How safe are Pakistani nukes?
There are few things I love more than finding a big long Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker - and today brings a doozy: Defending the Arsenal.
The thrust of the piece is that the greatest threat to the security of Pakistan's nukes could come not from the Taliban, but from within the military itself. Hersh also goes into extensive detail about the workings of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and the US' secret efforts to help better secure it. Lots of great tidbits in there like:
At least one blogger in the Pakistani blogosphere has been less than kind to Mr. Hersh for calling the effectiveness of their military into question. From the blog Bazm-e-Iqbal:
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The thrust of the piece is that the greatest threat to the security of Pakistan's nukes could come not from the Taliban, but from within the military itself. Hersh also goes into extensive detail about the workings of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and the US' secret efforts to help better secure it. Lots of great tidbits in there like:
Safeguards have been built into the system. Pakistani nuclear doctrine calls for the warheads (containing an enriched radioactive core) and their triggers (sophisticated devices containing highly explosive lenses, detonators, and krytrons) to be stored separately from each other and from their delivery devices (missiles or aircraft). The goal is to insure that no one can launch a warhead—in the heat of a showdown with India, for example—without pausing to put it together. Final authority to order a nuclear strike requires consensus within Pakistan’s ten-member National Command Authority, with the chairman—by statute, President Zardari—casting the deciding vote.
At least one blogger in the Pakistani blogosphere has been less than kind to Mr. Hersh for calling the effectiveness of their military into question. From the blog Bazm-e-Iqbal:
American scaremongerers like Seymour Hersh need to come out of the wonderland they are living in. Before talking about mutiny in the Pakistan army and trying to help secure our nukes you better pay attention to securing Fort Hood.
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