Prime Minister Gilanis directive to the relevant authorities to strengthen the security of Pakistans defence installations to ensure their safety was, undoubtedly, a move that was most urgently called for. Mr Gilani issued these instructions while on a visit to the Mehran naval base on Tuesday. In the meantime, terrorists have once again shown that they have an upper hand by launching an attack at a CID office at Peshawar in the early hours of Wednesday, killing nine and injuring over 40. The pity is that our leaders needed as vicious an incident as the attack on the naval base to realise deficiencies in security. Had they taken note of the series of attacks that have occurred on our sensitive sites during these years of our participation in the war on terror we would not have had to experience this agony and humiliation. Even the general law and order situation that has been going from bad to worse ought to have alerted them to this reality. The truth is that we are not a security-minded people and are given to too much trust. First of all, this thinking has to change to take care of the phenomenon of militancy that did not exist earlier, and then proper training, latest equipment and suitable deployment of the concerned personnel have to be ensured to obtain the desired results. Besides, following the Mehran debacle, it was but expected that the Western media and leaders, who have since long been conjuring up scary scenarios of Pakistans nuclear assets falling into the hands of terrorists, would be quick at grasping this lapse in security to use it to add substance to their fears. NATO Secretary General Rasmussen, questioned about the safety of our nuclear arsenal in the light of the Mehran base attack, has opined that though he is confident about the safety of the arsenal, the incident has raised concern. Both The New York Times and The Los Angles Times have called into question the ability of Pakistans security agencies to protect the 100-odd nuclear weapons after their failure at the naval base. Washingtons designs against our nuclear assets, despite its denials, are hard to discount, while our rulers remain oblivious of the danger. In fact, PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif is right when he says that both the US and the terrorists are attacking Pakistan, but our government is asleep. The assault at Mehran was to give a grievous blow to our naval capability. As this paper points out in a story published yesterday, the CIA seems to have double crossed the ISI; its drone strikes are creating enemies of Pakistan and pushing insurgents into the country. While compelling Islamabad to ban TTP, it is infiltrating its operatives into Pakistan. We believe that to clear the air, it is imperative to hold an impartial inquiry and lay its findings before the public to elicit their cooperation that is essential to rooting out the menace of terrorism.