Britain has “deep concerns” about the prospect of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, senior defence officials have admitted in private discussions with the Americans.
Medium Range Ballistic Missile Hatf IV (SHAHEEN 1) surface-surface ballistic missile taking off during a test-fire from an undisclosed location in Pakistan Photo: EPA
By Robert Winnett and Gordon Rayner 6:20AM GMT 01 Dec 2010
Diplomats fear that a rogue scientist in the Pakistani nuclear programme “could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon” for a terrorist group.
Leaked US embassy cables also discussed the possibility of Islamic hardliners gaining power in Pakistan, leading to a tense nuclear stand-off with India.
Some British officials are now privately pushing for a “Cold-War-like relationship” to emerge between India and Pakistan, with China helping to stabilise the situation.
Pakistan is thought to have reduced its co-operation with Britain and America after the decision to remove combat troops from Afghanistan over the next few years.
A leaked diplomatic cable – detailing official talks in London in February 2009 – discloses, in frank terms, the current state of Britain’s foreign policy concerns.
The document also recounts how Britain privately urged America to “get serious” about Iran. Senior Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence officials also admitted during the talks with their American counterparts that relations with Russia were “very poor”.
The cable, released by the WikiLeaks website, states the views of Mariot Leslie, who was the director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office but is now Britain’s ambassador to Nato.
It states: “The UK has deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and China could play a big role in stabilising Pakistan, Leslie said. Pakistan has accepted nuclear safety help, but under the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] flag (albeit British technicians).”
The document adds that another senior British defence official “expressed support for the development of a ‘Cold War’-like relationship between India and Pakistan that would ‘introduce a degree of certainty’ between the two countries in their dealings.
“He noted that recent intelligence indicates that Pakistan ‘is not going in a good direction’. Pakistan sees the debate about Afghanistan in the US and the UK as demonstrating that the allies lack the will to maintain their commitment.”
In 2008, the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, cabled to Washington: “Our major concern is not having an Islamic militant steal an entire weapon but rather the chance someone working in government of Pakistan facilities could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon.”
US diplomats were particularly worried that “despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world”.
The cables also show that US special forces have been operating secretly inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, with the approval of the Pakistani government.
The Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in 2007, once told the US vice-president, Joe Biden, that he feared his country’s army “might take me out” and had made detailed provisions for what would happen in the event of his death.
The document also lays bare extensive secret talks between Britain and America over how to handle Iran. It shows that under Gordon Brown’s premiership, the Government was pushing Barack Obama to take a harder line.