We all nearly died in a ‘nuclear war’… in 1999
Oliver Wheaton – HeadshotOliver Wheaton for Metro.co.uk
Saturday 5 Dec 2015 4:41 pm
You are all pretty lucky to be reading this.
In fact, if you were born after 1999, you’re lucky to have every existed at all, because in that year the world reportedly came very, VERY close to having a nuclear war, according to a former White House official.
Ex-CIA analyst Bruce Riedel wrote an obituary of Sandy Berger, a former national security advisor to President Bill Clinton.
According to Riedel Mr Berger, who died on Wednesday, warned the then president that Pakistan was planning to use nuclear weapons against India during the Kargil War in 1999.
Clinton was due to meet Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif the morning of July 4 1999, however he was briefed by Berger before hand.
In Berger’s obituary Riedel wrote: ‘The morning of the Fourth, the CIA wrote in its top-secret Daily Brief that Pakistan was preparing its nuclear weapons for deployment and possible use. The intelligence was very compelling. The mood in the Oval Office was grim.
‘Berger urged Clinton to hear out Sharif, but to be firm.
‘Pakistan started this crisis and it must end it without any compensation. The president needed to make clear to the prime minster that only a Pakistani withdrawal could avert further escalation.’
The obituary goes on to claim that Sandy’s good relationship with President Clinton convinced him to demand Pakistan’s ‘climbdown’, bringing a peaceful resolution to the conflict, calling it Berger’s finest hour’.
‘It worked. Sharif agreed to pull back his troops. It later cost him his job: the army ousted him in a coup and he spent a decade in exile in Saudi Arabia. But the risk of a nuclear exchange in south Asia was averted,’ Riedel added.
