Here is very interesting, overall positive news:
Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million so far on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials. But with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.
The aid, buried in secret portions of the federal budget, paid for the training of Pakistani personnel in the United States and the construction of a nuclear security training center in Pakistan, a facility that American officials say is nowhere near completion, even though it was supposed to be in operation this year. A raft of equipment — from helicopters to night-vision goggles to nuclear detection equipment — was given to Pakistan to help secure its nuclear material, its warheads, and the laboratories that were the site of the worst known case of nuclear proliferation in the atomic age.
While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used. That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.
The American program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration debated whether to share with Pakistan one of the crown jewels of American nuclear protection technology, known as “permissive action links,” or PALS, a system used to keep a weapon from detonating without proper codes and authorizations. In the end, despite past federal aid to France and Russia on delicate points of nuclear security, the administration decided that it could not share the system with the Pakistanis because of legal restrictions.
In addition, the Pakistanis were suspicious that any American-made technology in their warheads could include a secret “kill switch,” enabling the Americans to turn off their weapons. While many nuclear experts in the federal government favored offering the PALS system because they considered Pakistan’s arsenal among the world’s most vulnerable to terrorist groups, some administration officials feared that sharing the technology would teach Pakistan too much about American weaponry. The same concern kept the Clinton administration from sharing the technology with China in the early 1990s.
The New York Times has known details of the secret program for more than three years, based on interviews with a range of American officials and nuclear experts, some of whom were concerned that Pakistan’s arsenal remained vulnerable. The newspaper agreed to delay publication of the article after considering a request from the Bush administration, which argued that premature disclosure could hurt the effort to secure the weapons. Since then, some elements of the program have been discussed in the Pakistani news media and in a presentation late last year by the leader of Pakistan’s nuclear safety effort, Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, who acknowledged receiving “international” help as he sought to assure Washington that all of the holes in Pakistan’s nuclear security infrastructure had been sealed.
The Times told the administration last week that it was reopening its examination of the program in light of those disclosures and the current instability in Pakistan. Early this week, the White House withdrew its request that publication be withheld, though it was unwilling to discuss details of the program.
Believe it or not, agree or disagree — it always makes me happy to know that the New York Times and other newspapers agree to delay publication of certain things. In a democracy, it is integral for outlets to consider the sensitivity of certain information, and it’s good that they know to keep certain things “quiet” when they should be kept quiet for at least a little while. Don’t look at me so ghastly, Dear Reader — I’m not suggesting that we don’t have a right to information. I’m just saying that the federal government and the press should, at times, work together to at protect the nation on very very important things.
Pakistan’s nuclear program is one of those.
That “I’m proud of the press!” rant aside, let me just say that I’ve delayed comment on the Pakistani situation because I’ve been waiting for it to unfold. Forgive me if it’s as unsatisfactory an answer to you as it is to me, but it’s the truth. For a long time I’ve had an interest in Pakistan and yet I didn’t write about it? Surprises you, surprises me, but it just means that I’ve been waiting and seeing. So, what is this business?
Musharraf calls a state of emergency, arrested political opponents and cracks down using his army uniform. The American Government responds by calling on him to knock it off. Musharraf says, “I will stop when the violence stops”. His opponents claim he is merely trying to hold onto power by force because the people dislike him more and more by the day. My thoughts? This is a disaster: we need Musharraf. He is a great leader, by Pakistani standards and compared to the possible alternatives. I don’t think he’s going to last all that much longer but he’s surprised the world before. If he goes down, we’d better hope that someone rational, at least, takes control of that country because they have nuclear weapons and that’s the last thing I’d like to see in the hands of an Islamic Fundamentalist government.