January 6, 2003	Monday	Ziqa’ad 2, 1423

NEW DELHI, Jan 5: Air Marshal T. M. Asthana, an Indian Air Force officer, is widely expected to head the country’s nuclear forces, newspapers and officials said on Sunday.

They said he will report to the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC) until a chief of defence staff is created and appointed. The final authority on decisions regarding nuclear weapons will be the cabinet committee on security, headed by the prime minister, which will convey its orders to the chairman of the COSC.

The air force has nursed ambitions of being the sole custodian of India’s nuclear assets, and when it was denied the pre-eminence it sought, had opposed the integration of higher defence management under the chief of defence staff, sources say.

The IAF believes that strategic targeting “hitting areas thousands of miles away” is an air force role. The air force brass believes that it is not a role that suits the army, which according to it “has a 40km perspective.”

“The government, after giving the nod for setting up of a Nuclear Command Authority and strategic forces command, is now in the process of bringing the armed forces into the nuclear loop,” The Pioneer newspaper said on Sunday. It said the step will have far reaching effect with the government sharing the knowledge about nuclear weapons with the Services and the decision-makers “thinking”.

While the government is yet to announce the composition of the executive council, professional soldiers would form part of the body to advise the threat perception and security scenario in a nuclear environment.—Jay Enn