Pakistan Observer Editor-in-Chief, Zahid Malik, in his special editorial on October 19, 2009 titled: ‘Attack on a nuclear establishment’ has raised the specter of such a scenario. He rightly cautions, “While the foreign trained, foreign funded and foreign armed terrorists have started launching multiple orchestrated attacks on different cities of Pakistan, a critical sabotage in one of the country’s nuclear establishments now appears to be on the agenda of perpetrators of terror in Pakistan and their master-minds abroad.” It would be naïve, nay suicidal to brush off such a warning and advice coming from the sagacious octogenarian senior journalist. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program has been the thorn in the side of its adversaries as well as detractors far too long. Doomsday scenarios were built of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling in the hands of religious fanatics. The security of Pakistan’s nukes coming under close scrutiny by US intelligence agencies has led to a disclosure of war gaming by Pentagon to seize Pakistani nuclear assets before rogue elements gain control of them. The crescendo appeared to have reached a peak with Frederick Kagan, a former West Point military historian, who devised the Bush administration’s Iraq troop surge, calling for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan, including the US to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos. Kagan admits that “Pakistan’s officer corps and ruling elites remain largely moderate. But then again, Americans felt similarly about the Shah’s regime and look what happened in 1979,” he says, referring to Iran. The Washington Post carried a detailed report on the exercises to take out Pakistan’s nukes, pointing out that the all such games came to the same conclusion: Pakistan’s cooperation—particularly that of its military—was crucial. Earlier this year, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has been a senior advisor to three US presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues and chaired President Obama’s strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan which concluded in March 2009 and is under revision again, took up the cudgels for attacking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons security. In his article in “The Wall Street Journal”, titled: ‘Pakistan and the bomb’, Mr. Riedel’s “scholarly masterpiece” was based on half truths, conjectures and apparent twisting of facts in pursuit of an agenda. His article came in the wake of the Swat operations (Rah-e-Rast), which he predicted to fail in view of the retaliatory suicide bomb attacks in Lahore and Peshawar. Thank God Mr. Riedel was proved wrong. Not be deterred, Mr. Riedel took up the tirade once again, when a bus conveying workers from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was attacked in Rawalpindi. Bruce Riedel’s inference this time was that it was a daring “attack on Pakistan’s nuclear facility”. He consoled himself thus: “The fighting has cast a spotlight on the shaky security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal …” And then self-contradicted himself in the very next paragraph, “Today the arsenal is under the control of its military leaders; it is well protected, concealed and dispersed. But if the country fell into the wrong hands—those of the militant Islamic jihadists and al-Qaeda—so would the arsenal.” With the security forces of Pakistan having routed the militants in Swat and wrested the control of the region and establishing the writ of the government, such a threat was blocked. Not to be daunted, the enemies of Pakistan, whose real intent appears to be the nuclear weapons which Pakistan has developed and deployed, fresh machinations were put in place. Baitullah Mehsud, who was perhaps deemed not brutal enough, was eliminated and replaced by a young, merciless and ruthless leader like Hakimullah Mehsud. His first attack was the brazen assault on the bastion and apparently impregnable citadel of Pakistan Army, the General Headquarters (GHQ). Breaching it brought cheer to the militants and their sponsors. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attack on GHQ and in the same breath stated that “Pakistan’s nuclear assets are safe”. Her words are reassuring as well as ominous. An attack on GHQ leads to the strain of thought regarding the possibility of terrorists getting through the security parameters of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Mr. Zahid Malik’s concerns regarding a possible attack on our nuclear establishment and maintaining a high vigil by all and sundry are valid suggestions. It is no longer enough to cajole ourselves with the thought that if the Indian and western intelligence agencies have not been able to find any clue about the location of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal; how would a rag-tag militia do so? One advantage that accrued out of the GHQ attack was that one of the miscreants’ group leaders was captured alive and he is singing like a canary. However lowly placed he may have been in the army dispensation, he does raise apprehensions. Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan, in his article ‘Nuclear Security in Pakistan: Separating Myth from Reality’ alludes to under the caption “Insider-Outsider Collusion” that insiders in the program could be motivated by religious, monetary, revenge, grudges, jealousies, psychiatric disorders, to act against the state and become a tool of the enemy. Fears for the safety of Pakistani nuclear assets can be allayed by the factor of astute planning. Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority through its Strategic Plans Division, undertakes measures for the safety and security of strategic assets including: development of a strategic C4I2SR; over watch and regulate the movement of its scientific manpower through Personnel Reliability and Human Reliability Programmes; weekly, monthly and quarterly intelligence reports; sensitive material control and accounting; transportation security and specialist vehicles; two man rule, codes and Permissive Action Links (PALs). These steps preclude any security concerns for Pakistan’s nukes, but total vigilance is a must as indeed our nukes are a viable target for terrorists and their sponsors.
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