Islamabad, Pakistan
Pakistan shrugged off the disclosure this week that it was building a new reactor to make enough plutonium to fuel 50 bombs a year. The U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security released a report analyzing satellite pictures of the reactor construction. “South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons,” the report said, “or at minimum, vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material.” The report merely says “that Pakistan has a nuclear weapons program and a nuclear facility,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam. “This ought to be no revelation to anyone, because Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state.” The Bush administration said it is trying to persuade Pakistan not to use the plutonium for weapons.
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