Well, Of Course

Holden asks:

They’re just thinking of this now?

U.S.military intelligence officials are urgently assessing how securePakistan’s nuclear weapons would be in the event President Gen. PervezMusharraf were replaced as the nation’s leader, CNN has learned.

Key questions in the assessment include who would control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons after a shift in power.

[snip]

The United States has full knowledge about the location of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, according to the U.S. assessment.

Butthe key questions, officials say, are what would happen and who wouldcontrol the weapons in the hours after any change in government in caseMusharraf were killed or overthrown.

Musharraf controls theloyalty of the commanders and senior officials in charge of the nuclearprogram, but those loyalties could shift at any point, officials say.

TheUnited States is not certain who might start controlling nuclear launchcodes and weapons if that shift in power were to happen.

There isalso a growing understanding according to the U.S. analysis thatMusharraf’s control over the military remains limited to certain topcommanders and units, raising worries about whether he can maintaincontrol over the long term.

Well, of course, Holden. They’ve been otherwise occupied. Up until the end of June, after all, they were very busy looking for Iraq’s WMDs.

Though, for a less snarky look at this issue, Arms Control Wonk discusses the difference between knowing where the nukes are and what will happen to them if anything should happen to Musharraf.

  1. Anonymous says:

    Given that we â€know†where all the nukes are, expect special ops people to have contingency plans to â€secure†said nukes should Musharaf fall. Considering the stakes, they would be negligent not to. Look to this president to authorize this if Musharaf falls to a sectarian leaning group. Which will open up a new front in the ’war on terror’. Great.

  2. compelled_to_unlurk says:

    Actually, I recall reading Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker a couple of years ago about how the US was staging exercises along with the Israelis and the Indians to secure the Pakistani nukes in case of a militant / military / ISI overthrow of Musharraf.

    I am not able to recall the full details now, but it should not be difficult to do a search or the New Yorker’s archives for the piece.

  3. Anonymous says:

    compelled

    That’s the Hersh reference that Arms Contol Wonk makes. THe article is here. Basically, ACW takes a middle ground between Hersh and Starr–pointing out that even if we know where the nukes are, we don’t know who will own them if there’s a coup.

  4. ab initio says:

    lizard

    Pakistan does not have a tin-pot army. Unless there is acceptance and coordination with local commanders special ops will have a fire fight on their hands to â€secure†the nukes. And there is no guarantee they will succeed.

    Also, I doubt Pakistan has provided US intelligence locations of all their nukes considering the growing ties between us and India specially on nuclear cooperation. They must have hidden a few in case they have to threaten to launch them. And if we expect the CIA, NSA, DIA, et al to have uncovered the locations of all the Pakistani nukes – I would say take it with a grain of salt.

    Bottom line is if a jihadi sympathizing regime takes over in Pakistan the world and specially us are up tish creek.

  5. compelled_to_unlurk says:

    Thanks, MT; that is indeed the one. All told, I would imagine that the Indians would be a lot more interested in securing the Pakistani nukes in case of a coup, with the Israelis not too far behind in seeking that same goal. It would be interesting to hear someone qualified to do so speculate on how the US/Israeli combine (assuming there is much greater cooperation there) and the Indians would resolve the competitive tension in how and who gets to go after this seemingly unified objective.

  6. Anonymous says:

    compelled

    Very interesting question. I imagine that all sides would agree the US would have the least contested legitimacy, even while Israel would no doubt worry about the US’ basic competency.

  7. mullah cimoc says:

    mullah cimoc say please my frends of america. Do not let joy of happiness cloud duty to those who have suffered so much in the land of the believing monotheists.

    We hope you can investigation to this:

    1. Who start this war? How originate? In Waziristan in the madrassa they tell us of the neocon group of shatan people. We hope you them all stoned at your local soccer stadium.

    2. whence came from the false stories called as the faked WMD intel? To let these planters of disinformation escape would be unjust to the memory of your Dr. Benjamin Franklin. What nation statelet provide middle east intel to u.s.a. of america ? Nek Mohammed say israeli. Please let us know yuor true answer.

    3. Is true neocon group are 99% jhovah witness church? Or maybe a different church but we are told they come from one group of evil doing persons. Please find this out and punish the guilty.

    Please send navy seal team 7 to pakistan so that they may continue their torture technique on our traitor president mursharaff. In Urdu “musharaff†to mean eater of dung of white man.

    Please also prepare registery of u.s.a. torturers so that these soul may receive treatment and medicine to cure their brains of these evil acts. What if they returned to your nation and became police or gym teachers. This is too dangerous in truth for amreika. Pls set up computer list and make have chips implanted in head so they can be tracked and treated.

  8. Sara says:

    Actually, India and Israel have had a kind of informal alliance at least since the 1980’s, perhaps earlier. India and Israel collaborate on R & D in Weapons research, and India buys highly specialized military technology from Israel. Israel is also deeply involved with Sri Lanka and their long standing war with the Tamil Tigers. Every once in a while something busts out in the Indian Press, so one can see something of the margins of all this — but it is a multi-faceted and deep relationship. India has long suspected that because the Saudi’s financed much of the AQ Kahn network, that the Saudi’s received warheads as a kind of in-kind payment for their financing. The Saudi’s also purchased a missle system capable of delivering Pak style warheads from China — and the ark where they can deliver with that system includes most of Turkey, Greece, and yes, the western part of India including Mumbia. Pakistan has long called its bomb â€the Islamic Bomb†and I suspect what that means is that the Saudi’s have custody of at least some of the warheads, and have had for some years.

    By the way, I am just getting into Robert Dallek’s new book, â€Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power†Went through the stuff on â€Tilt toward Pakistan†right off the bat, and he has a whole new take that would interest many here, based on documents, Kissinger’s phone transcripts and Nixon’s office tapes. Strongly recommend.

    I also have a very different recommendation (New Books as a result of a car (finally) that obeys the command â€start†and heads for the big book stores), and that is Gunner Grass’s new autobiography, Peeling the Onion. This is the book where he revealed a year ago in the German edition, that he had been drafted into the SS in the last months of the war, and this caused a minor literary war at the time. Anyhow, the real interesting saga is not so much that, but that his bunk mate in the American POW compound was a very religious chap named Joseph from Bavaria, who like Grass had difficulties sorting out Faith in Hitler once the clear evidence of evil was apparent. Grass apparently lost both Faith in Catholicism at the same time as he shed youthful facism, but his bunk mate just shifted his faith away from civil social structures to a narrower authoritarian religious perspective. Last name of this bunk-mate — well Ratzinger, the new Pope. Wonder why when the wars over Grass’s SS confession surfaced no reporters or reviewers mentioned this part of his story.

    If people have read Grass over the years, I would give this a strong recommendation — but it won’t make sense if you haven’t read a number of the novels and delighted in his characters.

    Grass more or less credits his time in the American POW compound with the development of his creative process. In the camp inmates not doing heavy labor were limited to 800 calories per day, so to deal with hunger pains, they recruited a 5 star chef to give imaginary cooking classes. No food, just a blackboard for illustrations, and it was bring your own note paper. The Chef was apparently of Croatian or Hungarian origin — thus the lessons were the Haute Cuisine of central Europe. Thus Grass learned to cook with no food in sight — but afterwards he used the imaginary meals to plan imaginary dinner parties, to which he invited known but equally imaginary dinner guests. His characters thus emerge from these imagined feasts. What a technique!

  9. Anonymous says:

    Sara, thanks for that. Sibel Edmonds’ case covers this Israel/India (et al) connection, in part.

    In writing about the Edmonds case, Phil Giraldi wrote:

    â€Investigators are also looking at Israel’s particular expertise in the illegal sale of US military technology to countries like China and India. Fraudulent end-user certificates produced by Defense Ministries in Israel and Turkey are all that is needed to divert military technology to other, less benign, consumers.â€

    It all makes for strange bedfellows, of course, and you get ex-non-proliferation guys like Stephen Solarz lobbying for Turkey and India and covering for the nuclear black market activities at the American Turkish Council / AQ Khan.