Jon Wolfstahl has an analysis of recent reports indicating that North Korea shipped UF6 to Libya. He covers a lot of the same issues that I did here, but includes a sentence which speaks to an important question: how can the Bush administration be so confident that it has all the relevant information about Pakistan’s uranium deposits, mines, etc.?
Jon writes:
In addition, technical experts have confirmed that U-234 content can vary greatly even within the same mine or even within the same sample of ore, raising the possibility that the uranium sample does come from a known source.
I was uncertain as to whether and to what degree U-234 content varies within a country. Jon’s assessment suggests that the uranium in question could well have come from an unknown Pakistani mine. Another possibility is that we know about the mine, but lack the necessary uranium samples.
It’s worth noting that Pakistan does not have a comprehensive IAEA safeguards agreement. According to the agency, Pakistan has three facilities under safeguards. None are mines.