Don’t know why the Western Media is constantly harping about Pakistani Nukes falling into radical hands.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=22039
Pakistan in crisis: Who controls the nukes?
In Pakistan, is a fat lady singing?
Maybe somewhere, perhaps on a balcony in Islamabad, she is already clearing her throat and doing warm-up exercises for a soon-to-come, not-so-fond farewell song for the democracy-crushing, U.S.-backed dictator, President General Pervez Musharraf, whose days now appeared to be numbered, even as he drags out the confusing, discouraging, dangerous final act of his ignoble demise.
Declaring a state of emergency on November 3, Musharraf suspended his country’s constitution, shut down independent media outlets, weakened the judiciary and arrested hundreds of his political opponents. This past week he told a reporter: “We need emergency law for peaceful [the] conduct of elections, so there won’t be any violence and bombings.” Musharraf has said that parliamentary elections will take place in Pakistan in January. In the meantime, he says, he will not tolerate anyone breaking “the law of the land.” With the elections looming, and with Pakistan in crisis, Musharraf observed: “We don’t want anyone in agitation mode;] Pakistan comes first, and there are certain realities on the ground - extremism and terrorism - that made me decide to go with emergency law…I am the strongest believer in democracy.” Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 military coup, said: “I brought democracy to Pakistan and I still believe in it.” When asked when he might declare an end to emergency rule, he replied: “I don’t know.” (Pakistan Times, citing an interview in the Washington Post)
A commentator in Pakistan’s Frontier Post writes: “[T]he country is heading towards a crisis of a bigger magnitude than that of…October 1999 [when Musharraf carried out his coup] or [the third of] November 2007…Musharraf will be very lucky if he [can] win the new battle with his old armory after shedding his uniform.” The general who became president has said he expects to step down soon from his active-duty post as the head of Pakistan’s army.
Op-ed columnist Eric Margolis (Toronto Sun) notes that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger “once quipped that being America’s ally is more dangerous than being its enemy. The latest example: Washington is abuzz with leaks the Bush administration plans to dump its faithful but embattled Pakistani retainer,…Musharraf, and replace him with a new general or a cooperative, civilian-led government.” As “turmoil spreads across Pakistan, Musharraf’s grip on power daily grows weaker,” Margolis notes, adding that the Bush gang, having failed to “broker a shotgun marriage between Musharraf and [his political rival, former Prime Minister] Benazir Bhutto,” now has its eyes on a possible successor. The dictator’s “most likely replacement”: the Pakistani army’s vice chief of staff, General Ashfaq Kiyani. Margolis adds: “But one never knows. Bhutto also told me she was wisely reaching out to Pakistan’s leading Islamic Party, Jamiat Islami.”
Meanwhile, Margolis warns, “For the first time, I hear Pakistanis calling Musharraf, ‘pharaoh.’ This is a storm-warning signal. ‘Pharoah’ is what Iranians called their hated, U.S.-backed Shah, and Egyptians the equally hated U.S.-installed dictator, Anwar Sadat [who was killed in 1981]. They now use the same epithet for Egypt’s current military ruler, Hosni Mubarak. The Shah was overthrown by a popular revolution; Sadat was assassinated to national joy; and Mubarak is in deepening trouble.” The Canadian columnist writes: “America’s profoundly counter-productive policy in the Muslim world has been to support dictators and monarchs who follow Washington’s orders, no matter how unpopular or bitterly opposed [they may be], rather than nurturing genuinely popular, democratic governments.”
More for Washington to worry about: “As Pakistan’s political turmoil deepens, the security of its nuclear arsenal is a concern…” India and Western governments “may well be dusting off ‘contingency plans’ to deal with the unthinkable: the disintegration of Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of extremists.” But don’t worry, says an analyst at the U.S.-based consulting firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc. Kamran Bokhari, the head of the company’s Middle East section, said the U.S. Army Special Forces “would go in and secure them…” Bush’s former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, recently observed: “Make no mistake. This is a very dangerous situation…If the [Pakistani] military comes unstuck, if it divides, then the technical fixes [access-control mechanisms] won’t protect those weapons.” Trying to put a reassuring spin on an alarming scenario, a U.S. Department of Defense spokesman said: “At this point, we have no concerns. We believe that they [the bombs] are under the appropriate control.” (Scotsman)
owever, the Scotsman reports: “When Pakistan developed its nuclear arsenal, it put the weapons in the northwest of the country, away from [its] traditional enemy, India. Those sites now lie on the doorstep of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants…If Washington decided that Pakistan was imploding, or [that] it needed to act immediately, its most extreme option would be precision air strikes to take out the country’s nuclear capability. Israel and India are likely to have contingenc[y plans] to destroy the half-dozen key sites in the same way.” Meanwhile, unlike other nuclear-armed countries, in Pakistan, “the army is solely in charge of the nuclear weapons,” and since the 1980s, “the army and military intelligence agencies have been systematically radicalized” - that is, their ties to certain Islamic-jihadist groups have strengthened.
Control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons reportedly lies in the hands of “about 8000 personnel who are vetted in extraordinary detail.” Pakistan has in place a system of “authorization codes for the use of [the] weapons”; this command-and-control structure supposedly “closely mirrors” that of the U.S. The Scotsman notes that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed “her confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are in ‘safe hands.’ The moment that ceases to be true, you can bet on U.S. military action worthy of a Hollywood thriller.”