"Pakistan's nukes"

Our friend Richard Sale writes this on SST, here

"...Not everyone agrees. Speaking of the arsenal, a former senior CIA official said, "When it comes to this subject, you've got a lot of people making stuff up. There is not only disinformation, but misinformation and wish-information."....

The concern over Pakistan’s arsenal extends back in time, before the 9/11 attacks. As early as 2000, the Clinton administration created a joint commission, a “liaison” group, consisting of top American and Pakistani scientists. The purpose of this group was to help the Pakistanis create command and control codes for its nuclear weapons that would be unbreakable. One former senior U.S. intelligence source told me that in the course of such work, America gained “a pretty full knowledge” of Pakistan’s command and control system....

Communications systems between Pakistani nuclear commanders and nuclear storage sites were reviewed and modernized, and certain key nodes were, at some point, on a U.S. target list, sources said.There is some ground for Pakistani misgivings. .......For years, U.S. intelligence has infiltrated the front companies used by Iran to acquire nuclear weapons technology from the West, especially Europe. Many of these companies were originally part of the Pakistani network set up by A.Q. Khan that procured both components and information for North Korea, Libya and the like. Many are engineering consulting firms, U.S. officials said...........“The point is that when they push the button, the stuff won’t work,” the former senior official said..."