According to a report released by the CIA, the Indian Air Force (IAF,) could have caused some irreversible damage to Pakistan’s main nuclear facilities in 1984. The CIA closely monitored the movements of each country. The secret documents of November 1984 released by the CIA state the same about India and Pakistan.
This assessment was made almost immediately after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The assessment said the IAF could “destroy or sufficiently damage the facilities to prevent Islamabad from producing nuclear weapons for several years.” The dossier also states that MIG 29’s for whose delivery India was waiting at that time had ‘medium range capability’ which is better than that of F-16s. Surprisingly, Pakistan had F-16s at that time which were manufactured by the US. The document also read that because of “poor command, control and communications, we judge that Islamabad could not blunt a massed Indian airstrike.”
The document also states that even though the IAF had the facility, specifically ‘speed and surprise’ they were speculative about attacking Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. The nuclear plants, which were just 30 minutes away from India by plane were PINSTECH-New Laboratories and Kahuta Enrichment Plant. The document adds, “We believe that the Pakistanis can neither provide effective air defense for their military and industrial targets against a concerted Indian air attack, nor seriously threaten most strategic targets in India,” and also added that India’s air force was “larger and better than Pakistan’s.”
The document also explains that, “The best window for a preemptive strike, in our opinion, would be during November through February. Low precipitation and lack of clouds make visual target identification the easiest in this period.”
All these details of the dossier were released in thousands of declassified CIA documents that were published by US the Intelligence Agency.
