US: The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr George Tenet, claimed yesterday that US intelligence had penetrated the hidden network of Pakistan nuclear sales some years ago, and in one case intervened to stop sales of uranium-enrichment centrifuges to Libya, writes Conor O'Clery in New York
"Working with our British colleagues, we pieced together the picture of the network, revealing its subsidiaries, its scientists, its front companies, its agents, its finances and manufacturing plants on three continents," Mr Tenet said.
"Our spies penetrated the network through a series of daring operations over several years, and . . . in the Libya case we stopped deliveries of prohibited material."
Mr Tenet's extraordinary disclosure, in a speech in Washington defending the CIA over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, came on the same day that President Musharaf pardoned Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Dr Khan was the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme who sold technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran.
Mr Tenet said that until now he had had to be "cryptic" about the information in public while his agents "tagged the proliferators" across four continents.
But now "Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow, and several of his senior officers are in custody.
"Malaysian authorities have shut down one of the network's largest plants."
The White House has not commented on the Khan confession, which apparently resulted from months of behind-the-scenes pressure on Pakistan, an essential US ally against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
US officials have assumed that a deal was done between the Pakistan leader and his country's senior nuclear scientist in return for his silence about the possible involvement of Pakistani government officials.
While claiming a success in the Pakistan case, the CIA appears not to have known about the nuclear proliferation network for most of the time it operated from 1989 to 2000.