Libya Nuke Plans Look Chinese

Experts suggest surrendered nuclear warhead likely came from Pakistan

Feb. 16, 2004

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Drawings of a nuclear warhead that Libya surrendered as part of its decision to renounce banned weapons are of a 1960s Chinese design, but probably came from Pakistan, diplomats and experts told the Associated Press on Sunday.

China is widely assumed to have been Pakistan's key supplier of much of the clandestine nuclear technology used to establish Islamabad as a nuclear power in 1998. That technology was resold to rogue regimes through a black market network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The drawings appeared to be of a design never used by Pakistan, which later developed more-modern nuclear weapons, said the diplomats and experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Nevertheless, they said, the designs probably came from China as part of a decades-long transfer of technology that Khan used to develop Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Libya surrendered the drawings in December after its leader, Moammar Gadhafi, volunteered to scrap all research into developing banned weapons. The blueprints and accompanying documents are now in the USA under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

One expert said the drawing detailed how to build a warhead for a large ballistic missile using technology developed by the Chinese in the 1960s. A nuclear blast would be triggered by a small conventional explosion. The instructions on the drawing were in English, but some other documents surrendered by Libya with the blueprints were in Chinese, he said.

If built, he said, the warhead would have weighed more than 1,000 pounds. That's too bulky for any delivery system the Libyans had but not too big for missiles developed by North Korea and Iran, the other nations said to have been supplied by Khan's network.

North Korea runs a nuclear weapons program using plutonium, but U.S. officials believe it has a program based on enriched uranium, possibly using technology imported from Pakistan. North Korea has denied the allegation.

Pakistan and Khan became the focus of an international investigation on the basis of information Libya and Iran gave the Vienna-based IAEA about where they covertly bought nuclear technology that can be used to make weapons.

Hundreds of millions of dollars was thought to have changed hands over the past 15 years in Khan's nuclear-procurement chain.

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