Asia Times: Nuclear worries mount by the day


	November 3, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Nuclear worries mount by the day
By Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI - Recent indications that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is not safe amid unrest over the war in Afghanistan, and that the United States might be planning to "neutralize" it, again highlight the nuclear danger in South Asia.

The region, which overtly crossed the nuclear threshold three and a half years ago, could be on the brink of a disastrous nuclear confrontation unless India-Pakistan rivalry is defused and the pro-Taliban protests significantly abate in Pakistan. Of the two conditions, the second appears unlikely to be fulfilled. And the first is a function of prudent, balanced diplomacy by the major global powers, as well as India's internal political developments.

To further complicate matters, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on October 29 refused to "rule out" the possibility that the United States could use tactical nuclear weapons against the caves in which Osama bin Laden is suspected to be hiding. This is tantamount to a threat to unleash mass destruction.

Numerous recent developments, including media reports, strongly suggest that the danger of Pakistan's nuclear weapons or materials falling into the hands of pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements is very real. The New York Times, Guardian, the London Times, and Washington Post have all carried articles quoting US and British intelligence officials, highlighting the vulnerability of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

The most revealing of these is a story by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker on October 29. This report is a credible, convincing account of the high vulnerability of Pakistan's nuclear stockpile, and of how officials in the US security establishment see them.

Hersh says the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US military have set a special deep-penetration unit to seize, take out or de-fang Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The commando group is training with an Israeli outfit, Unit 262, know for covert operations including theft and assassination. The US unit is said to specialize in locating and disarming nuclear weapons.

Earlier, Bruce G Blair, a nuclear expert and president of the Center for Defense Information, a non-profit NGO, had recommended this explicitly in a New York Times article of October 22.

Pakistan is believed to have between 20 and 60 nuclear weapons. India probably has twice as many. But both states lack reliable command-and-control systems that can prevent unauthorized access to the weapons, or their accidental or unintended use. US intelligence sources are extremely worried. If Pakistan's street protests against the war escalate and the state is destabilized, Islamabad's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

The Pakistan army, which controls the nuclear program, may itself split over militarily supporting the US-led war. Alternatively, if the existing state structure collapses under uncontrollable unrest, radical Islamists sympathetic to Osama bin Laden or the Taliban could take over the nuclear arsenal and use it to unspeakably deadly effect.

US government spokespersons have refused to confirm or deny if there is indeed a special unit engaged in nuclear surveillance in Pakistan, and if it is training with Israeli forces. But Joseph R Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has confirmed that President George W Bush is consulting senior leaders on plans to neutralize Pakistan's nuclear capabilities if the Musharraf regime collapses. He told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in New York that "those discussions are under way with members of Congress".

Yet ironically, reports about US preparations to neutralize Pakistan's nuclear weapons may only further intensify the crisis in Pakistan. And if the US deep-penetration unit prepares to act, it might greatly aggravate the situation.

For the moment, both Pakistani and Indian authorities have played down the vulnerability of Islamabad's poorly safeguarded nuclear arsenal. A Pakistani official spokesman says that the danger of nuclear weapons falling into unauthorized hands is "unthinkable" and that the arsenal is well-protected and safe.

The Indian government, otherwise extremely adversarial toward Pakistan, has also given a certificate of safety to Pakistan's nuclear program. On October 30, Defense Minister George Fernandes said: "I would like to give them credit. Those concerned with Pakistan's nuclear program are responsible people." He was certain that Pakistan would not allow anybody to tamper with the devices. "They will not allow it to happen," he said.

This is a thoroughly irresponsible comment, which is not based on real familiarity with Pakistan's nuclear weapons program or practices. There has never been any clarity among Indian officials on these issues. (Some had dismissed the possibility of Pakistan being able to make and test a bomb right until the day it tested.)

Fernandes's remark is meant to deflect and stall questions about the safety of India's own nuclear arsenal which too has a high potential for mishaps and accidental or unauthorized use, and to dismiss concerns about the unique nuclear danger in South Asia. Both governments, addicted to nuclearism, share a common stake in minimizing the danger and in ridiculing genuine concerns about safety.

Part of the reason is the prevalence of a poor safety culture in the two societies. India and Pakistan are disaster- and mishap-prone. Their industrial and road accident rates are more than 10 times higher than in the industrialized countries. They have both suffered serious disasters - like the 1984 Bhopal gas leak and the 1987 Ojhri ordnance depot fire in Pakistan.

The nuclear programs of both states are marked by appalling breaches of safety regulations. Even their military infrastructures have a bad safety record. India has lost nearly 200 warplanes in avoidable accidents in the past decade.

Pakistan's claims that all is well in its nuclear estabilishment are belied by the arrest and detention of two former senior scientists of the Atomic Energy Commission for alleged pro-Taliban views and links. The scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chawdry Abdul Majid, are both experts on plutonium technology. According to several media reports, they have been handed over to US intelligence agencies for interrogation. This is denied by Islamabad.

More important, anxieties in the region are likely to grow as the turmoil in Pakistan continues unabated and India's right-wing government makes moves that escalate mutual hostility, with potentially dangerous nuclear consequences.

The United States may have seriously underestimated its own lack of popularity in the region, and overestimated its ability to force events without inviting a hostile popular reaction - thus creating sympathy for its enemies. The more the United States is seen to be interfering, the greater the hostility it provokes.

This applies with redoubled force to the nuclear situation, where US double standards are especially glaring. America cannot demand that Pakistan show nuclear restraint or disarm while it itself continues to rely on a massive nuclear weapons arsenal. The US thus faces an acute dilemma in South Asia. Whatever it does will probably have adverse consequences under certain circumstances.

Meanwhile, as the South Asian situation deteriorates with each passing day, the nuclear danger grows.

(Inter Press Service)