US Prepares Contingency Plans to Seize Pakistani Nuclear Triggers

On November 9, the New Yorker magazine published a lengthy article by veteran correspondent Seymour Hersh dealing with the considerable nervousness in US ruling circles over the security of Pakistan’s arsenal of between 80 and 100 nuclear weapons. Hersh’s sources told him that the primary fear was not a Taliban takeover, but a mutiny by anti-American Islamist tendencies inside the Pakistani armed forces, in which they attempt to seize all or parts of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Like many of Hersh’s exposés, the article uses information leaked by unnamed high-level sources to make public an aspect of US foreign policy causing concerns in ruling circles. In this case, the primary motive appears to be to press for greater Pakistani guarantees over its nuclear weapons and more intrusive American monitoring and involvement.'

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