Pakistan: Take 3

Who knew reading the right-wing National Review's blog could sometimes be a good thing? I added them to my tracking on Blogmatrix and browse summaries of their posts, usualy never clicking on a single one. But today they had an interesting post on the security of Pakistani nukes in case something drastic happens, like the assassination of Musharraf. They linked to this article from the New York Times:

Two recent assassination attempts against Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, have renewed concern in the Bush administration over both the stability of a critical ally and the security of its nuclear weapons if General Musharraf were killed or removed from office.

Well, it's good to know that this shit has raised some eyebrows in the White House.

Officials said they were relatively confident that even if General Musharraf lost power or was killed, Pakistan has established some fairly reliable nuclear safeguards. Nuclear warheads, triggering devices and the delivery systems for the weapons are all stored separately; thus, it would be difficult to steal a complete weapon, according to administration officials and academic analysts.

This paragraph strikes me as being a little bit odd. I'm no military or nuclear expert, but what's the point of having nuclear weapons if the three main components of the system aren't together? I would expect a country that had nuclear weapons to be able to launch them as quickly as possible. If you can't, then what's the point of having the weapons? Like I said, I'm no military expert, but this just doesn't make sense to me.

But administration officials appear less concerned that General Musharraf would lose control over actual weapons than over highly enriched uranium. Terrorists in possession of bomb fuel, even without the triggering devices needed to produce a nuclear explosion, could build a "dirty bomb" that spews radioactive material, or could attempt to engineer a crude nuclear device.

Mmm yeah, this would be a bad thing.

The most interesting paragraph is saved for the very end of the article:

"It's very unsettling what these assassination attempts imply, that the inner security circle for Musharraf has been breached," said Gaurav Kampani of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "If security for the president, for the head of the Pakistani Army, cannot be guaranteed, what guarantee is there that nuclear assets and missiles and so forth are safe?"

Indeed. While I'm happy to hear that the Bush administration is paying attention to this problem, I still find it amazing that they are paying so much attention to Iraq and claiming that it's for the security of our nation when the instable political situation in Pakistan creates a big, nuclear question mark. Not paying the utmost attention to a hot spot like Pakistan, while diverting our resources and interests to a cold spot like Iraq, is irresponsible to the safety of our nation.