A senior Pakistani official said on Saturday that the United States is needlessly worried about the security of the South Asian nation's nuclear arsenal, Asian News International reported (see GSN, Nov. 12).
Increasing militant activity in Pakistan has boosted fears that extremists within or outside of the country's nuclear sector might acquire control of sensitive material or an entire weapon.
Pakistani Defense Production Minister Abdul Qayyum Khan Jatoi told a Pakistani news agency that the constant analysis and critiques have significantly harmed Pakistan's reputation.
"Despite the fact that Pakistan and the U.S. are allies for the past 60 years, mistrust over certain matters is uncalled for and animates anti-U.S. sentiments inside Pakistan," said Jatoi in a report by the Nation (Asian News International/Yahoo!News, Nov. 21).
Former national security adviser Stephen Hadley said yesterday that Pakistan's nuclear sites are at risk due to instability from the ongoing Taliban insurgency, the Canwest News Service reported.
"The situation in Pakistan is troubling from a lot of perspectives," Hadley said at a global security conference in Halifax, Canada.. "There is a lot of concern about what happens to Pakistan's nuclear weapons if the government fragments in some way."
According to Hadley, Bush administration officials worried that NATO military operations in neighboring Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, could undermine stability in Pakistan and possible allow the Taliban to take control in Islamabad.
That has not occurred and today the country's civilian government has firm management of Pakistan's strategic arsenal, Hadley said. Washington has helped Islamabad since Sept. 11 with its efforts to keep the arsenal undergovernment control, he added.
"Whenever we checked in with our military and intelligence people, we said, 'Is this a nuclear arsenal at risk?' The answer so far has always been, 'No,'" Hadley said. "And we have now a democratic government in Pakistan that is really revitalizing their effort against the Taliban. They see it now for what it is -- a strategic threat to the stability of that democracy."
Hadley acknowledged that there still is "a risk" that the security situation in the country could quickly change (Richard Foot, Canwest News Service/Canada.com, Nov. 22).