Washington Helps Pakistan Guard Its Nukes.

It's no secret that of all the nuclear weapons states in the world it is Pakistan which causes the most anxiety to Washington.This is because both the Pakistani government and its nuclear engineer A.Q.Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb, have in the past transferred nuclear designs and technology to others.In August 2001 Pakistani nuclear scientists traveled secretly to Afghanistan at the request of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, and are supposed to have passed on designs for a crude bomb.Khan the Pakistani engineer admittedly sold nuclear secrets to Iran,Libya and North Korea for personal profit but was pardoned by the Pakistani government.This raised doubts at that time as to whether it was indeed a freelance operation as it was made out to be or the Pakistani government was also involved.

For a while after 1998,when Pakistan exploded its bomb, the US hoped to be able to persuade Pakistan to roll back its weapons program in return for substantial aid and security guarantees. Once it became clear that this will not happen the US seriously began considering other alternatives.These efforts have acquired added urgency after 9/11.

The US has been able to convince Pakistan to accept tens of millions of dollars in aid to help protect its nukes.It has drawn upon its experience of providing such security to ex-Soviet states to chalk out a program for Pakistan.

The security plan in place consists of proper fencing of storage sites, surveillance and tracking systems for the nuclear devices in case they get stolen. More direct forms of protection have so far not been possible because of Pakistan's refusal to disclose the sites where the weapons are stored.In fact Pakistani security personnel trained in the US rather than allow US experts to visit the sites to evaluate the security needs.This stems from a fear of a pre-emptive strike by either the US or by Israel on its weapons sites if their location is disclosed.

Pakistan is also not willing to install the latest US technology known as 'permissive action links' or PALS which are electronic codes which have to be entered to activate the warheads. It fears that the US will either install a secret tracking system to locate the secret storage sites or some kind of secret switch which will enable it to disable the warheads if it wants to do so.Instead Pakistan relies on storing its nuclear bomb components at different sites which would make it difficult for any unauthorized person to gain control of all of them and assemble a bomb.

This arrangement seems to have worked so far.But with Gen. Musharraf's authority fraying at the edges, and the increasing control of fundamentalist elements over various parts of the country,ensuring the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is once again at the top of Washington's security agenda.