Libya Used 'Network' for Nuke Technology

AP/ABC -December 29

Libya received its nuclear technology from a "sophisticated network" of individual foreigners but not necessarily with the knowledge of any government, the U.N. nuclear chief said after touring four atomic sites in the North African nation.

Mohamed ElBaradei also said Libya's technology was of a "familiar design" meaning its origins would not be hard to trace and that its nuclear program was not advanced. "What we have seen is a program in the very initial stages of development," he said.

"We haven't seen any enriched uranium," he added, referring to the essential material for a nuclear bomb. "We haven't seen any industrial-scale facility to produce highly enriched uranium."

It would have been "a question of years, not a question of months" before Libya would have been able to produce weapons-grade uranium, ElBaradei said in an interview with CNN.

ElBaradei, reporting to the International Atomic Energy Agency that he runs, said "there wasn't any weaponization" in Libya, "and the process in Iran was far more advanced," an official at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, told The Associated Press. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was referring to the agency's inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities this year.