US Has Plan To Safeguard Pakistan Nuclear Weapons:Report-AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. has developed contingency plans to safeguard Pakistani nuclear weapons if they risk falling into the wrong hands, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
But U.S. officials worry their limited knowledge about the location of the arsenal could pose a problem, it said, a week after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency.
"We can't say with absolute certainty that we know where they all are," the newspaper quoted an unnamed former U.S. official as saying.
As for any U.S. effort to seize and secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, the official said: "It could be very messy."
U.S. officials and lawmakers have voiced increasing alarm that the Pakistani government could lose control over its nuclear arsenal amid the mounting political crisis there.
"I'm very concerned about it. Not immediately, but over the next year to two years," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a presidential contender, said on CNN, arguing that the U.S. needed to shore up moderates in Pakistan.
Islamabad, Washington's key ally in the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants, is believed to have about 50 nuclear-armed weapons, an arsenal it began assembling after detonating its first nuclear devices in May 1998.
There is no evidence that any of the weapons, said to be spread out in various locations around the country, currently are at risk. But the volatile political climate has U.S. officials worried.
Pakistan also is suspected of selling atomic secrets on a global black market headed by its disgraced chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
U.S. intelligence agencies have over time prepared contingency plans for possible action to prevent the theft of a nuclear weapon in Pakistan, two " knowledgeable officials" told the Washington Post.
Under a more optimistic scenario for possible intervention, the Pakistani military would help the U.S. military in its effort, the Post said. In other cases, that kind of assistance might not be forthcoming, it said.
"We're a long way from any scenario of that kind," Matt Bunn, a nuclear weapons expert and former White House science official under former president Bill Clinton, was quoted as saying.
"But the current turmoil highlights the need for doing whatever we can right now to improve cooperation and think hard about what might happen down the road."
Officials in the Bush administration and former government officials say Pakistan's stockpile is secure but express worry over increasing divisions within Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership, the report said.
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WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. has developed contingency plans to safeguard Pakistani nuclear weapons if they risk falling into the wrong hands, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
But U.S. officials worry their limited knowledge about the location of the arsenal could pose a problem, it said, a week after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency.
"We can't say with absolute certainty that we know where they all are," the newspaper quoted an unnamed former U.S. official as saying.
As for any U.S. effort to seize and secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, the official said: "It could be very messy."
U.S. officials and lawmakers have voiced increasing alarm that the Pakistani government could lose control over its nuclear arsenal amid the mounting political crisis there.
"I'm very concerned about it. Not immediately, but over the next year to two years," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a presidential contender, said on CNN, arguing that the U.S. needed to shore up moderates in Pakistan.
Islamabad, Washington's key ally in the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants, is believed to have about 50 nuclear-armed weapons, an arsenal it began assembling after detonating its first nuclear devices in May 1998.
There is no evidence that any of the weapons, said to be spread out in various locations around the country, currently are at risk. But the volatile political climate has U.S. officials worried.
Pakistan also is suspected of selling atomic secrets on a global black market headed by its disgraced chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
U.S. intelligence agencies have over time prepared contingency plans for possible action to prevent the theft of a nuclear weapon in Pakistan, two " knowledgeable officials" told the Washington Post.
Under a more optimistic scenario for possible intervention, the Pakistani military would help the U.S. military in its effort, the Post said. In other cases, that kind of assistance might not be forthcoming, it said.
"We're a long way from any scenario of that kind," Matt Bunn, a nuclear weapons expert and former White House science official under former president Bill Clinton, was quoted as saying.
"But the current turmoil highlights the need for doing whatever we can right now to improve cooperation and think hard about what might happen down the road."
Officials in the Bush administration and former government officials say Pakistan's stockpile is secure but express worry over increasing divisions within Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership, the report said.
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