2.12.10

Pakistan & WikiLeaks


Despite “pending economic catastrophe,” Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a “faster rate” than any other country in the world, according to a stunning American appraisal that forms part of the cables relating to US-Pakistan relations leaked by the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks. The assessment was conveyed by US national intelligence officer for South Asia Peter Lavoy to Nato representatives in November 2008 amid widespread apprehensions among major powers, recorded in separate cables, about the security of the weapons. In one particularly startling cable, Chinese vice foreign minister He Yafei is quoted as saying, “A Pakistani military leader said his army was no match for the Indian army” – the justification given by Pakistan for its nuclear weapons.

Pakistan's Army and ISI are sponsoring four militant groups, including LeT, and will not abandon them for any amount of aid, the US envoy to Islamabad wrote in 2009. “There is no chance Pakistan will view enhanced assistance... as sufficient compensation for abandoning them,” she wrote

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