index
This is not written by a friend of peace movements in Pakistan /
India, but might interest some of you since it gives you an idea of
the kind of mentality that pushes this myth that Pakistan Nukes are
not in 'responsible' hands, the Indian ones are.
Harsh Kapoor
Battalions of reporters and analysts who have been scouring the
tinderbox region of South Asia and Central Asia since October 7-the
start of the bombing of Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts-have missed the
significance of one of the biggest stories unfolding right under
their noses in Pakistan. There is a good deal of circumstantial
evidence that Americans have taken charge of the security of
Pakistan's nuclear weapons and fissionable material.
One can piece this story together from apparently unconnected bits
of information, much of it public, that I have confirmed with public
officials whom I trust. In order to avoid humiliating Pakistan,
neither the United States nor Pakistan will confirm this
shift-especially since every Pakistani regime to date has projected
the possession of nuclear weapons as a matter of national pride and
as a way to keep its neighbor India in check. But a big hint of U.S.
involvement came from Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar himself.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on November 1, Sattar
disclosed that Pakistan had accepted an offer made by U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell to train Pakistanis "for security and
protection of nuclear assets." Sattar added: "Pakistani experts
would be apprised of the security measures being applied by the
United States [emphasis added]." If the foreign minister is to be
believed, then even before Pakistani personnel had been informed or
trained, the United States was applying security measures with
regard to Pakistan's nuclear assets.
Several additional factors indicate that Sattar was hinting that
America has effective control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons. One
is Pakistan's need to allay a spate of stories in the American press
suggesting that fundamentalist generals sympathetic to the Taliban
and al-Qaeda might unseat General Pervez Musharraf in a coup and
hand over nuclear material to Islamic radicals. In fact, Musharraf is
surprisingly well entrenched. But the United States, as part of its
new alliance with Pakistan, nonetheless needed stronger assurances
that its nuclear arsenal was secure.
A second clue is an indirect confirmation by Indian Defense Minister
George Fernandes: Without any provocation, he announced on October
30 that Pakistan's nuclear assets were in safe hands. This should
have raised a lot of eyebrows, but it did not. And in case there was
any doubt, Sattar, according to a report in Karachi's Dawn
newspaper, "surprised" local and foreign correspondents by walking
down to the foreign office briefing hall to read out a statement
that declared, among other things, that "Pakistan's strategic assets
are under foolproof custodial controls." He then proceeded to mention
the offer made by Powell to teach Pakistani experts how to employ
the security measures that the United States already had in place.
Sattar gave these assurances partly in order to deny a story in The
New Yorker in which writer Seymour Hersh suggested that U.S.
special-operations troops were training with Israeli commandos for a
possible mission to "take out" Pakistan's nuclear warheads and
prevent them from being transferred to al-Qaeda.
Sattar is a seasoned diplomat who has spent several decades in the
Pakistan Foreign Service and has held the most prestigious postings
that the service has to offer. He chooses his words with extreme
care, as I discovered when I covered him in the early 1990s, when he
was Pakistan's ambassador to India. He is very precise when speaking
on the record to journalists and has a knack of conveying the exact
sense that he wants to convey.
So Sattar's choice of words is telling. About "custodial control" of
the nuclear assets, he said that "dedicated formations of specially
equipped forces have been deployed for the security of Pakistan
nuclear installations and assets"-without specifying whose custody
and whose forces.
Fernandes's words are equally revealing: "Those concerned with
Pakistan's nuclear weapons are responsible people." He did not say
that the Pakistanis guarding the nuclear assets were responsible
people. Additionally, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton has
quoted Fernandes as quelling doubts about the safety of Pakistan's
nuclear weapons.
It is intriguing that, all of a sudden, U.S. and Indian officials
stopped leaking stories about the dangers of unsecured nuclear
material in Pakistan and began issuing reassuring statements that the
weapons were in safe hands. Yes, but in whose hands?
Colin Powell's offer of help in securing these assets was disclosed
after he visited Islamabad and Delhi on October 15. But this may
have been part of the ultimatum that the United States had issued to
Pakistan in the first few days after September 11: Powell called
Musharraf and insisted that Pakistan choose sides. Did the ultimatum
mention nuclear-weapons security?
By the time the bombing of Afghanistan began, Musharraf had,
according to a report in The Washington Post, ordered an "emergency
redeployment" of the nuclear arsenal to at least six new locations.
He had also begun relocating critical nuclear components. The threat
to his prized weapons was patently manifest. He used this
opportunity to reshuffle his top generals and create a strategic
planning division within the nuclear program. Musharraf had even
thought of moving his nuclear warheads for safekeeping to China, a
friendly neighbor, according to The New York Times. China had
clandestinely aided Pakistan's development programs for missiles and
nuclear weapons.
Further confirmation that outside controls were being imposed was
provided by the December 2 arrival in Islamabad of two Italian
arms-control scientists. Dawn reported that they were there to
"prepare a report on the status of nuclear security in Pakistan."
The bland account of their arrival continued:
Sources said the visiting scientists, Prof Paolo Cotta-Ramusino and
Prof Maurizio Martellini, would be looking at certain key questions
relating to safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, the percentage of
nuclear weapons that are assembled, effects of the Sept 11 attacks
and the Afghan crisis on the nuclear posture of Pakistan, Pakistan's
reaction to possible Indian attack and the public perception of the
nuclear weapons. The report would later be submitted to the Italian
government, they said.
The scientists, visiting under the auspices of the foreign ministry
of Italy, have held deliberations with foreign ministry officials
and think-tanks to assess the safety of nuclear weapons and the
risks of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists
and rogue states, the sources said.
Dawn then went on to comment that some of the questions being asked
by the scientists "have raised concern in the security
establishment" of Pakistan. Here, then, was Pakistan's leading
Englishlanguage newspaper reporting that two European scientists
were going around the country questioning Pakistani scientists about
the extent to which the country's nuclear assets were weaponized and
about whether some of these weapons could have been passed on to
al-Qaeda terrorists. The Pakistan government did not deny this
report or its contents, just as there had been no denial of Sattar's
statement that the United States was applying security measures to
Pakistan's nuclear assets.
It is inconceivable that these senior European arms-control experts
are making their rounds without the full knowledge and collaboration
of the United States. One can surmise that the United States has
apparently gone about verifying the status and number of Pakistan's
nuclear weapons in a clever, roundabout manner calculated to save
Musharraf from embarrassment at a time when America still needs his
help to sort out the mess in Afghanistan. More remarkable is the fact
that the military government in Islamabad allowed a Pakistani
newspaper to report this.
The scope of inquiries in Pakistan leaves nothing to the
imagination. One need only quote a few paragraphs from the Dawn
report published on December 6:
In terms of nuclear proliferation risks the scientists are exploring
the possible links of Pakistani nuclear scientists with the Afghan
Taliban and the Arab Afghans in the past and present scenarios,
effectiveness of control over Pakistani fissile material storage and
production facilities, possible transfer of illicit nuclear material
through Pakistan and Afghanistan and the effectiveness of control of
Pakistan's radioactive sources and their potential illicit traffic.
They said that in terms of chemical and biological weapons the
scientists have questions about effective control of materials of
concern for chemical and biological weapons and transfer of illicit
biological, chemical agents and dual use equipment through the border.
Some of the questions being asked relate to transfer of nuclear
scientists and experts to Afghanistan or any other country and the
impact of recent events on the scientific community, particularly on
the community of scientists involved in military and defence
activities. The sources said the scientists would also report the
impact of Pakistan's nuclear programme on the role of Islamic
countries in the international arena and whether Pakistan's
nuclearization has contributed to any change in the role of the
Islamic countries.
Are these among the "security measures being applied by the United
States" that Sattar spoke of on November 1? Are there even more
direct "security measures," including explicit U.S. operational
control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons?
There are two possibilities: Either the Pakistani government is
engaged in an elaborate charade, employing Italian decoys and
fooling both the Americans and the Indians (given the immensely high
stakes of loose nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic radicals,
this is highly improbable), or Washington has taken effective
control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal while going to great lengths to
deny it.
It is not surprising that the Indian defense minister should express
happiness that "those concerned with Pakistan's nuclear program are
responsible people": He knows that these concerned, responsible
people are not Pakistanis.
Ramindar Singh
Copyright (c) 2002 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation:
Ramindar Singh, "Controlling Pakistan's Nukes," The American
Prospect vol. 13 no. 1, January 1, 2002-January 14, 2002.
NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 31: THE Indian government today
handed over to Pakistan a list of 20 terrorists and criminals involved
in the December 13 attack on Parliament, the IC-814 hijack and
1993 Mumbai blasts, and sought their extradition. And most
names are among the 42 on the CBI's list of Interpol
Red Corner Notices (RCNs). The government, which maintains
that these offenders are all being sheltered by Pakistan, has
capped off its repeated reminders by drawing up this final list which
mentions, among others, Jaish leader Maulana Masood Azhar,
Dawood Ibrahim, his brother Anees, Tiger Memon, Mohammad
Ahmed Dosa, Mohammad 'Latif and Izaz Pathan. Reminders on
the Mumbai blasts suspects have been issued ever since 1993.
New Delhi, Dec. 31: Unaffected by the Vajpayee government's
decision to avoid a war and the BJP's move to scale down war
hysteria, the RSS continued to press for "strong measures and
retaliatory strikes at PoK." The editor of the RSS mouthpiece
Organiser, Mr Seshadri Chari, claimed that there has been "no
change in our stand." Notwithstanding the Centre's "improved"
relationship with the US and external affairs minister Jaswant Singh
claiming that the US was "not indulging in any double standards,"
the latest issue of Organiser virtually flayed the US for its
relationship with "military dictator" Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The Organiser said that the US must move to "democratise
Pakistan."
New Delhi has upped the ante twice within a week by taking stiff
diplomatic measures against Pakistan, signalling that it is playing
for extremely high stakes in the mounting confrontation. By all
indications, India has broadened its demands upon Islamabad and now
wants "effective action" against a wide range of militant groups
besides the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. It has also
declared that Pakistan's December 26 moves against them are
"cosmetic". More punitive diplomatic measures are in the offing.
Worse, a military confrontation seems likely. Indeed, it may well
have begun before these lines appear in print.
Nothing could be more unfortunate in strategic terms, undesirable in
social, political and economic consequences, or more unproductive in
countering terrorism, than an India-Pakistan war. A military attack
on Pakistan, however limited, must be averted at all costs--in favour
of diplomatic means. To say this is neither to minimise the gravity
of what happened in Delhi on December 13, nor to ignore Islamabad's
overall complicity in terrorist activities, especially in Kashmir.
Rather, the argument's rationale is that India's diplomatic options
are far broader and worthy of trial. It is India's duty to explore
and exhaust them before even considering armed action.
The top brass of our armed services is opposed to the use of military
force in the present circumstances. It has repeatedly expressed this
reluctance in the Cabinet Committee on Security and even in public
statements. This is also the mood among a majority of retired
generals and admirals who have spoken, including V.P. Malik, L.
Ramdas, Shankar Roychowdhury, V N Sharma and V.R. Raghavan. The
restraint they advocate contrasts sharply with our political leaders'
sabre-rattling and daily quota of hostile anti-Pakistan rhetoric. In
fact, we may be witnessing the first disconnect since Independence in
perceptions between our political and military leaders. Even when Gen
Sam Maneckshaw offered to quit in early 1971 over pressure to
prematurely attack East Pakistan, he disagreed with Indira Gandhi not
over the basic military strategy, but only the timing.
The services chiefs believe that attacks on Pakistani territory will
yield poor results and carry high risks. The forces lack accurate
information on the location of such few "training camps" as remain of
the originally claimed 158; most were shifted deep into Pakistan.
(Most Kashmiri militants do not undergo rigorous training which needs
elaborate permanent facilities, as opposed to temporary parade/drill
grounds and firing ranges.) Given information constraints,
high-altitude air strikes will be largely ineffective. Low-flying
planes will be vulnerable to ground fire. Heavy artillery won't work
because most suspect camps are beyond its range.
That leaves the options of "pro-active" ground attacks and "hot
pursuit". These too are chancy and fraught with high casualties. "Hot
pursuit" over land, as distinct from the sea, is legally problematic.
Any ground-troops operation will escalate. Today, there can be no
such thing as "limited war" or swift "surgical" strikes between India
and Pakistan. Given their relative strategic parity, any military
confrontation will be prolonged and last several weeks. This means
opening up more fronts than the Jammu & Kashmir LoC. India is
vulnerable on some of them, e.g. in the Chicken's Neck in Jammu.
An Indian military attack will certainly trigger retaliatory strikes.
Gen Musharraf cannot afford to be seen cowing down to India. After
the Taliban's defeat and collapse of Islamabad's quarter-century-old
Afghanistan policy (including his reversal of it), he has no option
but to hit back hard. Already, he is under flak from the religious
Right for "selling out" to the Americans and losing Afghanistan's
"strategic depth". A protracted war will all but destroy Pakistan's
fragile economy and prove unaffordable for India. Our economy will be
set back by many years. Besides, there is a strong likelihood that
the war will escalate into a mutually suicidal nuclear conflagration.
We must pause and ask what New Delhi will achieve even if, short of a
nuclear holocaust, it "wins" the war--leading to Gen Musharraf's fall
(or assassination), a general collapse of Pakistan's state, and its
disintegration along ethnic lines. A failed state collapsing on one's
borders is disastrous enough--as Pakistan discovered with
Afghanistan. A nuclear power so disintegrating would be catastrophic.
The legitimate purpose of a military operation against "terrorism"
cannot be the disintegration of Pakistan. What's needed is effective
action to curb extremism and put Pakistan on the road to moderation
and normalisation.
By embarking on an open-ended confrontation, New Delhi will have
pushed Pakistan's extremists further down the terrorist path. This
would be horrendously self-defeating. One cardinal lesson of
September 11 is that all states, no matter how powerful, are
vulnerable to terrorist attacks on their homeland. We must therefore
recognise that our military options against Pakistan are limited,
fraught with grave danger, or ineffectual. Instead of discouraging or
deterring terrorism, they will, at minimum, further encourage
extremist, irresponsible conduct on the part of an embittered
neighbour.
However, tragically, India's present rulers are
contemplating--indeed, they may be on the verge of--such a course,
driven by a bloody-minded, vengeful attitude. Their motivation is
profoundly irrational. It is to teach Islamabad a US or Israeli-style
"lesson". Yet, they know that Gen Musharraf probably did not order
the Parliament attack. He would have to be insane to do so when he is
on the backfoot and under American scrutiny. His interior minister's
brother was recently killed in revenge by extremist groups. They
today describe him as a "traitor" and "sellout". In all probability,
December 13 was an amateurish operation by a group acting
independently of Gen Musharraf. Even assuming that some rogue
elements of the ISI were behind it, a military misadventure would
only strengthen them.
Yet, the Vajpayee government is planning just a misadventure because
it is under Right-wing pressure. There is strong evidence of this. On
December 20, Mr Vajpayee was grilled for two hours by Mr Rajnath
Singh at a meeting attended by top-notch BJP-RSS leaders including
Messrs L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Jana Krishnamurthy and
Kushabhau Thakre. (The Telegraph and The Asian Age, Dec 22.) They
reportedly told him that all of Mr Singh's pro-Hindutva work in Uttar
Pradesh would be wiped out unless India launches military strikes to
show it is not a "soft state". If the BJP loses UP, the fractious and
ramshackle NDA could itself come tumbling down nationally.
Mr Vajpayee has repeatedly capitulated to the hardliners. He is now
under pressure to make a further "graduated" response by ratcheting
up hostility till war becomes likely, even inevitable. The measures
being contemplated (e.g. cancelling Pakistan's most-favoured-nation
trade status) are even more extreme than halving the staff strength
of diplomatic missions or banning Pakistan Airlines overflights. The
government is thinking of abrogating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty to
starve Pakistan of much-needed water.
All such measures will progressively erode India's diplomatic
leverage and inflict heavy punishment upon Pakistan, thus breeding
more resentment and hostility--without encouraging moderate,
reasonable, conduct on its part. For large numbers of Pakistanis who
stand for moderation, they will signify a mendaciously unreasonable,
bloody-minded, penalty. Abrogating the Indus Treaty would be
tantamount to laying economic siege to a country, which is
impermissible under international law. (We once almost invited stiff
Security Council sanctions for choking off the flow of the Ganges to
Bangladesh).
There is a saner, rational, cool-headed alternative to such
destructive moves. India should take the December 13 terrorist issue
to the wider world, in particular to the Security Council, on the
basis of solid evidence, and invoke Resolution 1373, mandating
anti-terrorist action by all states--on pain of sanctions. This will
generate the right pressure on Gen Musharraf to take effective,
verifiable measures, including the arrest of extremist leaders,
clampdown on their facilities and assets, and destruction of their
ISI links. There is no earthly reason why Masood Azhar and Hafiz
Saeed should be freely roaming Pakistan's streets.
This course has the merit of winning--and retaining--the support of
the international community and of coaxing and coercing Gen Musharraf
into eradicating a menace for which Pakistan has paid heavily. This
will help New Delhi build upon today's favourable situation in
Kashmir. The Taliban's defeat has had a huge impact on the Valley.
This creates a big opening to revitalise the political process and
get the All-Party Hurriyat Conference to participate in the next
Assembly elections. War will close that opening. Good diplomacy will
enlarge it and create conditions in which terrorism gets thoroughly
discredited, foreign militants get isolated, and a peaceful Kashmir
solution becomes possible.
However, a precondition here is that the government abandons the
military-adventurist approach. That's why Centrist parties like the
Congress, Samajwadi, Bahujan Samaj and the NDA's "secular" components
must not lend the government's "anti-terrorist" fight uncritical,
unconditional support in the name of a nonexistent "national
consensus". Such life-and-death issues are too precious to be left to
any one group, especially to the devious, cynical politicians of the
BJP-RSS. The Opposition, indeed the general public, must exercise its
rational judgment and demand that there be no war. It is imperative
to give peace--and wise diplomacy--a chance.
WASHINGTON, DEC. 30. India enjoys a strong numerical
advantage over Pakistan in both conventional and nuclear !
weapons, giving it an edge in ' its current confrontation with its
perennial foe, according to data released by a leading United
States think-tank. But a prominent U.S. expert on South Asia also
warned that the roughly two-to-one military advantage of the Indian
armed forces makes it more likely that a cornered Islamabad could
lash out with a nuclear strike. "If you had a full war between India
and Pakistan, not just skirmishes on the border... India would start
winning," said the former U.S. Ambassador, Mr. Dennis Kux, who
has served in both India and Pakistan. "And at a certain point
Pakistan, rather than going under, would push the button," he said,
appearing on CNN's 'The capital gang' show.
WASHINGTON: Struggling to find the correct perspective and tone
over the rising India-Pakistan face-off, US President George Bush
finally got the right message in telephone calls on Saturday to
leaders of the two countries. In a 20-minute talk with Pakistan's
military ruler Pervez Musharraf, Bush told him to "take
additional strong and decisive measures to eliminate the
extremists , who seek to harm India, undermine Pakistan,
provoke a war between India and Pakistan and destabilise the
international coalition against terrorism. In a separate call to Prime
Minister Vajpayee, Bush urged restraint.
NEW DELHI, Dec. 30. - The government and the Opposition
today reached a consensus at an all-party meeting that the Centre
should step up diplomatic offensive against Pakistan. Both sides
agreed that the country should wait for the results of the offensive
before considering military option. Assured of the
Opposition's support, the government would begin fresh diplomatic
offensive by demanding extradition of several criminals wanted
in India but safe on the other side of the border. The meeting,
convened by » the Prime Minister, also endorsed Mr Atal Behari
Vajpayee's suggestion to send all party delegations to foreign
capitals to secure international support for India.
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