October 23, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba'an 5, 1422

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NEW DELHI, Oct 22: India poured scorn on Monday on a Washington Post report which speculates a pre-emptive strike by New Delhi on Pakistan’s nuclear sites in case Islamabad’s arsenal look like falling into the hands of Muslim militants.

A senior Indian analyst said the speculation of a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan seemed to have a mischievous intent of masking a possible plan by any of the other interested powers to carry out the attack, should the opportunity or the need arise.

“I would not like to comment on that,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said, reacting to the Washington Post report. “I would only like to say, as far nuclear confidence-building between the two countries is concerned, you are aware that India had made a proposal prior to the Agra summit for the resumption of talks between officials of the two sides and at the experts level on nuclear confidence building. That is really the direction in which we see this whole process of building peace and stability in our region. That is our approach.”

Former foreign secretary J.N Dixit told Dawn that the speculation was “pure badmashi”, adding that the two countries had signed a pact in 1988 against attacking each other’s nuclear facilities. “The treaty was ratified in 1992. So this report is obviously masking some other possible intention. Who knows how many people might want to take out Pakistan’s nuclear capability and blame it on India.”

Dixit said it could also be America’s way of dissuading India from launching a conventional attack across the border into Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had offered to then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief a pact against first use of nuclear strike during their bilateral meeting in Colombo on the margins of the 1998 SAARC summit, but Islamabad had wanted to expand it into a non-aggression pact.

The Lahore Declaration of February 1999 addresses the issue even more cogently.

It recognises that “the nuclear dimension of the security environment of the two countries adds to their responsibility for avoidance of conflict between the two countries.”

The pact also committed both countries to “take immediate steps for reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons and discuss concepts and doctrines with a view to elaborating measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at prevention of conflict.” The Washington Post story speculates on some worrying possibilities in the American mission in Afghanistan including the worry that terrorists could hit back at Pakistan.

“The prospect of Pakistan being taken over by Islamic extremists is especially worrisome because it possesses nuclear weapons,” The Post said. “The betting among military strategists is that India, another nuclear power, would not stand idly by, if it appeared that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal were about to fall into the hands of extremists.”

It said a pre-emptive action by India to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile could provoke a new war on the subcontinent. The Post added that the US military has conducted more than 25 war games involving a confrontation between a nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. “Each has resulted in nuclear war,” it quoted retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner as saying. He is an expert on strategic games.

“Having both the United States and India fighting Muslims would play into the hands of Osama bin Laden,” the Washington Post said quoting a warning by Mackubin Owens, a strategist at the Naval War College in Newport. “He could point out once again that this is the new crusade,” Owens said.