If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard the conventional wisdom a thousand times, ie, the nuclear black market will help terrorist groups obtain the materials and technology to make a nuclear, or a radiological weapon. Well, here’s good news, sort of.
Programmes
It’s the Nnowledge, Not the Material
Back in July the Washington Post did a piece on the sad case of Richard Barlow, the former US intelligence analyst who was screwed over by this government for doing his job.
You see, Richard, we all have to make compromises…
And now let us return to the days of yore, February 11, 2004, when President Bush, made remarks on Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation. President Bush actually said (no, really, I’m not kidding) some good things about how to prevent proliferation.
Getting to Zero Update
Getting to Zero – Update
You rang, Dr Khan?
Sometimes following the esoterica of the nuclear black market seems so weird that it seems like a scene out of the Addams Family. Let’s see: Dr Khan would be Gomez, the bright, energetic businessman; and, in a nice case of life imitating art (sort of), Lurch would be played by Lurch.
Okay, I used artistic license; it’s Lerch, Gotthard Lerch actually. Still, Lerch seemed to serve Dr Khan just as faithfully as Lurch served Gomez Addams. Here is some of what Mark Hibbs wrote about him the September 24 issue of Nuclear Fuels:
He could have been a professor in Syria
Given all the recent frenzy over whether Israel attacked a nuclear facility of some kind, or something else, in Syria in September I think it bears remembering that Syria was not a client of Dr Khan; though not due to lack of availability on the part of Dr Khan.
Let's read what Mark Hibbs wrote in the September 24 issue of Nuclear Fuels:
The nuclear black market – fun for the whole family
There are various ways to measure the worth of a man. One of them is to count the number of books written about him. In that regard I note the newest book, formally published later this month, to examine Dr Khan's entrepeneurial network. It is America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise by David Armstrong and Joseph Trento. Here is the blurb from the Amazon listing:
To ask the question is to answer it
I think events of this year alone show that the answer to the question, explicit in the title of this 2006 congressional hearing, is no. I recommend taking a glance so you can see how little we have advanced since then.
May 25, 2006:
Hearing: The A.Q. Khan Network: Case Closed?
HEARING TRANSCRIPT (.HTM)
HEARING TRANSCRIPT (.PDF = 517 KB)