HRAWH asks: "How long will it be before all of Pakistan's nuclear weapons fall into the hands of an radical fundamentalist government?"This was a major question for all of us that have been following the War on Terror in this region. It became obvious, some time back, that part of our strategy in Afghanistan was not only to kill and capture what we could of al-Qa'ida and the Taliban, but to drive the rest of them into Pakistan in order to destabilize that country enough that Musharraf would be forced to call us in to clean up his own mess. No War on Terror could claim any real measure of success without cleaning out the rats nest of terrorists in Pakistan.
Despite Pakistan's public protestations to the contrary, U.S. forces have been deployed inside Pakistan for quite some time now. In fact, we occupy six bases there. For his part, Musharref was in desperate straits and had to act. Last September, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa'ida's second in command, issued a fatwa calling for Musharraf's assassination. There were two, nearly successful, attempts on his life in December. I've heard rumors that there has been another attempt on his life since then. Musharraf needs us as desperately as we need him. Perhaps not a match made in heaven, but a working relationship of overlapping mutual interests.
But in destabilizing Pakistan, we risked the fall of Musharraf, which would leave Pakistan's radical Islamist (read: Taliban and al-Qa'ida) in control of the country as well as its nuclear stockpile. That would be a monumental catastrophe. Logic dictated then, that our strategy MUST have included some kind of back up plan, in case our grand plans went awry.
About a month or two ago, we began reading reports that Musharraf had placed the security and access to his nuclear weapons stockpile under U.S. control. According to these reports, we have been allowed to install new sophisticated access controls and bomb command codes, so that those not authorized can neither access the devices nor set them off. Not a perfect solution, but at least we have access to the nukes.
My guess is that if we have that kind of access to these devices, that Pakistan's entire nuclear stockpile probably rests in the read end of a U.S. C-130, fueled up and with a fresh crew on board, sitting at the end of some Pakistani runway, along with a flight of fighter escorts, awaiting a "go code" from intel telling us that the worst has happened and Musharraf has fallen and to get those damn nukes the hell out of Dodge NOW!!!.
Is this a risky plan? Heck yes, but I see no other choice that has less risk. Besides, its working (for now, at least!)
--Boot Hill