The United States should expand the 18-year-old Cooperative Threat Reduction program to secure and eliminate nuclear materials and other potential WMD ingredients in Pakistan, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said yesterday (see GSN, May 6).
"Initially, Nunn-Lugar was restricted to the former Soviet Union. In 2003, I wrote legislation, signed into law by the president, authorizing the Nunn-Lugar program to operate outside the former Soviet Union," Lugar said in a statement. "This authority can and should be used to expand significantly our cooperation with Pakistan in the nuclear arena as well as in other critical areas."
"In addition to nuclear weapons security, there is an opportunity to commence strong collaboration in the area of infectious diseases and pathogens," he said, referring to the recent swine flu outbreak (see related GSN story, today).
"Imagine if the spread were intentional, not natural, and the virus’ lethality had been artificially enhanced. Pakistan has many dangerous diseases and pathogens under its control. The Nunn-Lugar program can help secure the pathogen strains to ensure they do not fall into the wrong hands. Equally important, the U.S. can assist Pakistan in establishing a system designed to detect, characterize and respond to outbreaks of infectious diseases," Lugar said (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, May 6).
U.S. President Barack Obama and top officials in his administration met with the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan yesterday to discuss strategies for rolling back recent militant gains in both countries, the New York Times reported (Helene Cooper, New York Times, May 7).
"President Obama must use this opportunity to gain clarification on the status and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, chemical weapons precursors, and pathogen samples. He must convince [Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari] to accept more assistance and embrace cooperation in these critical areas," Lugar said ahead of the meeting (Lugar release).
France today warned that extremist groups posed a major threat to Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Agence France-Presse reported.
"Today the Taliban are making progress not just in Afghanistan but in the Pakistani interior itself, and at the end of this road there's a stock of nuclear weapons," said Pierre Lellouche, France's special envoy to Pakistan.
Taliban militants "are nibbling away and fear is settling into people's hearts," Lellouche said. "We shouldn't think of columns of Taliban descending on the capital. It's more complicated than that. We are seeing the rampant Talibanization of areas close to the capital, a mental Talibanization" (Agence France-Presse/Google News, May 7).