Posted on 11/13/2007 9:36:43 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
US has no option in a Pakistan nuclear “nightmare” (AFP)
14 November 2007
WASHINGTON - The US armed forces are virtually powerless to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from falling into Islamist hands if the political crisis in Islamabad spins out of control, analysts warned.
Instead, they said, Washington can do little but help to resolve the crisis and preserve its strong ties with Pakistan’s pro-Western military elite, whether or not General Pervez Musharraf stays in power.
“There’s no good military option at all,” Daniel Markey, a former US government policy planner for South Asia, told AFP on Tuesday in Washington.
It would be an “incredibly ugly scenario,” he said, for US forces to try to find and secure the nuclear sites in the event of an Islamist takeover because they lack the intelligence needed to do so in such a large country.
“Having some certainty of finding them is just, I think, out of the realm of reality,” said Markey, a former State Department official who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.
Averting such a “nightmare scenario,” he added, “means having a good working relationship” with the army, as has been the case for years.
“We shouldn’t kid ourselves that we can work with Pakistan without working with their army and that doesn’t mean we have to back a dictator.”
If the US government decides to drop Musharraf, he warned, it will have to be careful to avoid burning ties with the institution he heads. “That’s the difficult balancing act.”
Musharraf’s deputy in the army, General Ashfaq Kiyani, would be his obvious successor but the analyst said it is not certain that such a transition would go smoothly, even though he has reasonably good ties with Washington.
Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 bloodless coup and who became a frontline US ally in the war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks, insists there is nothing to worry about.
In an interview Tuesday with Fox News radio, Musharraf said Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are under “total custodial controls,” citing security measures in place since 2000.
“We created a strategic planning division and we have a national command authority which is overall organization institution into development and employment of strategic assets,” he said.
Pakistan has amassed an estimated 50 nuclear weapons since detonating its first atomic devices in May 1998.
Leonard Spector, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, doubted there was much of a military option.
“The idea that somehow we’re going to step in, I think that’s a very remote possibility,” Spector said from his office in Washington.
And for now, he said, the US government is probably seeking reassurance from Musharraf that his chain of command is in order or that it endures if there is an orderly transfer of power.
“Only if there’s a complete breakdown in society, would there be an issue. Even then, I think you’ll find a cadre, a very loyal military who protect the assets because it’s the patrimony of the country,” he said.
Andrew Koch, a defense and security analyst with the consulting firm Scribe Strategies and Advisors, said Pakistan’s atomic weapons are for now in the hards of a “very professional, pro-Western elite” operating a secure network.
The Taliban and Al-Qaeda, which are making inroads in northwestern Pakistan, would have trouble seizing materiel in a raid because the fissile weapons cores are held separate from the weapons, he said.
“You’d have to knock down two facilities to get both parts,” he added.
The military personnel involved in the nuclear program are also closely vetted for sympathies with the Islamists, he added.
However, he said some scientists associated with the nuclear program are suspected of harboring extremist sentiments and could leak secrets to terrorists or anti-Western regimes, even if they do not smuggle out weapons.
Such a risk would increase the longer political instability lasts, he said.
The reputation of Pakistan, the world’s only known nuclear-armed Muslim country, has been tarnished with the sale of atomic secrets on a global black market headed by its disgraced chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Khan confessed in 2004 to passing atomic secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. He was pardoned by Musharraf but remains under virtual house arrest in Islamabad.
In the longer term, Koch feared that Pakistan’s professional military class could be compromised if the country becomes increasingly pro-Taliban and anti-Western.
In the ultimate “doomsday” or “nightmare” scenario, he feared that the Pakistani military would see its loyalities split if the government falls and Islamists and other factions struggle to fill the void.
He said “there’s always the ultimate option of trying some sort of raid to snatch the weapons” but this would be difficult because ”we don’t have absolute certainty we know where all of Pakistan’s weapons are kept.”
not true!
If Pakistan were to fall to an Islamist coup-de-tat
we could immediately and without warning strike and wipe out ALL Pak nukes devices . and we should...
The first sign that Paki nukes have fallen into Slammie hands would be a nuke going off somewhere in Western India,another nuke going off on Diego Garcia & another one going off.......
What the US or anyone else does afterwards is meaningless.
There's one way that's guaranteed to work. But God help the world if things come down to that.
You are a spineless, Liberal type 'surrender monkey'.
From your're response, I gather you will be at the head of the "I'll drink the koolaid now, please." line.
No,unlike you I realise the dangers of putting all your eggs in the Musharraf basket & ignoring what will happen to Pakistan in the longterm.
Calling names rather than using your head is what an ignorant loser does.
A.Q Khan was a bureaucrat-a celebrity bureaucrat at best.Somebody who headed the civilian component of an Army run show.If you think think the military personnel were vetted,the civilians would have been strip-searched.IOW,AQK is a scapegoat.
He could not have acted alone. So on some level he is a scapegoat. You seem to think he was railroaded to a certain degree. Who do you think should take more blame?
Europe and the US are in no real danger of Pakistans nukes, but a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, could draw in China whom is so at odds with the rest of the world, that it may attack anyone.
Well,for one as I said,the Army ran the show.& Pakistan’s ISI & IB are among the most efficient intell-organisations of it’s type for cleansing impurities on the inside-do you seriously think one civilian or a group of yuppies would have hawked nuke-tech & that too for years without the highest authorities knowing.& before people say it,the ISI is an army of the Pakistani army,not distinct from it.
For common sense sake,a Pakistani C-130 was picked up by US Satellites in North Korea in 2002??Such clearance is virtually impossible to get-without the highest authorities approving.The Chinese stopped hawking technology to both Pakistan & North Korea in the late 80s to gain international respect while facilitating both countries bartering their respective goods(nukes for missiles).This was a political arrangement,not an under the table deal.For a country where people are strung up on flimsy blasphemy & adultery charges,why were no legal proceedings of any sort launched against AQK & Co.-if anything house-arrest in many parts of the world is a form of protection.
To cut my rant short,I hold the Pakistani army guilty for this-If Khan was tried,he would have spilled the beans.America can live with compromises-so Khan’s role was magnified.
China is the reason why Pakistan managed to get it’s nukes.
China is the reason why India has not been able to send Pakistan back into the stone age.
If Pakistan blows up,India will take nuke hits from the assortment of Jihadis who will fight to gain control of what is left of Pakistan-China won’t have to bat an eyelid to see India battered.
You’re not posting from the US, are you? Are you posting from Pakistan?
I’m not a fan of Michael Savage (though I have nothing against him) and I don’t listen to him very often. But I heard him yesterday talking on the subject of Pakistan and I sincerely wish our government was listening to him on this issue instead of whatever gang of nitwits and morons they’re currently listening to. He says Musharef is our friend and Butto is a fraud, and I agree.
I disagree..
If Pakistan “falls” to the Islamists — then the terrorists have a nuclear armed THREATENING NATION STATE, that MUST be “neutralized”...
What the hell is preventing us from doing just that...with severe prejudice and maximum effect?
Let’s not jump the gun by saying that Europe is not in any danger.The Pakis are working on (or rather will work to get Chinese/North Korean) missiles with a range of over 4500kms.If Europe is in any danger,US bases in the M.E & Europe can be as well-Bases in the PErsian Gulf are within strike range already.If Pakistan is going to get those F-16s it was promised,they will come with Conformal fuel tanks-bases in Central Asia or the Persian Gulf will be within range.
The Pakis are also working on a sub launched variant of their Babur cruise missile-which inevitably will be nuke-tipped.IF deployed on their French built subs which will have enhanced propulsion system & will be dead silent,they can go anywhere.
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