It's more dire than even I thought....AQ Khan, and time running out on civilization

Investigation report: A.Q. Khan network was anti-U.S.
A four-year investigation into the covert nuclear supplier network headed by A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear designer, disclosed that the centrifuge technician was motivated to supply goods to Iran and Libya because he disliked the United States.

Pakistan's The News reported May 31 that the government investigation revealed that money was not the sole motivation for supplying nuclear goods to Tehran and Tripoli.

Quoting senior Pakistan government sources, the newspaper stated that "the main reason behind nuclear proliferation was because Dr. Khan disliked the U.S. policies."

Khan told investigations that he believed that if Iran and Libya became nuclear weapons states, pressure on Pakistan to halt its nuclear program would be diverted.

Khan also believed the U.S. might destroy Iran or Libya and therefore he wanted to help these nations develop a nuclear deterrent.

According to the report, investigators could not prove U.S. government suspicions that Khan was in contact with Al Qaida leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Other links to the terrorist group or the Taliban also could not be proved.

Khan told the newspaper that he was not tortured and did not speak to any foreign investigators during the past four years. "I am a Pathan and nobody could dare touch me because all Pathans would take revenge if anything happened to me," he said.

"I will not answer any question posed by any foreign investigator," he said.

Khan said he was "dragged" into the international proliferation network as the result of a sting operation against Iran and Libya.

Smugglers Had Design For Advanced Warhead

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 15, 2008; A01

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen,

included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized -- were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were shared with others before their discovery, said the report's author, David Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years researching the smuggling network.

Now, I was always figuring that the deliverability factor was the one giving the free world a little bit of leveraged time with regard to Iran handing off to anyone. I think there is not much doubt that based on what we know alone of their program they can have enough U-235 for a weapon in months.10-12 months being the limit, at the outside. 6 months or so the inside. But it's one thing to have 20 lbs of U-235 and another to create a deliverable weapon, other wise you have to drive it quietly to it's destination and detonate. Not THAT easy. Easier in the USA than in Israel, I think.

But from AQ Khan et al we now have the news that for years a design advanced enough for a weapon to be mounted on Iran's existing missiles has been digitally available to the bad guys.

If this news is accurate, and as WaPo makes clear it IS, than it is impossible to assume anything other than that the bad people HAVE THE DESIGN and that this will follow in a matter of months the availability of U-235.

Labor Day, 2009.

At the latest.

Spring 2009 Earliest.

McCain or Obama? Earth to the American electorate.

The strategic implications are vast.

Iraq (our men). Afghanistan (Our men). All reachable.

Israel, either our most important or second most important ally.

Then comes the worry about oil, and Kuwait, KSA and the rest.