Pakistan's disturbing nuclear trail

Materials from A.Q. Khan's black-market nuclear network remain unaccounted for.

By Faye Bowers | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – It's been a year since US and British agents boarded a German ship in the Mediterranean Sea that led to the exposure of the unimaginable: a vast black-market nuclear arms bazaar operating under superpower radar for more than a decade.

Today, investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and some 20 countries working together have uncovered many parts of the clandestine network run by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Just in the past month, three more people who allegedly acted as middlemen were arrested in South Africa.

The records confiscated from these men's companies, together with other confiscated documents and information from Dr. Khan and his top aides, have led to the virtual shutdown of the clandestine network.

But government officials and experts say that in today's world, where both major presidential candidates say nuclear proliferation is the nation's most critical security threat, much more needs to be done.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1027/p03s01-usgn.html