Battalions of reporters and analysts who have been scouring the tinderbox region of South Asia and Central Asia since October 7--the start of the bombing of Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts--have missed the significance of one of the biggest stories unfolding right under their noses in Pakistan. There is a good deal of circumstantial evidence that Americans have taken charge of the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and fissionable material.
One can piece this story together from apparently unconnected bits ofinformation, much of it public, that I have confirmed with public officials whomI trust. In order to avoid humiliating Pakistan, neither the United States norPakistan will confirm this shift--especially since every Pakistani regime to datehas projected the possession of nuclear weapons as a matter of national pride andas a way to keep its neighbor India in check. But a big hint of U.S. involvementcame from Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar himself.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad on November 1, Sattar disclosedthat Pakistan had accepted an offer made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powellto train Pakistanis "for security and protection of nuclear assets." Sattaradded: "Pakistani experts would be apprised of the security measures beingapplied by the United States [emphasis added]." If the foreign minister is to be believed, then even before Pakistani personnel had been informed or trained, the United States was applying security measures with regard to Pakistan's nuclear assets.
Several additional factors indicate that Sattar was hinting that America haseffective control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons. One is Pakistan's need toallay a spate of stories in the American press suggesting that fundamentalistgenerals sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda might unseat General PervezMusharraf in a coup and hand over nuclear material to Islamic radicals. In fact,Musharraf is surprisingly well entrenched. But the United States, as part of itsnew alliance with Pakistan, nonetheless needed stronger assurances that itsnuclear arsenal was secure.
A second clue is an indirect confirmation by Indian Defense Minister GeorgeFernandes: Without any provocation, he announced on October 30 that Pakistan'snuclear assets were in safe hands. This should have raised a lot of eyebrows, butit did not. And in case there was any doubt, Sattar, according to a report inKarachi's Dawn newspaper, "surprised" local and foreign correspondents by walking down to the foreign office briefing hall to read out a statement that declared, among other things, that "Pakistan's strategic assets are under foolproof custodial controls." He then proceeded to mention the offer made by Powell to teach Pakistani experts how to employ the security measures that the United States already had in place.
Sattar gave these assurances partly in order to deny a story in The NewYorker in which writer Seymour Hersh suggested that U.S. special-operations troops were training with Israeli commandos for a possible mission to "take out" Pakistan's nuclear warheads and prevent them from being transferred to al-Qaeda.
Sattar is a seasoned diplomat who has spent several decades inthe Pakistan Foreign Service and has held the most prestigious postings that theservice has to offer. He chooses his words with extreme care, as I discoveredwhen I covered him in the early 1990s, when he was Pakistan's ambassador toIndia. He is very precise when speaking on the record to journalists and has aknack of conveying the exact sense that he wants to convey.
So Sattar's choice of words is telling. About "custodial control" of thenuclear assets, he said that "dedicated formations of specially equipped forceshave been deployed for the security of Pakistan nuclear installations andassets"--without specifying whose custody and whose forces.
Fernandes's words are equally revealing: "Those concerned with Pakistan'snuclear weapons are responsible people." He did not say that thePakistanis guarding the nuclear assets were responsible people. Additionally, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton has quoted Fernandes as quelling doubts about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
It is intriguing that, all of a sudden, U.S. and Indian officials stoppedleaking stories about the dangers of unsecured nuclear material in Pakistan andbegan issuing reassuring statements that the weapons were in safe hands. Yes, butin whose hands?
Colin Powell's offer of help in securing these assets was disclosed after hevisited Islamabad and Delhi on October 15. But this may have been part of theultimatum that the United States had issued to Pakistan in the first few daysafter September 11: Powell called Musharraf and insisted that Pakistan choosesides. Did the ultimatum mention nuclear-weapons security?
By the time the bombing of Afghanistan began, Musharraf had, according to areport in The Washington Post, ordered an "emergency redeployment" of the nuclear arsenal to at least six new locations. He had also begun relocating critical nuclear components. The threat to his prized weapons was patently manifest. He used this opportunity to reshuffle his top generals and create a strategic planning division within the nuclear program. Musharraf had even thought of moving his nuclear warheads for safekeeping to China, a friendly neighbor, according to The New York Times. China had clandestinely aided Pakistan's development programs for missiles and nuclear weapons.
Further confirmation that outside controls were being imposedwas provided by the December 2 arrival in Islamabad of two Italian arms-controlscientists. Dawn reported that they were there to "prepare a report on the status of nuclear security in Pakistan." The bland account of their arrival continued:
Sources said the visiting scientists, Prof Paolo Cotta-Ramusinoand Prof Maurizio Martellini, would be looking at certain key questions relatingto safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, the percentage of nuclear weapons thatare assembled, effects of the Sept 11 attacks and the Afghan crisis on thenuclear posture of Pakistan, Pakistan's reaction to possible Indian attack andthe public perception of the nuclear weapons. The report would later be submittedto the Italian government, they said.
The scientists, visiting under the auspices of the foreign ministry of Italy,have held deliberations with foreign ministry officials and think-tanks to assess the safety of nuclear weapons and the risks of proliferation of weapons ofmass destruction to terrorists and rogue states, the sources said.
Dawn then went on to comment that some of the questions being asked by the scientists "have raised concern in the security establishment" of Pakistan. Here, then, was Pakistan's leading Englishlanguage newspaper reporting that two European scientists were going around the country questioning Pakistani scientists about the extent to which the country's nuclear assets were weaponized and about whether some of these weapons could have been passed on to al-Qaeda terrorists. The Pakistan government did not deny this report or its contents, just as there had been no denial of Sattar's statement that the United States was applying security measures to Pakistan's nuclear assets.
It is inconceivable that these senior European arms-control experts are makingtheir rounds without the full knowledge and collaboration of the United States.One can surmise that the United States has apparently gone about verifying thestatus and number of Pakistan's nuclear weapons in a clever, roundabout mannercalculated to save Musharraf from embarrassment at a time when America stillneeds his help to sort out the mess in Afghanistan. More remarkable is the factthat the military government in Islamabad allowed a Pakistani newspaper to reportthis.
The scope of inquiries in Pakistan leaves nothing to the imagination. One needonly quote a few paragraphs from the Dawn report published on December 6:
In terms of nuclear proliferation risks the scientists areexploring the possible links of Pakistani nuclear scientists with the AfghanTaliban and the Arab Afghans in the past and present scenarios, effectiveness ofcontrol over Pakistani fissile material storage and production facilities,possible transfer of illicit nuclear material through Pakistan and Afghanistanand the effectiveness of control of Pakistan's radioactive sources and theirpotential illicit traffic.
They said that in terms of chemical and biological weapons the scientists havequestions about effective control of materials of concern for chemical andbiological weapons ... and transfer of illicit biological, chemical agents anddual use equipment through the border.
Some of the questions being asked relate to transfer of nuclear scientists andexperts to Afghanistan or any other country and the impact of recent events onthe scientific community, particularly on the community of scientists involved inmilitary and defence activities. The sources said the scientists would alsoreport the impact of Pakistan's nuclear programme on the role of Islamiccountries in the international arena and whether Pakistan's nuclearization hascontributed to any change in the role of the Islamic countries.
Are these among the "security measures being applied by theUnited States" that Sattar spoke of on November 1? Are there even more direct"security measures," including explicit U.S. operational control of Pakistan'snuclear weapons?
There are two possibilities: Either the Pakistani government is engaged inan elaborate charade, employing Italian decoys and fooling both the Americans andthe Indians (given the immensely high stakes of loose nuclear weapons in thehands of Islamic radicals, this is highly improbable), or Washington has takeneffective control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal while going to great lengths todeny it.
It is not surprising that the Indian defense minister should express happinessthat "those concerned with Pakistan's nuclear program are responsible people": Heknows that these concerned, responsible people are not Pakistanis.
