Posted on 05/27/2002 4:46:00 PM PDT by sarcasm
A full-scale nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan could kill up to 12 million people instantly and injure 7 million, United States intelligence reports estimate as tension over Kashmir intensifies.
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The report came as Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said today he would not start a war with India but promised to maintain support for the "freedom struggle" in disputed Kashmir.
Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism, has come under increasing international pressure during the most recent escalation of tensions with India that has sparked a massive military buildup, with a million troops arrayed on both sides of the "line of control" frontier in Kashmir.
Worried about the prospect of all-out war between the nuclear-powered neighbours, US President George W Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders have urged the two countries to pull back from the brink and told Musharraf he should do more to prevent cross-border incursions into Indian territory for terrorism.
Dressed in his khaki military uniform, Musharraf said in a nationally televised prime-time address that Pakistan has taken "bold steps," referring to a January 12 speech in which he banned five Islamic militant groups.
Pakistan has denied Indian charges that it supports the Islamic extremists with money and arms, but says it does give the "moral" support for Kashmir's independence efforts, which Musharraf said will never change.
"Unfortunately we have not seen any positive response from the Indian side. I urge the world community to ask India to move toward normalisation of relations," he said, interrupting his Urdu-language speech with a section in English that clearly was directed at the international community.
Musharraf said Pakistan will not initiate war, "but if war is thrust upon us, every Muslim is bound to respond in kind" and would "fight to the last drop of blood."
He said that the same people who carried out two major terrorist attacks in India conducted similar assaults in Pakistan - attacking a church that was frequented by foreigners and a bus carrying French engineers helping the Pakistan navy build a submarine.
"Whoever is involved in this kind of activity is also interested in destabilising Pakistan," Musharraf said. The attacks are being carried out by people who "want to raise tensions as much as possible."
Pakistan for the third day continued testing missiles in a show of strength amid mounting international fears that the bitter enemies were now engaged in more than bluff and counter-bluff.
One military analyst warned that radioactive fallout in the Himalayas would mean the "death of the subcontinent".
The Pentagon's assessment of casualties found that even a "more limited" nuclear war would overwhelm hospitals across Asia and require vast foreign assistance to battle radioactive contamination, famine and disease.
US estimates of the number and types of warheads held by the two countries remain classified, but Pentagon and Administration officials believe Pakistan has "a couple of dozen" warheads and India "several dozen".
Pakistan's nuclear warheads are comparable to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and can be dropped from aircraft or launched in missiles.
India's warheads vary in explosive power depending on whether they are intended for delivery by aircraft or missile, a Pentagon official said.
Pakistan meanwhile tested a missile with a range of 280 kilometres. Officials said it was designed for striking Indian troops on the border. On Saturday, it tested a missile with a range of more than 1440 kilometres.
International military analysts are now openly discussing scenarios in which the guerilla war in Kashmir might flare into nuclear war.
Zia Mian, a Pakistani physicist at Princeton University, said the two countries were racing to expand their nuclear arsenals.
"The Pakistani uranium enrichment facilities, as far as we know, are working three shifts around the clock," he said.
Brian Cloughley, a south Asia military analyst and retired Australian army officer, said: "The trouble is that both sides imagine that a nuclear bomb just makes a bigger bang.
"They have got no concept of the sheer magnitude of the disaster of a nuclear exchange. Radioactive fallout in the Himalayas would mean the death of the subcontinent."
US officials who revealed the Pentagon report said they wanted to counter any false perception that India and Pakistan - which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 - were simply going through a well-rehearsed dance of threat and counter-threat.
"We just don't know where the `red lines' are any more," one Administration official said, adding that President George Bush and his advisers were not confident that the Indians and Pakistanis did, either.
After the two rivals held tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, it appeared there was at last a balance between them. But it quickly became apparent that this was not the nuclear deterrence of the cold war.
Unlike the agreements which tempered the hostility between the Soviet Union and the US, the only measure in place on the subcontinent is an agreement not to attack each other's nuclear installations.
Few believe this undertaking would hold in the event of war. And with limited real-time intelligence, the chance of unleashing a nuclear attack by mistake is considerable.
While India has committed itself to a "no first-use" policy, Pakistan's generals are prepared to use the nuclear option in a war, analysts here say.
However, some analysts say Pakistan's missile tests may be designed to make Mr Musharraf look tough at home while he works to deliver on his January 12 promise to crack down on Islamic militants. He has been under heavy international pressure to rein in the militants.
In addition to their nuclear arsenals, both countries have massed nearly a million men on the border since a December attack on India's parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants.
Tensions soared again after an attack by Islamic militants on an Indian army base in Kashmir on May 14.
Put the water into a tank, let the sediment settle; skim the water off the top down to the last 1/4 of the tank.
No contamination.
Irrigation could complicate things, true, but radioactive water decontamination is actually pretty easy compared to say strontium or iodine-131 removal.
One complication in using the irrigated water could be to concentrate long half-life fallout into crops. Depending on the elements involved it can get pretty nasty. Fallout in the riverbeds shouldn't actually be much of a problem as the water would be shielding the environment from alpha and beta decay. Of course if the riverbed is disturbed that's another issue to think about.
Irradiated water would probably be the cleanest drinking water these fools have ever had! No fluorine needed, either!
Oops. Not quite. The fission bombs of 1945 were gigantic and it took a B-29 to carry one. Pak has no missiles capable of delivering such a load.
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