WASHINGTON

TWO years ago, when Gen. Pervez Musharraf still seemed secure in his rule over Pakistan, he was asked a question that is now urgently coursing through Washington: Are his country’s nuclear weapons safe from Islamic radicals?

Pakistan’s nuclear protections “are already the best in the world,” he said then, in an interview. He launched into a detailed description of the controls he had put in place. Chief among them was that only a small group of top officials — General Musharraf and men he trusts — hold the keys to moving or using a weapon.

He also talked about new physical controls over Pakistan’s many nuclear facilities, including the laboratories that were once the playground of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the national hero who established Pakistan as the hub of the biggest proliferation network in nuclear history. The leaking of much of the technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, starting in the late 1980s, often coincided with times of political turmoil when Pakistan’s leadership was weak and its attention elsewhere.

That precedent was driving much of the fear in Washington last week as General Musharraf clung to power by declaring a state of emergency and trying to quell political demonstrations and near-rioting in the streets — the fear that leaks would resume and that Pakistan might even lose control over a nuclear arsenal of uncertain size — estimated at from 55 to 115 weapons.