 | Another revelation from the New York Times. It's almost as if they want every secret revealed. Except for Hillary's secrets, of course. |
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 — Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.
But with the future of that countryÂ’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether PakistanÂ’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.
| Let the hand-wringing commence. We never do enough, you know, we're never omnipotent enough to suit the Times. |
The aid, buried in secret portions of the federal budget, ...
| ... sssshh, it's a secret ... |
... paid for the training of Pakistani personnel in the United States and the construction of a nuclear security training center in Pakistan, a facility that American officials say is nowhere near completion, even though it was supposed to be in operation this year.
| Gee, delays in construction in Pakistain? There's a surprise. |
A raft of equipment — from helicopters to night-vision goggles to nuclear detection equipment — was given to Pakistan to help secure its nuclear material, its warheads, and the laboratories that were the site of the worst known case of nuclear proliferation in the atomic age.
While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used. That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.
| That's not exactly a revelation. |
The American program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration debated whether to share with Pakistan one of the crown jewels of American nuclear protection technology, known as “permissive action links,” or PALS, a system used to keep a weapon from detonating without proper codes and authorizations. In the end, despite past federal aid to France and Russia on delicate points of nuclear security, the administration decided that it could not share the system with the Pakistanis because of legal restrictions.
| Because it would have been in Chinese hands the following week, forwarded to North Korea the week after, and sent on to the Iranians before the month would be out. |
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