Our forces on both of those "Lily Pads" are stretched to the limit and barely able to control the pads they are on. By the time we piled enough force in to take another bite, the nukes would be long gone and under the deepest possible cover. We could take them, of course. We could take them right in the face, though a few would probably end up in India and Israel.
If you recall, there was a bit of a huff over contigency plans for the US and Israel to seize Pak nukes in the event of a Pak meltdown. I believe we know where the Pakistanis have their nukes, and plans to snatch them if all hell breaks loose.
biharnews2k1.hypermart.net
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US commandos train with Israelis to take Pakistan nukes if Musharraf falls
AFP
Washington, D.C : Monday, October 29, 2001
A special US unit is training with Israeli commandos to take out Pakistan's nuclear weapons in case of a coup against President Pervez Musharraf, the New Yorker magazine reported today, citing past and present government officials.
The US force is training in the United States with members of Israel's Unit 262, a commando team that has engaged in behind-the-lines operations including theft and assasinations, according to the New Yorker.
The US unit, operating under Pentagon control with CIA assistance, specializes in slipping undetected into foreign countries to find, and if necessary disarm, nuclear weapons, the magazine reports.
US sources told the magazine that Pakistan has at least 24 nuclear warheads that can be delivered by intermediate-range missiles and F-16 airplanes. However US intelligence cannot be sure of the precise location of all of the Pakistani warheads, officials said.
US regional experts quoted by the magazine say they doubt Musharraf's ability to control the military and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if there is a coup -- and say dissident fundamentalists within the military might try to seize a nuclear warhead.
One US intelligence officer expressed alarm over the recent questioning in Pakistan of two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists with reported Taliban connections, describing it as "the tip of a very serious iceberg."
The incident shows that pro-Taliban sentiment has overcome state loyalty among Pakistani nuclear scientists, thought to be fiercely patriotic.
Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has also had close ties with the Taliban in the past and might still include many pro-Taliban elements, according to experts interviewed by New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh.
A senior US military official told Hersh he was concerned about an uprising of dissident ISI officers with access to nuclear storage sites.
A former US diplomat described the ISI as "a parallel government of its own," and a US intelligence officer said that allowing the ISI to be the US "eyes and ears" in the region is "our biggest mistake." |
