Back of the Envelope

This news item came out before I had a blog. Here's the key information:

Teams of American specialists, deployed in Pakistan's most sensitive military sites, have formulated launch codes to prevent the unauthorised use of nuclear missiles.
...
America's involvement in compiling missile codes raises the possibility that it might be able to prevent Pakistan from launching its nuclear weapons.

(From the Telegraph via Instapundit.) I don't know if it's true. It has the sound of a rumor, quoting a leader of the Islamist party and an oblique few words from a former US ambassador, saying that Gen Kidwai (who's apparently in charge of Pakistan's arsenal) "has been working very quietly, very slowly with us". Certainly, if this is the case, we shouldn't be finding out about it. We don't want people to know that we're changing Pakistan's launch codes so they need our permission to launch their nuclear weapons. Then again, if it is true, the only downside from the US perspective is that it's gone public. Hopefully, we have lots more stuff like this going on, some of which the public will never find out about.