Special forces on standby over nuclear threat (Pakistan)

Hey guys, here's a great article about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and how secure it is. We've given Pakistan billions of dollars to secure their nukes. But we have no idea how much of that money they have actually used for nuclear security.

And despite all of the technology and money we have given them to secure these nukes, they have still steadfastly refused to tell us (at least officially) where their nuclear weapons stockpiles are located. So it may not even be a matter of sending in Special Forces to secure their nukes. We may not be able to do that if we don't even know where all of them are!

While I agree that any idiot can't come in and press a red button and set off a nuke, I still think that al Qaida and/or the Taliban have the resources to acquire the know-how to set off one of these things. There are plenty of former Soviet nuclear weapons experts that are looking for a nice payday, not to mention those within the Pakistani military who have the knowledge and may support the cause of whoever gets their hands on one of these things. I also don't think it's a far stretch to assume that if a radical government takes over in Pakistan that they would eventually acquire the ability to control these nuclear weapons, and even make more of their own. That is something that is not-so-immediate, but something we certainly need to consider.

Anyhow, here's the article from back in November and I think it is more than relevant today:

NY Times: U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms

reply to post by Rasputin13


Oops I wasn't trying to reply to Rasputin just reply to the discussion
please disregard the reply to Rasputin...


Not that this is the case but rather a theory or hypothesis

This is the perfect chance for us to be on all sides of Iran positioning ourselves for war making them fight at least a three front war and all under the guise of securing Nuclear Weapons for the safety of the world..

Talk about wagging the dog..


2 cents spent.

Respectfully
GEO

[edit on 1/2/2008 by geocom]

How would an UK newspaper, or any newspaper, know what the US Special Forces are up to? Anyone think of that?

This would be a huge operation with a US body count exceeding those that have died so far in Iraq. This would also be an act of War. If the country asked us to secure them then that is a somewhat better scenario, but we would still have large numbers of causalities most likely in any event.

reply to post by Xtrozero

I have to agree with you: entering another country's secure weapons facilities and liberating their nukes for "safe keeping" is an act of war. If some government somewhere decided that it had become nervous about the US or Britain (or choose your own nuclear power) and sent its own SF in to remove that country's nukes, how do you think the people of the affected country would react?

It would be a bad move and I expect that the chances of such a thing actually happening in Pakistan's case are virtually nil. The other point is that it would have to be incredibly well co-ordinated so that all the nukes in that country's possession (both on land or at sea) could be "secured" at the same time. Otherwise, the affected country's leadership might decide that rather than lose the nukes it still possessed, it would be better to make use of them -- and guess who they'd target?

In any case, who decides which country would be "neutral" in a case like this, and should be trusted to maintain security over the liberated nukes? In my humble opinion the story that Special Forces are on standby for such an op. is purest fiction, worthy of Tom Clancy... On second thought, he'd make a better job of the plot...

Mike

The threat of a nuke ending up in the wrong hands is a scary possibility in pakistan.Dont forget bin laden and company are supposed to be holed up there.I dont belive a squad of US forces could disable all of these sites.

Originally posted by Xtrozero
If the country asked us to secure them then that is a somewhat better scenario, but we would still have large numbers of causalities most likely in any event.

And why should they do that? If they are incapable of securing their nukes with an army of half a million men, then how are American troops going to do this with those small special forces squads? They can't even sort out the rag tag circus within Iraq in spite of all those latest gizmos at their disposal and the huge number of troops including that surge of more than 30,000!

As it is, the presence of a few American troops who had pursued the Taliban a few hundred meters into Pakistani territory during an operation, resulted in a huge political storm in Pakstan, red faces, and a lot of embarrassment to the government. The opposition and Jihadi groups went to town over this and resulted in even more resentment towards the Americans.

And then, American troops don't possess a magic wand to just go in, wave it around, and presto! The nukes are secured!

In the event of civil war in Pakistan it won't be in the Allies, Russia or China's best interests if these nuclear weapons were to fall into the control of Islamic extremists. All are experiencing problems with Islamic terrorists.
As such I suspect we would hear little more than propogandist rhetoric from them if we were to secure Pakistans nuclear arsenal under such circumstances.

My one reservation; with all due respect, I would prefer any such operation to be carried out by UK and / or Aussie Special Forces.
The thought of a US SF only operation fills me full of dread, no offense intended at all.

Originally posted by mikesingh
If they are incapable of securing their nukes with an army of half a million men, then how are American troops going to do this with those small special forces squads?

the difference is that We will know the loyalty of the troops securing the nukes.

of those half million Pakistani soldiers, neither we & they (the ISI), do not know which troops are Secular and loyal
and which are secretively Jihadist-Muslim...

the military is rife with men who served their tours of duty only to migrate over to the tribal lands and join the Pakastani Taliban.


Many of the 'bearded' Officers were forcibly retired or just expunged from the military by Musharaff & his loyalists...they too go over to the Taliban,
along with the intelligence information gleaned over the years of military duty...and the military 'purge' of the potential radical/militant men and officers was surely not 100% efficient.


I'd guess that there are rogue units and groups in the Pakistani military...
who would secure nuclear warheads or atomic demolitions for groups like AQ or Taliban
or that's What 'They' want us to believe !

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ADD:



here's a site page i thought might be of interest,

www.grandestrategy.com...

the list of papers/essays on the left columns are very worthwhile to read,

thanks

[edit on 2-1-2008 by St Udio]

Originally posted by mikesingh
And why should they do that? If they are incapable of securing their nukes with an army of half a million men, then how are American troops going to do this with those small special forces squads? They can't even sort out the rag tag circus within Iraq in spite of all those latest gizmos at their disposal and the huge number of troops including that surge of more than 30,000!

I agree with you 100%. The news story is bogus.

I have to agree with several theories. First why would the story leak out? Perhaps just to show we have the potential problem under control to the sheeple. Can we actually gain control of all the nukes and do we know where they all are? I doubt it. Maybe our intell is being shared or combined with other countries intel. There might be a plan for our guys to try to gain control of a certain number of nukes and other players to gain control of their assigned locations. We may be acting as a mulitnational team to diffuse the situation. That way all parties have control of only part of the total nukes. I don't think there will be any AQ problems if anything does go wrong.

I think this is all about the next phase in "the war on terror." Just look at a map. We need to take Pakistan before we can take Iran. We need a coastline. We are heavily dependant on naval resources, that we have not been able to use in Iraq because it is nearly landlocked, and Afghanistan is entirely landlocked.

I strongly suspect that there will be US complicity or even direct action in a nuclear detonation that will happen very soon.

There are some who claim that US tactical nukes are being stored in Iraq right now. The attack on Camp Falcon may have been a minor false-flag to covertly send a signal to the enemy that the US has indeed deployed tactical nukes to forward operating areas.

Tactical Nuke Explodes in Baghdad?
Baghdad Ammo Dump / Tactical Nuke Exploding in Iraq (HQ)

Remember all those non lethal weapons we have been developing? microwave beams and sound disturbance, if the SF is in fact brought in to quell a situation in Pakistan you can bet your ass they will be unleashing some fantastic new weapon systems.

Jack you want my honest opinion. First off give it less than a year we will be in Pakistan and the nukes are the perfect excuse. But there is a bigger picture than Iran. Iran is small potatos. We are positioning ourselves for the future war with China & Russia. I know Im gonna get some crap for saying this but with Pakistan we will be right on China's doorstep. We will now have China and Russia surrounded on all fronts japan and aussies to the east and europe and middle east to the west. Its all going to go down within the next 10 years.

reply to post by NGC2736


what if special forces swiped one and it 'accidentally' went off in a taliban hot spot? would they have the tenacity to try and get away with that? it would solve a lot of outstanding issues for the u.s. especially if it was in an area they suspected a lot of aq high brass were holding up?

just a thought!!!

Originally posted by mikesingh
Now the question of ‘when’. In the present context it is well neigh impossible for American or even NATO forces to go in there to secure these sites and therefore not an option. It would only be possible if there is clear and present danger in the event of a coup by Islamic fundamentalists, wherein all nuclear assets fall under their control.

Had you ever considered that if the Islamic Fundamentalists were to stage a coup... it would be to get nukes out of the hands of the the war-party, industrial-complex-status-quo-military-machine... and into the hands of a people dedicated to God rather than the global corporation which we all know to be dedicated to profit?

Had you ever considered that from an Islamic Fundamentalist point of view... nukes in the hands of any man or nation of men is a clear and present danger to the sanctity of human existance.

What? Foxnews never put it to you that way?

Do you understand the revolt yet?

The people do not want a nuclear deterent. They do not want a nation claiming soveriegnty over them holding a nuclear deterent.

The industrial complex which creates the nukes... the profit and profiteers...

They are the ones who sell our governments these devices.



the gasoline driven automobile
ubiquitous 60hz electricity across the globe
an enslaved people
blinded by their own filth
fed by a global cartel



I plumbed another home with an all copper, passive-solar hot-water-thermosiphon system this week.

No permits. Downtown. Hang me in hell.


One more home off the grid. Another soul unplugged.


my pen,


[edit on 2-1-2008 by Sri Oracle]

reply to post by mybigunit


That's classified information sir.

I've been saying that since 9/11. That 9/11 was the new Pearl Harbor, only this time we're positioning our pieces ahead of time.

We didn't go into Iraq to take their oil for profit. If that was so, there wouldn't be the deliberately enflamed chaos and the oil would be flowing. Instead, the US fans the flames of chaos in Iraq to keep the oil underground. That way it will be there when we need to fuel our weapons systems to fight the Reds. They've already been outflanked. The Middle East is a big fuel dump right in the middle of WWIII and we already have half of it.

Ten years is an overconservative estimate I think. A few months ago I would have agreed, but China and Russia are not going to let us march into Pakistan the way we did into Iraq. The stage is set. I give it 1-3 years before the collapse of the Western economy coincides with the start of the next World War. The Iron Curtain fell, now it's curtains for Capitalism my friend.

If this report is not true, as some people are arguing here, then I would have to ask this: What exactly is being done to prevent the Pakistani nukes from being deployed against US interests?

reply to post by jackinthebox


Yup Jack you Ill get ahold of you and we will share underground bunkers together and laugh at all the people who think u and me are full of it!!

My thoughts:

1. As mikesingh stated, it is not that easy to 'secure' Pakistani nuclear assets.They're very well guarded on the ground.
   
2. Pakistan has no official doctrine in nuclear weapons usage. Whether the ambiguity is for safeguarding the nuclear weapons themselves from pre-emptive strikes or because they themselves cannot decide on a unified well-defined hierarchy.
   
3. Pak nuclear weapons assembly, i.e. delivery platforms(missiles,aircraft), warheads,missile fuel and trigger assemblies are stored at separate locations.So for anybody(US SF or terror components) to have a wholesome grip on Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability, they need to have complete control on all of these elements.
   
4. Even India(along with a bunch of other nations like China,Russia, EU etc) would not approve of any US military jumping-the-gun actions against Pak nuke assets. At least until and unless they are kept in the loop at all times.
   
5. Pak nuclear weapons are very primitive... so no suitcase bombs or easily portable ones like the in movie Peacemaker( or was it Peacekeeper?
   ). Also we can deduce(and there's plenty of evidence to support this) that the Pakistanis have no tactical nuclear(subKT) capability. Anything sub-KT would most likely be a 2-3KT warhead not reaching optimum yield. And that would be a big warhead nonetheless.
   
6. Although there are reports of Pakistan recently acquiring MIRV-ing capability, I seriously doubt this. It is highly unlikely that they will be able to stuff multiple HEU implosion devices(their warhead mainstay) into even their most heavy lifting missiles(Gauri-II 1200kg etc.)
   
7. So summarizing, IMHO currently the Pak nuclear arsenal doesn't have something that can be ported in a suitcase. A mini-van maybe...
   

Originally posted by jackinthebox

...blames Pakistan for nuking themselves...

Nuking themselves!!
Damn that sounds funny!