Seymour Hersh on the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal

Cross-posted from Rajesh Rajagopalan's blog The Real World.


Seymour Hersh has been writing about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal for some time now. His latest account can be found here.

His earlier essay about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, immediately after 9/11, caused a sensation in both India and Pakistan. The latest story has been rejected by Pakistani officials (actually by no less than General Tariq Majid, Chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chief's of Staff!). For the record, I do think that Seymour Hersh, all investigative journalism awards notwithstanding, is seriously off-track here. There are threats to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, no doubt, but the Pakistani Army has sufficient incentive to keep strict control over those weapons. And the idea of the U.S. having the capacity to take them out in case of an emergency should be consigned to Hollywood movies like The Peacemaker.

In an interview yesterday (December 6, 2009) with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate, Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs, seemed confident that there was only limited danger, saying that at this stage, the concern is low. "Pakistan, for all its limitations, does have a strong military establishment. As of now, in any case, they appeared (sic) to be in control of their own weapons." These comments were echoes of comments made by the U.S. National Security Advisor General Jim Jones a few days earlier on CNN's Situation Room. General Jones says that the US has plenty of assurances from Pakistan on the issue but that they still worry, even though the prospects of terrorists getting control of nukes is more remote now.