Could Pakistan's arsenal fall into the hands of Islamic extremists

The nuclear threat: Could Pakistan's arsenal fall into the hands of Islamic extremists?

By Los Angeles Times and Reuters AP

The Pakistani-made Ghauri II stands on a launch pad in Dina, 37 miles east of Islamabad. The missile has nuclear capability and a 1,250-mile range.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has become a source of concern to U.S. officials as they consider launching a military campaign in Afghanistan that could send political shock waves through its troubled southern neighbor.

Although Pakistan's small nuclear arsenal is now believed to be under firm control of the army, some officials fear its security might be imperiled if a regional war involving an unpopular American force further polarizes a sharply divided country.

A war could set off new civil upheaval that could allow dissidents to seize weapons, or it could usher in a new fundamentalist government, hostile to the United States, that might pass on nuclear know-how to Osama bin Laden or other U.S. enemies.

One official said that while the United States is confident in the status of the weapons now, "This is the kind of thing you've got to think about."

Last month's U.S. decision to lift sanctions on India and Pakistan effectively recognizes the two foes as members of the nuclear club and was driven by self-interest, Indian newspapers said last week.

President Bush said the sanctions, imposed on the two neighbors after they conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, were no longer in the U.S. national-security interest as a result of the terrorist attacks in New York and near Washington, D.C. The sanctions were lifted after India and Pakistan pledged to cooperate in Bush's war against terrorism.

The U.S. move to lift sanctions on India had been in the cards amid increasingly warm ties between the two countries, which often were on opposite sides during the Cold War.

But Washington had given no such signals to Pakistan, which it had cold-shouldered, especially since the military coup that brought President Pervez Musharraf to power in 1999.

"I think the Indian and Pakistani governments are as responsible as governments of Western nuclear powers, and I don't see anyone rushing for the nuclear button in South Asia," said Chris Smith, deputy director of the International Policy Institute at King's College, London.

In addition, defense experts believe there is nothing in South Asia comparable to the warheads mounted on U.S. and Russian missiles.

The bombs are generally thought to be stored away rather than loaded on planes or missiles, acting as a deterrent of last resort rather than a first line of attack.

A former head of the Pakistan armed forces, Mirza Aslam Beg, has described the country's approach to nuclear devices as a "bomb-in-the-basement policy."

"And then it is many miles away from the delivery system, that is, the missiles and the aircraft," Beg, who now heads an independent think tank, said in an interview in June.

Pakistan is believed to have as many as 30 nuclear devices, according to a range of estimates from defense experts, while India may have 40 to 100.

"They are difficult and expensive to create, so there are not going to be hundreds," said Andrew Brookes at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Worries about militant groups grabbing a bomb, stuffing it in a suitcase and blowing up a city are also far-fetched.

Weighing up to a ton, these are sophisticated bombs.

"It's a heavy piece of engineering we are talking about," said Brookes. "They are not suitcase-type things.

"Similarly with a missile - there are lots of safety brakes, so one lunatic cannot come and fire it off," he added. "No one man or woman can launch these things."

Defense experts say the bigger concern is that Pakistan and India do not have extensive mechanisms to talk to each other in a crisis and head off nuclear confrontation.

Experts believe Pakistan may be ahead of India in "weaponization" - marrying a warhead to a delivery sysstem like a missile - thanks to its close ties with China.

"China could have give them tips on the guidance systems for such (nuclear) weapons," said Kanti Bajpai, strategic-affairs analyst at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

Pakistan's nuclear-capable Ghauri missile, with a range of 1,250 miles, can reach almost any city in India.

New Delhi is also fast developing delivery systems, and is pushing ahead with production of the intermediate-range Agni (Fire) ballistic missile, which it says has been fully tested. The Agni II, also with a 1,250-mile range, is due to become part of New Delhi's military arsenal by early 2002. India has also developed the nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missile, Prithvi (Earth), which experts say is a "Pakistan-specific" weapon.

But while Pakistan's nuclear program has been conducted to protect the country from a perceived nuclear threat from India, some groups in the region view its nuclear arsenal as the "Islamic bomb" that could be used to defend the broader interests of the Muslim world.

The threat of a U.S. military assault on Afghanistan has thrust the weak regime of Musharraf into an anguished situation.

While the Pakistani government would like the financial and other benefits that a better relationship with the United States could bring, many Pakistanis are violently opposed to the idea of support for a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

An American military presence in the country could be the most controversial step, and would be considered intolerable by many of the country's 25 million residents.

Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council aide, said the weapons offer a "nightmare scenario" that "deserves to be very high on the radar screen" of U.S. policymakers.

He said the issue of nuclear security is worrisome all over the world but is especially so "in a country that's as crisis-prone as this one."

The Pakistani army is seen as generally pro-Western in its outlook, said Stephen Cohen, a scholar at Brookings Institution who has written a book on the Pakistani army. At the same time, many of Pakistan's military leaders are not pro-American, believing that the United States has "let Pakistan down time and again, and is in bed with the Indians," Cohen said.

In the event of a civil crisis, the army could be sharply divided, he said. And the nuclear weapons certainly would be "an object of great desire."

Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information, a think tank that advocates arms control, said he is convinced that senior Bush administration policymakers must have already thought through what action they might take if the weapons fell into the wrong hands. He said he believes they have already ordered increased intelligence-gathering on the nuclear arsenal, and may have assigned special-forces teams to try to seize or disarm them if a civil upheaval put them at risk.

But one U.S. official, who asked to remain unidentified, said the Pakistani army is "huge" and would not permit such an intervention.

This official said that although the Pakistani nuclear weapons do raise serious issues, the risks should not be exaggerated.

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