Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is estimated at more than 100: WP

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

Pakistan has overtaken India in the atomic field, with more than 100 deployed nuclear weapons, a doubling of its stockpile over the past several years, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing US non-government analysts.
In a front page dispatch, the newspaper said that only four years ago, the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was estimated at 30 to 60 weapons.
The report, citing experts, added, "The Pakistanis have significantly accelerated production of uranium and plutonium for bombs and developed new weapons to deliver them. After years of approximate weapons parity ... Pakistan has now edged ahead of India, its nuclear-armed rival."
But Brig. Nazir Butt, defence attache at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, neither confirmed nor denied the Post dispatch, saying the number of Pakistan's weapons and the status of its production facilities were confidential.
"Pakistan lives in a tough neighborhood and will never be oblivious to its security needs," Brig. Butt was quoted as saying by the Post. "As a nuclear power, we are very confident of our deterrent capabilities."“
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, was quoted as saying, "They (the Pakistanis) have been expanding pretty rapidly.”
Based on recently accelerated production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, Pakistan may now have an arsenal of up to 110 weapons, Albright said. India is estimated to have 60 to 100 weapons.
"It's hard to say how much the U.S. knows," Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of the annual global nuclear weapons inventory published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, was quoted as saying. "Probably a fair amount. But it's a mixed bag - Pakistan is an ally, and they can't undercut it with a statement of concern in public."
But, according to the Post, the administration's determination to bring the fissile materials ban to completion this year may compel it to confront more directly the issue of proliferation in South Asia.
"In politically fragile Pakistan, the administration is caught between fears of proliferation or possible terrorist attempts to seize nuclear materials and Pakistani suspicions that the United States aims to control or limit its weapons program and favours India," the newspaper said.