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Pak targets sixty N-warheads at India

	June 01, 2009

A US report that said that Pakistan which has 60 nuclear warheads that are targeted at India is continuing with its production of fissile material for weapons, and is constantly adding to its nuclear capabilities. “Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal consists of about 60 nuclear warheads. It continues fissile material production for weapons and is adding to its weapon production facilities and delivery vehicles,” said the report called ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security issues’.



The report, which is by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), adds credence to the reports that Pakistan has continued to increase its nuclear arsenal, even as it engages Taliban and deals with internal security issues. These reports have been appearing in the US media in the backdrop of concerns that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of Taliban and that a proposed plan to give aid to Pakistan would indirectly help the nuclear programme. Even the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, had said recently at a Congressional hearing that the US has “evidence” that Pakistan is expanding its nuclear arsenal, according to reports.



The CRS further pointed out that the primary motive for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is India. “Deterring India’s nuclear weapons and augmenting Pakistan’s inferior conventional forces are widely believed to be the primary motivation for Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal,” the CRS said. The CRS adds that Pakistan has obtained technology ranging from uranium enrichment to missile technology from different sources in Europe and China. China, in particular, has been helping Pakistan in the area and had even supported Islamabad by pushing for a civilian nuclear deal along the lines of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. Islamabad is in the process of expanding the Khushab plutonium production reactor with the help of China.



“The continued expansion of the complex and production of weapon materials could indicate plans to increase its nuclear weapons arsenal in the near future,” the report said, and added: “Islamabad continues to produce about 100 kg of highly enriched uranium for weapons every year.”



The US Congress is in the process of debating the fate of a bill giving military aid to Pakistan. While New Delhi has expressed worry about the money being diverted to build up weapons capability against India, debate in the US Congress has also included the possibility of the money being used to expand Pakistan’s nuclear capability



Raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear programme, many members of Congress were told last week in confidential briefings that Pakistan was rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency.





Mike Mullen, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. “Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing, clearly cognizant of Pakistan’s sensitivity to any discussion about the country’s nuclear strategy.



US officials say Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents.

The US Administration’s effort is complicated by the fact that Pakistan is producing an unknown amount of new bomb-grade uranium and, once a series of new reactors is completed, bomb-grade plutonium will be used for a new generation of weapons.



President Obama has called for the passage of a treaty that would stop all nations from producing more fissile material — the hardest part of making a nuclear weapon — but so far has said nothing in public about Pakistan’s activities.



Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar who served as the co-author of Obama’s review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, reflected the Administration’s concern in a recent interview, saying that Pakistan “has more terrorists per square mile than any place else on earth, and it has a nuclear weapons program me that is growing faster than any place else on earth.”



Whether that discomfort might result in a delay or reduction in aid to Pakistan is still unclear. The Congressional briefings have taken place in recent weeks as Pakistan has descended into further chaos and as Congress has considered proposals to spend $3 billion over the next five years to train and equip Pakistan’s military for counterinsurgency warfare. That aid would come on top of $7.5 billion in civilian assistance.



None of the proposed military assistance is directed at the nuclear programme. So far, America’s aid to Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure has been limited to a $100 million classified programme to help Pakistan secure its weapons and materials from seizure by Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “insiders” with insurgent loyalties.

But the billions in new proposed American aid, officials acknowledge, could free other money for Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, at a time when Pakistani officials have expressed concern that their nuclear programme is facing a budget crunch for the first time, worsened by the global economic downturn. The programme employs tens of thousands of Pakistanis, including about 2,000 believed to possess “critical knowledge” about how to produce a weapon.



Senior members of Congress are pressing for assurances from Pakistan that the American military assistance would be used to fight the insurgency, and not be siphoned off for more conventional military programmes to counter Pakistan’s historic adversary, India. Official confirmation that Pakistan has accelerated expansion of its nuclear programme only added to the consternation of those in Congress who were already voicing serious concern about the security of those warheads.



China’s role in Pak N-programme



Non-proliferation ayatollahs in the US, close to the Democratic Party establishment, have recently been publishing “revelations” of Pakistan constructing two new plutonium reactors at its nuclear nerve centre, Khushab. On April, 23, 2009 the US-based Institute of Science and International Security published satellite imagery taken from Digital Globe, showing two large plutonium reactors being constructed in Khushab near another plutonium reactor that was built by the Chinese in the 1990s. The Americans know that China had supplied Pakistan with not only an un-safeguarded 40 MW plutonium reactor but also a plutonium reprocessing plant. Moreover, as these reactors require ‘heavy water’ and Pakistan’s production facilities for this (built with Chinese assistance) have limited capacity, the requirement of heavy water for these reactors is evidently being met by diverting Chinese heavy water supplies to nuclear power plants built with China’s assistance in nearby Chashma.



China joined the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and thereafter pledged that it would stop supplies of all un-safeguarded nuclear material and facilities to Pakistan. In 1991-1992, China also pledged to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime, thereby ruling out supplies of missiles with a range of over 300 km.

But China continues to violate all these undertakings. The plutonium reactors in Khushab now under construction are nothing more than a continuation of the assistance China gave for Pakistan’s first 40 MW plutonium reactor.



Apart from having supplied Pakistan the designs for their original uranium nuclear warheads, the ongoing Chinese assistance to Pakistan’s plutonium weapons facilities is obviously meant to enable it to make more potent and miniaturised warheads. These can be fitted to the Chinese designed Shaheen I and Shaheen II missiles, capable of targeting cities across India.



Thus, when America’s non-proliferation ayatollahs start demanding that India should hold negotiations with Pakistan because of threats arising to international security from China’s unrestrained nuclear and missile proliferation, political observers say, New Delhi should tell them that they are barking up the wrong tree. India is not going to allow the size or capabilities of its nuclear and missile arsenals to be limited because of American unwillingness to check unrestrained Chinese nuclear and missile proliferation.