'Nuclear bomb may fall into terrorist's hands'

NEW YORK: Nuclear-armed Pakistan is teetering on the verge of chaos after the imposition of emergency and US officials fear that the result could be every American's nightmare, nuclear material or know-how, or even a nuclear bomb, falling into the hands of terrorists.

"If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard," Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council, was quoted as saying by Newsweek.

General Pervez Musharraf, who led a military coup in 1999, imposed a state of emergency in nuclear-armed Pakistan Saturday in response to what he said was a hostile judiciary and the growing menace of Al-Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants.

US Senator Joseph Biden has said General Musharraf's decision to declare a state of emergency and suspend the constitution underscores the need for the United States to move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy.

President George W Bush should make it clear to General Musharraf the risks to US-Pakistani relations if he does not restore the Constitution, permit free and fair elections and take off his uniform as promised. Then, we have to build a new relationship with the Pakistani people, he said.

The dilemma facing the 'democracy crusader' President Bush, Newsweek says, is that Washington is left not many friends to call in Pakistan, 'perhaps the number one generator of terrorism in the world', after propping up President Pervez Musharraf for six years.

"There is perhaps no place on earth that more powerfully validates Bush's idea that democracy can be a cure for terrorism than Pakistan. And there is perhaps no place on earth that so powerfully exposes his occasional hypocrisy in failing to push for that policy," the magazine says.