instructions for each part, according to a senior official close to the IAEA. The original drawings, some quite large, were hard copies produced by draftsmen;
41 Olli Heinonen, Deputy Director General, IAEA, in interview with Swiss national television program, SF DOK, by Hansjuerg Zumstein, "Wie ein Schweizer Mechaniker die Welt Veraenderte," Swiss National Television, January 22, 2009 (in German).
ISIS REPORT 27 | P a g e
some even had the draftsmen's initials on them. The process of producing CAD drawings was laborious and not likely to be done without a specific purpose in mind.
The Tinners worked on the drawings whenever they had a chance. Since they often traveled to UAE, Malaysia, and Switzerland, they worked on the drawings on several different computers. They worked on the drawings on a specific computer and then left the work there when they departed that location. They did not appear to have a set schedule for completing the work. They also did not archive the drawings in a centralized location and left them unencrypted. The absence of encryption eased the IAEA's task of discovering the drawings but increased the chance that others could recognize them and take them.
Missing in the set of the more advanced drawings were those for high explosive and uranium metal components. Other experts would have had to digitize these drawings and develop their manufacturing instructions. Marco and Urs appeared to be working on the electronic and metal parts that they were competent in dealing with. Who might have worked on other components is not known.