How Many Guarantees Would Be Enough?

Of all the reasons to develop a good case of the knee-knocks over Pakistan, the nuclear stockpile and associated production facilities have to be at the top of the list. It is small wonder that the US government continues to seek additional "guarantees" from the Pakistani military and government as to the security of the nukes.

There is equally little surprise to the Pakistani response. Everything is secure, they croon over and over. Everything is secure; don't worry. Everything is secure; there is no cause for alarm.

What else could they say? Is it credible that Zardiri or any Pak general would up and announce, "Well, for the moment it looks as if our toys are all accounted for, but who knows about tomorrow? That's up to Allah."

Of course the weapons are only a small part of the problem. Even if the stockpile is under the full, firm and resolute control of the government, that doesn't remove all grounds for anxiety.

The Pakistani nuclear materials production system is large--and getting larger. For example, there is one plutonium production reactor operating with two more under construction on the edge of the FATA. In addition to plutonium, the operating reactor makes a great deal of high level radioactive waste. After the desired plutonium is extracted chemically, the rest of the radwaste is still around.

In and of itself the radwaste is an attractive target for theft. This brew from hell would be sought as the prime component of a radiological weapon--the much feared "dirty bomb." All that is needed in addition to the radwaste is an explosive charge to distribute it at the target location.

Oh, yeah, and someone willing to deliver the dirty bomb. This, obviously, would not be a job for the faint at heart.

As the seeking after martyrdom is a job requirement for the jihadist, it is to be presumed that Taliban and akin groups are full of suitable candidates. The same sort of candidate would be appropriate for the task of knocking over a radwaste storage site.

While JCS Chairman, Admiral Mullens, is "comfortable" regarding the current state of security for the Pakistani nuclear weapons, can he say the same about the glow-in-the-dark trash heap adjacent to the plutonium separation plant and its production reactor? The Admiral would probably agree that the task of providing leak proof security to the radwaste dump or the processing facilities generally is a far more difficult task than keeping the weapons out of hostile hands.

A kilo or so of assorted long lived radionuclides would be sufficient to ruin a sizable part of a city. It would be more than sufficient to generate a level of public anxiety far surpassing that generated by the recent A,H1N1 non-pandemic.

It wouldn't matter what city was attacked. It need not be in the US or Europe. Whacking Mumbai, for example, would have a suitably dramatic effect upon the world--to say nothing of Indo-Pakistani relations.

As the attack on Mumbai a little while back showed, the problem of getting from Pakistan to the target does not present any particular problem. Nor does it take that much time.

If an entity were willing to accept a few fatalities from exposure to radioactivity, the lag between a theft of glowing trash in Northwest Pakistan and the detonation of a dirty bomb in Mumbai would not exceed four or five days. In short, the payoff could take place before the Islamabad government had acknowledged the breech of security.

A close examination of the satellite imagery posted over the past few years by the Institute for Science and International Security gives no indication of rigorous security systems in place at the Khushab facility (or any others for that matter.) The Khusab complex southwest of Islamabad is conveniently close to territory in which Taliban operates openly and freely. There is no reason to believe that a strike across the few dozen kilometers separating the plant from Taliban country is beyond the capacities of the jihadists.

The "miscreants" (to use the latest fashionable term in the Islamabad vocabulary) have the capacity to launch a breaking and entering raid on the plutonium production reactor at any time. The capability of the Pakistani army to prevent this is debatable at best. Which brings us back to the question: How many guarantees will be enough?

General Jim Jones, the National Security Advisor, has been quoted recently as again saying more guarantees of nuke security are necessary. As has been the case previously General Jones did not specify the nature of the "pledge" required to assuage American anxieties.

That isn't surprising. No amount of "guarantee" will be sufficient. None can be sufficient. Anything less than the direct involvement of US troops in the guarding of the weapons dumps, production reactors, processing facilities and trash heaps will be insufficient.

And, that will not happen. Not now. Not ever.

Even in the worst case situation of a Taliban takeover, the most the US can hope to accomplish is the armed seizure of some, but, realistically, not all of the actual weapons and stockpile(s) of fissile materials. Beyond that the US would be able to impair the production facilities.

We would not be able to destroy the reactors, separation facilities or radwaste depositories. Any attempt to do this would, perforce, release quantities, perhaps enormous in size, of radioactivity to the environment. Such a giga-curie release would wreak great harm on the Pakistani population, and, depending on several variables, the populations of other countries as well. This would not be an acceptable option.

Sure looks bleak, doesn't it?

That's the problem with nuclear proliferation. Like so much else in international affairs, it involves the Law of Unintended Consequences. Way back when, when the Pakistanis started their quest for an Islamic bomb, the US did not oppose the effort. Well, the opposition wasn't all that serious.

Pakistan was important to us. It was a Cold War thing. We needed Islamabad's cooperation in countering the Soviet gambit in Afghanistan. We needed Pakistan as a counter to India's pronounced and protracted leftward tilt in foreign affairs.

Anyway, the Pakistani military regime looked stable, pro-West and capable of behaving in a responsible, adult fashion. And, the bloody Indians were going full-tilt after their own bomb. So, all things considered, it was nothing to lose sleep over. Thus our opposition, such as it was, ran more along the lines of the pro forma than the serious.

The shaky logic of the decision(s) back then was apparent even at the time. Also apparent was the Islamist tendencies within the military and intelligence services of Pakistan. But, in the finest don't-think-long-term fashion of governments generally, we ignored the danger signs and acquiesced.

Now the Law of Unintended Consequences has caught up with us. Now high anxiety reigns. Now, no level of guarantee will or can be enough.

Ain't foreign policy fun?