A new report published in Washington suggests that an international nuclear-smuggling network led by the disgraced scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is still strong enough to go back into business.The International Institute for Strategic Studies has published a dossier on the global state of proliferation networks and nuclear black markets. It says several individuals who worked with Khan in distributing nuclear secrets to countries like Iran and North Korea, are still at large. It warns there's still a strong demand from governments and extremist groups for information these individuals could supply.
10 May 2007: Radio Australia
A new report published in Washington suggests that an international nuclear-smuggling network led by the disgraced scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is still strong enough to go back into business.The International Institute for Strategic Studies has published a dossier on the global state of proliferation networks and nuclear black markets. It says several individuals who worked with Khan in distributing nuclear secrets to countries like Iran and North Korea, are still at large. It warns there's still a strong demand from governments and extremist groups for information these individuals could supply.
Presenter/Interviewer: Sen Lam
Speakers: Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in New York
FITZPATRICK: I'd like to stress that the network was an international network. It had suppliers in two dozen countries and some of these suppliers are still at large. The network probably consisted of some four dozen or so different people, less than three dozen of whom have been identified. So some of them are lying low and could potentially resume operation some time in the future. A. Q. Khan's Pakistani associates are still alive, they're in Pakistan, they're not in jail, and it's conceivable that they could be in business at some time in the future. But our focus was on the network as a whole overseas and in Pakistan.
LAM: The report also spoke of the more, and I quote, 'shadowy recesses of the network', supposedly dismantled three years ago. Now, are Khan's lesser known associates still at work?
FITZPATRICK: Well I don't think they're at work. I think that there's a great deal of international attention to the potential problem, so his international associates who were not rounded up by police authorities, who are lying low, are probably not at work to date in the way of proliferation. But they could resume activity in the future if the world is not alert.
LAM: Abdul Qadeer Khan, of course, is under house arrest. Did Pakistani authorities get useful information from him?
FITZPATRICK: I think Pakistani authorities got some useful information from Dr Khan but how much of that information they relayed to investigative authorities from other countries or from the International Atomic Energy Agency is not known. Various questions were posed to Khan by various countries but they had to go indirectly through Pakistani authorities.
LAM: So, outside investigators weren't granted access to him?
FITZPATRICK: Nobody from the outside was granted access to A. Q. Khan, no, this was a matter that Pakistan insisted on for matters of sovereignty they were not going to allow him to be interviewed directly by anyone from the outside.
LAM: In terms of current threats to security are there any areas, key areas of concern do you think?
FITZPATRICK: Well, there are some key areas of concern. One of these is that there are still countries intent on acquiring a nuclear weapons capability; Iran foremost among them. Iran has a very intensive procurement effort, it's a black market procurement from the demand side, and it is as least as extensive as Khan's was. They repeatedly change front companies and financing arrangements to try to obtain the wherewithal for a weapons capability. Most of the nuclear suppliers of the world are alert to this and are trying to prevent the sale to Iran of any such dual use items that could be used for nuclear weapons. But given the extensive way in which nuclear components can be made anywhere in the world with the globalised economy, some countries do not yet have in place export control laws and don't implement the laws that they have in place. These are areas of concern.
LAM: Was Khan's network by far the largest in the world because I understand that organised crime was also involved in the nuclear black-market?
FITZPATRICK: Well in terms of the nuclear black-market Khan's network was by far the largest, the most extensive. There were many other networks that had operated throughout the history of nuclear proliferation, at least 12 different countries relied to some extent on nuclear black-markets to further their ends. The extent of organised crime in the procurement of nuclear technology, not too much has come to light about that. What organised crime has been involved is the smuggling of some small amounts of nuclear material, highly enriched uranium, some plutonium, radioactive material, and sometimes just scams.
LAM: Given the nature of your report do you make any recommendations or do you have any suggestions for international authorities?
FITZPATRICK: Yes, we make a number of what we call policy options. Some of these are just implementing laws and controls that already are on the books but are not being well enforced. There is a UN resolution from May 2004 that requires all states to have in place fixed port control laws and to implement them, and very few countries are implementing those laws. Some of the countries that were involved in the production of material to Khan's network did not have laws in place then and still don't. Another is sharing intelligence information. A third is locking up securely nuclear material that could be accessed by smugglers. And a fourth area is when all else fails cooperation among states to interdict any shipments by sea or plane or on land of nuclear materials or technology.
