New
Delhi, March 20 (IslamOnline): "Chances of a war between India
and Pakistan are highest since 1971," said CIA Director George
Tenet on Monday. He warned that a conventional war would escalate
into a nuclear confrontation.
"The chance of war between these two nuclear-armed states is
higher than at any point since 1971," Tenet said while
testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee with Defence
Intelligence Agency Director Admiral Thomas Wilson.
"If
India were to conduct large-scale offensive operations into PoK
(Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), Pakistan might retaliate with strikes
of its own in the belief that its nuclear deterrent would limit the
scope of an Indian counter-attack," he said as reported by the
official Indian news agency, PTI.
Tenet
expressed concern that India and Pakistan may not have completed
testing of their nuclear weapons and that they may deploy their most
advanced systems without additional testing.
Currently
close to a million soldiers are standing on over 1500 km-long
borders between the two countries in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation
in which even a small incident could spark a large scale war.
One
such incident took place on February 19, 2002, when the plane of the
Indian force western command chief strayed into the Pakistani
airspace and was attacked by a missile which hit the aircraft.
India
and Pakistan have already been involved in three wars since
partition in 1947.
