The United States has been negotiating with the Pakistani military to have access to provide security for Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal in return for financial aid. According to Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the November 16 issue of the New Yorker, the agreement would allow specially-trained American unites to provide extra layers of security for the Pakistani nuclear installations in the time of crisis. In return, Islamabad would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and improve their housing and facilities.
Pakistan has an estimated eighty to a hundred nuclear warheads, scattered in facilities around the country. Fears have been growing over the safety of the nuclear arsenal over the growing Taliban violence in South Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan. The principal fear is that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear weapons, or even divert a warhead.
However, many inside Pakistan insist that American fears, and the implied threat to the nuclear arsenal, are overwrought. General Tariq Majid, leader of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) of Pakistan, stated that Pakistan’s security apparatus had the capacity to meet all conceivable challenges. Pakistan’s Foreign Office branded the report on Pakistani nuclear weapons as “sensational stories premised in far-fetched and imaginary scenarios”. Mr. Hersh’s report has yet to be independently verified.
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