Safety of Pakistan’s nukes - (The News Rawalpindi)

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

By Ahmed Quraishi

Last November, The New York Times published what many analysts in Islamabad described as a misleading story, claiming that the United States had spent up to $100 million over the past five years to help Pakistan secure its nuclear weapons. The story coincided with reports alleging that elite US troops already had access to Pakistan’s vast arsenal of nuclear and other strategic weapons.

Pakistani officials preferred to ignore these reports, confident about their capabilities and a little curious about where these bogus stories were coming from. These officials were also content with assurances from the Bush administration it had nothing to do with these reports. But over the following weeks, Pakistani analysts carefully watched how the US media campaign portraying Pakistan as a nuclear power incapable of securing its weapons grew bigger and was joined by prominent American academics and politicians.

The quality of the ‘media reports’ about Pakistani nukes also changed. Now the American media was talking about actual ‘war games’ conducted by American military institutions and think tanks as a prelude to sending in elite troops to ‘grab’ Pakistani nuclear weapons in case of instability in Pakistan on the pattern of typical Hollywood movie scripts.

The propaganda reached its zenith this month when Democratic party presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton, proposed joint American and British ‘supervision’ of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. But there is a reason why Pakistani responses to these reports remained mostly calm and calculated. It is because the women and men in charge of the Pakistani strategic arsenal were quietly making fun of the American allegations and at first did not even take them seriously.

”It’s laughable,” said Air Commodore Khalid Banuri, a director at the Strategic Plans Division, or the SPD, which is the secretariat of the National Command Authority that controls the Pakistani strategic assets. “We did make the bomb, didn’t we? The world thought we couldn’t do it.”

This campaign must be seen in the context of a deliberate US strategy to destabilize Pakistan. This strategy includes the war on terror and the situation in Afghanistan.

By early December, 2007, Pakistani officials started watching this American campaign closely. On December 11, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Tariq Majid, blasted reports by “vested and hostile elements in the international media” about the security of its nuclear weapons, according to an army statement.

Back at the SPD, I interviewed Air Commodore Banuri, on camera, and asked him about all the possibilities, including what Pakistan would do if its strategic installations came under attack. His answer was simple: “My message is: Don’t mess with us.”

Here are excerpts from the interview.

Q: Do we have a logistical problem in handling or managing our strategic assets?

A: That is laughable. We did make the bomb, didn’t we? The world thought we couldn’t do it. We, too, were always concerned about how to protect it. This is 2007, we have consistently augmented our systems, a point that many people forget or overlook.

Q: Who holds the authority to push the nuclear button in Pakistan?

A: Not an individual but the National Command Authority, comprised of all the senior decision-makers of the country.

Q: Is it possible there could be a scientist on the inside, an extremist with links to terrorists, maybe Osama bin Laden, who could steal a weapon?

A: In a Tom Clancy novel that could happen. We are very sure of what our systems are.

Q: What about reports before 9/11 that mentioned the links between some of the scientists in our strategic programmes, names, who met terrorists in Afghanistan?

A: Those names, when you actually go into the details, had nothing to do with the classified side of our programmes. They might have been some people from the system who perhaps were power-plant engineers who had some sympathies and were doing some charity work. The key thing here is that we investigated those situations and now there is a system that takes care of all aspects, even for our very respected scientists who retire. There is a system where they will be occupied in various ways and we will know what they are doing.

Q: Let’s say there is a violent change of government in Islamabad. Someone hiding in the foothills of Islamabad breaks into one of your facilities, kills a few guards, goes inside, picks up one of those nuclear weapons held in a very elaborate security parameter, takes it out, comes out of the building, puts it in the back of a truck or van and speeds away. How possible is this?

A: Absolutely not possible. We have several layers—a multitude of systems of security and technical solutions for security, some of which are non-intrusive and invisible. There are no exceptions for anyone from the outside going into a facility. There are various levels of access. Then there is the issue of insider threat…. We look into everything, background checks, medical records, police records, any history of possible impulsive behavior.

Q: Where are we keeping our nuclear bombs?

A: The response to this question is in two words: ‘strategic ambiguity’. If anyone even claims he knows where our weapons are, they are wrong. And if they think they do, they are in for a rude shock. Even within the system, if someone doesn’t need to know about sensitive sites, they don’t have that information. So very few in Pakistan would know where they are.

Pseudo-intellectual adventurism (The News Rawalpindi)
(February 12, 2008)
S. Rahman

Is the agreement between the versions of Scotland Yard and that of Pakistani investigators a chance occurrence or something else?

Such questions are being raised from different forums probably by design to paint it as a case of ‘understanding’ but the fact is that question does not arise that the Scotland Yard and Pakistani authorities have worked together with a prior understanding or, plainly speaking, with a ‘common motive’.

 As a matter of fact, there did not exist any common motive of this kind. There existed only one common objective and that was nothing other than ascertaining the cause and circumstances of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. With that objective, all the rumours and hearsay about collusion between the government and Scotland Yard, have proved to be altogether unfounded and baseless. There is yet another important aspect attached to this situation and that is the established integrity of Scotland Yard.

In this context, it can be verily said that given its global standing and repute, Scotland Yard does not fall into any government’s or ruler’s trap. It is an agency known worldwide for its successes in scientific and almost failsafe investigation. Therefore, there is no reason to smell a rat or doubt the intentions of either the British investigators or Pakistani investigators.

Now comes the question that Pakistani investigators proved to be better experts in investigation that they arrived at the same conclusion instantly, many weeks back that Scotland Yard arrived at after an intensive, lengthy investigation.

Even this question is a gratuitous attempt to create doubts and suspicions although the volatility of political situation on the ground doesn’t permit for such pseudo-intellectual ‘adventurism’. If somehow Pakistani investigators had concluded in the beginning that Bhutto’s death was not caused by a bullet, they did not fabricate any story. It was rather a finding based on evidence gathered by our agencies at the outset.

The whole matter should rather be taken in a positive way that what was inferred by Pakistani investigators was lately found to be true by the globally recognized investigation agency, Scotland Yard.

With the corroboration of Pakistani investigators’ findings by Scotland Yard, the speculation and rumour mills should now come to a halt. And then, some weight should also be given to the United States’ showing trust and confidence in the Scotland Yard report.

This ‘US confidence factor’ is very significant from the angle of demand made off and on by Pakistan People’s Party leaders to get the investigation conducted under the aegis of United Nations. UN, as every one knows this reality, for all practical purposes, depends a lot on US in a number of important matters and functions. If the United States has shown confidence in the Scotland Yard report, one can conveniently guess that the UN endeavour, if at all conducted at any stage, might also end up with the same conclusion drawn by Scotland Yard. Then, in that case, what will be the reaction of PPP leaders or Bhutto supporters? Obviously, that would lead to further chaos, if that happens. Moreover, we also ought to give some thought to the statement given the other day by Caretaker Interior Minister, Lt. Gen. (retired) Hamid Nawaz Khan, that the United Nations doesn’t have its own regular investigation setup. In case a UN probe is decided, it too has to take place through experienced investigators hired from different countries of the West.  

The best course for the PPP leaders and all other political and national forces is to take this national tragedy seriously which means addressing the root causes of such ghastly occurrences with a seriousness of purpose.

Here what is needed is a grand agreement on burning issues confronting the country. Obviously, terrorism and militancy are some serious problems that we face today at the national scale. No one is safe, even if he or she is not bombed. The widespread terror and scare are more dangerous and alarming than even the actual occurrences. They have deprived the nation of peace of mind and the freedom to survive and thrive. Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination, in particular, has intensified these feelings of terror because Bhutto represented the largest majority party of the country and as such large segments of the citizenry. What else should this tragedy be called other than a national tragedy?

President Pervez Musharraf did take it very seriously as specifically evidenced from his request to British authorities (Scotland Yard in particular) to conduct thorough investigations. It is a different thing that the evidence and ‘lack of evidence’ (viz lack of autopsy) became some hard, ground realities thus limiting the scope of investigation.

These ground realities should be taken as guidelines to take better political decisions for Pakistan’s and Pakistanis’ better, safe and prosperous future. The political parties, PPP in particular, should play a lead role in bringing confusions and suspicions to an end to pave the way for a bright future for this nation.