Nuke Inspex Find Secret Iran Plans

In another apparent link to the nuclear black market emanating from Pakistan, U.N. inspectors in Iran have discovered undeclared designs of an advanced centrifuge used to enrich uranium, diplomats said Thursday.

The diplomats said preliminary investigations suggested the design matched drawings of enrichment equipment found in Libya and supplied through the network headed by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Beyond adding a link to the chain of equipment, middlemen and companies comprising the clandestine nuclear network, the find by U.N. nuclear inspectors reported Thursday cast doubt on Iran's willingness to open its nuclear activities to international perusal.

"With the discovery of undisclosed nuclear weapons development in Iran by the U.N. inspectors, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is on the spot to demand cooperation from Iran," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk. "Since it is now apparent that Iran did not inform the U.N. agency about its uranium enrichment program, there is pressure to refer the violation to the Security Council for debate and possible international sanctions."

Accused of having nuclear weapons ambitions, Iran — which denies the charge — agreed late last year to throw open its programs to pervasive inspections by the Vienna-based IAEA and said it would freely provide information to clear up international suspicions.

But the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iran did not volunteer the designs. Instead, they said, IAEA inspectors had to dig for them.

"Coming up with them is an example of real good inspector work," one of the diplomats told The Associated Press. "They took information and put it together and put something in front of them that they can't deny."

At less-enriched levels, uranium is normally used to generate power. Highly enriched, it can be used for nuclear warheads.

Iran, which says it sought to make low-enriched uranium, has bowed to international pressure and suspended all enrichment. But it continues to make and assemble centrifuges, a development that critics say also throws into question its commitment to dispel suspicions about its nuclear aims.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher warned last month that failure by Iran to indefinitely suspend "all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities would be deeply troubling."

The IAEA continues to negotiate with Iran on what constitutes suspension, but Mohamed ElBaradei, its director general, also is known to be seeking a commitment from Iran to stop assembling centrifuges.

The diplomats said Iran had not yet formally explained why the advanced centrifuge designs were not voluntarily handed over to the agency as part of its pledge to disclose all past and present activities that could be linked to weapons.

The revelations came a day after President Bush acknowledged loopholes in the international enforcement system and urged the United Nations and member states to draw up laws that spell out criminal penalties for nuclear trafficking.

While publicly accusing Khan of being the mastermind of the clandestine nuclear supply operation, Mr. Bush avoided criticism of the Pakistani government, a key ally in the fight against terror. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf says his government knew nothing of Khan's network, even though the military controlled the nation's nuclear program.

Khan apparently relied on European businessmen already investigated — and in some cases convicted — for selling similar equipment to Pakistan in the 1980s, U.S. officials said. The present network allegedly evolved from Khan's black-market deals starting in the 1970s. Pakistan publicly declared itself a nuclear power in 1998.

Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for creating a nuclear deterrent against archrival India, confessed on Pakistani television last week to masterminding a network that supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear technology. Musharraf then pardoned him.

In a speech Thursday, Musharraf said help with nuclear proliferation had come from different countries — not just Pakistan — but conceded that Pakistan also shared blame.

"Everything did not happen from Pakistan. Everything happened from many other countries. But things happened from here also, and we need to correct our house," he said. "We are a responsible nation. We must not proliferate."

Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, in comments published Thursday, said he shared Mr. Bush's concerns over the nuclear black market and urged the United States and other nuclear powers to do more to stop the spread of nuclear arms.

Also Thursday, Malaysia's leader questioned U.S. intelligence on his country's role in nuclear deals said B.S.A. Tahir, the man Mr. Bush called its "chief financial officer and money launderer," would not be arrested, for now.
"There is no such thing as Malaysia's involvement," Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.

Mr. Bush said Khan and his associates used a company in Malaysia to manufacture parts for centrifuges and that front companies had been used to "deceive legitimate firms into selling them tightly controlled materials." The company doesn't dispute it made the parts, but says it didn't know what they were for.

Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, operated a computer company and ordered centrifuge components from the Malaysian precision engineering factory using designs from Pakistan, Mr. Bush said.

U.S. intelligence on Malaysia has come under question before. Last week, CIA director George Tenet told an audience: "Malaysian authorities have shut down one of the network's largest plants." But The New York Times reports the plant was still operating a day later.