PAKISTAN S CHOICE: AID OR A BOMB

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87R00029R000200340055-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: October 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

proved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP87R00029R00020034005
UNCLASSLIO
THE DIRECTOR OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
OSWR
NIC/AG
Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment
6 October 1981
Re your question this A.M. concerning
Congressional action to clear legal under-
brush in order that hearin2sl
I can
proceed: As yet, no formal waivers have
come to a Senate vote on a) Sec 669 (Symington
Amendment) of the Foreign Assistance Act
that prohibits military assistance to coun-
tries engaged in building an enrichment
capacity; and b) Sec 670 (Glenn Amendment)
prohibiting such assistance to countries
building reprocessing capabilities.
 Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-R DP87R00029R000200340055-1,
PART II -- MAIN EDITION -- 2 OCTER 1981
X: It N
1 October 1981 (2)
Fo ears, concern has been growing among
defense nners over how much of the land-based
U.S. interco ental missile force could survive a
Soviet attack. Russian ICBM arsenal is more
than ample to targ ach one of the 1,052 missiles
the United States has 'hardened silos. More to
the point, the accuracy bf,~oviet missiles has
improved greatly, adding to the vulnerability of
American ICBMs. The problem ac`ng successive
Presidents has been how to improve
d in so
M
bility of these intercontinental missiles,'
doing lessen the possible temptation,to the
Union to try to destroy them all at once.
The latfd-based MX missile has been offer
one answer. Though the MX could be b
silos, it could also be mobile. This ability
the missile around from launch site to
would greatly increase the poten
targets the Soviets would have to
to wipe out the land-based U
4,600 MX shelters in the
Utah, and 200 MX
shuttled among th
viet
d in
unch site
number of
t if they hoped
strategic deter-
n proposed building
eserts of Nevada and
es that could be secretly
would then be to fg'ure out which shelters held the
theorized, w
MX missil
But
plan The
imrtiense
against their doing that, it was
d assure the survivability of many
erful opposition developed to the Carter
MX/system as envisaged would cover
ert territories, and its construction
tenance could lead to major social and
nmental problems in the states affected.
NEW YORK TIMES 2 October
.rakisttan's Cwhoiceoc.
In one vital respect, Pakistan is a deserving cus-
tomer in the Reagan Administration's thriving arms
bazaar. Its security is plainly threatened by the
Soviet thrust into Afghanistan. More than two mil-
lion Afghans have fled into its territory and Soviet
MIG's recently pursued them over the frontier, straf-
ing a Pakistani border post.
So why not shore it up with a $3.2 billion arms
deal, including 40 high-performance F-16's? One
problem is that arms alone won't assure the security
of Pakistan or the repressive and apparently unpopu-
lar Zia regime. Moreover, Pakistan has another hos-
tile neighbor, India, which relies on Soviet arms to
preserve superiority. And their enmity has been fur-
0
r
Th
0
the the MX issue, has
President Reagan, who inhe
apparently come to a dec
ical opposition into ac
ready to announce
system, but one
siles to be dep
a smaller sy,
cal probl
But
on that takes this polit-
unt. Reagan is said to be
week a go-ahead on an MX
at would involve only 100 mis-
yed among 1,000 shelters. In short,
em, at less cost and with fewer politi-
effective system? Almost certainly not.
is likely, rather, is a system whose obsoles-
ce would be assured from the start.
This is the conclusion of the Office of Technolo-
gy Assessment, which provides technical analysis
to Congress. What the office found was that "if the
Soviets continue to expand their ICBM forces at
e rate as they did in the 1970s," then the
Uni es would have to have 360 MX missiles
hidden 250 shelters by 1990 to assure the sur-
vival of 1 MX missiles in an attack. By 1995,
there would h v to be 550 missiles in 12,500 shel-
ters. In other words, the Russians, if they wanted
to, could target eac\hr~ew shelter as it came along.
The United States wool spend vast sums of mon-
ey and tear up a lot of de land, only in the end
to find it had made no ,:d
trafe 'c`gain.
There are not now and never have been any
easy answers to the question of how to deploy the
MX or what to use in its place. Butan absence of
easy answers is no reason to choose a bad answer,
and the land-based MX system Reagan i~,said to
have chosen is a bad answer. The MX issue needs
more thought. There has to be a better way tondo
what defense planners say must be done.
i or a
in
omb
then complicated by General Zia's obvious desire to
follow India into the nuclear club.
Even with the American aid at risk, he refuses to
renounce that ambition. The State Department's
arms salesman, James Buckley, reports that Paki-
stan will go no further than "understanding" that a
test explosion would write finis to the five-year deal
with the United States. Congress, at the least, ought
to write this understanding into Pakistan's $100 mil-
lion economic aid appropriation.
The Senate has too quicklywaived a law that
was theanfto bltrck air! to nations that won't sign a
PAKISTAN'S CHOICE. ..Pg.2-E
 Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP87R00029R000200340055-1
I
I;ART II -- MAIN EDITION -- 2 OCTOBER 1981
SAN DIEGO UNION 24 September 1981
oalvaumin.
Secretary of State Alexander
Haig is putting on a brave face,
but he surely knows that a Senate
controlled by President Reagan's
own party is perilously close to
vetoing the administration's pro-
posed sale of AWACS radar
planes to Saudi Arabia.
A defeat of that magnitude on a
major foreign policy issue would
do more than simply embarrass
the president. It would diminish
his credibility in the world at a
time when it is especially import-
ant for the president of the Unit-
ed States to be seen as a leader
who can deliver on his commit-
ments.
Credibility is the coin of the
realm in international diploma-
cy, no less so than in domestic
politics. Mr. Reagan can hardly
stare down the Russians, advance
the Middle East peace process,
and surmount all the other chal-
lenges to American interests
around the world if he cannot de-
liver the support of a Republican-
controlled Senate.
We don't mean to overstate the
consequences of a Senate veto of
the Saudi arms deal. Most of the
Reagan administration's foreign
policy initiatives enjoy ample, if
not always overwhelming, con-
gressional support. Still, an
AWACS defeat would undeniably
weaken the American hand in the
2 October)
Middle East. That much is cer-
tain.
Accordingly, both the president
and his Senate opponents share a
vested interest in exploring the
prospects for an AWACS compro-
mise that would avoid tarnishing
Mr. Reagan's international
credentials even as it softened
the objections of those who op-
pose the sale.
Such a compromise, while diffi-
cult, is far from impossible. The
Pentagon has already hinted that
AWACS delivered to Saudi Are
bia would lack certain features
and capabilities most alarming
to Israel and . its supporters on
Capitol Hill.
Additional safeguards expand-
ing the role of American military
personnel in operating the five
Saudi AWACS aircraft might also
be negotiated with the Senate,
and with the Saudis.
The key to successful negotia-
tions along these lines would be
absolute discretion and a cooper-
ative approach by the adminis-
tration, Senate opponents, and
the Saudis themselves.
The Saudis aren't likely to
abide any overt diminution 'of
.their sovereignty, nor can, they
reasonably be expected to do so.
They just might, however, be
amenable to private understand-
ings that could ease Israeli, and
PAKISTAN'S CHOICE...Continued
nuclear pledge-. If the foreign aid bill is permitted to
coins `3o -ate, the House can still qualify that
waiver and .avoid any misunderstanding. Pakistan
will have to choose between usable weapons and a
costly nuclear badge.
0
The larger lesson in all this, once again, is that
weapons cannot be a substitute for wise diplomacy.
As the Administration privately concedes, Paki-
stan's security would have been served, and at lesser
risk to the region, by F-5G interceptors instead of the
Senate, fears over the potential
use of AWACS planes against Is-
rael.
They might be even more ame-
nable if these discreet restric-
tions were proposed as the essen-
tial price of salvaging the
AWACS package from defeat in
the Senate.
We continue to believe that the,.
sale of AWACS aircraft together'
with the other components of an
$8.5 billion package intended to
provide Saudi Arabia a modern
air defense system would serve
vital American interests in the
Persian Gulf-Middle East region.
Those interests are not only
military and economic, but politi-
cal as well. The prospects for an
eventual Middle East settlement
won't be enhanced if pro-Western
Arab states including Saudi Ara-
bia find Washington an unreliable
friend.
So long as there is any signifi-
cant hope of winning the mini-
mum Senate support for " the
AWACS package as currently
proposed; the administration
ought to continue its lobbying ef-
fort.
But if those efforts fall short,
the White House, the Senate, and
the Saudis would do well to rec-
ognize that an amended AWACS
deal is far better than none at all.
F-18. But, as with the Awacs aircraft rashly prom-
ised to Saudi Arabia, a penny of symbolism now out-
weighs a pound of sense. Having obtained Saudi fi-
nancing, the Pakistanis insist on buying-the best.
India has certainly contributed to this increasing
competition with its nuclear explosion and billion-
dollar deals with the Soviet Union and France. The
real challenge for American diplomacy will be to
hold open the chance that both India and Pakistan
can be made to recognize their interest in reducing
the costly hostility between them.
Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP87R00029R000200340055-1