WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) After the revelations about Pakistan's role in the nuclear black market, Islamabad is seen as primarily responsible for ending the arms trade but the United States is not pushing it to have its facilities inspected and cooperation is limited, US officials and experts say.
While most experts agree Washington should not press president Pervez Musharraf, target of two assassination attempts, so hard that he may be ousted, some are concerned that the Bush administration is not demanding enough action from the Pakistani leader to combat the nuclear threat.
" We do have interests in not putting the kind of pressure on Musharraf that would compromise his domestic position, but the leakage of nuclear material is transcendent," said Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy.
The real danger is not just the scandal of disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan confessing to selling nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
More ominous is the possibility that nuclear material may fall into the hands of terrorist groups.
In what some analysts call a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" approach, the administration has given Musharraf "a pass" by accepting his insistence that he and his government were not involved in Khan's network.
In the 1980s, Washington adopted a similar stance, ignoring Pakistan's nuclear weapons program because it needed Islamabad as an ally against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
US officials consider Musharraf critical ally in the war on terrorism and the best leader for Pakistan at this time.
But Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute finds a contradiction in Pakistan claiming it has control of its nuclear arsenal while denying it knew about Khan.
" Those two statements don't jibe.
One must be untrue," she said.
After the recent disclosures, Pakistan at a minimum must give the United States direct access to Khan, so it can unravel the nuclear network, and satisfy Washington that its nuclear weapons and technology are secure, she said.
According to several US officials, however, Washington may not yet have direct access to Khan.
"I don't think we've gotten the full story from Khan yet from Pakistan," one senior US official told Reuters.
"We had some discussions with the Pakistanis but basically we've asked them for a more thorough (briefing).
As Pakistan proceeds with its own investigation, we expect them to share.
They've shared some with the IAEA (UN nuclear watchdog) and we'll look for them to share more," he said.
Pakistan is proud of its nuclear arms, which were tested in 1998.
Because of the political damage it could do to Musharraf, US officials might not acknowledge if they had interrogated Khan.
The CIA declined to comment.
With 48 deployed nuclear weapons and fuel for 52 more, Pakistan should install, under supervision of US scientists, new protective measures at its nuclear laboratories permit regular inspection of these labs by UN experts and radically strengthen export controls, Harrison said.
But another senior US official said: " This is not a country which has agreed to give US access to their nuclear weapons facilities" and it would be unrealistic to ask.
" We don't have a lever," he insisted.
US officials have acknowledged general discussions with Pakistan on nuclear safety but have not provided details.
US laws limit cooperation with Pakistan's nuclear program.
NBC television recently reported that since the September 2001 attacks, US nuclear experts have spent millions of dollars to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, including secret authorization codes for the weapons.
A US official did not deny the report but insisted: " We won't go over the edge of our law and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty."