Thomas Ricks in Washington December 3, 2007
A SMALL group of US military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart.
The secret exercise - conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject - was one of several such games the US Government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Questions include:
* How many troops might be required for a military intervention?
* Could Pakistani nuclear bunkers be isolated by saturating the surrounding areas with tens of thousands of high-powered mines, dropped from the air and packed with anti-tank and anti-personnel munitions?
* Or might such a move only worsen the security of Pakistan's arsenal?
For several years the US has sought to help Pakistan improve its weapons safeguards, spending tens of millions of dollars since 2001 to boost the security of its nuclear bunkers. But the issue has gained greater urgency in recent weeks as the move by the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, to declare a state of emergency and suspend the constitution plunged the country into street clashes and political turmoil.
The conclusion of last year's game, said one participant, was that there are no palatable ways to forcibly ensure the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons - and that even studying scenarios for intervention could worsen the risks by undermining US-Pakistani co-operation. "It's an unbelievably daunting problem," said this participant, a former Pentagon official. Planners really haven't developed answers for how to deal with nuclear weapons stashed in Pakistan's big cities and high mountain ranges, he said.
"The bottom line is, it's the nightmare scenario," said a retired marine colonel, Gary Anderson, who participated in an earlier exercise that simulated a break-up of Pakistan. "It has loose nukes, hard to find, potentially in the hands of Islamic extremists, and there aren't a lot of good military options."
Others maintain that simply holding the games may worsen the situation by antagonising Pakistanis and by encouraging the Pakistani Government to take counter-measures.
Source -
<http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/war-game-posits-a-pakistan-in-chaos/2007/12/02/1196530478547.html>