XXXX: Wikileaks on Russia's Concerns with Pakistan's nukes: kidnaping!

[Solomon2]

Dated February 24, 2010:

US embassy cables: XXXXXXXXXXXX

* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 21.30 GMT

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX In the Russian view, there is another serious threat that should be discussed: Pakistan. Pakistan is a nation with nuclear weapons, various delivery systems, and a domestic situation that is highly unstable. Russia assesses that Islamists are not only seeking power in Pakistan but are also trying to get their hands on nuclear materials. Russia is aware that Pakistani authorities, with help from the U.S., have created a well-structured system of security for protecting nuclear facilities, which includes physical protection. However, there are 120,000-130,000 people directly involved in Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs, working in these facilities and protecting them. However, regardless of the clearance process for these people, there is no way to guarantee that all are 100% loyal and reliable.

63. (S) In addition to the Islamist interest in these facilities, Russia also is aware that Pakistan has had to hire people to protect nuclear facilities that have especially strict religious beliefs, and recently the general educational and cultural levels in Pakistan has been falling. Due to these facts, extremist organizations have more opportunities to recruit people working in the nuclear and missile programs. Over the last few years extremists have attacked vehicles that carry staff to and from these facilities. Some were killed and a number were abducted and there has been no trace seen of them. Also, even if places are well protected, transportation of materials is a vulnerable point. In Pakistan, it is hard to guarantee the security of these materials during transportation. For these reasons, Russia thinks Pakistan should also be a particular focus of discussion.

 

[Aslan]

Says a country that when split left an arsenal of material unsafe and available for any one to steel. Whose country is claimed by the same americans to be run by the head of the mafia. Come on guys leave us the fu!k alone for heavens sake.

 

[GentlemanObserver]

People are worried about Pakistani fissile material...

1957-1965
Between 1957 and 1965, 100 kilograms of uranium 235 disappeared from a nuclear scrap recycling plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. The material was weapons grade and suitable for making more than one bomb. The president of the firm was reported to have close ties with Israel. The mystery was never solved.

1968
The coaster, Scheersberg-A sets sail from Antwerp to Genoa with two hundred tons of uranium.

The boat does not arrive in Italy as scheduled but in Iskenderun Turkey, empty of its cargo. Years later the owner of the ship was located in a Norwegian prison and identified as an Isreali secret agent.

1979
Nine Kilograms of weapons grade uranium were found to be missing from a nuclear fuel plant in Erwin, Tennessee.

May-September 1992
Leonid Smirnov, a chemical engineer at the Luch Scientific Production Association in Podolsk, Russia steals approximately one and one half kilograms of weapons grade highly enriched uranium. He was working alone and had no known potential buyers.

July 1993
Two Russian naval officers are arrested outside of a storage facility for the Russian Northern Fleet in Andreeva Guba, 40 kilometers from the Norwegian border. They were found to have 1.8 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. Both men claimed to be following military orders. However most Russian authorities believe that the Russian mob was involved.

November 27, 1993
Three men retired or active in the Russian Navy steal 4.5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, from a naval base storage facility in Sevmorput, Russia. Authorities were alerted to the theft because one of the thieves carelessly left a door open. The men were arrested several months later trying to sell the stolen material. One of the men arrested stated that it would have taken the Russian Navy 10 years to figure out that the fissile material was missing if they had shut the door.

May 10, 1994
German police in Tengen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, inadvertently discover a vial containing 5.6 grams of nearly pure plutonium-239 in the garage of Adolf Jaekle. Though the origin and the destination of the material is not known it is believed to have originated from the Russian nuclear weapons laboratory Arzamas-16.

June 13, 1994
German authorities in Bavaria report that they seized 800 milligrams of highly enriched uranium in Landshut, Germany. On August 8 they arrest a German real estate dealer and five men from Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The material may have come from a naval or research reactor.

August 10, 1994
The Bavarian Police seize a suitcase from a Lufthansa flight originating in Moscow. It contains a plastic bag with several hundred grams of Lithium-6 (used to make Tritium) and a metal container holding 560 grams of mixed oxides of uranium and plutonium (363 grams of Pu-239). This makes it the largest seizure of weapons grade material in the West. Circumstantial evidence places the fissile material as Russian in origin. After further investigation German authorities contend that German intelligence entrapped the smugglers.

December 14, 1994
Prague police acting on an anonymous telephone call seize 2.72 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the back seat of a car. Police arrest 3 men: a man from the Czech Republic, one from Belarus, and one from the Ukraine. All three had backgrounds in the nuclear industry. The fissile material is believed to be from the same origin as those found in Germany.
---

I think if anything russia should tend to its own back yard before "worrying" about PAKISTAN.

 

[Creder]

its just Solomon being Solomon man, dont bother with this dude

 

[Solomon2]

People are worried about Pakistani fissile material...

No, this thread is about the threat posed by and to Pakistani personnel. Your comment is a diversion.

its just Solomon being Solomon man -

I didn't write the cable and I don't pretend to speak for the Russians. Your comment, an attempt to make the issue at hand me rather than the stated thread topic, is akin to shooting the messenger rather than reading the message.

 

[GentlemanObserver]

No, this thread is about the threat posed by and to Pakistani personnel. Your comment is a diversion.

Hardly...

Pakistani material missing?

Russian Material Missing... Do that maths...

Your post is scaremongering and nothing more. We have seen it and read it a thousand times... Pro Tip: HANDS OFF OUR NUKES!

KKthanksByeBye

 

[Solomon2]

Pro Tip: HANDS OFF OUR NUKES! KKthanksByeBye

So you don't care if someone kidnaps, kills, or subverts Pakistani nuclear scientists and technicians. Your position is clear. Thank you and goodbye!

 

[WAQAS119]

Article is implying as if all of 120,000 crew is having access to nuclear weapons and having all knowledge of ABC of nuclear weapons!
I can bet their would only be few having full knowledge of weapons and procedure of using it.

 

[WAQAS119]

So you don't care if someone kidnaps, kills, or subverts Pakistani nuclear scientists and technicians. Your position is clear. Thank you and goodbye!

It should be safeguarded, but do you know Saith Abid? What he did to American Nuclear Safety? Go google!

 

[Solomon2]

Article is implying as if all of 120,000 crew is having access to nuclear weapons and having all knowledge of ABC of nuclear weapons!

I don't read that into this cable. Why do you?

 

[WAQAS119]

I don't read that into this cable. Why do you?

ImplyingImplyingImplyingImplyingImplyingImplyingImplying


Now say it 100 times!

 

[Solomon2]

^^^
To "imply" is to suggest a truth not explicitly stated. But an implication must have a basis. For example, if you tell me you have a beard, that implies you are a man, not a woman, since only men can have beards.

But I can only figure that out because I know, from my own knowledge, that men have beards. So what do you know from your own knowledge that leads you to think that one can read the cable and conclude "all of 120,000 crew is having access to nuclear weapons and having all knowledge of ABC of nuclear weapons"?

 

[Aslan]

Man I just love this picture.

 

[WAQAS119]

^^^
To "imply" is to suggest a truth not explicitly stated.

Wrong! To "imply" is just to "imply something" not truth!

But an implication must have a basis. For example, if you tell me you have a beard, that implies you are a man, not a woman, since only men can have beards.

wrong example!!! think, I will not spoon feed you!

But I can only figure that out because I know, from my own knowledge, that men have beards.

Update your knowledge! Women can have too!

So what do you know from your own knowledge that leads you to think that one can read the cable and conclude "all of 120,000 crew is having access to nuclear weapons and having all knowledge of ABC of nuclear weapons"?

Propaganda!

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.

As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented.

Propaganda - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Enough spoon feeding for you! Now go figure!

 

[Solomon2]

Wrong! To "imply" is just to "imply something"

Meaningless

wrong example!!! think, I will not spoon feed you!

Your choice. But if you choose not to provide me with background information and context, why should anybody agree with you or take you seriously?

---

So what we are left with are 120,000 nuclear scientists and technicians who the Russians believe are vulnerable to criminal and terrorist organizations. The implication, as I read it, is not that the Russians question if the nuclear weapons Pakistan produces for itself are under threat but that the personnel involved can be kidnapped or subverted.