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MONDAY DECEMBER 31 2001
We will win nuclear war, says India
BY RICHARD BEESTON, DIPLOMATIC EDITOR AND ZAHID
HUSSAIN IN ISLAMABAD
The Times, London.
INDIA boasted yesterday that it would survive a
first strike by a
Pakistani atomic weapon, but that its neighbour
would be wiped
out in a swift nuclear counter-attack.
As troop reinforcements continued to pour into the
frontier zone,
and tens of thousands of people fled border
villages, the spectre of
all-out war between two nuclear powers prompted
America and
Britain to intervene directly.
President Bush spoke by telephone to India's Prime
Minister, Atal
Behari Vajpayee, and to President Musharraf of
Pakistan, urging
them to show restraint. He also discussed the
crisis with Tony
Blair. The Prime Minister, who issued his own
appeal yesterday
for both countries to back down, has agreed to launch a
diplomatic peace mission when he visits the region
early in the new
year.
A serious intervention from the outside world could
not come too
soon. India is determined to avenge the attack by
Islamic militants
on the Delhi parliament that killed 14 people,
including five
assailants, on December 13. Unless Pakistan arrests
and hands
over those responsible, India seems determined to
act unilaterally.
Pakistan says that it has held at least 50
militants and frozen assets
and last night Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of
the group
blamed for the attack was arrested for "making
inflammatory
speeches to incite people to violate law and
order". But India says
that is not enough and wants the suspects handed over.
Both countries insisted that they wanted to avoid
war. But on the
ground they both ordered the biggest military
build-up for 15 years
in what looked like a prelude to the fourth
Indo-Pakistani war
since independence in 1947.
Mr Vajpayee won the backing of opposition parties
yesterday to
take whatever action was needed. On the other side
of the border
Adbul Sattar, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, said
that his anxieties
were "mounting, not only by the day but by the hour".
Part of Pakistan's concern is the increasingly
bellicose message
from Delhi, whose conventional and nuclear forces
are roughly
double those of Pakistan. In an interview published
yesterday
George Fernandes, the Indian Defence Minister, said
that his
military, from the top down, was eager to fight and
that thousands
of Indian reinforcements would be in place by the
middle of this
week.
Speaking after a visit to frontline positions in
Kashmir, he told the
Hindustan Times: "Everyone is raring to go. In
fact, something
that actually bothers them is that things might now
reach a point
where one says there is no war."
Of greater concern were his remarks about the
possible use of
nuclear weapons. He warned Pakistan not to consider
the use of a
first strike, which he said would be tantamout to
national suicide.
"We could take a strike, survive and then hit
back," he said.
"Pakistan would be finished. I do not really fear
that the nuclear
issue would figure in a conflict."
However, military experts point out that in the
event of a
conventional war, Indian forces would heavily
outnumber the
Pakistanis and could score swift victories. In that
case Pakistan's
weapon of last resort would be its atomic bomb.
Certainly General Musharraf suggested yesterday,
after meeting
most of the country's political leaders, that he
would not walk
away from a fight with his bigger neighbour.
"I stand here addressing the people of India . . .
that Pakistan
stands for peace. Pakistan wants to reduce tensions
. . . Pakistan
wants to de-escalate," he said. "However, Pakistan
has taken all
counter-measures. If any war is thrust on Pakistan,
Pakistan's
Armed Forces and the 140 million people of Pakistan
are fully
prepared to face all consequences with all their
might."
The West is caught in the middle. It needs
Islamabad's help to
hunt down Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda
leadership, many
of whom may already be hiding in Pakistan. Pulling
Pakistani
troops away from the Afghan border to fight India
could seriously
hamper that effort.
At the same time, the West sympathises with India's
battle against
terrorism and militant Islamic groups in Kashmir
which have in the
past kidnapped and killed Western hostages.
But above all Washington and London want the
stand-off resolved
peacefully.
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