Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 24, 2002
WASHINGTON — A festering regional dispute could spark the world's first nuclear exchange and make the Sept. 11 terrorism toll look minuscule by comparison.

Experts say half a million to 50 million people could die if the conflict between Pakistan and India over the disputed province of Kashmir escalates to the use of nuclear weapons. The livelihoods of more than 1 billion people could be ruined, with global economic consequences.

In the USA, the health impact would be minimal, akin to the increased risk of cancer associated with nuclear tests conducted in the 1950s and '60s, experts say.

But the geopolitical repercussions would be devastating to the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Even a conventional war would divert Pakistan from helping track down remaining leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan is crucial in preventing al-Qaeda from regrouping in remote areas.

"When President Bush began his war on terrorism, he thought he could take the threats one at a time — al-Qaeda and then Iraq," says Joseph Circincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Well, it looks like this problem is forcing its way onto the U.S. agenda," as the Mideast has done.

Despite phone calls and visits to the region by senior U.S. and British diplomats, some experts say the Bush administration isn't doing enough to calm the crisis.

The South Asian neighbors, born in bloodshed when Britain gave independence to the Indian subcontinent in 1947, have fought three wars. They are closer to a fourth war than at any time since 1999, analysts say. The conflict is religiously based. India, predominantly Hindu, controls two-thirds of largely Muslim Kashmir.

In 1999, Pakistan began preparing nuclear weapons for possible deployment, according to Bruce Riedel, President Clinton's top South Asia adviser. Pakistan sent troops beyond an informal armistice line in Kashmir, then withdrew after Clinton delivered an ultimatum to then-Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif was overthrown later that year by his military chief, Pervez Musharraf.

The region has reached the boiling point again because of a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, the massacre of Indian Muslims by Hindus in the Indian state of Gujarat and, last week, the murder of families of Indian soldiers in Kashmir by Muslim militants.

Michael Krepon, a South Asia expert at the Stimson Center, says he doubts Pakistan ordered the latest attack but that the Musharraf government continues to support training camps for militants in the Pakistani sector of Kashmir.

Given India's much larger population and conventional forces, experts fear that Pakistan might resort to a nuclear attack if war erupted. "I would assume by now that Pakistan is starting to disperse its nuclear weapons to secret locations," says David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security. He fears Pakistan might unleash one or two nukes as a "warning shot" or that a Pakistani commander might panic and carry out an unauthorized launch.

Pakistani Brig. Gen. Feroz Khan, a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, says Indian commanders also might overstep. "In the event of war, there could be a serious breakdown of communications on both sides," he says.

Both countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998. Pakistan is estimated to have 30-50 nuclear bombs; India 50-100. Most are in the 5-25 kiloton range, on the order of the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, which killed 100,000 people.

That bomb exploded in the air. "If the Indians or Pakistanis exploded weapons at ground level in cities, millions could die and fallout would be lethal out to 10 or 20 miles," Albright says.

Contributing: Bill Nichols
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/05/24/kashmir-nuclear.htm