Friday, May 19, 2006
US 'has options' if radicals get hold of Pakistani nukes http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\05\19\story_19-5-2006_pg1_5
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The United States has contingency plans in case any of Pakistan's nuclear assets are taken over by Islamist radicals.
Prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime, former CIA director George Tenet and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage were sent to Islamabad to discuss the safety of Pakistan's nuclear programme.
According to an analysis published by Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in the Institute's National Security Outlook, any US military action in Pakistan must have at least the tacit agreement of the Pakistan Army, if not the government in Islamabad. Any operation which requires fighting to gain access to Pakistan makes speculation so complicated as to make it an exercise in futility or, at minimum, an operation that takes so long to unfold that it would not be responsive to the situation.
Also, it must be assumed that the situation that results in loss of control is not a broad-based rebellion or insurgency against the Pakistan Army or against the Musharraf government. Fighting for access in the face of a popular uprising across Pakistan, or even across the Punjab, is too large an operation to contemplate.
Another correlated but necessary assumption is that the Pakistan Army allows US forces to deploy through some airfields. Attempting to gain a UN resolution could well slow any useful military action. It is hard to imagine the Chinese being very "forward leaning"- although if the Pakistanis make an appeal to the "international community" in the moment of such a crisis, it might be hard to keep the Chinese out, and even harder the longer the operation continued. Any Indian role is to ruled out as it would not be acceptable to Pakistan or Pakistanis.
The analysis maintains that the Pentagon is quite right to think about options for dealing with "loose nukes" other than the kind of recycled arms control.
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