Seymour Hersh Strikes Again - US Talks With Pakistan About Control of Nuclear Weapons.

As anyone familiar with the US scene knows, Pakistan's atomic bombs are something of an obsession here.  Seymour Hersh has written an article for the New Yorker, entitled Defending the Arsenal, claiming that the US has been talking with Pakistan's Army About a plan to send US troops to "protect" Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities in the event of a crisis:

Obama did not say so, but current and former officials said in interviews in Washington and Pakistan that his Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military. These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities—goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the Pakistan Army, has long desired. In June, Congress approved a four-hundred-million-dollar request for what the Administration called the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, providing immediate assistance to the Pakistan Army for equipment, training, and “renovation and construction.”

 Further down in the articlem, Hersh reports that  Pakistan's officials have confirmed that some talks have occurred:

In interviews in Pakistan, I obtained confirmation that there were continuing conversations with the United States on nuclear-security plans—as well as evidence that the Pakistani leadership put much less weight on them than the Americans did. In some cases, Pakistani officials spoke of the talks principally as a means of placating anxious American politicians. “You needed it,” a senior Pakistani official, who said that he had been briefed on the nuclear issue, told me. His tone was caustic. “We have twenty thousand people working in the nuclear-weapons industry in Pakistan, and here is this American view that Pakistan is bound to fail.” The official added, “The Americans are saying, ‘We want to help protect your weapons.’ We say, ‘Fine. Tell us what you can do for us.’ It’s part of a quid pro quo. You say, also, ‘Come clean on the nuclear program and we’ll insure that India doesn’t put pressure on it.’ So we say, ‘O.K.’ ”

But, the Pakistani official said, “both sides are lying to each other.” The information that the Pakistanis handed over was not as complete as the Americans believed. “We haven’t told you anything that you don’t know,” he said. The Americans didn’t realize that Pakistan would never cede control of its arsenal: “If you try to take the weapons away, you will fail.”

This report seems to favor the interpretation that the US demanded to talk and offered a decent size bribe in the form of military equipment and training.  Knowing that the US officials already knew a lot, and that the bribe could be useful to Pakistan's Army, the generals in Pakistan agreed to talk.  After all, talking with the US might reduce the likelihood of the US going apeshit, and taking unilateral action which might work out badly for all involved.  On the other hand, the Pakistanis assume our concern about Pakistan's atomic bombs, which is not matched by concern about India's atomic bombs, are a sign of a US alliance with India.  They are understandably concerned that we might share any information we  get about Pakistan's atomic bomb program with India:

 A former State Department official who worked on nuclear issues with Pakistan after September 11th said that he’d come to understand that the Pakistanis “believe that any information we get from them would be shared with others—perhaps even the Indians. To know the command-and-control processes of their nuclear weapons is one thing. To know where the weapons actually are is another thing.”

 This is a slight oversimplification - the information is much more likely to be shared with Israel, and then Israel will offer it to the Indians.  But from a Pakistani point of view it comes to the same thing.

Personally, I don't think it likely that any of Pakistan's atomic bombs will be given to the Taliban.  After all, it would be easier to move a bomb to Rawalpindi and detonate it there than it would be to get it to the US.  So unless the Islamists take over Pakistan, we in the US are probably fairly safe.  On the other hand, the recent series of attempted assassinations of Pakistani Army generals in Rawalpindi do not inspire confidence in Pakistan's internal security.

It is hard to feel sympathetic to the US political elite's position in this.  After all, the US looked the other way when Pakistan developed the atomic bomb, and it also looked the other way when the Taliban retreated into Pakistan.  Now that it is too late to do much, the US government has gotten upset. 

This story seems to have quickly made waves in Pakistan.   Pakistan's government has officially denied that a deal giving the US access to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has been struck.  This denial appears in the New Yorker report itself, and also in the News, here.  The News has another story about the US embassy's denial of Hersh's story.

My guess is that the denials are lies, in the sense that talks probably took place.  It is in the interest of the US to talk to Pakistan about this issue, and it is in the interest of Pakistan to pretend to talk to the US in hopes of reducing US anxiety.  But given that Pakistan's military has reason to assume that the US is working with India, I doubt that the talks went very far.  Since there is a real conflict of interest, and it is easily possible to have talks and not come to an understanding, my guess is that there isn't an agreement. 

I recommend that my readers read all of Hersh's article.  He is well connected, and an excellent writer and reporter.

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