WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 — Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.
But with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.
The aid, buried in secret portions of the federal budget, paid for the training of Pakistani personnel in the United States and the construction of a nuclear security training center in Pakistan, a facility that American officials say is nowhere near completion, even though it was supposed to be in operation this year.
While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used.
That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.
Full Story Here:
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms
Isn’t it amazing?? Yesterday I posted a story expressing my concern regarding Pakistani nukes and their safety, Musharraf warns on nuke weapons, and voila, the NYT has a piece up late Saturday for their Sunday edition that touts the USA as having spent almost $100 million to help Pervez Musharraf secure the things, and it was a secret too, I guess the secret part just went out the window…
I absolutely love this line, “While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment”, at he moment, so, now I have to ask, how long is a moment?? Does that mean that American officials believe that in another moment the weapons won’t be safe any longer??
A moment, as defined by Dictionary.com: noun 1. an indefinitely short period of time; when we’re talking about the security of nuclear weapons, using the term safe at the moment gives me great concern, and when U.S. officials speak in such ambiguous terms it generally mean they don’t have a clue, I hope that’s not the case this time but it does seem to be the SOP, standard operating procedure, for diplomatic speak…
There are numerous ‘fail-safe’ systems in place within the U.S. nuclear fleet, you’d think that if Pakistan was the ally we are told they are, that some of our systems could be modified to work in the Paki nuke arsenal:
The American program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration debated whether to share with Pakistan one of the crown jewels of American nuclear protection technology, known as “permissive action links,†or PALS, a system used to keep a weapon from detonating without proper codes and authorizations.
In the end, despite past federal aid to France and Russia on delicate points of nuclear security, the administration decided that it could not share the system with the Pakistanis because of legal restrictions.
Legal restrictions?? We shared the technology with France and Russia but for legal reasons we can’t share it with Pakistan??
Surely we could have masked what would have been even remotely useful or would have allowed others to crack into American nuclear protection codes, or so one would think, but, under the Bush administration and it’s marvelous brand of governmental management, when you have an American President that can’t even pronounce the word nuclear, well, I guess nothing is out of the realm of possibility…
In addition, the Pakistanis were suspicious that any American-made technology in their warheads could include a secret “kill switch,†enabling the Americans to turn off their weapons.
Yeah, God forbid we do anything that might head off a nuclear winter because some hot-head Pakistani dictator might want to launch on, oh, say India for example, and since India is our ally we had a built in ‘kill switch’ and stopped an attack, our bad I guess, how dare we even think of such a thing…
Pakistan, and their nuclear arsenal may be protected by American technology and teachings, I hope so, and I hope that unprotected moment never happens, I am convinced that every radical Islamic terrorist that can get transportation to the area is standing by just waiting for an opportunity to try and obtain a real live working nuclear weapon, I believe that to be a very real scenario and quite likely an operation that is fully in the works as you read this, and if the radical Muslims succeed in this quest, God help us all…
Trackback URL:
http://texasfred.net/archives/734/trackback/
I believe the real problem is that the Pakistanis probably don’t want one of the key parts of PAL–two man control. With current system of strong man rule, the ruler at the top wants the instantaneous obediance of his/her military faction (which may or may not be the majority military faction). Two man control has two out of three scenarios that would displease the strong man. With Scenario 1 (both officers of the strong man’s faction), all is well. However, Scenario 2 (one officer from each of two different factions) and Scenario 3 (two officers from a faction opposed to the strong man), may put the weapon beyond the strong man’s control. This is compounded by the reality that, from what I have read, the F-16 would be the Pakistani’s primary delivery platform. Most F-16′s are single seaters, and so two-man control would be lost once the F-16 was weaponized anyway (however, a PAL system would at least avoid having planes flying around with hot nukes).
While were talking about Pakistani instability and nukes, it is instructive to remember that large number of the members of the ruling party in India actively favor a first strike against Pakistan. If circumstances deteriorate to the point where Pakistan’s minimal deterret evaporates, India may attempt to secure its long sought-after domination of the Indian-subcontinent with a first strike.