Published time: September 03, 2013 16:04
Top-secret intelligence community documents recently leaked to the Washington Post reveal that the United States has ramped-up its surveillance of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
The documents – detailed, previously unpublished funding requests
from America’s top intelligence agencies – were first disclosed
in part on Thursday when the Washington Post said it had proof
that America’s main spy offices looked to receive $52.6 billion
in fiscal year 2013. Upon further analysis of the so-called
“black budget,” the Post has since discovered that the US is
increasing efforts to spy within Pakistan in order to understand
more thoroughly the supposed ally’s nuclear arms arsenal.
According to the Post, researching the black budget has led
journalists to determine that US officials believe there is a
significant intelligence gap with regards to Pakistan, and that
the US is more interested than ever in that nation’s nuclear
capabilities amid what may be the comparably best relationship
the two countries have experienced in over a decade.
Despite nearly 12 years of occupation following the September 11,
2001 terrorist attack, US/Pakistani tensions have loosened as of
late, presumably after a drawback in localized drone strikes and
other covert combat that has subsided since US Navy SEALS
captured and killed former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in
rural Pakistan in May 2011.
Although the Post has not released the 178-page black budget in
full, it has selectively published a handful of excerpts and
quoted from it extensively in a number of articles to appear in
print and online since last week. According to the Post’s Greg
Miller, Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman, the latest disclosures
identified through analysis of the top-secret documents
“expose broad new levels of US distrust in an already unsteady
security partnership with Pakistan,” and “also reveal a
more expansive effort to gather intelligence on Pakistan than US
officials have disclosed.”
The document, reported the Post, divulges uncertainty within the
US intelligence community regarding Pakistan, particularly in
reference to the country’s nuclear capabilities. One excerpt of
the budget quoted by the Post warned that “knowledge of the
security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and associated material
encompassed one of the most critical set of . . . intelligence
gaps.” According to the Post, US officials were concerned
about those “given the political instability, terrorist threat
and expanding inventory [of nuclear weapons] in that
country.”
The paper also noted that while Pakistan’s name is frequently
absent from the budget request, the counterterrorism and
counter-proliferation operations waged by the US are centralized
in that nation, nestled in the Middle East between Iraq,
Afghanistan and India. Taking into account just its
counterterrorism and counter-proliferation measures, the US
intelligence community sought more than $27 billion in FY2013 –
or around half of what was requested in all – most of which is
likely spent on covert operations. Former and current US
intelligence officials who spoke to the Post said the armed drone
campaign that targets al-Qaeda militants on the
Pakistan/Afghanistan border is among the most expensive of those
covert programs.
So significant are US concerns with regards to monitoring weapons
of mass destruction in Pakistan, the Post reported that the
budget contains once section in which it focuses on containing
the spread of illicit weapons among two geographic regions:
Pakistan and elsewhere.
The Post reported that budget suggests Pakistan contains 120
nuclear weapons, although US intelligence agencies suspect that
number will soon rise. In order to better understand that
nation’s nuke program, the budget discusses the creation of a
Pakistan WMD Analysis Cell, the paper reported, in order to keep
tabs on where nuclear materials move within the country.
Together, the Post claimed, the CIA and Pentagon were able “to
develop and deploy a new compartmented collection capability”
that delivered a “more comprehensive understanding of
strategic weapons security in Pakistan.”
Despite that accomplishment, however, the budget still noted that
“the number of gaps associated with Pakistani nuclear security
remains the same,” and “the questions associated with this
intractable target are more complex.”
“If the Americans are expanding their surveillance
capabilities, it can only mean one thing,” former Pakistani
ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani told the Post, “The
mistrust now exceeds the trust.”
Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the National Security Council,
explained to the Post that the US is “committed to a long-term
partnership with Pakistan, and we remain fully engaged in
building a relationship that is based on mutual interests and
mutual respect.”
“We have an ongoing strategic dialogue that addresses in a
realistic fashion many of the key issues between us, from border
management to counterterrorism, from nuclear security to
promoting trade and investment,” she said.
“The United States and Pakistan share a strategic interest in
combating the challenging security issues in Pakistan, and we
continue to work closely with Pakistan’s professional and
dedicated security forces to do so,” added Hayden.
The Post first published excerpts of this year’s black budget on
Thursday and attributed the top-secret disclosure to Edward
Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who fled from the US
earlier this year and has since been granted asylum in Russia. In
the days since the paper began working on the latest Snowden leak
it has published a previously undisclosed figure for the amount
of money requested by the likes of the National Security Agency
and Central Intelligence Agency, and also exposed a program of
offensive cyber
operations waged by US officials against foreign foes.
Republished from: RT