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| India-Pakistan |
| US officials worried about Zardari's control over N-arsenal |
| 2008-09-01 |
| Several US officials have expressed concern over reports that PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari, who was diagnosed with mental problems as late as last year, will have partial control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if elected president, a media report said on Monday. Though Zardari's spokespersons contend that he had been cured, the American officials were wary of Zardari having a partial control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if elected to the post in the September six presidential polls, Newsweek reported. "Typically (the US) would not want that kind of person involved in a nuclear chain of command," said Pete Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the US House Intelligence Committee. Doctors hired by Zardari had reportedly diagnosed him with problems like including dementia, depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Lawyers for Zardari, the report noted, argued in London's high court that he was too ill to testify in corruption- related cases, and they submitted recent mental health evaluations as evidence. In March 2007, the Financial Times reported, New York psychologist Stephen Reich concluded Zardari was "chronically anxious and apprehensive" and had thoughts of suicide, though he had not acted on them. The newspaper wrote that a New York psychiatrist, Philip Saltiel, found that Zardari's long imprisonment in Pakistan while facing corruption probes had left him with "emotional instability" as well as memory and concentration problems |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #4 Zadari will never even see a nuke, far less have partial control over one. The Pak military keeps control no matter what civilian government is supposedly in power. |
| Posted by: john frum 2008-09-01 13:18 |
| #3 So on the one side of the coalition we have Zardari, whose party helped Musharraf sack the Islamicist judges. On the other side we have the Islamicists barely disguised within Sharif's party the Muslim League-N who withdrew from the government and went into opposition late last week because the PPP did not act to restore those judges to power. Musharraf was many unpalatable things but this is what we get with his absence. And with the intrigue in Islamabad about internal power, all pressure is off the Afghan border regions and the Taliban there. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-09-01 12:22 |
| #2 For the region that sems a rather normal abnormality, I'd consider him "Normaly Deranged" and provide intensive "Correction, such as issuing a Koran with perforated tear-out pages, and no toilet paper. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-09-01 12:13 |
| #1 a Pak with mental problems? Whoda thunk it? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-09-01 10:40 |