India thinks Pakistani N-sites already in radical hands: Report

India thinks Pak N-sites already in radical hands: Report

16 May 2009, 0120 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told President Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan's restive frontier province are "already partly" in the hands of Islamic extremists, an Israeli journal has said, amid considerable anxiety among US pundits here over Washington's confidence in the security of the troubled nation's nuclear arsenal.

Claims about the high-level exchange between New Delhi and Washington were made in the Debka, a journal said to have close ties with Israeli intelligence, under the headline "Singh warns Obama: Pakistan is lost." The brief story said the Indian prime minister had named Pakistani nuclear sites in the areas which were Taliban-Qaida strongholds and said the sites are already partly in the hands of "Muslim extremists." A sub-head to the story said "India gets ready for a Taliban-ruled nuclear neighbor."

There was no official word from either Washington or New Delhi about the exchanges, with India in the throes of an election and US winding down for the weekend. But US experts have been greatly perturbed in recent days about what they say is Washington's misplaced confidence in, and lackadaisical approach towards, Pakistan's nuclear assets. The disquiet comes amid reports that Pakistan is ramping up its nuclear arsenal even as the rest of the world is scaling it down.

"It is quite disturbing that the administration is allowing Pakistan to quantitatively and qualitatively step up production of fissile material without as much as a public reproach," Robert Windrem, a visiting scholar with the Center for Law and Security in New York University and an expert on South Asia nuclear issues told ToI in an interview on Thursday. "Iraq and Iran did not get a similar concessions... and Pakistan has a much worse record of proliferation and security breaches than any other country in the world."

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India-thinks-Pak-N-sites-already-in-radical-hands-Report/articleshow/4537037.cms

or two of the missile officer's cohorts just to show that he means business.

These well-armed country bumpkins have backing in very high places.


This is the kind of article that makes me want to put my fingers in my ears and say "Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah. I can't hear you!"

:sarcasm:

and as noted in another reply, capable of coercing someone with the knowledge. And it is a matter of mathematical certainty that there are at least a few Taliban sympathizers in the nuclear chain of command ...

Make no mistake ... this is a very precarious situation, and provides ample grounds for ramping up nuclear disarmament efforts.

Trav