February
6, 2008 Nuclear India,
Pakistan
Not Running Arms Race: US By Arun Kumar
Washington
Although both India and Pakistan are fielding a more mature
strategic nuclear capability, they do not appear to be engaged in a
Cold War-style arms race, a top US intelligence official assesses.
"We note that missile tests and new force deployments over the past
three years have not affected the ongoing political dialogue,"
Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told the Senate
Intelligence Committee Tuesday.
Giving the senators the intelligence community's annual unclassified
threat assessment, he said: "We judge the ongoing political
uncertainty in Pakistan has not seriously threatened the military's
control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist, today.
"The Pakistan Army oversees nuclear programmes, including security
responsibilities, and we judge that the army's management of nuclear
policy issues - to include physical security - has not been degraded
by Pakistan's political crisis," he said.
However, in an ominous disclosure for India, McConnell warned that
Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) and other Kashmir-focused
groups would continue to plan and carry out attacks in India.
"Shia and Hindu religious observances are possible targets, as are
transportation networks and government buildings," he said.
"We judge Kashmir-focused groups will continue to support the
attacks in Afghanistan, and operatives trained by the groups will
continue to feature in Al Qaeda transnational attack planning,"
McConnell added.
Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain the most pressing terrorist
threats to the US and its allies, and Al Qaeda's central leadership
based in the border area of Pakistan is its most dangerous
component, the retired navy vice admiral said.
Al Qaeda, he said, has been able to retain a safe haven in
Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that provides
the organisation many of the advantages it once derived from its
base across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less
secure scale.
The FATA serves as a staging area for Al Qaeda's attacks in support
of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new
terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East,
Africa, Europe and the US.
Using the sanctuary in the border area of Pakistan, Al Qaeda has
been able to maintain a cadre of skilled lieutenants capable of
directing the organisation's operations around the world, he said.
It has lost many of its senior operational planners over the years,
but the group's adaptable decision making process and bench of
skilled operatives have enabled it to identify effective
replacements.
McConnell suggested that Pakistan was establishing a new modus
vivendi among the army, the president and elected civilian leaders
now that Musharraf had stepped down as army chief.
Pakistani authorities were increasingly determined to strengthen
their counter-terrorism performance, even during a period of
heightened political tension that he said the US expert expect to
continue over the next year.
Radical elements in Pakistan have the potential to undermine the
country's cohesiveness, he said. He warned: "The terrorist
assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto could embolden
Pashtun militants, increasing their confidence that they can strike
the Pakistani establishment anywhere in the country."
The killing of Bhutto weakens the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the
political party in Pakistan with the broadest national reach and
most secular orientation, McConnell said.
However, sympathetic voters could give the party the largest number
of assembly seats in the upcoming national elections.
The Pakistani government's current plans will require intensified
and sustained efforts to orchestrate the administrative, economic,
educational, legal and social reforms required to defeat Islamic
extremism and militancy, he said.
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