US lawmaker seeks cap, roll-back of Pak WMDs

Source: Times of India

WASHINGTON: An influential US lawmaker who co-authored the so-called Nunn-Lugar Act to roll back the nuclear weapons program of former Soviet
Republics has asked that it be applied to Pakistan too amid unremitting concern in Washington over the security of the country's nuclear arsenal.

In a move that could spell the first formal US intervention in Pakistan's nuclear program, Republican Senator Richard Lugar on Thursday urged the Obama administration to "vigorously seek to expand our cooperation with Pakistan" under the Nunn-Lugar program, as US lawmakers and opinion leaders remained unconvinced by assurances by the country President Asif Ali Zardari that the nuclear arsenal will not fall into the hands of extremists.

In fact, Lugar went a step further, and invoking the recent Swine flu epidemic, recommended that cooperation with Pakistan under the program also include its biological weapons.

"In recent weeks the world has been gripped by the spread of the H1N1 virus. Imagine if the spread were intentional, not natural, and the virus's lethality had been artificially enhanced. Pakistan has many dangerous diseases and pathogens under its control. The Nunn-Lugar program can help secure the pathogen strains to ensure they do not fall into the wrong hands," Lugar said in a statement.


Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US-lawmaker-seeks-cap-roll-back-of-Pak-WMDs/articleshow/4500322.cms

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I hope this pressure succeeds in defanging Pakistan. They have no need for nuclear weapons except to blackmail us and shaking us down for handouts anyway.

Except to blackmail and shake down others? If I were leader of Pakistan, I would never relinquish nuclear arms unless the US and others did the same.

and all you have to solve the middle east problem is to ask the Israelis and the Palestinians to be friendly.