Dear members ,
I have read quite lot about pakistan nuclear programs specially the weapons and enrichment program .
One thing that certainly I find intriguing is indian centrifuge program was stuck on ( I am using pakistan equivalent here P1 ) which was barely operational.
Let me quote from South asian voices where Pakistan analyst Mansoor Ahmed , has felt same as I say here. Here he has quoted india enrichment progress from 1980s to 1997 , as you see it was dismal , by that time kahuta was on P2 with some 15000 machines in operation (1997) , it was already in final stage of p3 or would have built p3 and P4 design was also nearing completion ( a q Khan was able to copy P1 90% of the design , though critical components were then built by pak scientist , I even have their name of scientist but leave it for another thread )
The experimental centrifuge program’s first milestone was achieved in 1986 with the installation of the first cascade consisting of about 100 machines that was able to produce 2% enriched uranium. The same year, India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) began construction of a larger centrifuge enrichment facility—the Rare Materials Plant—at Rattelhali, Mysore which was commissioned around 1990. Although it was originally designed to house 5000 centrifuges, India was only able to achieve a breakthrough in 1997 with the development of super-critical centrifuges, but the desired number of machines could not be built. Ten years later, RMP still had only about 3000 centrifuges (15000 SWU) in two or three cascades. For two decades, India was only able to develop sub-critical centrifuge machines from domestically produced maraging steel that were inefficient and fraught with technical issues and suffered frequent break-downs. These were most likely derivatives of the 1950-60s era Zippe-type centrifuge machines whose design was publicly known, while the DAE may have substituted aluminum rotors with maraging steel to achieve greater rotating velocities. The then-Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, P. K. Iyengar acknowledged in a March 1992 interview that while india has succeeded in producing highly enriched uranium, the country’s centrifuge program was still facing technical difficulties. The same year, Raja Ramanna, former Chairman of India’s AEC also admitted that india was working on more efficient and super-critical centrifuges.
Now flash back to 2008 , when BARC head declared the centrifuge design breakthrough in just 10 years -
India had completed design of P2!! , P3 , & P4 !! type centrifuge , and even probably Tc 11/12 equivalent Indian centrifuge using carbon fibre rotor was completed or final testing !!! I believe from technical data of TC 11 and TC 12 that BARC must have already completed TC 12 design. ( China is already ahead on 7th generation TC 12 is 6 th generation , equivalent to P6 ). It has already been reported that an 3000 and 6000 centrifuge plant is being built at Mysore , of TC 12 design , giving Mysore SWU output 30-40% more than KRL once the cascades are complete.
P4 ( which is a complex design , even Iran will find it difficult to go to P4 from P2 , also A Q Khan got p2 design but P3 and P4 had to be developed by Pakistani scientist at KRL , it was effort of many years atleast from 1985 to 2000.
Now as A Q Khan network was being dismantled , Swiss investigators searched the home of Urs Tinners in Switzerland and what IAEA discovered ( when Swiss police allowed them to view the electronic data ) that the Tinners had saved 1.3 TB of data ( email , fax copies scandal tons of paperwork data , and hundreds of electronic blueprints) , it contained electronic blueprints of P1 and P2 as given to Libya , Iran including cascades of 5892 centrifuges to design HEU bomb in case of P2 , with complete blueprint to enrich uranium to 90% in the final 1500 machine cascade. Now , suddenly once the p1 and p2 got over the IAEA noticed another file which had complete Blueprints including cascade design for the P4 , include how to make 90% enrich by P4 . Complete piping data , measurements etc. there were also Pakistan compact bomb designs , This bomb design was far more complex , brilliantly engineered and compact and easy to fit on missile and weighting less than one ton.
As already shown it is not possible unless some one had accessed the electronic data , copied from somewhere , the files were copied 7 times , when they were on Tinners computer infact the files was just a plain copy of the main data that was copied from SMB computers in Dubai.
Seeing indias progress in 1980 - 1990 it can be concluded that BARC scientist got hold of crucial data of P2 and P4 , between 1997 and 2004 , it seems that ISI and Musharraf had got wind of this and when he questioned A Q Khan on the advanced stage of Indian centrifuge , A Q Khan admitted that some one from his network had leaked data and components , then he said that he was exploited by Farruq indian Dubai connection , finally both Musharraf and A Q Khan state that there were a lot of Indian working at SMB , Dubai , and they left there jobs about the time the network was to be dismantled. ( On indian defence forums already there is news of RAW agents in Dubai and then doing leaving their jobs to not be exposed to CIA or MI6 , nothing as of has being denied neither confirmed about this by Indian govt.)
