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| India-Pakistan | |||
| Special forces on standby over nuclear threat | |||
| 2007-12-31 | |||
US special forces snatch squads are on standby to seize or disable Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the event of a collapse of government authority or the outbreak of civil war following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The troops, augmented by volunteer scientists from America's Nuclear Emergency Search Team organisation, are under orders to take control of an estimated 60 warheads dispersed around six to 10 high-security Pakistani military bases.
Some of the special forces are already believed to be in neighbouring Afghanistan and on alert for the mission. It is also understood that satellite surveillance of Pakistan has been stepped up to keep track of the possible movement of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems. According to a US Congressional report published in November, Pakistan's nuclear deterrent consists of warheads for missiles and bombs dropped from aircraft. To maintain security, the weapons are not stored fully-assembled. Warheads, detonators and missiles are kept separately, but able to be married up "fairly quickly" in the event of a national crisis such as confrontation with India. While the US has stated publicly its confidence that Pakistan's military has the weapons "under effective technical control", Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted two years ago that if there was a radical Islamic coup, the US was "prepared to try to deal with it". Internal security at Pakistan's nuclear storage sites is the responsibility of a 10,000-man security force commanded by a two-star general. Every member of the force is vetted with the aim of weeding out sympathisers of the Taliban and al Qaeda or anyone with extreme Islamic views.
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| Posted by:john frum |
| #13 Wouldn't it be funny if the SEALs had already been there and gone! You know what fun-loving scamps they are. Ha Ha ha. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-12-31 21:12 |
| #12 Lone Ranger - as an Air Force photo intelligence analyst, I know exactly what you mean. I'm sure the folks at RAF Molesworth, at Hickam, in Omaha, and at the Navy Yard are VERY busy right now. Nor will they let down their watch anywhere else while this pot comes to a boil. I would expect Iran to take advantage of the turmoil, however, to see what it can do to destabilize Pakistan even more, and to infiltrate into Afghanistan. I hope someone's watching that border. I love Google Earth - I can revisit some of my favorite sites around the world, play tourist from 25,000 feet (again!), and, with Rantburg and a couple of other sites, at least partially keep abreast of what's going on in the world these days. Once a spook, always a spook - Right, Old Spook? 8^) |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2007-12-31 18:52 |
| #11 I had been hoping that some important wetwork might have taken place in the turmoil following Benazir's death. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2007-12-31 13:35 |
| #10 I would hope our liason officers stationed outside the gates of each Pak facility are so loaded down with electronics that they are buzzing and glowing. That's our minimum starting point. The solution, though, is mostly political, and really depends on aligning the Chinese and Indian positions - namely the Chinese don't want the Russians near this, and the Indians need to decide how many "enemies" they'd like and where they are. "Pakistan" is now growing more fictional by the day, as opposed to by the year, month or week. There's probably a very small chance that US military action will be needed, considering the other local and regional interests interposed before we even require consideration. The Chinese silence is as expected, but the Indian activity is curious. Perhaps it's time to surf over to their media for a visit and quick check. |
| Posted by: Thans Hatfield5643 2007-12-31 13:30 |
| #9 In further news, the sky is blue and splinters hurt.... |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2007-12-31 11:05 |
| #8 Dumb, really dumb. So this snatch is Plan A - guess what Plan B is, ya geniuses. That's right, a penetrator attack, resulting in scattering plutonium cores all over the damn country. |
| Posted by: mojo 2007-12-31 11:05 |
| #7 Sure. They were ready for 11-Sep-01. You and Besoeker ride the same short bus, I see. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-12-31 11:04 |
| #6 Who says that SOF [especially SEALS] are not already there? My money is on "in-situ" preparedness. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-12-31 10:20 |
| #5 Red herring, skidmark. US military had limited authority and mission to operate within domestic boundaries in 2001. It still does have limited authority and mission, but we have created the North American command and the Bush administration has been trying - in the face of resistance and sabotage from the left, much of Congress and many in State Dept. - to create legal, effective ways for military forces to address domestic threats in cooperation with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-12-31 09:03 |
| #4 Sure. They were ready for 11-Sep-01. |
| Posted by: SkidMark 2007-12-31 08:54 |
| #3 The Us has plans about every threat however improbable, even for an invasion by Liechtenstein or Vatican (cf the movie "The mouse who roared") |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-12-31 08:46 |
| #2 Containment Level, would be the 1st desire; Neutralization is the final option. The US would destroy all locations confirmed and suspected should level 1 breach. Since the Pakistani government refused the encryption storage and initializing procedured electronic 'packages'; the US's options were at that point clarified. Avoiding a "Dr. Strangelove Scenario" where no one man would be able to initiate a fail-safe, the PAK military signed there own death warrant barring on-site verification of active status by US or IAEA representatives. |
| Posted by: smn 2007-12-31 02:22 |
| #1 As a former war plans officer at several staff levels, I can assure the UK journalists that the US routinely creates at least preliminary contingency plans for every threatening eventuality that our military leadership can imagine. I'm sure that there has never been a day since Chagai-I on May 28, 1998 that the US didn't have SOF teams planning raids on Paki nuke sites. It would be criminally negligent if the US military WASN'T dusting off its contingency plans to respond to an impending loss of control of nuclear release safeguards in Pakistan. Whether small raiding teams (or even a full-up Ranger Regiment operation) could actually disable the full Pakistani arsenal is another question. With assistance from friendly Pakistani military contacts, its is probably doable. Spotter teams stand off and designate targets for USAF strikes. But - as per the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: âWhen you strike at a king, you must kill himâ, if you go after a nation's nuclear arsenal, its rather bad form to be only partially successful. "Payback's a bitch" |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2007-12-31 01:10 |