don’t forget the Israelis. if anybody has a bonified right – and obligation – to take out any and all nukes which MAY threaten their existence, it is the Israelis. Taliban/AQ controlled nukes, OR sympathetic Paki controlled nukes (ahem!!!) are a verified threat to Israel. period. Benny Netanyahu has said so. very soon they will be forced to act…

and… they… can.

i’ve been saying this for over a year now on my secure intel forums: where are the Dolphin-class IDF Navy (7th Flotilla) submarines? they carry the Popeye Turbo 1500km cruise missile, and have test fired in the Indian Ocean at that range. very doable.

the IDF also has intercontinental nuke missiles. the Jericho III is a fully developed and tested ICBM capable of delivering with pinpoint accuracy a 750kg nuke warhead at over 7000km. a tactical nuke of 350kg can go even farther.

although everybody has been led to believe it is Iran’s budding nuke capabilities that Israel may take out – one can now see that A-jad may be just pimping his electorate… it actually has always been the very real and KNOWN nuke threats in Pakistan that are at risk.

the irony is, even Iran, India and even the US may indeed give our tacit approval to the Israelis to do just that – take out the key ingredients in Pakistans nuke arsenal.

about 2 dozen missiles should do the trick. it’d be over before CNN could even get a video feed up condemning Israel.

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Pakistan and China are very close buddies and both do not like India. Maybe the nukes could be moved off shore in the hands of the Chinese navy. The Taliban don’t swim and if India were to go after the nukes, there would be a war with Pakistan and China. Even if those nukes couldn’t be launched from ships, they could either be modified to do so or swapped with ones that can.

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I take issue with Bolton’s statement:
“Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, while obviously unforeseen…”

Obviously unforeseen?!?!? A deaf blind man could have seen that coming! My wife and I predicted that she would be assassinated upon her return should she decide to do so. I posted in on on another board at the time.

I like Bolton, but that comment just rings hallow. Are you telling me that no one thought for a moment that she would be killed? Either THEY are that stupid or THEY *think* WE ARE that stupid.

reeko:
While I don’t like the prospects of dealing with ‘dinner jacket’ Obama seems set to do so at some point, so why not nab the AQ they are offering up? Let the radicals get pissed at Iran for betraying their brethren to the great Satan!

Unless of course BHO is just stringing Iran along (but I don’t give him that much credit so …)

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good info MataHarley. not sure if this shouldn’t be a different thread but it is part of the same overall problem. remember when Clinton refused OBL from the Sudan in 1996? well well… now even Iran has offered some of the most notorious AQ and FBI Most Wanted to Obama. incredulously, he said “no thanks.”

Obama Declines Iran Offer of al-Qaida Members
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/obama_iran_al_qaida/2009/04/28/208184.html

and the follow up here:

Clandestine Iran-U.S. Huddles Seek Mutual Aid
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Iran_United_States_Iraq/2009/04/30/209315.html

its been relatively well known that Iran has Saad bin Laden (OBL’s son and heir apparent) in safekeeping for years. and the Iranians certainly do NOT want Taliban/AQ to get their hands on nuclear weapons in Pakistan either. mmmmm…. methinks yet another enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend conspiracy is afoot… LOL

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“figuring out who Khan’s playmates are lately.”

The highest bidders of course. Khan ‘s morals are very negotiable.

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I assure you, Scott… India will be one of the first in line to step up to the military plate if they think those nukes would be getting into the hands of jihad movements.

But the security of the Pakistani arsenal is not a new story, and in fact Musharraf addressed this back in Dec 2007 when they were all a’fire about Pakistanis rioting in the streets over the judges and martial law in his last days. It was in the wake of this time (Jan 2008) that a then POTUS campaign candidate, Hillary Clinton, proposed a sharee US-UK team to secure the Pakistan arsenals. But of course, that didn’t fly with anyone in Pakistan.

Also in that era (Dec 2007) was the rumor that US special ops snatch squads were on standby to take control of 60 warheads at 10 different Pakistan locations if Musharraf’s government was threatened with unrest.

What is the most informative about how Pakistan’s arsenal is secured is a June 2008 report to Congress by the CRS (Congressional Research Service), authored by Paul Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin – Analysts in Nonproliferation Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division.

Starting on pg 8 of the 16 pg PDF is the multi-layered command and control by the National Command Authority (NCA), the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), and the Strategic Forces Commands. Musharraf – the man so demonized by the US press – formalized these entities in 2007 (they were formed by administrative order in 2000) giving the legal basis. That was done specifically to help the nation weather the transition of political power.

The Ordinance also addresses the problems of the proliferation of
nuclear expertise and personnel reliability. It outlines punishable offenses related to
breach of confidentiality or leakage of “secured information,” gives the SPD
authority to investigate suspicious conduct, states that punishment can be up to 25
years imprisonment, and applies to both serving and retired personnel, including
military personnel, notwithstanding any other laws. As a result, Pakistani authorities
say that the Ordinance should strengthen their control over strategic organizations
and their personnel.

None of the weaponry are stored assembled. Nuclear fissure cores are kept separate from non-nuclear materials, and all are kept separate from delivery systems. When the US came into Afghanistan post 911, Musharraf had the arsenal redeployed to “at least six secret new locations”. They were freaked thinking the US would go after Pak’s nukes in addition to Afghanistan.

This multi-tiered and mulilateral control of the arsenal seems to give many, including Negroponte, relative confidence in their security.

Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte in testimony to Congress on
November 7, 2007 expressed confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were not at risk. He said he believes there is “plenty of succession planning that’s going on in the Pakistani military” and that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are under “effective technical control.”39 Similarly, Donald Kerr, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, told a Washington audience May 29, 2008, that the Pakistani military’s control of the country’s nuclear weapons is “a good thing because that’s an institution in Pakistan that has, in fact, withstood many of the political changes over the years.” President Musharraf has said that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are under “total
custodial controls.”

It’s was a fascinating report last year. Who knew it would be again so relevant with the same fears arising again.

The biggest worry is not they will get control of existing nuke weaponry, but that the A.Q. Khan network is revived (collapsed in 2003) and proliferation again starts up underground. Considering that the Pakistani courts decided to free Khan early February, that’s where I’d place most my assets…. figuring out who Khan’s playmates are lately.

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