- RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters)
- Pakistan had completed its nuclear buildup nine years before it finally
ended international speculation by exploding its first nuclear bomb in
1998, the head of the armed forces at the time said on Tuesday.
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- Mirza Aslam Beg, who now heads an independent think tank,
said Pakistan had concluded by 1989 it had an adequate nuclear deterrent
and did not need to increase it. He said he believed Pakistan now had no
more than 30 nuclear weapons.
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- ``We wanted a credible minimum deterrent and that deterrence
is related to the very minimum number of devices that we needed and a very
minimum capability to deliver those,'' Beg said.
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- ``And that we achieved in 1989 when Benazir Bhutto was
prime minister and that is (still) the policy we follow,'' the retired
army commander said in an interview with Reuters television.
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- Beg said Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is completely safe
both because the National Command Authority was set up a year ago to control
nuclear weapons and because there is nothing comparable to the warheads
sitting atop U.S. and Russian missiles.
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- ``We have a bomb-in-the-basement policy where not even
a bomb is placed over there, not a device, but components are there to
put it together if needed,'' said Beg.
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- ``And then it is many miles away from the delivery system,
that is, the missiles and the aircraft,'' he said. ``That by itself provides
tremendous security, an in-built safety which is not understood by people
who don't understand the real logic of our program and the restrictions
we have imposed on ourselves.''
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- Beg, a vigorous 73-year-old, has run the Foundation for
Research on International Environment, National Development and Security
(FRIENDS) since retiring from the military in 1991 after more than four
decades service.
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- HOW MANY BOMBS?
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- Beg said he believed India had 60 or 70 nuclear devices
by 1989 and had continued to build a stockpile that now numbers 200. But
he said Pakistan had concluded in 1989 it did not need more.
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- ``How many do you need? For what?'' he said at his office
in Rawalpindi, which houses army headquarters. ``You need 10, 20, 30 --
that is all that we need and that is all we have. There is no need to add
to it. I don't think they have added any more.''
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- The nuclear capability of Pakistan -- and neighboring
India -- was a subject of international speculation until May 1998 when
India suddenly carried out five nuclear blasts.
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- Other countries, alarmed at the prospect of nuclear war
in densely populated South Asia, appealed for Pakistan not to match the
India blasts. But Pakistan answered what it saw as an Indian challenge
by carrying out six nuclear explosions the same month.
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- Despite U.S. anger at the blasts, following years of
warning Islamabad not to develop nuclear weapons, Beg said Washington had
long known Pakistan was building up a nuclear force.
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- Beg said he learned the details of Pakistan's nuclear
research in 1987 when he was deputy chief of staff and when he took the
top position a year later the program, launched in 1975, was nearly complete.
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- ``The United States purposely tried not to believe Pakistan
had that capability because that was a time when we were at the height
of our fight with the Soviets in Afghanistan ,'' Beg said.
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- ``It was a question of, I would say, convenience for
them -- a diplomatic need not to declare that Pakistan had acquired it.''
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- Once Soviet forces were driven from Afghanistan, the
United States began demanding Pakistan halt its nuclear program and imposed
economic sanctions -- after the date Beg said Pakistan already had completed
its program.
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