Author: Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: May 19, 2009
URL: http://news.rediff.com/cms/print.jsp?docpath=//news/2009/may/19us-doesnt-know-where-pak-nukes-are.htm
United States Central Intelligence Agency
Director Leon Panetta says that while the CIA has been scrupulously tracking
the whereabouts of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal, it has no intelligence
about where they are dispersed.
In an interaction following his address to
the Pacific Council on International Policy, Panetta said, "With regard
to Pakistan's nuclear capability, obviously, we do try to understand where
all of these are located. We don't have frankly the intelligence to know where
they all are located."
"But we do track the Pakistanis and I
think the president (Barack Obama) indicated this in an interview that right
now we are confident that the Pakistanis have a pretty secure approach to
trying to protect these weapons," he said.
Panetta was referring to President Obama telling
Newsweek magazine in an interview that while he does not want 'to engage in
hypotheticals around Pakistan', the United States had 'confidence' that Pakistan's
nuclear arsenal was safe; that the Pakistani military was 'equipped to prevent
extremists from taking over the arsenal'.
Panetta said on Monday that while the US believes
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure, "it is something that we continue
to watch because obviously the last thing we want is to have the Taliban have
access to nuclear weapons in Pakistan."
"We are fighting obviously that potential
in Iran, we are fighting it elsewhere, and so, the last thing we would want
to have is to give Al Qaeda that potential. So, we continue to watch that
very closely," the CIA chief reiterated.
The CIA director said the Obama administration
was also struggling to make the Pakistanis realise that the real existential
threat to Pakistan is not from India, its long-time adversary, but from the
terrorists who threaten the State internally.
But he acknowledged that it was not easy to
get the Pakistanis to get away from their entrenched mindset that India was
the foremost threat.
"One of the challenges we face in confronting
Al Qaeda and the Taliban and other terrorist groups that are within these
tribal areas -- one of the things that we have struggled to do is to make
Pakistan recognise that they represent a threat to their stability,"
he said.
"Pakistan, as you know, their primary
focus has always been on India and the threat from India, and that to a large
extent these areas had been ignored," he explained.
"Look, there's a real threat here that
we are confronting and that you have to view this as a common threat and that
it's not just the United States, it's not just Afghanistan, it's Pakistan,
and that when they blow up things in your streets, you know when the Marriott
is blown up, this is a threat to your stability."
"It's still hard to change that mindset
over the India threat. If the Pakistanis recognise that as a real threat,
then we can create the partnership we need in order to deal with it,"
he said.
"Now military operations are going on
in Swat and Buner and other areas," he acknowledged, however adding,
"The key is not whether they simply go in and bring in the tanks and
clear the Taliban and then back out and allow the Taliban to go back in. They've
got to clear these areas and hold them -- that is very important if it's going
to work."
Thus, Panetta reiterated that "it's extremely
important for Pakistan to recognise the threat that it constitutes to their
stability, and I do sense that President (Asif Ali) Zardari and the other
leadership in Pakistan recognises that -- that they have got to do more to
confront this issue."
