Pakistan’s nuclear facilities said to be secure from attack

* Stimson Centre report notes attack on installations not ‘attractive’ prospect for terrorists

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The controls and security measures around various nuclear installations and radiation facilities in Pakistan are enough to deter and delay a terrorist attack, and any such attempt would be detected in the early stages, according to a paper released this week by US-based independent thinktank the Stimson Centre.

The finding is part of a brief study by Mohammad Saleem Zafar, who was a visiting fellow from the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) to Stimson last year. He claims that a sabotage act on a nuclear installation is not very attractive to a terrorist group in general and specifically within the context of Pakistan. He lists Pakistan’s response to nuclear terrorism and improvements needed to manage such emergencies.

He argues that advances in the knowledge of science and technology and their accessibility to terrorists have made the threat of nuclear terrorism no longer fiction, but reality with their intention to inflict catastrophic damage on man, environment, and property. However, in the presence of multiple safety and physical barriers, the probability of nuclear terrorism on research reactors is very low. Even after a successful sabotage act on a nuclear research reactor, the extent of damage both to the public and the environment will depend upon the mode of attack, the quantity of radioactivity released, the movement of radioactive material through the atmosphere and its uptake by the human body, weather conditions, time of attack, the efficiency of countermeasures put in place to protect the public from radiation and other factors.

Zafar writes that, were such an attack to take place, it is suspected that there will be widespread environmental contamination. Difficulties are likely to arise in informing members of the public in the surrounding rural areas where individuals may be unaware of the incident and who, scattered about the countryside, may be difficult to locate and advise in time. However, the people living in an urban area would be informed to restrain themselves at home in order to get themselves away from the harmful effects of radiation. All exposed individuals would need to be monitored for health outcomes over their lifetimes, especially those that suffer internal contamination. Massive decontamination efforts would be needed for recovery and if decontamination remains unsatisfactory, institutional controls would become essential.

The controls around various nuclear installations and radiation facilities in Pakistan are enough to deter and delay a terrorist attack and any malicious diversion would be detected in early stages.

Daillytimes

A rather contradicting report :--
US goes for the jugular in Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Finally acknowledging that Pakistan represents a clear and present danger to American and world security, the Bush administration is trying to get a stranglehold on the country’s nuclear weapons.

In the latest move, Washington has sought direct access to Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority by posting an officer at the US embassy in Islamabad to liaise with the body that controls the country’s nuclear weapons.

The demand, first reported in Pakistani newspapers Jang and News , comes even as US president George Bush said in a TV interview on the weekend that a future 9/11 kind of attack would most likely emanate from Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

Bush and high-ranking US officials had previously glossed over Pakistan’s role as the hub of world terror while targeting Iraq.

Most major terror attacks in the world have emanated from Pakistan, and not from the usual US suspects like Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The US administration’s attempts to get a stranglehold on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons show that Washington now appears to have come out in the open about a country that has long been described by many analysts as the most dangerous place on earth and the ground zero of world terror.

Ironically, the change in the American thinking comes even as Pakistan’s vibrant civil society has forced a course correction by jettisoning a US-backed militaristic government in favour of a more democratic dispensation.

Although Washington appears to harbour more doubts about the new democratic government than about the previous military junta it allied with, its efforts to get a handle on Pakistan’s security predates the gradual transfer of power.

The latest attempt to get a fix on Pakistan’s nuclear assets is the 12th in a series of demands aimed at establishing greater US oversight on what many commentators see as a dangerously unstable country. Last month, Washington issued a set of 11 demands that shocked Pakistan’s security establishment, which described it as highly intrusive and untenable.

The demands included allowing US personnel to enter Pakistan on the basis of national identity (like driver’s licence) and forgoing visas; accepting US licences, including arms licences, in Pakistan; US personnel being allowed to bear arms and wear their uniforms in Pakistan; application of US criminal jurisdiction on American personnel in Pakistan etc.

Pakistan’s defence ministry, the foreign office and the law ministry were reported to have rejected the demands outright.

Pakistan’s security mavens have gone ballistic over the US security bear hug.

"The first step in dealing rationally with our indigenous terrorist problem holistically and credibly is to create space between ourselves and the US. As the US adage goes: ‘There is no free lunch.’ For Pakistan, lunching with the US has become unacceptably costly," wrote Shireen Mazari, who heads the Pakistan Institute of Strategic Studies.

While Mazari wants Islamabad to punish the US by denying it access to Afghanistan, other analysts point out that Pakistan will be toast within weeks without US financial and institutional support.

According to reports from Pakistan, the new request for an NCA liaison was made through verbal contact via an assistant secretary-level official.

Elizabeth Colton, the US embassy spokesperson in Islamabad, did not deny outright the story but told the Pakistani media: "We are in touch with all elements of the Pakistan government all the time. But we do not publish or discuss details of our diplomatic discussions and assignments."

they realise our destiny, pity we our selfs do not.

We won't allow NCA to be annexed. Once again typical indian source.