US plans to snatch & grab Pak's nuclear weapons

In the aftermath of the bin Laden raid, US military officials have testified before Congress about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the threat posed by "loose nukes" - nuclear weapons or materials outside the government's control. And earlier Pentagon reports also outline scenarios in which US forces would intervene to secure nuclear weapons that were in danger of falling into the wrong hands.

US, Pak heading towards confrontation over FMCT

The US and Pakistan are heading towards a confrontation as the Obama administration is preparing to pursue Islamabad to halt the production of nuclear bomb materials by forcing it to sign the Fissile Material Cut off Treaty (FMCT), a media report said on Friday. US plans to launch an open

move with support from other powers to force Pakistan to sign the treaty and halt the production of nuclear bombs material.

Recent reports in the US media suggest that the UN General Assembly in New York next month will be the venue for this new push, a move that could aggravate tensions with Pakistan.

The US and its allies are seeking an agreement by September and then go to the UN General Assembly with a joint plan for starting talks on the FMCT.

So far Pakistan has successfully resisted all international pressure to endorse the FMCT, warning that it would boycott any process to negotiate a US-backed treaty outside the deadlocked UN Conference on Disarmament (UNCD).

The Geneva-based UNCD is the sole negotiating forum for multilateral disarmament but the treaty has been stalled in the conference for 12 years, with Pakistan as the sole holdout against negotiations.

The US move aims at creating a new forum where it can persuade Pakistan to sign the FMCT.

Pakistan's acting representative to the UN, Raza Bashir Tarar, last week told a General Assembly meeting in New York that his country "will not join any such process nor would it consider accession to the outcome of any such process."

To deal with increasing international pressure to stop the production of fissile material, Pakistan tried unsuccessfully to enter into a nuclear agreement with the US similar to the one Washington has signed with India.

U.S. Opposes Moving Nuclear Material Talks Out of Geneva: Senior Official

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration now strongly opposes efforts to move negotiations on a proposed fissile material cutoff treaty out of the international Conference on Disarmament, where the matter has been stalled for two years, according to a senior U.S. official (see GSN, Aug. 1).

The development follows initial indications that Washington might be open to finding a new venue for formal FMCT talks.

Under such an accord, nations would pledge not to produce new weapon-grade uranium or plutonium, but could continue to generate fissile material for nonmilitary energy needs. The matter has been on the United Nations' agenda for more than five decades.

The international body convened a high-level meeting last week in New York to discuss ways to break the longstanding deadlock in Geneva (see GSN, July 28).

Pakistan has blocked talks on a fissile materials agreement on the basis that neighboring rival India has been given what Islamabad sees as an unfair leg up in its ability to bolster its atomic stockpile, even after a ban on producing new fissile material is implemented. Islamabad in 2009 accepted a CD work plan that included fissile material negotiations, but changed its position soon thereafter.

In 1978, India (also USA and Britain) knew Pak is planning nuclear tests

PTI Jul 28, 2011, 12.40pm IST

WASHINGTON: Though the US and the UK did not inform India of a covert operation to stop Pakistan going nuclear, New Delhi had its own intelligence in 1978 to conclude that Islamabad was just two or three years away from making an atomic bomb, according to declassified documents.

Both the US and Britain collectively decided not to inform India about the operation, fearing it would have adverse impact in Pakistan if was leaked from New Delhi.

"Having heard reports that an evolving plan to curb the Pakistani nuclear programme might involve informing the Indian government about US concerns, (US) Ambassador (to Pakistan, Arthur) Hummel suggested that going through with that, especially providing factual information, would have an adverse impact in Pakistan if word of it leaked from New Delhi," said the US Embassy cable issued from New Delhi on November 17, 1978.

I am actually amazed at the self criticism and ensuing negativism of western world (specially Americans) about their own society, culture and country.

In very many discussion threads, I have found that the Americans and Britons start criticising their culture and country when it comes to discussions about islam. They try and show that a small insignificant incident compares with hundreds of years of bloodbath of islam, or how their own culture is inferior since it tries to prevent islamisation.

This is an extremely dangerous trend.

These apologists are causing great amount of damage to their own country, in which they live, enjoy their life and express their views freely, AND which will not be possible if they were to follow islamic laws. They also do not realise (probably not capable of realising) that the muslims are encroaching on their lands, cultures and countries because sharia does not permit them to prosper AND that these muslims are misusing the liberty / freedom offered by western world.

Also read

Nuclear Security in Pakistan: Reducing the Risks of Nuclear Terrorism :

Today's frightening instability in Pakistan comes in a world in which global terrorists are actively seeking nuclear weapons and the materials and expertise needed to make them, a quest that has been underway for more than a decade. Rapid action is needed to keep the Taliban's advances in Pakistan from creating new opportunities for these deadly adversaries.

Mr Ahmed Chalabi

Whats this?

RFA, Lets discuthe contents of the article, instead of discussing inane stuff.

Read

#10.6

Is Pakistan a Nuclear Target of the United States, and Might America Become a Pakistani Nuclear Target?

Court Papers Suggest Pakistani Interest in Thermonuclear Weapon

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The United States in federal court documents offered its first open suggestion that nuclear-armed Pakistan could be seeking to build a thermonuclear weapon, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported on Sunday (see GSN, July 7).

The Justice Department has charged a Chinese woman living in the United States with illegally exporting high-tech paint coatings that could aid Pakistan's nuclear weapons development. As the ex-managing director of a Chinese branch of PPG Industries, Xun Wang is accused of shipping the material five years ago in direct disobedience of the Pittsburgh-based company and nonproliferation guidelines issued by the U.S. Commerce Department.

Pakistan holds nuclear arms outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is a known past proliferator of sensitive technology and information through the black market operation once led by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. As such, the United States has placed a number of restrictions on the trade of sensitive goods with the South Asian nation.

Khan: Pakistan sold nuclear weapons technology to North Korea

The creator of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program has handed over documents that he says show senior military officials were paid millions to give nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, putting further strain on a tense US-Pakistan relationship.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, an American-trained scientist and head of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program for over 20 years, says that two senior Pakistani military officials kickbacks from North Korea in exchange for the technology

Khan gave documents to Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who is seen as an expert on Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

SCARY facts about Pakistan's nuclear stockpile

Last updated on: July 8, 2011 09:52 IST

Pakistan has the world's fastest-growing nuclear stockpile and it could achieve 150-200 warheads in a decade despite the political instability in the country, two top American atomic experts have said.

Pakistan is in the process of building two new plutonium production reactors and a new reprocessing facility to fabricate more nuclear weapons fuel, wrote nuclear experts Hans M Kristensen and Robert S Norris in the latest issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

In their paper Pakistan's nuclear forces, 2011, the authors estimate that if Pakistan's expansion continues, its nuclear weapons stockpile could reach 150-200.

"Despite its political instability, Pakistan continues to steadily expand its nuclear capabilities and competencies; in fact, it has the world's fastest-growing nuclear stockpile," they wrote.