Clinton Proposes U.S. Role in Pakistani Nuclear Security

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, Democratic White House hopeful, said Saturday if elected she would urge Pakistan to share the security responsibility for it nuclear arsenal with the United States (see GSN, Oct. 16, 2007).

“So far as we know right now, the nuclear technology is considered secure, but there isn’t any guarantee, especially given the political turmoil going on inside Pakistan,” the New York lawmaker said during a Democratic debate in New Hampshire.

Clinton suggested working with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to further ensure the safety of that nation’s nuclear arsenal. 

“I would try to get Musharraf to share the security responsibility of the nuclear weapons with a delegation from the United States and perhaps Great Britain so that there is some failsafe,” she said.  Clinton did not outline how such an arrangement would be managed.

Speaking the following day in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told a state-run news service that Pakistan’s nuclear warheads are entirely secure under the nation’s command and control structure.

Sadiq explicitly rejected the former first lady’s proposal.  “Regardless of the meaning of Senator Clinton’s remarks, it must be clearly understood that Pakistan alone is, and will be responsible for the security of its strategic assets,” he said.

In recent months, nuclear-armed Pakistan has slipped into a state of tumult leading to Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency in November.  Most recently in December, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a leader of the political opposition in Pakistan, was assassinated (see GSN, Jan. 4).

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said during Saturday’s debate that if elected he would simply call for Musharraf to step down.

“With Pakistan, here’s an example of a country, a potentially failed nation-state with nuclear weapons,” he said.  “What a president must do is have a foreign policy of principles and realism.”

Richardson described the situation in Pakistan as the “worst of all worlds,” noting that the United States had given Musharraf $11 billion in aid, yet he has failed to adequately pursue al-Qaeda elements in Pakistani territory and “basically said that he is supreme dictator.”

“What I would specifically do as president is I would ask Musharraf to step aside,” Richardson said.

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards also emphasized the situation in Pakistan, suggesting a “violently radical element” in that nation could seize control of the government and its nuclear weapons.  One of those weapons could then be turned over to a terrorist organization to be used against the United States or its allies, he said.

To address not just Pakistan but the larger issue of nuclear proliferation, Edwards said he would launch a long-term, international initiative to completely eliminate nuclear weapons.

“Because that is the only way to make the world safer and securer and to keep America safe,” he said.

The Democratic candidates took up the issue of nuclear terrorism and proliferation in their final debate before tomorrow’s New Hampshire primary after prompting from the forum moderator, ABC newscaster Charlie Gibson.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama reiterated his position that he would direct the United States to strike against al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the frontier provinces of Pakistan if “actionable” intelligence existed, even if Pakistan refused to take action.

He also said the current administration has failed to pay attention to nuclear nonproliferation strategy — something that “has made us less safe as a consequence.”

“It would take about four years for us to lock down the loose nuclear weapons that are still floating out there, and we have not done the job,” said Obama, winner of last week’s Democratic caucuses in Iowa.

He criticized the Bush administration for failing to commit together with Russia to further reduce national nuclear stockpiles.  The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, he said, has “fallen apart under this administration.”

“That has weakened our capacity to pressure other countries to give up nuclear technology,” Obama said.

Clinton called for an executive branch coordinator to tackle nonproliferation issues.  “There has to be a better effort to make sure that every part of the United States government is working together,” she said.

Clinton also said not enough has been done to enhance U.S. port security to protect against trafficking of nuclear or radiological materials.  “We have not made the kind of commitment that is necessary to protect us from this kind of importation,” she said.

The New York senator described a version of deterrence that she believes will help protect the United States against conventional or nuclear terrorism (see GSN Oct. 11, 2007).  Following the North Korean nuclear test in 2006, President George W. Bush vowed that any nation that transfers nuclear weapons or material would be held “fully accountable for the consequences of such action” (see GSN Oct. 20, 2006).

On Saturday, Clinton suggested that simply offering a “safe haven” to terrorists would be grounds for retaliation.

“Part of our message has to be no safe haven,” she said.  “You know, deterrence worked during the Cold War in large measure because the United States made it clear to the Soviet Union that there would be massive retaliation.  We have to make it clear to those states that would give safe haven to stateless terrorists that would launch a nuclear attack against America that they would also face very heavy retaliation.”

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