US has no plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons: Boucher

Source: PTI

Islamabad (PTI): The United States has no plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has said.

Mr. Boucher rejected the suggestion that once the Talibans were defeated, the US would turn its attention to Pakistan's nuclear weapons."I think it is silly. Nobody has any basis to make a claim like that," Mr. Boucher told Dawn newspaper. The US, he said, believed Pakistan is capable of defending the nuclear weapons against any move to seize them.

Mr. Boucher said the US wants a constructive, long-term engagement with Pakistan that goes beyond America's need to defeat the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

He said the US believed "Pakistan has a very capable" army which could defeat the Taliban in Swat and other areas."But it needs counter-insurgency training, particularly to learn how to keep an area once the militants are cleared," he said.

Read more: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200905141480.htm

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Not sure if this is good or bad news, actually.

The US military has plans for EVERYTHING. And they are dragged out and dusted off every five or ten years for updating.

Now, I'd maybe believe that we are not currently considering plans for seizing Pakistan's nukes (but there's a big 'maybe' there, too), but I don't believe for a minute that nobody ever considered the possibility.

In fact, wasn't there one of those military fiction books about 10-15 years ago, about a Special Forces unit that was tasked with knocking out Pakistan's nukes - one of those Ralph Peters books?

We have plans for invading Canada, of all things. We certainly have planned how we would go about seizing Pakistan's nukes - as well as those of Israel, North Korea and India.

The plan is sitting in some document storage room deep in the Pentagon and would be highly classified, but it exists. I agree that there is no intention to use that plan in the foreseeable future unless things with Pakistan really get out of hand, then it might be reconsidered behind closed doors to see how feasible it would be.

It's just so hard to decide if we need to continue to pursue our policies of militarism after we "defeat the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks."
:eyes:

Actually, the Taliban has never been linked to the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01.

He said, "the terrorists".

Anyway, as I said, I was uncertain about whether or not it was good news.

ANALYSIS-Loose nukes in Pakistan: how real is the risk?

Reuters

By Andrew Marshall, Asia Political Risk Correspondent

=snip=

DIRTY BOMB

Al Qaeda is known to be actively seeking nuclear material. Pakistan could be the place they finally manage to acquire some.

"It's not going to be a risk where rogue elements take over Pakistan's nuclear assets and then launch them at India or launch them at the U.S.," Kuusisto said. "It will be a radiological bomb exploding somewhere that is traced back to Pakistan."

The United States has given Pakistan assistance in checking containers leaving from key ports for radioactive material. But Vickers said smuggling radioactive material out of the country would not present a major problem for militants.

"It is very difficult to secure the borders," he said.

Kuusisto noted Pakistan is a key transit point in the international drugs trade. "If heroin can flow out I am not too convinced that nuclear material cannot flow out," she said. "There are plenty of land routes, there are plenty of options."

Full article: http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINSP47468320090514?sp=true

are the only "terrorists" or "militants" specifically mentioned in the article. Indeed, it is the Taliban, specifically, that the U.S. government and the Pakistani military are now fighting. I have no choice but to conclude that they are whom Mr. Boucher was referencing.

From your Reuters article:

- The doomsday scenario of militants allied to al Qaeda gaining control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has only a vanishingly small possibility of ever happening.

- Analysts say that ... the Taliban has almost no chance of ever being in a position to launch a nuclear warhead...

- ...most analysts say the Taliban is nowhere near able to mount a serious power grab across Pakistan.

- ...the nuclear command system would make it almost impossible to launch one.

- "I don't think there is any risk whatsoever of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of dangerous radical Islamic elements for the foreseeable future," said Alastair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura in London.

As for the "dirty bomb" nonsense, other, more reliable analysts have concluded, that that is just part of the fog of propaganda designed to manufacture consent for U.S. militarism, the purpose of which is to control energy sources and pipelines in Central Asia.

There are much more reliable sources of information and analysis than Reuters. You should seek them out.

Instead of patronizing me.

Thanks for explaining how you came to your conclusion. However, it's clear that you see ALL of this as a convoluted conspiracy to get our hands on natural resources, whoever he may have been referring to.

It is readily apparent and easily understood by an objective examination of history, and a study of the obvious patterns of U.S. foreign policy. Empires, throughout history, have always done what they do in order to control resources, markets and labor, which provides elites with what they crave: wealth, power and hegemony. Sometimes, maintaining and expanding empire does indeed involve conspiracies. Other times, imperial militarism is quite direct, but one does not need to concoct theories in order to explain the phenomenon. All one needs is a history book.

As for sources concerning my claims about the "dirty bomb" hysteria being a propaganda tool, I'm afraid I've come up rather short in that regard. I work many hours each week, so my free time is quite limited, and I like to spend most of it reading, which is why I never involve myself in futile and often seemingly endless back-and-forths with other posters. Here are a couple I managed to locate:

"I don't think it would kill anybody," says Dr Theodore Rockwell, an authority on radiation, in an interview for the series. "You'll have trouble finding a serious report that would claim otherwise." The American department of energy, Rockwell continues, has simulated a dirty bomb explosion, "and they calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose , not life-threatening." And even this minor threat is open to question. The test assumed that no one fled the explosion for one year.

During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/oct/15/broadcasting.bbc>


In truth, while “dirty bombs” are extremely dangerous, it is an exaggeration to say they will cause “mass death and injury.” The conventional explosion that initiates a “dirty bomb” can cause death and destruction in the immediate vicinity of the blast. But the effects of the radiation that is then spread are long-term and very uncertain. Perhaps the worst effects of a “dirty bomb” are fear and panic.

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/12/opinion/meyer/main512021.shtml>

A very interesting series, here's a link to all three parts that can be downloaded: http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

I'm going to watch it again as it's been 5 years since I saw it, thanks for the reminder.

I have a list of links in http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Turborama">my journal to 20 other documentaries that are streamed online that you might find interesting, if you haven't seen them already (such as "Why we Fight, and "Iraq For Sale - The War Profiteers" and Ian Curtis's other series "The Century of the Self").

As far as the 'dirty bomb' thing is concerned, the impact may be more psychological than physical but, depending on the location, the affects on the area the bomb went off would cause a tremendous amount of medium to long term disruption that could be further reaching than a 'conventional' bomb.

What if a dirty bomb hit London?

It wouldn't take much for terrorists to wreak havoc in London - just a simple explosive and some industrial waste. Such is the gruesome reality of the dirty bomb.

=snip=

The dirty bomb is perhaps the least understood of all terror weapons, but new research by BBC Two's Horizon programme brings home the full horror of how a dirty bomb attack might affect London.

=snip=

It would wreak panic in built-up areas, see large areas contaminated and closed off and result in long-term illnesses such as cancer, caused by the dispersed radioactive material attacking living cells.

Using sophisticated modelling, experts commissioned by Horizon constructed a scenario around a radioactive material called caesium chloride, which in the old Soviet Union was used in seed irradiating.



Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2708635.stm

Re: 'Back and forths' with other posters. They don't have to be futile, if it seems like a futile exercise, I usually don't waste my time either. However, when I bother to get involved in an in depth discussion it's usually with people who are informed & prepared to debate rather than argue.

I've seen The Power of Nightmares also, but I will probably watch it again, now that I have a readily available link. The content of your journal also looks fascinating. Rest assured, I will avail myself of it.

Good day.

where the US holds the stockpile in a secure location. That wouldn't be seizing.

that Pakistan will simply hand its sovereignty over to the United States on request.

felt it was in their interest, they'd cut a deal with Obama. I doubt they would have allowed bush to hold their nukes during this time of upheaval.

as the likelihood of Pakistan sweeping in to take the U.S.'s nukes: 0%.