US Has Plan To Safeguard Pakistan Nuclear Weapons:Report-AFP

[Purveyor]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. has developed contingency plans to safeguard Pakistani nuclear weapons if they risk falling into the wrong hands, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

But U.S. officials worry their limited knowledge about the location of the arsenal could pose a problem, it said, a week after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency.
"We can't say with absolute certainty that we know where they all are," the newspaper quoted an unnamed former U.S. official as saying.

As for any U.S. effort to seize and secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, the official said: "It could be very messy."

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Islamabad, Washington's key ally in the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants, is believed to have about 50 nuclear-armed weapons, an arsenal it began assembling after detonating its first nuclear devices in May 1998.

There is no evidence that any of the weapons, said to be spread out in various locations around the country, currently are at risk. But the volatile political climate has U.S. officials worried.

Read more: http://www.easybourse.com/Website/dynamic/News.php?NewsID=337630&PHPSESSID=e3708b2bc0e909d155bdd637d2837a75

[maseman]

1. You must be kidding me

So we'll just march in there and take over that country also? Of course we can't find Osama so why do we think we could find the nukes?

[Botany]

2. Brownie has a new job?

[rodeodance]

3. ha, the US says it will safeguard them but does not know where they are.

[Mika]

4. They're in the North, East, South and West of Pakistan.

:nuke:

[Demeter]

5. SURE They Do!

These people are the consummate planners.

[rockybelt]

6. safeguarding weapons

I can't see what could possibly go wrong here!:sarcasm: :nuke:

[woundedkarma]

7. so in other words...

We're now ready to invade Pakistan.

*blink*

Iran was a red herring? Bushco was faking us all out? knowing Pakistan would explode (pun intended) with nukes everywhere (or perhaps it's just falling into their greedy little hands/plans) and it becomes the perfect scare-target to continue their warmongering.

[daleo]

8. An interesting article in Defense and Security Analysis

Basically, these things aren't that secure.
-------------------------------------------

Nuclear Command and Control in Pakistan
Author: Shaun Gregory a
Affiliation: a Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK

The two issues that dominate international security - terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons - are nowhere more closely intertwined than in Pakistan. Pakistan stands at the eastern edge of Huntington's Islamic civilization fault-line and functions as a "conduit state" linking the security agendas of the Middle East, North Caucus and South Asia. As a weak state, under military rule since the coup of October 1999, and subject to civil-military tensions as well as factional violence of religious, ethnic, and regional character Pakistan also poses serious internal security questions, not least about the possibility of state failure, the rise of Islamic extremism, federal disintegration, or civil war. Furthermore, despite some progress, the issue of the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir continues to poison Pakistan's relations with its main adversary India, a rivalry that has found expression in two significant crises - Kargil in 1999 and the 2001-2002 military stand-off following the attack on India's Parliament in December 2001 - both of which occurred despite the overt nuclearization of the region.

In this context many sharp questions have been posed about the safety, security and command and control of nuclear weapons2in Pakistan. These boil down to three core concerns: (1) the risk that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists or some other extremist sub-national group; (2) the risk of unintentional or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons; (3) the dangers of loss of escalation control in a crisis or conventional conflict with its more powerful rival India. To assess these risks we need to understand the arrangements Pakistan has made for the safety, security, and command and control of its nuclear weapons and to draw on analysis of past patterns of behavior as a possible guide to future conduct.

[bemildred]

9. I have a plan to lay golden apples with my ass.

It's probably at least as good as this plan to protect Pakistani nukes ...

[Supersedeas]

10. Messy, bloody, costly -- too bad we have committed so many resources in Iraq