Clinton Says Pakistan Poses ‘Mortal Threat’
Nuclear-missiles-armed Pakistan is losing control of its territory to Taliban terrorist extremists, both Democratic and Republican U.S. officials warned.
However, a U.S. plan to install a nearby European Missile Defense (EMD) system to obliterate missiles launched from Iran, adjacent to Pakistan, would cease to receive any additional funding under a Pentagon budget plan that might take effect in October. The EMD program already has been frozen, with Congress prohibiting any construction work.
A key point is that Pakistan already possesses long-range missiles and nuclear weapons downsized to fit atop those missiles, unlike far less advanced programs in Iran and North Korea.
Pakistan now poses a “mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, said, as her boss, President Obama, plans to meet with presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan next week, on May 6 and 7.
The Taliban once ruled Afghanistan, providing sanctuary there to al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and U.S. officials fear that al Qaeda could regain the ability to mount global attacks from Afghanistan. Obama has ordered a buildup of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban remaining in that country. American leaders had been hoping that Pakistan could aid in quelling the terrorist extremist elements in Afghanistan.
But Clinton told Congress that “the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists.”
She also warned House Foreign Affairs Committee lawmakers that the Pakistani government is being too accommodating to the insurgents.
Clinton spoke as Taliban forces seized control of the key Buner district a mere 70 miles from Islamabad, another proof of governmental impotence in the face of rising Taliban control of major portions of the country, as the terrorist organization surges relentlessly forward.
A story in The New York Times quoted a local Buner resident as saying that the Taliban advance met no resistance, with a Buner politician saying that they were prepared to resist the Taliban until Islamabad caved and offered to let the Taliban establish Islamic law, or Sharia, in an area called Swat.
The Taliban may control the entire nation, and its nuclear missile forces, before long.
Taliban Takeover Imminent?
Within a month to half a year, Pakistan might fall to the Taliban, according to Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate Republican whip, speaking in a separate forum.
That is especially worrisome, because Pakistani nuclear and missile capabilities are far more advanced than those of other potential U.S. rogue-nation opponents.
Iran has launched a satellite into orbit, employing the same basic technology that is required for an intercontinental ballistic missile. Also, Iran defies global opinion by continuing to produce nuclear materials in thousands of centrifuges, which U.S. and other western observers fear could be used to develop nuclear weapons suitable for mounting on missiles. But Iran doesn’t yet have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, at least not that western intelligence agencies have discovered.
North Korea already has built and tested nuclear weapons, and recently announced it will rebuild and restart its Yongbyon reactor to produce more plutonium suitable for weapons making. Also, North Korea recently launched a Taepo Dong-2 missile that initial reports said flew 1,240 miles, but which further estimates now say may have gone 3,000 miles. The missile ultimately may have a range of 4,000 miles, sufficient to reach the U.S. West Coast. North Korea is working on improving the missile, and on miniaturizing its nuclear weapons to fit on missile warheads, but western intelligence agencies believe it has not achieved those goals yet.
While all of that is worrisome, occurring in nations whose leaders are seen by some as mentally imbalanced, the nation that most concerns Kyl is Pakistan:
- Pakistan already has long-range missiles.
- As well, Islamabad also has developed nuclear weapons.
- And Pakistan has miniaturized those weapons so they can fit atop the missiles.
- Pakistan is adjacent to Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are fighting the Taliban.
- The Taliban now control portions of Pakistan, and might soon topple the government in Islamabad.
- As well, Pakistani mountains in the northwestern region are thought to harbor Osama bin Laden, mastermind and financier of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Thus it is Pakistan, not Iran or North Korea, that may pose the most imminent nuclear missile threat to the United States and its allies, Kyl indicated. He detailed the worrisome situation:
“Having just returned from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Israel, I am extraordinarily worried that the situation in Pakistan could actually deteriorate faster than Iran can acquire its weapons,” Kyl said.
“Pakistan is a nation of 170-some million people, with probably at least 100 nuclear warheads, and is falling rapidly into the clutches of the Taliban — perhaps a third to a half of the country already under some form of control by the Taliban, with the Pakistani army seemingly unable to control its spread, with a leadership that’s divided and weak and in my opinion in a state of denial about what has happened,” Kyl warned.
The potential horror, he continued, is that “experts warn … that within one to six months, Pakistan could fall to the Taliban.”
Kyl detailed just what that would mean for Americans and their allies: “Think for a moment what the consequences of that would be: Pakistan becoming [like] Iran, except with already 100 nuclear weapons. This is a real danger, and I do support emphasizing the threat that this kind of challenge would pose.”
Additionally, he said other approaches could be attempted simultaneously, such as nuclear nonproliferation efforts. “It requires firm thinking and concerted international effort to find the right combination of carrots and sticks capable of persuading North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear aspirations,” he said.
But, he stressed, Obama’s move to focus on nuclear nonproliferation deals with Russia is baffling. The threat of nuclear attack on the United States doesn’t emanate from Moscow, but rather from rogue or unstable nations, he said.
Kyl attempted to parse the Obama administration reasoning here, saying that perhaps the “hope is that U.S.-Russian nuclear reductions or elimination and ratification of [a treaty] will somehow deal with the problem of nuclear proliferation, which is to say the problem posed by North Korea and Iran. This is wishful thinking, to say the least.”
While the Obama administration correctly states that the greatest danger confronting Americans is the threat of terrorists launching a nuclear attack on a U.S. city, Obama seems to focus on doing arms control deals with Russia.
“So which is the real threat?” Kyl asked. “Thousands of nuclear weapons in the American and Russian arsenals, or a nuclear Iran and North Korea, and nuclear terrorists? By conflating the two problems into one, the administration risks muddying the issue and making it more difficult to address the true dangers, which most people agree are the threat of a nuclear Iran and North Korea, and the threat of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.”
To prevent those potential enemies from launching such an attack using one or more missiles, the United States needs missile defense systems, and sooner, not later, Kyl concluded.
Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) held a hearing on the future of the U.S.-Pakistani military partnership.
The HASC chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), recognizes that Pakistan may pose a major threat. “Pakistan may well pose the most complex security challenge facing us today, with serious implications for U.S. national security, Afghanistan, and the region,” Skelton said.
He noted that Pakistani areas near Afghanistan provide shelter for al Qaeda terrorists, adding that “Pakistan continues to possess enough fissile material for about 55 to 90 nuclear weapons, and tensions with its nuclear-armed neighbor India have increased following last year’s Mumbai bombing.”
Skelton didn’t mention that Pakistan also possesses formidable missile capabilities. Rather, Skelton said the United States should focus on making further aid to Pakistan conditional upon cooperation from Islamabad. Too, Skelton didn’t mention the need for missile defense in the region.
Rep. John M. McHugh of New York, the ranking HASC Republican, also sees Pakistan facing difficulties. He called for Americans training and equipping the Pakistani military.