Nuclear parts seen extensive in Libya
WASHINGTON -- Libya's quest for atomic weapons was aided by a sophisticated nuclear black market that offered weapons designs, real-time technical advice, and thousands of sensitive parts -- some of them apparently manufactured in secret factories, according to diplomats and experts familiar with the probe of Libya's weapons program.
The scale of the black-market operation -- described by one expert as an "international supermarket" for nuclear parts -- exceeds anything seen before, and it was undetected by Western intelligence agencies until recent months, the officials said. The same operation also is believed to have aided Iran, they said.
The smuggling enterprise supplied Libya with thousands of parts for gas centrifuges -- machines that enrich uranium for nuclear weapons -- as well as machine tools for making additional centrifuges, the sources said. It also provided Libya with designs for making a nuclear bomb, officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday.
Investigators believe some of the centrifuge parts came from factories built expressly to manufacture nuclear components for the black market -- a development that would represent a new and problematic development in nuclear proliferation. US and IAEA officials are investigating one possible manufacturing site in Malaysia, with the help of that country's government, well-placed officials said. The site has been visited by US officials in the past two weeks, the sources said.
The identities of the people behind the smuggling operation have not been revealed, but investigators say the centrifuges provided to Libya are of the same design as machines used in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. In recent weeks, Pakistan's government has begun investigating whether its nuclear scientists sold sensitive information to Iran and possibly others.
Most of the technical assistance was aimed at helping Libya produce enriched uranium, which can be used in weapons or in nuclear power plants. But the discovery of actual bomb designs strongly indicates an intention to build weapons, the officials said. The IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, disclosed that the designs had been turned over by Libyan scientists and would soon be removed from the country.
"The bomb designs have been placed under seal in Libya," said IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky.
Details about suppliers to Libya's clandestine nuclear program have emerged from a monthlong investigation by US, British, and United Nations inspectors who have been given access to formerly secret nuclear facilities in and around Tripoli. The visits were granted in December after the Libyan leader, Colonel Moammar Khadafy announced that he would renounce weapons of mass destruction.
While Libya's overall nuclear progress was described as modest -- most of the parts it obtained were still packed in boxes -- the revelations about Libya's procurement network surprised nonproliferation officials on both sides of the Atlantic. The US and British governments have not commented on the results of the investigation, and officials who agreed to interviews did so only on the condition that they not be quoted by name.
"A moral barrier has been breached," said one Europe-based diplomat familiar with the Libya investigation. "Always, in the past, what we saw were single states, acting in their interests, looking to make nuclear weapons. Now we have atomic bomb factories."
David Albright, a former IAEA inspector in Iraq who has closely tracked the Libyan investigation, said Libya's centrifuge supply network was similar to the one developed by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s -- only much bigger.
