- British military chiefs are drawing up plans for dealing
with the consequences of a nuclear war on the Indian sub-continent that
they now believe to be a "real possibility".
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- As Pakistan announced plans for the possible redeployment
of thousands of troops engaged in the war against al-Qaeda terrorists to
the Indian border, and Tony Blair told the Cabinet the situation was now
"desperately serious", British intelligence sources voiced fears
that the two countries were locked on a path to the world's first nuclear
exchange.
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- Indeed, the Government is so alarmed by one of the most
pessimistic intelligence assessments since the Cuban missile crisis that
the military has been ordered to start planning for the possible emergency
evacuation of Britons from India and Pakistan.
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- Military sources confirmed that options were being studied
and all the consequences of a nuclear war were being examined. In the past
24 hours Mr Blair has telephoned President Bush and President Putin of
Russia, urging them to exert maximum pressure on both sides to pull back
from the abyss and resume dialogue.
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- Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, twice called
Pakistan's President Musharraf to urge restraint, but the build-up continued
unabated. Pakistan announced that it may withdraw several thousand troops
on peacekeeping duties in Sierra Leone and East Timor, and half its troops
from fighting the war on terrorism on the Afghan border. India is strengthening
its strategic air and ground defences along its border with Pakistan.
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- The fear in Britain's intelligence services is that neither
leader is listening to reason and that with more than a million soldiers
lined up against each other, it would be difficult for either to be seen
to be backing down.
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- The sources said that since both countries were new nuclear
weapons powers, they did not have the same attitude to deterrence as the
five older members of the nuclear club and may resort to using their weapons
of mass destruction; that applied particularly to Pakistan if it faced
defeat from an overwhelming Indian conventional attack.
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