The Obama administration has been pursuing arrangements with Pakistan's military that would enable U.S. forces to help secure the Asian nation's nuclear weapons if they came under threat in a terrorist offensive or internal coup, the New Yorker reported in its latest issue (see GSN, Nov. 5).
(Nov. 9) -
Pakistani troops fire mortars on Taliban positions in South Waziristan last month. The United States has reportedly been seeking permission to help Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal in an emergency (Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images).
Negotiation of the arrangements -- which would also include funding for training and equipping Pakistani military personnel -- has largely been kept under wraps due to suspicions in Pakistan that Washington wants to curb or eliminate Islamabad's nuclear capabilities, according to current and former officials in the two nations.
“The Pakistanis gave us a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system. We saw their target list and their mobilization plans. We got their security plans, so we could augment them in case of a breach of security,” a former high-level U.S. intelligence official said. “We’re there to help the Pakistanis, but we’re also there to extend our own axis of security to their nuclear stockpile.”
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated through a spokesman that he was "not aware of our receipt of any such information."
A high-level military official added that such details on Pakistan's nuclear deterrent would probably "have gone to another government agency."
Mullen also refuted suggestions that he and Pakistani chief of staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, or their subordinates, had pursued any understanding on providing direct U.S. nuclear security assistance to Pakistan. “To my knowledge, we have no military units, special forces or otherwise, involved in such an assignment,” he said, according to his spokesman.
Pakistani government sources framed the nuclear-security discussions between the two nations, dating back at least to the early months of the Bush administration, largely as a means of alleviating U.S. concerns about their nation's nuclear security.
"Even if there was a military coup d’état in Pakistan, no one is going to give up total control of our nuclear weapons. Never. Why are you not afraid of India’s nuclear weapons?" said one high-level Pakistani official.
“We have 20,000 people working in the nuclear-weapons industry in Pakistan, and here is this American view that Pakistan is bound to fail,” another Pakistani official said. “The Americans are saying, ‘We want to help protect your weapons.’ We say, ‘Fine. Tell us what you can do for us.’ It’s part of a quid pro quo. You say, also, ‘Come clean on the nuclear program and we’ll insure that India doesn’t put pressure on it.’ So we say, ‘OK.’”
"Both sides are lying to each other," the second official added. “We haven’t told you anything that you don’t know. If you try to take the weapons away, you will fail.”
Islamabad has enacted a number of security efforts, including keeping nuclear warheads, triggers and delivery systems stored in different locations.
Some experts believe Islamabad has shifted some of its nuclear assets to a highly classified site as a means of ensuring that U.S. or Indian forces could not fully neutralize the nuclear arsenal, according to one U.S. Defense Department adviser.
"If you thought your American ally was telling your enemy where the weapons were, you’d do the same thing,” the adviser said.
Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said his country has constructed an extensive network of underground passages for transferring its nuclear-weapon components outside the view of U.S. spy satellites.
“The tunnels are so deep that a nuclear attack will not touch them,” Musharraf added.
Still, Pakistan's nuclear weapons would be most vulnerable to seizure while they were being transferred or put together prior to possible use, exercises involving the armaments have indicated. The primary threat to the arsenal of roughly 80 to 100 warheads would come internally, say in the form of a coup by militants within the Pakistani military, rather than from outside extremists, according to the New Yorker.
This summer, U.S. intelligence reports that a Pakistani nuclear-weapon component had been misplaced prompted the deployment of an interagency team of U.S. nonproliferation and counterterrorism specialists, a Defense Department consultant said. The unit had traveled to the United Arab Emirates before the alert was canceled (Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, Nov. 16).
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson denied the existence of an undisclosed U.S.-Pakistani nuclear security arrangement, Asian News International reported.
"These allegations are completely false. The United States has no intention to seize Pakistani nuclear weapons or material," Patterson said, according to Pakistan's Daily Times (Asian News International/New Kerala, Nov. 9).
Islamabad stressed yesterday that its nuclear arsenal is "completely safe and secure," Agence France-Presse reported.
"Pakistan therefore does not require any foreign assistance in this regard," the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Nor will Pakistan, as a sovereign state, ever allow any country to have direct or indirect access to its nuclear and strategic facilities. Any suggestion to this effect is simply preposterous" (Agence France-Presse/Hindustan Times, Nov. 8).