Following are the highlights from
tonight's CBS weekly show '60 Minutes'.
America's Worst Nightmare?
· Pakistan Is Engaging
In Nuclear Standoff With India...
· Could Pakistani
Extremists End Up Controlling Nuclear Arsenal?
· Militants There
Support Terrorist Osama Bin Laden
Oct. 15, 2000
(CBS) Pakistan may be competing
for the title of America's worst nightmare, according to 60 Minutes.
The elected prime minister is in
jail. The generals who seized power are beholden to Islamic radicals, and
militant fundamentalists could end up controlling nuclear weapons.
John Pike of the Federation of American
Scientists says Pakistan's nuclear program is further along than Washington
has publicly acknowledged.
He estimates in an interview with
60 Minutes Correspondent Steve Kroft that Pakistan has 25 to 35 nuclear
bombs - enough for a major nuclear war.
Pakistan is engaged in a nuclear
standoff with neighboring India and claims its bomb is for self-defense,
to keep India from invading. But the Pakistanis are also building long-range
ballistic missiles capable of reaching every major city in India.
General Pervez Musharraf, who took
over Pakistan last October in a military coup, says those weapons are "extremely
secure," and he doesn't believe his country would fall into the hands of
religious fanatics.
But the most recent State Department
report on terrorism concludes that "Pakistan's government has supported
groups that engage in violence in Kashmir and it has provided indirect
support for terrorists in Afghanistan." Also, "the government has tolerated
terrorists living and moving freely within its territory," it states.
And Marine Corps General Anthony
Zinni, outgoing commander of U.S. forces in South Asia told Kroft he believes
it is "very possible" that nuclear weapons in Pakistan could wind up in
the hands of extremist religious leaders.
There's no other country in the
world where 100,000 well-armed militant fundamentalists could end up controlling
nuclear weapons - what some people might call the Islamic bomb.
Samiul Haq, one of Pakistan's most
revered and radical leaders, runs a religious school whose students openly
praise Osama Bin Laden, the man the United States believes is responsible
for bombing two U.S. embassies, and whose graduates are now Bin Laden's
protectors.
He told Kroft: "We were hurt when
we heard this term, the Islamic bomb. If we religious leaders have nuclear
bombs in our hands, it would promote peace and security in the region."
