CIA backed destruction of Swiss files

BERN, Switzerland, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The Swiss government's destruction of black market nuclear documents may have been more to provide CIA cover than to stop terrorism, security experts say.

At the center is Swiss engineer Friedrich Tinner and two sons who are accused of working with Pakistani nuclear bomb maker Abdul Qadeer Khan to smuggle nuclear technology to Libya, Iran and perhaps others. But insiders claim the Tinners were being paid by the CIA to undermine Khan's black market sales and the spread of nuclear technology, The New York Times reported Monday.

The alleged relationship with the Tinners "was very significant," said Gary S. Samore, who ran the National Security Council's nonproliferation office when the operation began. "That's where we got the first indications that Iran had acquired centrifuges," which enrich uranium for nuclear fuel.

Reportedly the CIA paid the Tinners as much as $10 million for forwarding secret information and even for sending sabotaged nuclear equipment to Libya and Iran, the Times said. Thus U.S. intelligence operatives weren't pleased at the prospect of having all the Tinners' secrets revealed in a trial.

"We were very happy they were destroyed," a senior intelligence official in Washington told the Times of the files.