Pakistan's bombs a dilemma for U.S.

[varun]

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/washington/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1144392594202420.xml

WASHINGTON -- While the United States struggles to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions, a more frightening nightmare is simmering right now in Pakistan, where a weak but nuclear-armed government is being buffeted by radical Islamic influences, terrorism and several bloody insurgencies.

Among all the perils the United States faces, "Pakistan is the most horrific and the hardest one to do anything about," said Charles Furguson, a senior nuclear proliferation expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a naval officer on a nuclear missile submarine.

The United States does not have enough troops to speedily and simultaneously "lock down" all of Pakistan's nuclear weapons sites if that became necessary because of civil strife, an attempted coup or a terrorist attack, officials and outside analysts said.

The president's only option might be nuclear -- a desperate attempt to destroy Pakistan's weapons rather than risk their falling into terrorists' hands and ultimately detonating in an American city...