Pakistan expanding its nuclear capability

[Neo]

Location of all Pakistani nukes not known: CIA ​

Tuesday, 19 May, 2009

LOS ANGELES: CIA director Leon Panetta defended the use of unmanned aircraft to target Al-Qaeda militants on Monday and said President Barack Obama’s policies had severely disrupted the network’s leadership.

In his first speech since taking over as head of the Central Intelligence Agency in February, Panetta told a luncheon in Los Angeles that counter-terrorism and defeating Al-Qaeda remained the agency’s top priority.

‘Al-Qaeda remains the most serious security threat that we face ... to US interests and our allies overseas,’ Panetta told the gathering organized by the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.

Panetta said Obama’s stated aim to ‘disrupt, dismantle and defeat’ Al-Qaeda had already resulted in ‘serious pressure’ being brought to bear on Al-Qaeda’s leaders, believed to be hiding in Pakistan’s border regions.

‘There is ample evidence that the strategy set by the president and his national security team is in fact working,’ Panetta said.

‘We do not expect to let up on that strategy. I am convinced that our efforts in that part of the world are seriously disrupting every operation that Al-Qaeda is trying to conduct and is interfering with their ability to establish plans to come at this country and we will continue that effort.’ Responding to a question, Panetta said unmanned drone strikes — whose use has caused tension with Pakistan — had been ‘very effective’ in targeting Al-Qaeda’s leadership.

‘I think it does suffice to say that these operations have been very effective,’ Panetta said.

‘It is very precise, it’s very limited in terms of collateral damage and very frankly, it’s the only game in town in terms of confronting and trying to disrupt the Al-Qaeda leadership.’ Predator drones run by the CIA are regularly flown covertly in Pakistan, targeting Al-Qaeda militants. Officials say the US military does not participate in the armed drones program inside Pakistan.

Pakistani officials say the drone strikes, which have killed more than 390 people in about 42 attacks since August 2008, violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment in the nuclear-armed nation.

Meanwhile Panetta said US authorities remained alert to the possibility of Al-Qaeda fleeing Pakistan or Afghanistan for refuge elsewhere, saying Somalia and Yemen were regarded as possible safe havens for the group.

‘Al-Qaeda is known however for seeking shelter elsewhere,’ Panetta said.

‘One of the dangers we confront is that as we disrupt their operations in
Pakistan ... they will ultimately seek other safe havens.

‘Today Somalia and Yemen represent that potential as safe havens for Al-Qaeda in the future ... Disrupting the senior leadership in Pakistan is crucial, but it alone will not eliminate the danger.

‘The goal must be to pursue Al-Qaeda to every hiding place, to continue to disrupt their operations, and to continue ultimately to work towards their destruction.’

Nuclear Worries

Panetta also said that the United States does not know the location of all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons but is confident the country has them secure.

‘We don’t have, frankly, the intelligence to know where they all are located,’ Panetta said, adding the US is confident the Pakistani government has a ‘pretty secure approach to try to protect these weapons.’

‘That security is something the US is watching,’ he said. ‘The last thing we want is to have the Taliban have access to nuclear weapons in Pakistan.’

At a congressional hearing last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked whether there was evidence that Pakistan was adding to its nuclear arsenal. He replied: ‘Yes.’ — AFP.

 

[muse]

These American efforts at destabilizing Pakistan need our taking them seriously to be effective - they are like tumors and out attention is the blood supply to these tumors - lets stop the blood supply and in doing so be rid of these tumors.

But first examine why it is that we are willing to pay attention to these U.S. propaganda? I think it is because we are not active, not just in the substance but also in using media effectively - accusations followed by denials is not the way to attenuate the effects of the poison the U.S seeks to effect the thinking of people with.

 

[muse]

EDITORIAL


Khaleej Times Online

Pakistan’s Nukes and Cup of Woes

20 May 2009
The past few days have seen some interesting reports in the media about how Pakistan is rapidly building its nuclear arsenal allegedly using the aid assistance provided by the US and equally interesting rebuttals from top figures in the US administration.

A New York Times report cites confidential briefings to US Congressmen that Pakistan may be misappropriating billions of dollars in aid and diverting it to its nuclear programme.

To counter the allegations, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who has been actively engaged with Pakistani leadership for some years, has issued a strong refutation. Mullen has categorically denied any such diversion of US assistance since the war on terror began. The US State Department has also issued denials of any link between US aid and Pakistan’s nuclear programme. While the denials from the US administration are also being perceived as measures to anticipate Pakistani protests, the idea itself seems a bit far-fetched. In the past too, there have been allegations of embezzlement of over $11 billion US aid from 2002 to 2008 and channeling it to militant groups.

Even as US President Barack Obama seeks to push a five year $7.5 billion package for development work and military assistance to help Pakistan in counter-terrorism efforts, these allegations rear their heads again. There is speculation in some quarters that Pakistan’s nuclear programme is being targeted as part of a larger conspiracy and warns of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the Taleban hands. Although such reports have been dismissed by the US, reposing confidence in the capability of the Pakistani military to safeguard its nuclear hardware, many Pakistanis share the perception that their nuclear programme is being targeted by outside powers.

Pakistan already faces gigantic problems with the war in Afghanistan creating a serious security crisis in its border areas. They are yet to be cleared of militants.

It is also presently engaged in waging military operations against the Taleban in its northern areas and faces a humanitarian crisis of nearly a million internally displaced persons. This, according to the UNHCR, is only second to the Rwanda crisis in the 1990s. While the political and military leadership in Pakistan struggle to face the security and humanitarian crisis, such reports will only serve to deepen mistrust.

However, in order to allay future misunderstandings, it is important to safeguard any outside assistance, whose management requires transparency and accountability at every stage of the assistance chain.

 

[pak-marine]

This forum is anti American.....

its not anti american its against crack heads like u !

 

[spsk]

These American efforts at destabilizing Pakistan need our taking them seriously to be effective - they are like tumors and out attention is the blood supply to these tumors - lets stop the blood supply and in doing so be rid of these tumors.

But first examine why it is that we are willing to pay attention to these U.S. propaganda? I think it is because we are not active, not just in the substance but also in using media effectively - accusations followed by denials is not the way to attenuate the effects of the poison the U.S seeks to effect the thinking of people with.

Why do you think Americans trying to destabilize you? They are proving you billions of $s in loans because they want a stable country...

 

[Rafael]

I say they are making a case against Pakistan as they did with Iraq, First allegations, propaganda and finally action...

I can smell something in the air

 

[muse]

Why do you think Americans trying to destabilize you? They are proving you billions of $s in loans because they want a stable country...

You seem to think that U.S policy is a monolith, it is not and it has multiple power centers - one such power center is the connection between members of the intel community and the NYT, a simbiotic realtionship.

On the question of Aid, I think again there is some confusion here, it is as yet early but by the completion of Obama's first term, I will bet with you that Pakistan's economic situation will be little changed and substantial security assistance will not be from U.S but from others - however; most of the noise about the Aid Pakistani politicians will have pocketed wil come from the U.S.

I don't know how many times we have to see the same thing till we get the plot.

 

[jawadqamar]

Pakistan Expanding Dera Ghazi Khan Nuclear Site

Pakistan Expanding Dera Ghazi Khan Nuclear Site

By David Albright, Paul Brannan, and Robert Kelley
May 19, 2009

ISIS has obtained commercial satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe taken August 25, 2008 of Pakistan’s key military and civilian fuel cycle site near Dera Ghazi Khan, which produces natural uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and uranium metal, two materials used in producing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons (see figure 1).1 In comparison to earlier satellite imagery taken on October 11, 2004, the latest pictures show expansion of the industrial facilities at the site. Pakistan has also cleared a new plot of land adjacent to the largest of the three compounds on site, which will double the size of this compound (see figures 2 and 3). The expansion includes new industrial buildings, new anti-aircraft installations, and several new settling ponds among the three compounds identified in commercial satellite imagery (see figures 2-7). US officials have recently said that Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear weapons program in the world, at least in terms of installing additional capacity to produce nuclear materials for nuclear weapons. Commercial satellite imagery supports the conclusion that Pakistan, over the last several years, has concentrated on greatly expanding its nuclear weapons production complex. The reasons for this expansion are undoubtedly related to Pakistani decisions to upgrade its nuclear arsenal, currently estimated to contain roughly between 60 and 100 nuclear weapons deliverable by attack aircraft and ballistic missiles. ISIS previously assessed that Pakistan’s on-going expansion of its plutonium production program, which includes new undeclared, unsafeguarded reactors and plutonium reprocessing facilities, is likely linked to a strategic decision to improve the destructiveness and deliverability of its nuclear arsenal. In particular, Pakistan may build smaller, lighter plutonium-fission weapons and deliverable thermonuclear weapons that use plutonium as the nuclear trigger and enriched and natural enriched uranium in the secondary. Pakistan may have decided to create a plutonium-based arsenal to supplement or replace its current arsenal that relies mainly on fission weapons made with weapon-grade uranium. The expansion of the facilities at Dera Ghazi Khan is more difficult to assess because of uncertainties about the activities conducted at this site related to nuclear weapons production. Nonetheless, this expansion is likely related to renovating older facilities and producing additional natural UF6 and uranium metal. The former would allow Pakistan to increase its stock of weapon-grade uranium. The latter could permit Pakistan to make more fuel for its Khushab reactors and more sophisticated uranium components for nuclear weapons, including components for thermonuclear weapons.


Chemical Plants Complex

This site houses the Chemical Plants Complex (CPC), which converts yellowcake into UF6 and produces uranium metal for the nuclear weapons program. This undeclared and unsafeguarded nuclear site was originally built in the 1970s and early 1980s with the help of foreign suppliers. A German supplier secretly provided up to nine process lines or facilities for converting yellowcake into natural UF6, the feedstock for gas centrifuges.3 The natural UF6 was shipped to Khan Research Laboratories, nearly 480 kilometers away, for enrichment to weapon-grade. After enrichment, the weapon-grade UF6 returned to this site for conversion to metallic form for use in nuclear weapons in a facility also provided by the same German supplier.4 KRL, apparently, also developed its own uranium metal production facility, which served as a safety and security measure that cut down on the overall transportation of highly-enriched UF6 around the country.5 There is no indication, however, that the metal production capability ever stopped operating at the Dera Ghazi Khan site. The CPC is located in compounds labeled #1 and #3 in the satellite imagery. There are new buildings, new anti-aircraft installations, and new ponds at compound #1 in the latest imagery (see figures 2 and 3). A new plot of land adjacent to the southern side of compound #1 will likely contain new industrial buildings and will roughly double its size. In the last four years, an industrial facility at Compound #3 has roughly doubled in size, indicating that the industrial processes that take place at this compound have increased (see figures 6 and 7). Compound #3 also contains a short, high volume ventilation stack and the entire compound has its own security wall. It is also isolated from the other two compounds (see figures 6 and 7). Compound #3 could also house facilities for machining uranium metal into finished components for weapons. Such precision machining of uranium metal would be useful for conventional weapons as well as for finished nuclear weapon components. CPC also houses facilities to machine natural and depleted uranium metal for use in a number of other applications including reactor fuel and conventional armor-piercing artillery.6 The site has also converted uranium for use as fuel in the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP).
The exact location of the original facility to convert weapon-grade UF6 into metal cannot be determined from the imagery. It is likely one of the older buildings in the western part of compound #1.

Baghalchur Uranium Mill

The site also houses the Baghalchur uranium mill known as BC-1, which produces yellowcake. In the satellite imagery, BC-1 is in compound #2 (see figures 4 and 5). There is a new pond at this compound, but few other new buildings. The current status of the site is unknown.
In the past, the Baghalchur mine supplied uranium ore to the BC-1 site. A Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) hand-out from about 2005, titled “Procurement Activities for the Pakistani Nuclear Program since Beginning 2004,” notes that a tunnel system in Pakistan was located at a point on the Suleman mountain range only 20 kilometers away from the Dera Ghazi Khan nuclear site. Less than 300 meters from the exact coordinates listed on the NSG document are a series of tunnel entrances (see figure 8). There is a road connecting these tunnels with BC-1. These tunnel entrances may be associated with the Baghalchur mine, which was apparently closed by 2000.7 Pakistan’s current source of uranium is being debated.

Ground Attacks
In the last several years, the Dera Ghazi Khan nuclear site, or its adjacent worker compound, has been the target of at least one ground attack by more than a dozen gunmen, and nearby railway tracks have also been bombed.8 These attacks were likely carried out by separatist fighters from the adjacent Baloch region of Pakistan and not Taliban forces. The brazen ground assault and nearby bombings are nevertheless troubling considering the role that the Dera Ghazi Khan plant plays in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. On February 5, 2009, a suicide bomber killed more than 30 people in Dera Ghazi Khan. This was a sectarian attack targeting a funeral procession outside a Shiite mosque, although Pakistani police later arrested the suspected mastermind behind the bombing and reportedly said he has ties to the Taliban.

Downsizing the Nuclear Weapons Complex
Activities at Dera Ghazi Khan related to nuclear weapons production are unnecessary, as Pakistan currently has more than enough nuclear weapons. Its plan to upgrade its arsenal stands to accelerate a dangerous and wasteful arms race with India. In the current climate, with Pakistan’s leadership under duress from daily acts of violence by insurgent Taliban forces and organized political opposition, the security of its nuclear assets remains in question. An expansion in nuclear weapons production capabilities needlessly complicates efforts to improve the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Faced with a dangerous surge in Pakistan’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, the United States should convince Pakistan to halt its production of fissile material and join the negotiations of a universal, verified, Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), which would ban the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear explosives. As an interim step, the United States should press both India and Pakistan to suspend any production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. Recent media stories have reported that the Pakistani government has made massive cuts in Pakistan’s nuclear program.10 To the extent that these cuts affect the nuclear weapons production complex, they are both wise and long overdue.



Pakistan Expanding Plutonium Separation Facility Near Rawalpindi

Pakistan appears to have expanded its plutonium separation capability at the New Labs section of the Pakistan Institute of Science and Technology (PINSTECH) near Rawalpindi. A series of commercial satellite images from February 2002 through September 2006 show the construction of what appears to be a second plutonium separation plant adjacent to the original one (see figures 1, 2 and 3), suggesting that Pakistan is increasing its plutonium separation capacity in anticipation of an increased supply of spent fuel from new heavy water reactors. The plutonium separated from the spent fuel is usable in nuclear weapons.
Between 2000 and 2002, Pakistan began constructing a second plutonium production reactor at its Khushab nuclear site.1 In approximately mid-2006, Pakistan began constructing a third plutonium production reactor at the site. Construction of the second reactor appears to be finished,2 and the construction of the third reactor has progressed more quickly than the second.3 ISIS assessed in 2006 that this on-going expansion of Pakistan's plutonium production program was likely linked to a strategic decision by Pakistan to develop a new generation of thermonuclear weapons and smaller, lighter and more powerful plutonium-based weapons. Also in this assessment, ISIS noted that Pakistan would likely need to expand its plutonium separation capacity in order to handle the extra spent fuel from the new reactors.
The expansion of the reprocessing facilities at New Labs is likely intended to serve this purpose. The original reprocessing facility at New Labs was renovated in the 1990s, in time to separate weapons-grade plutonium from the first Khushab reactor, which started operation in 1998.4 A second reprocessing facility at New Labs would raise Pakistan’s annual plutonium separation capability and possibly handle the increased spent fuel produced when the new Khushab reactors start up.
In addition, Pakistan may have also restarted construction of a partially built plutonium separation plant at its Chashma nuclear site, approximately 70 kilometers west of Khushab.5 In the 1970s, Pakistan and a French company had a contract to build the separation plant, but France cancelled the deal after the United States registered proliferation concerns. A certain amount of design information however, had already been transferred and the facility remained partially built for years. Satellite imagery over the last several years indicates that Pakistan has restarted construction of a previously overgrown industrial facility on site that may be the original reprocessing facility.

 

[jawadqamar]

US spy chief confident Islamabad nuclear arsenal secure; sounds alert to possibility of al-Qaeda fleeing Pakistan or Afghanistan

LOS ANGELES: CIA Director Leon Panetta has said the United States does not know the location of all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons but is confident the country has secured them.

Panetta spoke days after the top US military officer told Congress there was evidence Pakistan was adding to its nuclear weapons systems and warheads. Pakistan, however, denies it. The CIA director was asked about Pakistan’s nuclear programme at a forum organised by the Pacific Council on International Policy.

“We don’t have, frankly, the intelligence to know where they all are located,” Panetta said, adding the US was confident the Pakistani government had a “pretty secure approach to try to protect these weapons.”

That security is something the US is watching, he said. Panetta also defended the use of unmanned aircraft to target al-Qaeda militants and said President Barack Obama’s policies had severely disrupted the network’s leadership.

 

[zubair723]

So what if PAKISTAN is expanding its nuclear arsenal. I think we should aim to have the biggest stockpile of them. If others are having 'paranoia' then there is no cure for that available

 

[nightcrawler]

Beside producing WMDs we must also put these reactors to good use for our electricity generation which I think must be our 2nd most priority to that of adequate defense.
Other important thing is that more the doors more be the secutity loopholes as international media point out YES Taliban are a problem & we must get our security tighten enough to get full grip on the nuclear growth in our Pakistan, whch if not monitored effectively can provide cheese balls to our Taliban rivals

 

[Hasnain2009]

And we shld expant it, bcoz US is talking to seize, they have all options open, so we should prepare our self! We should have stockpile of min. 1000 plotonium nukes!

 

[Hasnain2009]

Stockpile



Source - Institute for Science and International Security

 

[brilTek]

Pakistan Expanding Plutonium Separation Facility

All news are based on ISIS reports published on May 19, 2009. But the latest image contained in this report is of 2006. It took them 3 years to conclude that?

Yeah, Its NOT FOR ENERGY

The following excerpt from the ISIS report:

Why Need plutonium, Pakistan may have concluded that:

1 - it needs the plutonium to improve the quality of its nuclear arsenal

2 - To build a new generation of lighter, more powerful weapons.

3- Plutonium-based weapons can have more explosive yield in smaller, lighter packages than weapons based on highly enriched uranium, which is currently Pakistan’s principal nuclear explosive material and produced in abundance at its gas centrifuge plants. For example, Pakistan may want warheads small enough to fit on cruise missiles it is currently developing. It also may want larger yield (50-100 kiloton) fission weapons that can cause far more damage to Indian cities than its current relatively low-yield weapons.

4 - In addition, plutonium-based fission weapons would enable Pakistan to build deliverable thermonuclear weapons. Although these new types of weapons would enable Pakistan to build a nuclear arsenal more threatening to India and thus one perceived to better deter it, their development would in fact create greater instability in the region and eventually less security for Pakistan.






Source: Pakistan expanding plutonium facility

 

[BaburCM]

^^ Good going. Let's expand the nuke activity like never before. The nuke reactors ought to be utilized for military and civilian application.