Nuclear hazards

Even Obama, who seems to have all the answers to Pakistan’s nuclear programme, has indicated that he does not know what became of a secret $100m grant that the Bush administration gave Pakistan to secure its nuclear stockpile. - Photo by Reuters.

For those in Pakistan who have questions about nuclear security, this past week they should have finally learned to stop worrying and to love the bomb instead. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani assured US President Barack Obama that “appropriate safeguards” were in place to protect the country’s arsenal.

Pakistan declared itself competent in matters of nuclear security, and even offered to share its hard-earned wisdom on how to prevent the trafficking of nuclear materials with the world.

In response, Britain declared itself satisfied with Pakistan’s measures to secure its nuclear weapons. China trumpeted the cause of enhanced nuclear security as the way forward in a world where all countries had the right to use nuclear energy peacefully. And a personage no less than the US president himself assured the world that Pakistan had strengthened port security and taken other measures to prevent future proliferation.

A strategically timed report, titled Securing the Bomb 2010, by Harvard University’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, offered the only note of dissent. The report states that Pakistan’s stockpile faces a “great threat” from Islamic extremists seeking nuclear weapons and that “there is a very real possibility that sympathetic insiders might carry out or assist in a nuclear theft, or that a sophisticated outsider attack (possibly with insider help) could overwhelm the defences”.

And so the debate about the security of Pakistan’s arsenal continues. But one voice is conspicuously absent from the discussion — that of the average Pakistani citizen. The fact is the conversation about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear programme has always been between our establishment and that of the United States (and, on occasion, the International Atomic Energy Agency or members of the international community). Despite the fact that Pakistanis themselves are in closest proximity to the country’s nuclear activities, the government and military have not deemed it necessary to engage the public with assurances of safety and security.

Pakistan’s nuclear security debate has always proceeded at international forums. In November 2007, when IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei warned that the country’s arsenal was at risk, Pakistani security officials held a special briefing for western, rather than local, journalists. The first indication that Pakistan had taken any measures to safeguard its weapons came in February 2008, when Ashley Tellis, an associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia that Pakistan’s “strategic assets … are fundamentally safe”. And now we have further assurances in the form of the nuclear policy report that Pakistan presented at the summit in Washington.

The problem with this discussion proceeding at international venues is that the concerns of the global community and those of the Pakistani public do not align. The world is worried about Pakistan’s arsenal or fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists who would attack western targets. Lingering concerns about nuclear proliferation also remain.
No doubt, Pakistanis too should be concerned about these scenarios. But we should also be worried about radiation leaks, nuclear waste dumping, the long-term environmental hazards emanating from storage and waste sites, the socio-economic impact of financing our nuclear programme, and the political and ideological biases of those running the show at the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which oversees nuclear operations.

Take, for example, the issue of transporting nuclear waste to dumping sites. Pakistan continues to produce fissile material and is adding to its production facilities in the form of a second nuclear reactor, built to produce weapons-grade plutonium, and a third reactor that is still under construction. This increased production will inevitably produce waste, which has to be transported in special container casks designed for spent fuel from nuclear reactors and power plants.

These containers can be transported on trucks or by rail. A severe accident — the collapse of a bridge, a train derailment — could result in the breach of a nuclear cask and the spillage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Exposure to such a spill could kill dozens of people in the vicinity and lead to more cancer deaths in the future.

Pakistanis are currently unaware of the location of most nuclear waste sites, and certainly do not know the routes utilised to transport nuclear waste across the country. They have no assurances that the concerned authorities are using the appropriate casks of steel and lead, which should be a minimum of five inches thick, during transport. Nor can they be sure that the nuclear material being transported is embedded, as per international regulations, in a clay-like material that is penetrable only by fire.

Finally, they do not know if the government and military have the funds available to clean up a radiation leak in the event of a spent nuclear fuel accident (the US Energy Department has estimated the cost of tackling a radioactive leak to be between $300,000 and $10bn, depending on the location, weather conditions, and other variables).

This is a concern that should be among others playing on the minds of Pakistanis when they hear their leadership’s ambitious nuclear aspirations. Now that Pakistan has offered advanced nuclear fuel cycle services to the world, civil society should start asking tough questions of the SPD about measures taken to ensure nuclear safety within Pakistan, beyond the gambit of terrorism.

Our civilian government should also prepare to answer questions on how — in a time of fiscal crisis, when food inflation and loadshedding are crippling our economy and driving poor Pakistanis to suicide — we are paying for our nuclear programme. Even Obama, who seems to have all the answers to Pakistan’s nuclear programme, has indicated that he does not know what became of a secret $100m grant that the Bush administration gave Pakistan to secure its nuclear stockpile.

If the establishment yearns for nuclear legitimacy, it must have regard for transparency and accountability — certainly, to the international community, but above all, to Pakistanis who have long supported a nuclear Pakistan.