Pakistan Nuclear security plan

[HasanG20]

Monday, November 09, 2009
How much does the US really know?Musharraf says a huge tunnel system has been built; US team had reached Dubai to take out Pak nukes; report claims US negotiating secret understanding with Pakistan Army

News Desk

NEW YORK: The Obama administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military, the influential magazine ‘The New Yorker’ says in a detailed report by world famous Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, published in its latest issue.

“The Pakistanis gave us a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system,” Hersh quotes a former senior US intelligence official. “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,” he said.

“We’re there to help the Pakistanis, but we’re also there to extend our own axis of security to their nuclear stockpile.”The secret understandings between the US and Pakistan would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani nuclear arsenal in case of a crisis, the report said.

The 7,000-word article said the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities — goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired.

Hersh quoted former President Musharraf, after an interview with him in London recently, saying that his government had held extensive discussions with the Bush Administration after 9/11 attacks, and had given State Department non-proliferation experts insight into the command and control of the Pakistani arsenal and its on-site safety and security procedures.

Musharraf also confirmed that Pakistan had constructed a huge tunnel system for the transport and storage of nuclear weaponry. “The tunnels are so deep that a nuclear attack will not touch them,” Musharraf told me, with obvious pride. The tunnels would make it impossible for the American intelligence community—“Big Uncle,” as a Pakistani nuclear-weapons expert called it — to monitor the movements of nuclear components by satellite.

Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to ensure that no one can launch a warhead — in the heat of a showdown with India, for example — without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within Pakistan’s 10-member National Command Authority, with the chairman — by statute, President Zardari — casting the deciding vote.

Hersh quoted an American former senior intelligence official saying that a team that has trained for years to remove or dismantle parts of the Pakistani arsenal has now been augmented by a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the elite counterterrorism group. He added that the unit, which had earlier focused on the warheads’ cores, has begun to concentrate on evacuating the triggers, which have no radioactive material and are thus much easier to handle.

The detailed American planning even includes an estimate of how many nuclear triggers could be placed inside a C-17 cargo plane, the former official said, and where the triggers could be sequestered. Admiral Mullen, asked about increased American insight into the arsenal, said, through his spokesman, “I am not aware of our receipt of any such information.” A senior military officer added that the information, if it had been conveyed, would most likely “have gone to another government agency.”

Early this summer, a consultant to the Department of Defense said a highly classified military and civil-emergency response team was put on alert after receiving an urgent report from American intelligence officials indicating that a Pakistani nuclear component had gone astray. The team, which operates clandestinely and includes terrorism and nonproliferation experts from the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the FBI, and the DOE, is under standing orders to deploy from Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland, within four hours of an alert. When the report turned out to be a false alarm, the mission was aborted, the consultant said. By the time the team got the message, it was already in Dubai.

A spokesman for the Pakistani military said, in an official denial, “Pakistan neither needs any American unit for enhancing the security for its arsenal nor would accept it.” The spokesman added that the Pakistani military “has been providing protection to US troops in a situation of crisis” — a reference to Pakistan’s role in the war on terror — “and hence is quite capable to deal with any untoward situation.”

Hersh said the arsenal was a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India.

After interviews with several current and former officials, Hersh reported that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal, but the Taliban overrunning Islamabad was not the only, or even the greatest, concern. “The principal fear is mutiny — that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.”

Hersh said a senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.”

Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? 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?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will — (four letter word) — us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”

The magazine said: “The ongoing consultation on nuclear security between Washington and Islamabad intensified after the announcement in March of President Obama’s so-called ****** policy, which called upon the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan.

“I was told that the understandings on nuclear cooperation benefitted from the increasingly close relationship between Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Kayani, his counterpart, although the CIA and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have also been involved.” Hersh said.

The magazine said all three departments declined to comment for this article. The national-security council and the CIA denied that there were any agreements in place.

In response to a series of questions, Admiral Mullen acknowledged that he and Kayani were, in his spokesman’s words, “very close.” The spokesman said that Mullen is deeply involved in day-to-day Pakistani developments and “is almost an action officer for all things Pakistan.” But he denied that he and Kayani, or their staffs, had reached an understanding about the availability of American forces in case of mutiny or a terrorist threat to a nuclear facility.

“To my knowledge, we have no military units, special forces or otherwise, involved in such an assignment,” Mullen said through his spokesman. The spokesman added that Mullen had not seen any evidence of growing fundamentalism inside the Pakistani military.

In interviews in Pakistan, Hersh obtained confirmation that there were continuing conversations with the United States on nuclear-security plans — as well as evidence that the Pakistani leadership put much less weight on them than the Americans did. In some cases, Pakistani officials spoke of the talks principally as a means of placating anxious American politicians. “You needed it,” a senior Pakistani official, who said that he had been briefed on the nuclear issue, told me. His tone was caustic.

“We have twenty thousand people working in the nuclear-weapons industry in Pakistan, and here is this American view that Pakistan is bound to fail.” The official added, “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, ‘O.K.’ ” But, the Pakistani official said, “both sides are lying to each other. We haven’t told you anything that you don’t know.” The Americans didn’t realise that Pakistan would never cede control of its arsenal: “If you try to take the weapons away, you will fail.”

In an actual crisis, would the Pakistanis give an American team direct access to their arsenal? An adviser to the Pentagon on counterinsurgency said that some analysts suspected that the Pakistani military had taken steps to move elements of the nuclear arsenal “out of the count” — to shift them to a storage facility known only to a very few — as a hedge against mutiny or an American or Indian effort to seize them. “If you thought your American ally was telling your enemy where the weapons were, you’d do the same thing,” the adviser said.

“Let me say this about our nuclear deterrent,” President Zardari told me, when asked about any recent understandings between Pakistan and the United States. “We give comfort to each other, and the comfort level is good, because everybody respects everybody’s integrity. We’re all big boys.”

Zardari and I met twice, first in his office, in the grand but isolated Presidential compound in Islamabad, and then, a few days later, alone over dinner in his personal quarters. He is chatty but guarded, proud but defensive, and, like many Pakistanis, convinced that the United States will always favor India. Over dinner, he spoke of his suspicions regarding his wife’s death. He said that, despite rumors to the contrary, he would complete his five-year term.

Zardari spoke with derision about what he depicted as America’s obsession with the vulnerability of his nation’s nuclear arsenal. “In your country, you feel that you have to hold the fort for us,” he said. “The American people want a lot of answers for the errors of the past, and it’s very easy to spread fear. Our Army officers are not crazy, like the Taliban. They’re British-trained. Why would they slip up on nuclear security? A mutiny would never happen in Pakistan. It’s a fear being spread by the few who seek to scare the many.”

Zardari offered some advice to Barack Obama: instead of fretting about nuclear security in Pakistan, his Administration should deal with the military disparity between Pakistan and India, which has a much larger army. “You should help us get conventional weapons,” he said. “It’s a balance-of-power issue.”

In May, Zardari, at the urging of the United States, approved a major offensive against the Taliban, sending thirty thousand troops into the Swat Valley, which lies a hundred miles northwest of Islamabad. “The enemy that we were fighting in Swat was made up of twenty per cent thieves and thugs and eighty per cent with the same mind-set as the Taliban,” Zardari said. He depicted the operation as a complete success, but added that his government was not “ready” to kill all the Taliban. His long-term solution, Zardari said, was to provide new business opportunities in Swat and turn the Taliban into entrepreneurs. “Money is the best incentive,” he said. “They can be rented.”

A former State Department official who worked on nuclear issues with Pakistan after September 11th said that he’d come to understand that the Pakistanis “believe that any information we get from them would be shared with others — perhaps even the Indians. To know the command-and-control processes of their nuclear weapons is one thing. To know where the weapons actually are is another thing.”

The former State Department official cited the large Pakistan Air Force base outside Sargodha, west of Lahore, where many of Pakistan’s nuclear-capable F-16s are thought to be stationed. “Is there a nuke ready to go at Sargodha?” the former official asked. “If there is, and Sargodha is the size of Andrews Air Force Base, would we know where to go? Are the warheads stored in Bunker X?” Ignorance could be dangerous. “If our people don’t know where to go and we suddenly show up at a base, there will be a lot of people shooting at them,” he said. “And even if the Pakistanis may have told us that the triggers will be at Bunker X, is it true?”

The former high-level Bush Administration official was just as blunt. “If a Pakistani general is talking to you about nuclear issues, and his lips are moving, he’s lying,” he said. “The Pakistanis wouldn’t share their secrets with anybody, and certainly not with a country that, from their point of view, used them like a Dixie cup and then threw them away.”

Hersh flew to New Delhi from Pakistan and met with two senior officials from the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s national intelligence agency. Our worries are about the nuclear weapons in Pakistan,” one of the officials said. “Not because we are worried about the mullahs taking over the country; we’re worried about those senior officers in the Pakistan Army who are Caliphates” — believers in a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state.

“We know some of them and we have names,” he said. “We’ve been watching colonels who are now brigadiers. These are the guys who could blackmail the whole world” — that is, by seizing a nuclear weapon.

The article by Hersh also quoted noted journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, Group Editor of The News Shaheen Sehbai, Lt General ® Hamid Gul, writer Brian Cloughley, Sultan Amir Tarar, known to many as Colonel Imam, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy and others.


Source: Pakistan nuclear security plan

[A1Kaid]

Originally Posted by HasanG20

Monday, November 09, 2009
How much does the US really know?Musharraf says a huge tunnel system has been built; US team had reached Dubai to take out Pak nukes; report claims US negotiating secret understanding with Pakistan Army

News Desk

NEW YORK: The Obama administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military, the influential magazine ‘The New Yorker’ says in a detailed report by world famous Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, published in its latest issue.

“The Pakistanis gave us a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system,” Hersh quotes a former senior US intelligence official. “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,” he said.

“We’re there to help the Pakistanis, but we’re also there to extend our own axis of security to their nuclear stockpile.”The secret understandings between the US and Pakistan would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani nuclear arsenal in case of a crisis, the report said.

The 7,000-word article said the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities — goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired.

Hersh quoted former President Musharraf, after an interview with him in London recently, saying that his government had held extensive discussions with the Bush Administration after 9/11 attacks, and had given State Department non-proliferation experts insight into the command and control of the Pakistani arsenal and its on-site safety and security procedures.

Musharraf also confirmed that Pakistan had constructed a huge tunnel system for the transport and storage of nuclear weaponry. “The tunnels are so deep that a nuclear attack will not touch them,” Musharraf told me, with obvious pride. The tunnels would make it impossible for the American intelligence community—“Big Uncle,” as a Pakistani nuclear-weapons expert called it — to monitor the movements of nuclear components by satellite.

Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to ensure that no one can launch a warhead — in the heat of a showdown with India, for example — without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within Pakistan’s 10-member National Command Authority, with the chairman — by statute, President Zardari — casting the deciding vote.

Hersh quoted an American former senior intelligence official saying that a team that has trained for years to remove or dismantle parts of the Pakistani arsenal has now been augmented by a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the elite counterterrorism group. He added that the unit, which had earlier focused on the warheads’ cores, has begun to concentrate on evacuating the triggers, which have no radioactive material and are thus much easier to handle.

The detailed American planning even includes an estimate of how many nuclear triggers could be placed inside a C-17 cargo plane, the former official said, and where the triggers could be sequestered. Admiral Mullen, asked about increased American insight into the arsenal, said, through his spokesman, “I am not aware of our receipt of any such information.” A senior military officer added that the information, if it had been conveyed, would most likely “have gone to another government agency.”

Early this summer, a consultant to the Department of Defense said a highly classified military and civil-emergency response team was put on alert after receiving an urgent report from American intelligence officials indicating that a Pakistani nuclear component had gone astray. The team, which operates clandestinely and includes terrorism and nonproliferation experts from the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the FBI, and the DOE, is under standing orders to deploy from Andrews Air Force Base, in Maryland, within four hours of an alert. When the report turned out to be a false alarm, the mission was aborted, the consultant said. By the time the team got the message, it was already in Dubai.

A spokesman for the Pakistani military said, in an official denial, “Pakistan neither needs any American unit for enhancing the security for its arsenal nor would accept it.” The spokesman added that the Pakistani military “has been providing protection to US troops in a situation of crisis” — a reference to Pakistan’s role in the war on terror — “and hence is quite capable to deal with any untoward situation.”

Hersh said the arsenal was a source of great pride among Pakistanis, who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India.

After interviews with several current and former officials, Hersh reported that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal, but the Taliban overrunning Islamabad was not the only, or even the greatest, concern. “The principal fear is mutiny — that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.”

Hersh said a senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.”

Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? 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?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will — (four letter word) — us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”

The magazine said: “The ongoing consultation on nuclear security between Washington and Islamabad intensified after the announcement in March of President Obama’s so-called ****** policy, which called upon the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan.

“I was told that the understandings on nuclear cooperation benefitted from the increasingly close relationship between Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Kayani, his counterpart, although the CIA and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have also been involved.” Hersh said.

The magazine said all three departments declined to comment for this article. The national-security council and the CIA denied that there were any agreements in place.

In response to a series of questions, Admiral Mullen acknowledged that he and Kayani were, in his spokesman’s words, “very close.” The spokesman said that Mullen is deeply involved in day-to-day Pakistani developments and “is almost an action officer for all things Pakistan.” But he denied that he and Kayani, or their staffs, had reached an understanding about the availability of American forces in case of mutiny or a terrorist threat to a nuclear facility.

“To my knowledge, we have no military units, special forces or otherwise, involved in such an assignment,” Mullen said through his spokesman. The spokesman added that Mullen had not seen any evidence of growing fundamentalism inside the Pakistani military.

In interviews in Pakistan, Hersh obtained confirmation that there were continuing conversations with the United States on nuclear-security plans — as well as evidence that the Pakistani leadership put much less weight on them than the Americans did. In some cases, Pakistani officials spoke of the talks principally as a means of placating anxious American politicians. “You needed it,” a senior Pakistani official, who said that he had been briefed on the nuclear issue, told me. His tone was caustic.

“We have twenty thousand people working in the nuclear-weapons industry in Pakistan, and here is this American view that Pakistan is bound to fail.” The official added, “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, ‘O.K.’ ” But, the Pakistani official said, “both sides are lying to each other. We haven’t told you anything that you don’t know.” The Americans didn’t realise that Pakistan would never cede control of its arsenal: “If you try to take the weapons away, you will fail.”

In an actual crisis, would the Pakistanis give an American team direct access to their arsenal? An adviser to the Pentagon on counterinsurgency said that some analysts suspected that the Pakistani military had taken steps to move elements of the nuclear arsenal “out of the count” — to shift them to a storage facility known only to a very few — as a hedge against mutiny or an American or Indian effort to seize them. “If you thought your American ally was telling your enemy where the weapons were, you’d do the same thing,” the adviser said.

“Let me say this about our nuclear deterrent,” President Zardari told me, when asked about any recent understandings between Pakistan and the United States. “We give comfort to each other, and the comfort level is good, because everybody respects everybody’s integrity. We’re all big boys.”

Zardari and I met twice, first in his office, in the grand but isolated Presidential compound in Islamabad, and then, a few days later, alone over dinner in his personal quarters. He is chatty but guarded, proud but defensive, and, like many Pakistanis, convinced that the United States will always favor India. Over dinner, he spoke of his suspicions regarding his wife’s death. He said that, despite rumors to the contrary, he would complete his five-year term.

Zardari spoke with derision about what he depicted as America’s obsession with the vulnerability of his nation’s nuclear arsenal. “In your country, you feel that you have to hold the fort for us,” he said. “The American people want a lot of answers for the errors of the past, and it’s very easy to spread fear. Our Army officers are not crazy, like the Taliban. They’re British-trained. Why would they slip up on nuclear security? A mutiny would never happen in Pakistan. It’s a fear being spread by the few who seek to scare the many.”

Zardari offered some advice to Barack Obama: instead of fretting about nuclear security in Pakistan, his Administration should deal with the military disparity between Pakistan and India, which has a much larger army. “You should help us get conventional weapons,” he said. “It’s a balance-of-power issue.”

In May, Zardari, at the urging of the United States, approved a major offensive against the Taliban, sending thirty thousand troops into the Swat Valley, which lies a hundred miles northwest of Islamabad. “The enemy that we were fighting in Swat was made up of twenty per cent thieves and thugs and eighty per cent with the same mind-set as the Taliban,” Zardari said. He depicted the operation as a complete success, but added that his government was not “ready” to kill all the Taliban. His long-term solution, Zardari said, was to provide new business opportunities in Swat and turn the Taliban into entrepreneurs. “Money is the best incentive,” he said. “They can be rented.”

A former State Department official who worked on nuclear issues with Pakistan after September 11th said that he’d come to understand that the Pakistanis “believe that any information we get from them would be shared with others — perhaps even the Indians. To know the command-and-control processes of their nuclear weapons is one thing. To know where the weapons actually are is another thing.”

The former State Department official cited the large Pakistan Air Force base outside Sargodha, west of Lahore, where many of Pakistan’s nuclear-capable F-16s are thought to be stationed. “Is there a nuke ready to go at Sargodha?” the former official asked. “If there is, and Sargodha is the size of Andrews Air Force Base, would we know where to go? Are the warheads stored in Bunker X?” Ignorance could be dangerous. “If our people don’t know where to go and we suddenly show up at a base, there will be a lot of people shooting at them,” he said. “And even if the Pakistanis may have told us that the triggers will be at Bunker X, is it true?”

The former high-level Bush Administration official was just as blunt. “If a Pakistani general is talking to you about nuclear issues, and his lips are moving, he’s lying,” he said. “The Pakistanis wouldn’t share their secrets with anybody, and certainly not with a country that, from their point of view, used them like a Dixie cup and then threw them away.”

Hersh flew to New Delhi from Pakistan and met with two senior officials from the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s national intelligence agency. Our worries are about the nuclear weapons in Pakistan,” one of the officials said. “Not because we are worried about the mullahs taking over the country; we’re worried about those senior officers in the Pakistan Army who are Caliphates” — believers in a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state.

“We know some of them and we have names,” he said. “We’ve been watching colonels who are now brigadiers. These are the guys who could blackmail the whole world” — that is, by seizing a nuclear weapon.

The article by Hersh also quoted noted journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, Group Editor of The News Shaheen Sehbai, Lt General ® Hamid Gul, writer Brian Cloughley, Sultan Amir Tarar, known to many as Colonel Imam, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy and others.


Source: Pakistan nuclear security plan

This is one of the best articles/reports I have read in awhile. The article is full of important points and is full of mystery.

“The Pakistanis gave us a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system,” Hersh quotes a former senior US intelligence official. “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,” he said.

This is a major claim the author is making, and difficult to confirm but highly doubtful claim as well. I really doubt that Pakistani officials would compromise the Nation's nuclear power by allowing foreign and nations with hostile intentions to have a "virtual look" at the number of war heads, locations, and the CCS.

If this is true then this poses an immense danger to Pakistan and our nation's nuclear power projection. Measures must be taken to curtail such unwanted influence over Pakistani Nuclear power.

In response to a series of questions, Admiral Mullen acknowledged that he and Kayani were, in his spokesman’s words, “very close.” The spokesman said that Mullen is deeply involved in day-to-day Pakistani developments and “is almost an action officer for all things Pakistan.” But he denied that he and Kayani, or their staffs, had reached an understanding about the availability of American forces in case of mutiny or a terrorist threat to a nuclear facility.

"But he denied that he and Kayani, or their staffs, had reached an understanding", this article is full of elusive words.

This just feeds into more western propaganda about the dangers of the Pakistani Nuclear program and it's "insecurities". They continue to suggest a terrorist attack and "take over" of Pakistani nuclear weapons, which by the way happen to be those same terrorist they support.


This crisis "they" project is false but it is apart of the US strategy to undermine Pakistan's nuclear prowess. They will not be allowed to put any American forces to protect Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The Pakistani Army and Nuclear Command and Control is excellent at protecting and monitoring/managing Pakistan's nuclear weapons and parts.

In May, Zardari, at the urging of the United States, approved a major offensive against the Taliban, sending thirty thousand troops into the Swat Valley, which lies a hundred miles northwest of Islamabad.

Well whether the US had urged him or not the offensive against the TTP in Waziristan and NWFP was mandatory. The TTP and militants/terrorist along with their foreign agents were undermining Pakistan's security and sovereignty. They were becoming "a state within a state".

Hersh quoted an American former senior intelligence official saying that a team that has trained for years to remove or dismantle parts of the Pakistani arsenal has now been augmented by a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the elite counterterrorism group. He added that the unit, which had earlier focused on the warheads’ cores, has begun to concentrate on evacuating the triggers, which have no radioactive material and are thus much easier to handle.

No name provided, besides it doesn't matter how "elite" or how "trained" this JSOC elite counter-terrorism group, I cannot imagine the Pakistani Military allowing such a group presence within the nation.

A former State Department official who worked on nuclear issues with Pakistan after September 11th said that he’d come to understand that the Pakistanis “believe that any information we get from them would be shared with others — perhaps even the Indians. To know the command-and-control processes of their nuclear weapons is one thing. To know where the weapons actually are is another thing.”

True valid fears here, cooperation with US or any intelligence sharing in regards to Pak's nuclear weapons must never happen. We do not benefit from this, it strongly undermines our sovereignty and Nation's livelihood.

“The principal fear is mutiny — that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.”

This principal fear of mutiny is false and exaggerated and in fact propaganda used to create reasons to end the Pakistani nuclear program.

one of the officials said. “Not because we are worried about the mullahs taking over the country; we’re worried about those senior officers in the Pakistan Army who are Caliphates” — believers in a fundamentalist pan-Islamic state.

MashAllah.

In an actual crisis, would the Pakistanis give an American team direct access to their arsenal? An adviser to the Pentagon on counterinsurgency said that some analysts suspected that the Pakistani military had taken steps to move elements of the nuclear arsenal “out of the count” — to shift them to a storage facility known only to a very few — as a hedge against mutiny or an American or Indian effort to seize them. “If you thought your American ally was telling your enemy where the weapons were, you’d do the same thing,” the adviser said.

Amazing. Certainly the US and the Pentagon are making a real effort to take control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and they first thing they will do is used sold out politicians and "elected" officials who sympathize with the West to get near and get access to intel on Pakistan's nuclear secrets...






Overall, excellent read very interesting.

[Interceptor]

Would have thought the forum would condemn Hersh absurd article as blatant malice.

[Neo]

Pakistan's army rejects U.S. journalist's nuclear remarks

2009-11-10

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Pakistan's army Monday rejected as absurd remarks by an American journalist that Washington is making plans to help secure Islamabad's atomic weapons.

In his article in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh alleged that the United States has a covert team ready to fly into Pakistan at a moment's notice and defend nuclear installations from attack.

"We do not need any help for security of nuclear assets," Chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majeed.

Hersh also said he has evidence the U.S. administration has been working on "highly sensitive understandings" with Pakistan's military that would let the U.S. military provide "added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis."

Majeed said Pakistan has an effective safety system for its nuclear assets and reports that Islamabad is seeking U.S. help for its arsenals are misleading.

Hersh also claimed that a "highly classified" emergency response team had already been activated within the past few months in response to a report that a Pakistani nuclear component had "gone astray".

"We can not share sensitive information with anyone," the Pakistani General said. He added that Pakistan's security institutions can meet any challenge.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Sunday that no compromise would be made on national interests, security and the nuclear program of the country.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said that it was "simply preposterous" that Pakistan would allow any country direct or indirect access to its nuclear arsenal, which are safe under "multi-layered custodial controls."

Calling the media reports regarding alleged Pak-U.S. negotiations on Islamabad's nuclear arsenal "false and baseless", U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson on Sunday also said U.S. had no intention of seizing the country's nukes.

[Neo]

Pakistan 'doesn't need help' to guard nukes: general

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's military chief on Monday said that his country did not need any foreign help in guarding its nuclear facilities because they were already well protected.

Islamabad on Sunday angrily rejected a media report in the United States that raised fears of a militant seizure of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and suggested that the US had a hand in protecting the arsenal.

Pakistan's Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid in a statement Monday called the report "absurd and plain mischievous."

"We have operationalised a very effective nuclear security regime which incorporates very stringent custodial and access controls," Majid said.

"As overall custodian of the development of our strategic programme, I reiterate in very unambiguous terms that there is absolutely no question of sharing or allowing any foreign individual, entity or a state, any access to sensitive information about our nuclear assets."

In the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that US officials had negotiated pacts with Pakistan to provide security for the nuclear arsenal in extreme circumstances.

Majid clarified that Pakistan's engagement with other countries directly or through the International Atomic Energy Agency was meant only to learn more about best practices for security of such assets.

The general said that these engagements were based on "two clearly spelt-out red lines -- non intrusiveness and our right to pick and choose."

He added: "Also, our security apparatus has the capacity and is fully geared to meet all conceivable challenges, therefore we do not need to negotiate with any other country to physically augment our security forces, which in any case, we believe, are more capable than their forces."

Larry Schwartz, a spokesman at the US embassy in Islamabad, told AFP Sunday that "the United States has no intention to seize Pakistani nuclear weapons or material.

"Pakistan is a key ally in our common effort to fight violent extremists and foster regional security."

[Neo]

Pakistan rejects unsecured nukes report

November 9, 2009

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan angrily defended the security of its nuclear arsenal Sunday after a U.S. magazine reported that the Obama administration wants Pakistan to let Washington help secure its weapons in a crisis.

An article published in the new issue of The New Yorker states that Washington has serious fears about Pakistan's arsenal and has a covert team ready to fly to Pakistan at short notice. The article, written by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, reports that the Obama administration has been working on "highly sensitive understandings" with Pakistan's military that would let the U.S. military to provide "added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis."

And it reported that a "highly classified" emergency response team was activated within the past few months in response to a report that a Pakistani nuclear component had "gone astray." The team was already in Dubai by the time the report turned out to be a false alarm, Hersh's article states, citing an unnamed Pentagon consultant.

Pakistan's foreign ministry blasted the article as "utterly misleading and totally baseless" on Sunday, calling it "nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people." It accused Hersh of making "several false and highly irresponsible claims by quoting anonymous and unverifiable sources."

"Pakistan's strategic assets are completely safe and secure," the ministry said in a written statement. "The multi-layered custodial controls, which have been developed indigenously, are as foolproof and effective as in any other nuclear weapons state.

"Pakistan, therefore, does not require any foreign assistance in this regard," the statement continued. "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."

Estimates of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal currently range from 60 to 100 weapons. It first declared its status as a nuclear power in 1998, testing five bombs in a tit-for-tat with its south Asian archrival, India.

CNN has not independently confirmed the claims included in Hersh's 6,893-word piece, which appears in The New Yorker's November 16 issue and online. The article quotes a spokesman for U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said there are "no military units, special forces or otherwise, involved in such an assignment."

And Pakistan accused Hersh of displaying his "well-known anti-Pakistan bias" in the article, which it called "nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people."

Hersh dismissed accusations in a brief telephone interview Sunday afternoon.

In November 2001, another of his articles on Pakistan's nuclear program stirred a similar controversy. Hersh reported at that time that the United States was making plans to seize or disable Pakistani nuclear weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. That report was met with widespread denials as well.

But Hersh said Sunday there is an "enormous difference" between what the Obama administration is trying to do and what was being considered before.

"They're now saying, 'We're going to help you,' " he told CNN. In addition, he said, the current U.S. plans focus not on removing warheads, but on separating them from the trigger mechanisms used to set them off.

And another goal of the agreements would be to reassure India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan since the two nations won independence from Britain in 1947. Hersh said U.S. officials hope securing Pakistani bombs will convince India to pull troops off the Pakistani frontier, allowing Pakistan to turn more of its military's attention toward battling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters along its northwestern border with Afghanistan -- where U.S. troops have been battling the Taliban since 2001.

"It's all part of the broad strategic scheme," Hersh said. But the plan has had unintended consequences in Pakistan, "one of which is they hate our guts," he said.

Pakistan remains mistrustful of the United States, fearing its nuclear secrets will fall into Indian hands, and "There's an enormous discrepancy between what they say and what they agree to do," Hersh said.

U.S. officials repeatedly have expressed confidence in the security of Pakistan's atomic weapons. But while the Pakistani military is now fighting a Taliban insurgency in its northwest, Hersh reported the greatest fear is the possibility of a mutiny by extremists within the Pakistani military.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari discounted that concern, telling Hersh, "A mutiny would never happen in Pakistan."

"Our Army officers are not crazy, like the Taliban," Zardari said. "They're British-trained. Why would they slip up on nuclear security?"

[HasanG20]

It is impossible to cap Pakistan's Nuclear Arms even toghter joint operation by Israeli,Indian and American special forces will fail.Pakistan's 20,000 strong SSG soliders back by the support of 175million people on ground you will see hell on this earth will unleash and will unite the Muslims.Pakistan will have an excuse to strike India and Israel which is under the range of of its Nuclear Missiles.Iran will play a vital role because Iran hates for Israel and US will surely come into the play.The time NATO and Indian fighter jets cross into Pakistan air defence alert will give a headsup for the people working on assembling nukes and will give them a vital blow the time thier Special Forces will reach the ground the nukes will already been launched.I highly suspect the covert operations of RAW and MOSSAD in NWFP its the first step towards the cap of Pakistan's nuclear weapons which they have failed the question is whats next ?

[A1Kaid]

Hersh on US team to secure Pakistan nuclear arms - 11 Nov 09

YouTube - Hersh on US team to secure Pakistan nuclear arms - 11 Nov 09

YouTube - Hersh on US team to secure Pakistan nuclear arms - 11 Nov 09

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says the US has a rapid response unit ready to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the event of a mutiny or "any nuclear incident", a claim the US and Pakistani governments have denied.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hersh discussed his report which appeared in The New Yorker magazine and said a team was scrambled recently to respond to what was thought to be a nuclear emergency in Pakistan, which turned out to be a false alarm. -Al Jazeera English

[A1Kaid]

Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (1/5)

YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (1/5)

YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (1/5)

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YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (2/5)

YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (2/5)

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YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (3/5)

YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (3/5)

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YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (4/5)

YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (4/5)

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YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (5/5)

YouTube - Seymour Hersh On Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal (5/5)

[Neo]

Nuclear fallout rocks Pakistan

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Sharp differences between Pakistani leaders over safeguarding the country's nuclear arsenal are placing increasing pressure on the embattled administration of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Zardari is already seriously at odds with the military establishment over dealing with the Taliban-led insurgency and there is a strong likelihood that his government will face a make-or-break test within weeks in the form of mass street protests.

Pakistan has reacted strongly to an article in The New Yorker by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on November 16, "Defending the arsenal", in which he claimed that Pakistan was discussing "understandings" with the US that could even see specialists take sophisticated nuclear triggers out of the country to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

The administration of President Barack Obama is clearly deeply concerned over the safety of Pakistan's weapons, especially after militants last month entered the Pakistani army headquarters in Rawalpindi and subjected it to a bloody 22-hour siege.

General Tariq Majid, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, said the claims were "absurd and plain mischievous".

This might be the case, but within Pakistan, the issue of the arsenal - estimated to contain between 80 and 100 warheads - has turned into a major political row.

In an obvious attempt to address international concerns, the chairman of the National Assembly's standing committee on defense, Azra Fazal Pechuho, rushed a report of her 17-member committee into the assembly on November 11 seeking immediate legal endorsement to the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) ordinance of 2007, which sets out a multi-layered structure for the control of the nuclear arsenal.

According to this report, the president would be chairman of the authority and the prime minister would be the deputy chairman. Other members would be the ministers for foreign affairs, defense, finance and interior, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, three services chiefs and the director general of the Strategic Planning Division.

The operational control of the nuclear weapons is currently solely in the hands of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Staff Committee, General Majid.

The Nuclear Command Authority bill seeks to bring into law an ordinance from the time of former president, General Pervez Musharraf, to strengthen control over the country's nuclear weapons.

However, the bill was deferred by the speaker, Fehmida Mirza, on a request from Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awani, who gave no reason for the move.

Asia Times Online has learned that obstacles created by former premier, Nawaz Sharif, led to the deferment. Sharif, leader of the opposition, apparently sees Zardari as unreliable, and wants the authority to be headed by the prime minister. He also urged that the leader of the opposition be a part of the NCA.

Over the past months, Zardari has become increasingly isolated. He has lost the trust of the military, which the US now views as the power to deal with in Pakistan, the political opposition is growing more assertive.

People close to Sharif say a mass campaign, much like the one in March that forced the government to restore the judiciary that had been dismissed by Musharraf, is inevitable.

The current situation is a fresh episode of an overall political imbalance that occurred after the assassination of former premier, Benazir Bhutto, (Zardari's wife) in December 2007 that led to the August 2008 resignation of Musharraf as president and the election of Zardari as president in September 2008.

In just over a year, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, the army chief, has eclipsed Zardari and he is now Washington's point man on the Pakistani side of the South Asian war theater. The Americans believe Kiani will push relentlessly to gain victory in the tribal areas against the Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Significantly, the US sees Kiani as the most trusted person to protect Pakistan's nuclear assets. Hersh wrote in his article:
The ongoing consultation on nuclear security between Washington and Islamabad intensified after the announcement in March of President Obama's so-called Af-Pak policy, which called upon the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan. I was told that the understandings on nuclear cooperation benefited from the increasingly close relationship between Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Kayani [Kiani], his counterpart, although the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy have also been involved.
General Majid denied parts of the article that suggested an American role in the protection of Pakistan's arsenal, but Kiani, whose dealings were a major discussion point in the article, did not utter a single word.

During US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Pakistan, it was made clear that Washington's political administration also approves of Kiani. (See US puts its faith in Pakistan's military Asia Times Online, November 6, 2009. )

This faith in the military, rather than in any political force, comes at a time when the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) is due to expire on November 28 and opposition parties are ready to challenge it in court. Legal experts are unanimous that the ordinance is discriminatory and directly clashes with the constitution and that the judiciary will not allow it to be extended.

The NRO was promulgated in 2007 by Musharraf after a deal was brokered by Washington and London between him and Benazir Bhutto, who at the time was the West's preferred person to succeed Musharraf's military government. The NRO pardoned all corruption cases pending against Benazir Bhutto and Zardari, as well as dozens of activists of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) who had held important positions in previous governments.

Although Zardari, as president, cannot be tried under the law, cases could be opened against many incumbent ministers after November 28, which would be a major setback for the Zardari government. The PPP's secretary general, Jehangir Badr, has already warned party cadre who benefited from the NRO to obtain bail before possibly being arrested.

The military establishment has seized the moment to hand over a list of names to Zardari of people it believes should be immediately replaced. At the top of the list is the ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the army has always regarded as a foe for being too close to the American administration. Minister of the Interior Rahman Malik is second in line. Although he has been credited with helping destroy the financial arteries of militants, he is regarded as too close to Western intelligence agencies and he often bypasses the military establishment in anti-terror operations.

The ministers for water and power, agriculture, health and many others are also named in the list, accused of incompetence or corruption. Initially, Zardari agreed to replace them, but now he is stalling.

Zardari has also indicated that he is unwilling to immediately shed his constitutional powers, such as the right to appoint armed forces chiefs and dissolve parliament. He has given a March 2010 date for the delegation of these powers to the prime minister.

This is unacceptable to Zardari's main rival, Sharif, who aims to launch a protest campaign against Zardari by mid-December. It was Sharif's campaign that forced Zardari to restore the judiciary this March.

The military has indicated to Sharif that it won't disturb the democratic setup, come what may; rather, it will press for the removal of people with whom it is uncomfortable and live with a weakened Zardari. It does not want mid-term elections in which Sharif's victory would be most likely. Although the military has good relations with Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, it views him as too independent and too assertive.

In these uncertain times, Musharraf has re-emerged on the scene. Asia Times Online has learned that he is pondering the formation of a new political party and that he recently funneled large amounts of money into the coffers of former aides to promote his cause. These include former minister of information, Sheikh Rasheed, whom some reports say has been paid US$1 million - the same amount that went to a public relations team to boost Musharraf's image.

Insiders say that Musharraf has vast wealth, much of it accumulated through donations from individuals (these, some say, include Libya's Muammar Gaddafi) and corporations to aid previous election campaigns. There are reports that Musharraf received US$30 million from the United Arab Emirates via one of its top bankers, and $3 million from a Pakistani cellular phone company.

Musharraf believes that with his contacts - especially to the Saudi royal family - and being internationally known, he could play a decisive role in the South Asian "war on terror" theater in which the Americans are looking for new ways to approach the Taliban for reconciliation, along with the elimination of al-Qaeda.

The militants, meanwhile, are not standing idly by.

On Tuesday evening, the Taliban chief in the Malakand Division of North-West Frontier Province, Mullah Fazlullah, showed up in Afghanistan and confirmed a report by Asia Times Online that Pakistani militants from Swat and Malakand - who retreated in the face of military operations earlier this year - were regrouping in the Afghan province of Nuristan. (See Militants change tack in Pakistan Asia Times Online, November 18, 2009.)

Fazlullah claimed that the militants would resume their insurgency in the Swat Valley, and, ominously, he said it would coincide with the planned mass protests against Zardari next month.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com