The Nuclear Network

By Douglas Farah

There were several reports, led by the Washington Post, on the rogue international smuggling network that managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon.

No one knows where those blueprints were sold, or to whom. My sources in the intelligence community have suspected for several years that the network of senior Russian officials operating the criminal enterprise that Viktor Bout was a part of, had gotten ahold of at least two copies of the plans.

Given Bout's extensive contact lists with radical and criminal groups, and those of the Russian organized crime that are creeping in to many new places, including the Caribbean and Mexico, it is hard to overstate how dangerous this is.

"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," David Albright wrote in a draft report about the blueprint's discovery.

The important lesson here is that we know that the network of A.Q. Khan provided Libya and North Korea with design information for a nuclear bomb. My full blog is here.

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