TOP STORY
A heartbeat from apocalypse
One man’s life holding back World War III
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 11.02.2006 17:17
One man’s life is preventing Osama bin Laden or his allies from getting their hands not on nuclear weapons, which they already have, but a large nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it anywhere in the world. His name is Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan. If fair-and-square elections were held today in Pakistan, and bin Laden or someone like him were allowed to compete, there is little doubt the populace would be with such a leader.
Agosta 90B stealth sub But they haven’t had fair-and-square elections in Pakistan for some time – and President Bush, who promotes “democracy” as the antidote to terror, better hope they don’t have one soon. Pakistan not only has at least 40 nuclear warheads, according to most accounts, but it has some of the most sophisticated and feared delivery systems in the world. Perhaps the biggest worry is the trio of French-built Agosta 90B stealth submarines, each capable of carrying 16 cruise missiles with nuclear payloads.
The Pakistani military is very proud of its subs – and well they should be. They are at the top of the class for French submarines. They were designed by the French company DCN, which, as incredible as it may sound, has licensed Pakistan to produce more at a commercial base. The project was completed despite a suicide bomb attack with killed 11 of the project's French engineers in front of their Karachi hotel in May 2002. The deal had to be approved by the US government because the plane contains U.S. parts.
While the specs for the Agosta 90B subs say it is equipped to fire Exocet missiles and torpedoes, at a press briefing following the annual naval exercise Seaspark-2001, Rear Admiral Mohammad Afzal Tahir, the deputy chief of naval staff for operations, announced that the Pakistan navy was considering equipping its submarines with nuclear missiles. He suggested the Agosta 90B submarine, with its air independent propulsion system, can deliver nuclear weapons. The idea, according to sources within the Pakistan navy, was to turn the Agosta 90B subs into the nation’s second-strike option.
They would serve as a deterrent against any nuclear attack on Pakistan because the subs would survive any such first strike and be in a position to rain nuclear warheads on an enemy in retaliation. Pakistan’s nuclear inventory includes the land-based missiles such as the Shaheen I, the Shaheen II, the Ghauri I, the Ghauri II. These missiles have ranges between 750 kilometers and 2,500. So far there has been no report of any naval vessel being modified to carry these land-based missiles.
Currently, only Russia and the U.S. are known to have the capability of launching nuclear weapons from submarine tubes. So, for Pakistan to achieve such capability would be a remarkable development. Since Pakistan is known as one of the world’s biggest proliferators of nuclear technology, it is likely that breakthrough would be shared with others – including Pakistan’s close ally, China. Given the fact that the Agosta 90B has a range of nearly 12,000 miles, the range of the missiles themselves becomes less important.
The subs can travel quiet and they can travel long distances. If they can fire nuclear warheads, the effective range of those missiles has been greatly increased. But what does all this have to do with bin Laden and Musharraf? Bin Laden may be the most popular man in Pakistan. Musharraf may be the most unpopular man in Pakistan – perhaps second only to George W. Bush. Musharraf is presiding over a military government in Pakistan, suppressing a popular Islamist movement within his country. He walks a fine line.
He has survived many assassination attempts. He came to power in a coup, and he could be deposed in one. Musharraf is a limited ally of the U.S. in its war against this popular movement within his country. It was his country, in fact, that birthed the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan – the Taliban that harbored and fought with bin Laden’s al-Qaida forces against the U.S. in that country. Many, if not most, Pakistanis believe Allah has chosen them to arm themselves with nuclear weapons to conquer the world for him.
Thus, the man standing between a radical Islam armed with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems for attacking any part of the world with them is, just that, one man, one life, one heartbeat.
