By Shaun Gregory.
Introduction
Pakistan is once again in crisis following the declaration of a state of emergency on
the night of 3rd November 2007, as political unrest spreads, tensions within the armed
forces and security services grow, and terrorist/extremist groups increase their violent
opposition to the state. In this turbulent context the situation of Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons, numbered as many as 120 by some sources, is of the utmost concern given
the incalculable consequences if nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons components
came into the hands of extremists/terrorists or, just possibly, of renegade Pakistani
military personnel motivated by antipathy to the West. This briefing paper assesses
the measures Pakistan has in place to ensure the security of its nuclear weapons and
the threat posed to that security by the deteriorating situation in Pakistan.
To ensure the physical security of its nuclear weapons Pakistan has relied heavily on
copying United States’ technologies, practices and procedures. In doing so it has put
together a system for security assurance based around four types of measures: (a)
technical safeguards; (b) personnel reliability; (c) physical and procedural
arrangements; and (d) deception and secrecy. These arrangements give the Pakistan
Army’s Strategic Plans Division [SPD], the body which oversees Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons operations, a high degree of confidence in the security of their nuclear weapons2.
Technical Safeguards
Pakistan is unique in having nuclear weapons decision-making wholly in the hands of
the military despite constitutional provision for the inclusion of civilians in nuclear
command authority decision-making and despite periods of ostensible civilian rule.
Pakistan’s last two civilian leaders – Benazir Bhutto [Prime Minister 1988-90 and
1993-96] and Nawaz Sharif [Prime Minister 1990-93 and 1996-99] – are both on
record as stating that they were excluded from the decision-making loop in relation to
nuclear weapons, even during crises when operational nuclear issues arose3.
Pakistan imposes military executive authority over its nuclear forces through the use
of an authenticating code system, passed down a dedicated chain of military
command, which is intended to assure that only duly authorised nuclear operations
take place and that no unauthorised military personnel can order nuclear operations or
use. Under this arrangement nuclear operational orders are accompanied by numerical
codes that must be validated to confirm the authenticity of the order. These
arrangements are supplemented by a tightly controlled ID system to assure the
identity of those involved in the chain of command.
There is some ambiguity about whether or not Pakistan has also developed enabling
code technology, similar to the US Permissive Action Link [PAL] system, which
allows nuclear weapons to be electronically locked against unauthorised use using
technology similar to cash machine “chip and pin”. In 2002 the widely cited Landau
report stated that Pakistan did not have PAL-type technology4. However in a more
recent interview with the author, General Kidwai, head of the SPD, indicated that
Pakistan had both “enabling and authenticating codes”5 to protect its nuclear
weapons. This may mean the development of rudimentary PAL-type capability for
nuclear warheads, or it may relate to a system for locking delivery systems6, as a
means to further hedge against unauthorised 7 access.
It is unclear where and how authenticating and possibly enabling codes are generated
in Pakistan but in mirroring much of the USA’s system throughout its nuclear
command and control system Pakistan is likely to have given this role to a dedicated
branch of the Army’s Military Intelligence8. No information is in the public domain
about how frequently the codes are changed and how exactly they are distributed
through Pakistan’s command chain. The operational demands of such a system are
significant and, given Pakistan’s fragile technical base, open up, particularly in
periods of crisis, risks of system breakdown or the erosion of high level control.
Personnel Reliability.
In relation to the personnel involved in nuclear weapons activities and operations
Pakistan conducts a tight selection process for those involved in nuclear weapons
duties (including the vetting of families), select staff almost exclusively from the
Punjab who are thought to be less sympathetic to Islamist ideas, employs staff rotation
to reduce the risks of conspiracy, and across those selected for nuclear related duties
operates an equivalent of the US’s Personnel Reliability Program [PRP] within which
individuals are screened for personality problems, inappropriate external affiliations,
drug-use, and sexual deviancy. In all some 8,000 personnel – drawn from the SPD’s
Security Division, and the Military Intelligence [MI], Intelligence Bureau [IB] and
Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI] agencies – are involved in the security clearance and
monitoring of those with nuclear weapons duties9 . While it has been suggested that
staff are re-vetted every two years10, what is not in the public domain is how well
these practices and procedures are implemented and how many problem personnel
these methods identify and remove annually. In the US, where historically
comparable data for US staff with nuclear weapons duties has been available,
decertification rates have remained more or less constant at around 4-5%11. It is not
unreasonable to suggest therefore that similar figures are likely to obtain within
Pakistan and that consequently 1 in 20-25 individuals with nuclear weapons duties in
Pakistan may be unreliable in some way. This unreliability will take many forms and
by no means all of these individuals will pose a security threat to the nuclear weapons,
but some will.
As an additional hedge against this possibility of individual irrationality or mal-intent
Pakistan operates a “two-person” rule to assure that each action involving nuclear
weapons requires the decision and co-operation of at least two individuals12. While
this is an important – and near universal – safeguard amongst nuclear weapons
nations, it is no bar to the collusion of two or more individuals nor to the possibility
that a determined individual could circumvent two-person arrangements.
Physical Security
Beyond these measures to guard against threats to nuclear weapons from unauthorised
or irrational activity of military and security staff, the most widely acknowledged
threat arises from the attempts by external parties, above all extremists and terrorists,
to gain access to nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons components. Pakistan has
responded to these threats by operating concentric physical security measures around
nuclear weapons sites, one downside of which has been to make these sites the more
visible to those with a motive to build knowledge of them. The three main elements of
physical security are: (a) physical barriers and intrusion detectors, (b) the use of tiers
of armed force personnel to provide layered defence of nuclear sites and (c) the
physical separation of warhead core from weapon detonation components, and the
storage of these nuclear weapons components in protected underground sites.
In relation the latter the technical demands of maintaining nuclear elements in a state
of safety and readiness and Pakistan’s claim that its weapons can be assembled very
quickly strongly suggests that warhead core and detonation components may be
separate but nonetheless collocated at a small number of sites – the Washington Post
suggested Pakistan may have just six such sites13 though others suspect there are
likely to be more. A further weakness is that physical security provisions erode
significantly once nuclear weapons and/or nuclear weapons components are moved
from their primary storage locations as, for example, is required for periodic testing
and refurbishment and for operational movements between storage and other
facilities, including civil nuclear facilities.
Secrecy and Deception
Though extensive information is in the public domain about Pakistan’s main nuclear
facilities and nuclear weapons security arrangements, and presumably rather more
information is available to US and other intelligence agencies, there are still
significant elements of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure which are kept a closely
guarded secret. This may extend to the exact location of some of the storage facilities
for nuclear core and detonation components, pre-configured nuclear weapons
deployment sites, many aspects of Pakistan’s command and control arrangements
[such as the issue of pre-delegation of nuclear use down the command chain], and
doubtless some aspects of the arrangements for nuclear weapons security. Moreover
Pakistan has used deception – such as dummy missiles – to complicate the calculus of
adversaries and is likely to have extended this practice to its nuclear weapons security.
The use of secrecy and deception are however not foolproof. While they may shield
part of the nuclear weapons infrastructure they do not shield it all and, as noted above,
the technical demands of maintaining nuclear weapons at high levels of readiness
mean that even nuclear weapons components held in secrecy will become visible or
vulnerable during various stages of their recycling, while others – in better known
sites – will remain vulnerable. A further weakness arises from the environmental
arrangements for nuclear weapons which may disclose unintentionally information of
use to adversaries. The widening of roads and roundabouts to allow the movement of
Pakistan’s large ground mobile nuclear missile launchers is a case in point allowing
the informed observer to predict with some confidence the deployment routes of these
missiles14. In all probability many such unintended self-betrayals have been made.
Notwithstanding all these weaknesses the foregoing measures collectively offer a very
high degree of physical security assurance in normal circumstances and may have
been behind both Secretary Rice’s early confidence post 9/11 that Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons were “in safe hands” and General Musharraf’s subsequent assurances that
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were both safe from terrorist and extremist groups15, and
proof against the possibility that they could be targeted, or perhaps even physically
removed, by the US [or even India or Israel] to prevent them falling into the hands of
terrorist/extremists. Six years on, and in the context of the present turbulence in
Pakistan, do these assurances still hold good?
The Threats to Nuclear Weapons Security
An important framing point about Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure is that much of it
has from the outset been deployed to the West of Pakistan to extend warning times of
possible Indian attack against the infrastructure and to delay over-run from the
ground16. The unanticipated consequence of this positioning has been to locate much
of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure either within or close to the more volatile tribal
regions of Pakistan to the west and north-west of Islamabad.
Notwithstanding the physical security measures outlined above to protect Pakistan’s
nuclear weapons and related components, the infrastructure remains vulnerable. This
vulnerability takes two forms. One is the direct threat from extremist/terrorist groups
who to date have not organised a sustained effort either to take possession of a nuclear
weapon or weapons components or to create a radiological hazard by seeking to
engulf nuclear weapons components in a fire or an explosion [a point made more
serious by prevailing westerly winds which could take radiological plumes across
population centres], but may yet try to do so as their numbers increase and as their
confidence grows. Until such an event occurs the elements of the defences will remain
untested. Equally serious is the vulnerability to threats from individuals and groups within the
Pakistan military and intelligence services either working for their own ends or in
cooperation with terrorist or extremist groups17. While the Pakistan military is usually
portrayed as the least corrupt of Pakistan’s institutions and its senior ranks are
populated by ostensibly urbane and westernised individuals, the threat from within the
military and intelligence services is real. Younger generations of officers, particularly
those rising through the ranks in the post-Zia era have been markedly “Islamised” in
comparison to those trained from an earlier time. The “beard count” within the armed
forces in that sense has risen18. Reflecting this the military and intelligence services
have for several decades had strong links with extremist/terrorist groups in particular
the groups fighting in Kashmir such as Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the Taleban.
Today a significant proportion of Pakistan’s military are members of the main
Islamist political party Jamaat-I-Islami19, and many in the ranks are linked through
ties of family and biradari20 to extremist groups21. Military and intelligence officers
have been involved in assassination attempts against Musharraf22, and military
officers have also been discovered to be colluding with al-Qaeda operatives. The most
notable example of the latter perhaps being the case of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed,
the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Sheikh Mohammed narrowly escaped
arrest in Karachi in September 2002, after being tipped off, and was finally arrested in
Rawalpindi in February 2003. Sheikh Mohammed was captured in the “safe house”
of a serving military officer with close family links to Jamaat-i-Islami having passed
through the hands of a succession of military officers with nothing more in common
that their JI membership23. What these examples illustrate are the deeply rooted
and widespread links between some in Pakistan’s military and intelligence communities
and extremist/terrorist groups. Allied to the proven intent of groups like al-Qaeda
to gain access to nuclear weapons technology24, these relations are a cause for concern.
Indeed for many analysts Pakistan’s role in nuclear weapons proliferation, which may
be continuing even after the rolling up of the AQ Khan network25, and links between
some in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons industry and extremists/terrorists poses the
greatest threat to nuclear weapons security, particularly during a period of political
volatility such as Pakistan is presently experiencing. David Albright, President of the
Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, argued recently that
the leakage of nuclear technology from Pakistan was his fundamental concern. He
added:
“If there is [further] instability Musharraf is going to have less ability to
exercise tight control. Pakistan tends to leak vital nuclear information. It’s the
nature of the system”.26
As discussed above Pakistan has taken steps through staff rotation, security clearance,
PRP programmes, intelligence oversight, and procedural and technical arrangements
to secure its nuclear infrastructure but these cannot provide certainty against
collusion. At any one moment there are likely to be a significant number of military,
intelligence and civil nuclear sector personnel [the latter are less well vetted than
those with direct operation roles over nuclear weapons] in place with access to
nuclear weapons or weapons components who have antipathy to the west, sympathy
for Islamist ideology, and/or links to extremist/terrorist groups. Further there is
growing evidence of demoralisation and radicalisation within the Pakistan military
and intelligence communities and of strengthening links with extremists and terrorists
groups because of the presence of US and NATO forces in the region. Some in
Pakistan’s military and intelligence communities are rebelling against being required
to turn their guns on their own kinsmen and countrymen at the behest of the United
States27.
One further set of, albeit less likely, possibilities is pertinent: Pakistan has been
subject to four successful military coups [1958, 1969, 1977 and 1999], in the second
of which one military leadership replaced another. Each of these coups was enacted
swiftly in a matter of hours with the coup plotters moving against the incumbent
national leadership from the military’s garrison of Rawalpindi less than half an hour’s
drive along the N5 from Islamabad. President Musharraf cannot rule out countercoup plots against him28.
Two dangers consequently arise: one is that in the context of a deteriorating situation
in Pakistan a counter-coup could be staged by military officers antipathetic to the West;
the other is that a smaller group of such anti-Western officers might stage an assault
on nuclear weapons sites and take possession of nuclear weapons or weapons components
with a view to exploiting that possession for political, financial or ideological advantage.
In response to these kinds of threats US Secretary Rice has stated that the US has
“contingency plans” in place to deal with the possibility of Pakistani nuclear weapons
falling into unauthorised hands29, but the specifics of what she meant has never been
made clear. Some have speculated that the US may have plans either to destroy in situ
or to take physical possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, but this seems highly
improbable and has been strongly rejected as infeasible by Pakistan.
In relation to military strikes on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons assets several issues need
to be borne in mind. The first is that although US human intelligence inside the
Pakistan armed forces is considerably better than, for example, inside the Iranian
armed forces, it is far from perfect and, as noted above, aspects of Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons security planning elude even the US. Furthermore if Pakistan thought an
attack was imminent it would be able to disperse and hide any assets it thought were
imperilled.
The second obstacle is that attacks on nuclear weapons components with high
explosive ordinance would run the risk of creating extensive radiological hazards
qbal, “US Contingency plans for Pakistani nukes”, The Washington Times/UPI, 19 January
2005. 90 which could threat the safety of many Pakistanis, particularly in cities such as
Rawalpindi and Islamabad which are close to some nuclear weapons sites. The
national, regional and international consequences for any US administration of this
kind of action would be enormous and the chances of complete success minimal.
This has persuaded some that the US [or others such as India or Israel] may be
planning insertion assaults to take physical possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons
and components and remove them to safety. As a hypothetical scenario this has the
virtue of avoiding radiological hazard but it is impractical to the point of absurdity
except in a situation in which the US has the agreement of the Pakistan army – or a
pro-Western part of it – to assist the United States in the task in the context, for
example, of a deteriorating situation or perhaps even civil war in Pakistan.
To suggest that the US – or anyone else – could seize all these weapons and
components in the face of opposition from the Pakistan army is ludicrous. It is
important to remind oneself of the robustness of the defence Pakistan’s formidable
army could mount to such attacks and to recall the previous failures of similar US
assaults such as Operation Eagle Claw to rescue US Embassy hostages in Iran in 1979
which ended with US helicopters crashing into the desert because their air intakes
were not fitted with sand filters30, or the failed attempts to arrest Somali warlords in
Mogadishu in 1993 which became the subject of many books and the film “Black
Hawk Down”31. By comparison with trying to secure Pakistan’s entire nuclear
weapons stockpile in a crisis these were very modest endeavours yet they ended in
failure and ignominy.
This has persuaded wiser heads that Secretary Rice’s remarks about “contingency
plans” to secure Pakistan nuclear weapons were really only a rhetorical exercise
aimed at reassuring the American public, and that if the situation really did
disintegrate in Pakistan to the point where Pakistan military control of the weapons
eroded there would be very little the US, or anyone else, could do about safeguarding
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
Conclusion
This briefing has detailed the arrangements Pakistan has in place for the security of its
nuclear weapons. These arrangements, encompassing technical, personnel reliability,
physical security, and secrecy and deception measures, provide a high degree of
assurance against the weapons falling into the hands of terrorists or renegade military
personnel. Nevertheless there are weaknesses in each of these areas that add up to a
significant set of vulnerabilities in Pakistan’s nuclear security arrangements. In the
context of the present political turbulence in Pakistan in which Musharraf’s control
may be weakening, in which the power of extremists and terrorists are growing, and
in which anti-western sympathies within the Pakistan military and intelligence
services are on the rise, some of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons may be vulnerable to
assault from terrorist groups or from some within the Pakistan military or intelligence
services, perhaps working in collusion with terrorists. If the situation in Pakistan
deteriorates further the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons may be compromised.
Original Link: http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attachments/748/Brief_22finalised.pdf
