Everyone and their neighbour seems to be linking to Shaun Gregory’s article in the CTC Sentinel about nuclear security in Pakistan, so let me pitch in. First, here’s the passage that’s giving us the creeps:
A series of attacks on nuclear weapons facilities has also occurred. These have included an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly sites.
Notice those teeny-tiny numbers dotting Gregory’s prose? They’re called footnotes. If you look at the equivalent numbers at the bottom of the page, you will notice that, in fact, it’s not the writer himself who has come up with this information but… whoa, some other dude called Bill Roggio. Here’s what Roggio writes (no doubt referencing the Pakistani media although not crediting them):
Two days after an al Qaeda suicide bomber killed eight in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, a suicide bomber drove his motorcycle into a bus at an air base in Sargodha in the province of Punjab.
Okay, so we have a guy blowing up an airforce bus. Is that an “attack on a nuclear weapons facility”? Not sure? Let’s look up the other Roggio piece Gregory is paraphrasing. Titled “Al Qaeda, Taliban targeting Pakistani nuclear sites”, the article opens with a bang:
After a closer look at the bases struck inside Pakistan since August, at least two more strikes occurred either on or near nuclear weapons storage facilities, based on open source information on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programs. Since August 2007, there have been two suicide attacks at or near the Sargodha Air Force Base, a nuclear weapons and missile storage facility in central Punjab province. Other attacks in Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province may be aimed at facilities providing regional security for Pakistan’s nuclear program.
Jeez… but wait. What kind of attacks, exactly? Let’s follow Roggio’s links… Oops — they just lead to more Roggio stuff.
In the end, all we have is a list of military facilities “at or near which” some sort of terrorist attacks have occurred and that are somehow, maybe, kinda, linked to Pakistan’s nuclear program.
Even if we forget the fact that almost every military base in Pakistan can be said to be part of the country’s nuke complex, and that military bases are traditional terrorist targets whether they have some secret mission or not, this all sounds a little tenuous, wouldn’t you say? Not according to Gregory, who sums up with a gasp: “The significance of these events is difficult to overstate.”
Jari – Good catch. Lesson learned for going to the original source material. Even with the confusion about the sites being weapons storage facilities, it didn’t sound like the attacks were serious attempts to steal anything anyway – nuclear or otherwise. I would say it’s easy to overstate these events.
Good breakdown of the article, I saw a story about it in the NYT last evening but didn’t have the time to hunt down the original source material for further reading.
Linked to it myself yesterday, ashamed to say.
Bill Roggio is a shady character.
He’s not just some Italian guy from southern New Jersey.
He is basically a U.S. Defense Department mouthpiece.
His job is to counter the claims of the Pakistani government (especially the military) as well as the CIA.
His information is mainly from Pakistani English language newspapers, but the spin is provided by the Defense Department’s public affairs office as well as their Afghanistan and/or Pakistan teams.
So when you see Roggio quoted as an independent expert, please know that he’s not. He’s basically a tool of the Def Dept.
Previously, he was embedded with them in Iraq. Now he’s basically embedded with them, while sitting on his arse in Jersey.
I can’t believe newspapers quote him without looking into his background.
By the way, if you post any criticism of him on his blog, he will delete it and ban you from the site.
I don’t know about shady, but given his tendency to sensationalise and not credit his sources, I find it curious that he gets so widely quoted as a legitimate news source.
Part of it is because he claims exclusivity… which, when you uncritically repeat whatever your IC friends say, is technically true.
But this is a man who argued — in an exclusive! — that you can identify al Qaeda types by their haircuts and short pant legs. Because a “source” said so, and the DOD is renown for being right about everything.