PAKISTAN DESCENDS - AT 10:21 P.M. ET:  We've said in this space that Pakistan may turn out to be the biggest story of the year.  Today's well-reported piece in The New York Times only reinforces that belief:

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

“Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing, clearly cognizant of Pakistan’s sensitivity to any discussion about the country’s nuclear strategy or security.

And...

Bruce Riedel, the Brookings Institution scholar who served as the co-author of Mr. Obama’s review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, reflected the administration’s concern in a recent interview, saying that Pakistan “has more terrorists per square mile than anyplace else on earth, and it has a nuclear weapons program that is growing faster than anyplace else on earth.”

COMMENT:  This is why it's wise to downplay all those false assurances we're given that Pakistan's nukes are "safe."  We don't even know how many there are, and how many are in the pipeline.  We may even be paying to manufacture them.  Pakistan's accounting system makes Hollywood's look honest.

May 17, 2009