ethics
02-15-2004, 11:56 AM
The Washington Post leads (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42692-2004Feb14.html) with the latest bulletin from the inspectors dismantling Libya's nuclear-weapons program: proof that China supplied Pakistan with bomb designs in the 1980s.
The bomb blueprints that Libya surrendered (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42692-2004Feb14.html) to inspectors were stashed in the white shopping bag of an Islamabad haberdasher (the "Good Looks Tailor"), but they were written in Chinese and based on a weapon tested by China in the 1960s. (Pakistan's own nukes are based on a more modern design.) The inspectors, who have already tied Libya's centrifuge parts to Pakistani designs (see Jan. 24th's "TP" (http://slate.msn.com/id/2094377/)), said the Chinese blueprint would have produced a useable weapon, but one too heavy for Libya's small missiles. A former inspector tells the Post that Iranian and North Korean missiles could carry such a bomb. (Al Qaeda, of course, would need only a pickup truck.) "Investigators" assert that Iran has similar nuclear technology to that found in Libya, suggesting a similar origin. The Post notes that the documents from Libya confirm U.S. intelligence's long-standing belief in a China-Pakistan connection in the 1980s. Experts believe that China has since stopped sharing.
--Slate in what's in papers today.
Anyone shocked and dismayed? Where's the outcry from our politicians? Will anything be done other than cuddling more of Musharaf?
The bomb blueprints that Libya surrendered (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42692-2004Feb14.html) to inspectors were stashed in the white shopping bag of an Islamabad haberdasher (the "Good Looks Tailor"), but they were written in Chinese and based on a weapon tested by China in the 1960s. (Pakistan's own nukes are based on a more modern design.) The inspectors, who have already tied Libya's centrifuge parts to Pakistani designs (see Jan. 24th's "TP" (http://slate.msn.com/id/2094377/)), said the Chinese blueprint would have produced a useable weapon, but one too heavy for Libya's small missiles. A former inspector tells the Post that Iranian and North Korean missiles could carry such a bomb. (Al Qaeda, of course, would need only a pickup truck.) "Investigators" assert that Iran has similar nuclear technology to that found in Libya, suggesting a similar origin. The Post notes that the documents from Libya confirm U.S. intelligence's long-standing belief in a China-Pakistan connection in the 1980s. Experts believe that China has since stopped sharing.
--Slate in what's in papers today.
Anyone shocked and dismayed? Where's the outcry from our politicians? Will anything be done other than cuddling more of Musharaf?