Washington: With the Pakistani Army so
penetrated by extremist elements, its nuclear asset of about
100 weapons is not safe, a leading Republican presidential
candidate has said.
"My guess is Pakistan has well over 100 nuclear weapons.
And that the Pakistani military is so penetrated by extremist
elements you have no idea if one morning they're going to lose
three or four of them," Newt Gingrich, who is now leading
among all Republican candidates according to latest polls,
told the CNN in an interview.
When asked why he thinks that the Pakistani military is
not capable of protecting that nuclear arsenal, the former
Speaker of the US House of Representatives said, "well, the
Pakistani military was capable of protecting bin Laden for six
years".
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked if he believed that
Pakistan knew about the presence of Osama bin Laden, who lived
in a safe house in Abbottabad before being killed by US
Special Forces, Gingrich said, "It's inconceivable that he
(bin Laden) could have been in -- that was a national military
city.
"Their major military university is one mile from his
compound. Now, do I think bin Laden was sitting a mile away
from national military university and nobody noticed it in
their intelligence service? It's inconceivable," Gingrich
argued.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, December 08, 2011, 09:25