Documents: Israel has mulled hit on Pakistani nuke facility

Israel has considered attacking nuclear installations in Pakistan, newly declassified U.S. State Department documents suggest.

According to these documents, the possibility of an Israel attack on the nuclear facilities in Pakistan came up in 1979, during Jimmy Carter's term as U.S. president. The documents also make clear that the U.S. government did not hold special discussions to address Israel's "preventive strike" plans.

The documents are being released by the National Security Archive, an independent non-governmental research institute based in Washington that specializes in disclosing unclassified documents under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

The Israeli plan came up in a meeting held on September 14, 1979, by a disarmament consultation committee, a panel created in the 1960s by the executive branch, but which has ceased to function. Meeting participants related to "urgent" nuclear matters. The Carter administration was particularly worried about reports indicating that Pakistan was making efforts to attain nuclear weapons and attain parity with India.

During the meeting, committee deputy director Charles Van Doren aired concerns that China was helping Pakistan attain nuclear capability. China's policy, Van Doren argued, evinced double standards: On the one hand, the Chinese claimed they were not helping their neighbor; on the other hand, they were urging the Americans to help Pakistan cope with the "Soviet threat," this being a code word for India's ties with the Soviet Union.

William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, told Haaretz that a large portion of the documents, including ones that allude to the possibility of an Israeli attack on Pakistan, underwent heavy censorship before they were declassified. Therefore, he said, it is impossible to attain additional details about the episode and to measure the seriousness of Israel's plan to attack the Pakistani arms facilities. The targets of the proposed attack, as well as the way the operation was planned, remain unclear.

Burr said that the National Security Archive has appealed the decision to censor these materials, and expressed hope that some of the still classified documents will be released in the future.

According to reports, Israel and India collaborated in the 1970s, and intelligence and military officials from the two countries considered secret plans for a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan to prevent it from attaining nuclear arms.