Posted on 11/03/2001 3:11:25 PM PST by milestogo
ISLAMABAD'S NUCLEAR DILEMMA: Pakistan panics over threat to arsenal
Tony Allen-Mills, Washington
FEARS of fundamentalist upheaval in Pakistan have aroused concerns in Washington that part or all of Islamabad's arsenal of nuclear weapons may have to be moved to China for safekeeping from foreign attack.
Pakistan's military establishment was said last week to have been shaken by reports that America, India or Israel might be planning pre-emptive strikes on nuclear sites to prevent weapons falling into fundamentalist hands. "The generals are panic-stricken," said one Pakistani source.
The threat to weapons widely regarded as the Pakistan military's "crown jewels" has forced Islamabad to consider what one American expert described as the "ultimate worst-case scenario" of removing warheads to China, Pakistan's closest strategic ally in the region.
The prospect that loose warheads might be loaded onto helicopters or moved around a region foaming with fundamentalist turmoil is adding to fears in Washington that the war in Afghanistan might provoke a nuclear crisis.
Abdul Sattar, the Pakistani foreign minister, insisted last week the arsenal was secure. But Washington officials have expressed mounting alarm that any coup attempt against General Pervez Musharraf, the military president, might put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at risk.
Pakistani generals were appalled by one authoritative American report last week that an elite Pentagon undercover unit, trained to disarm nuclear weapons, was exploring plans for a mission inside Pakistan. "Every paranoid fear they have had over the past 20 years about people coming to get our missiles is suddenly coming to the fore," said Zia Mian, a Pakistani physicist and authority on the nuclear programme.
China's nuclear relations with Pakistan have long been the focus of controversy. Chinese scientists are believed to have played a key role in developing Pakistan's nuclear programme in the early 1980s. The two countries share a mistrust of India, which has also developed nuclear weapons.
In the 1990s relations between Beijing and Washington were strained when American officials discovered that China had supplied Islamabad with magnetic components for a centrifuge used in enriching uranium, a material used in warheads. US experts believe that Pakistan possesses between 30 and 50 warheads. Islamabad has also developed facilities for making weapons-grade plutonium.
The precise locations of Pakistan's nuclear weapons are highly secret. Several Washington sources said last week that senior Pakistani officers had been forced to consider a range of scenarios, from thefts of weapon materials to US bombing raids on nuclear facilities. The arrest in Pakistan of three nuclear scientists with alleged Taliban sympathies heightened concern that bomb-making secrets may have leaked to Afghanistan.
But even under extreme duress, several US sources said, many elements of the Pakistani military would resist surrendering custody of their warheads to China.
The risks of any deal with China are obvious. China is certain to be deeply wary of being linked to fundamentalist conflict. Yet American experts believe that Beijing represents the only haven that Pakistan would dare to trust.
In a bid to defuse concern, US officials are understood to have offered Pakistan high-tech assistance to improve the security of missile vaults and update both command and control communications, and the multiple-code custody arrangements that theoretically prevent rogue missile launches.
The issue was discussed by General Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, during his recent visit to Pakistan. A State Department official said last week Washington was "confident that Pakistan is taking steps to assure the safety of these [nuclear] assets".
But other American sources said Pakistan was reluctant to accept US technology for fear that it might be bugged by the CIA in order to establish the whereabouts of warheads.
The threat that Osama Bin Laden may acquire nuclear bomb-making materials is weighing heavily on American officials.
"Nobody in the Bush administration wants to be held responsible if Al-Qaeda gets a nuke," said George Perkovich, an Asian nuclear programme expert, who has urged the State Department to include China in talks on Pakistan's nuclear problems. "They are working their asses off on this," he said.
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