[Mb-civic] Bush in India: Nuclear Cave In

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Mar 2, 2006
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/

Nuclear Cave In  	

By Joseph Cirincione

Buffeted by political turmoil at home, President Bush sought a foreign
affairs victory in India.  To clinch a nuclear weapons deal, the president
had to give in to demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large
portions of the country’s nuclear infrastructure from international
inspection.  With details of the deal still under wraps, it appears that
at least one-third of current and planned Indian reactors would be exempt
from IAEA inspections and that the president gave into Indian demands for
“Indian-specific” inspections that would fall far short of the normal,
full-scope inspections originally sought. Worse, Indian officials have
made clear that India alone will decide which future reactors will be kept
in the military category and exempt from any safeguards.

The deal endorses and assists India’s nuclear weapons program. 
US-supplied uranium fuel would free up India’s limited uranium reserves
for fuel that would be burned in these reactors to make nuclear weapons. 
This would allow India to increase its production from the estimated 6 to
10 additional nuclear bombs per year to several dozen per year.  India
today has enough separated plutonium for 75 to 110 nuclear weapons, though
it is not known how many it has actually produced.

The Indian leaders and press are crowing about their victory over America.
For good reason: President Bush has done what Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford,
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and his own father refused to
do--break U.S. and international law to aid India’s nuclear weapons
program. In 1974, India cheated on its agreements with the United States
and other nations to do what Iran is accused of doing now: using a
peaceful nuclear energy program to build a nuclear bomb.  India used
plutonium produced in a Canadian-supplied reactor to detonate a bomb it
then called a “peaceful nuclear device.” In response, President Richard
Nixon and Congress stiffened U.S. laws and Nixon organized the Nuclear
Suppliers Group to prevent any other nation from following India’s
example. President Bush has now unilaterally shattered those guidelines
and his action would violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
proscription against aiding another nation’s nuclear weapons program.  It
would require the repeal or revision of several major U.S. laws, including
the U.S. Nonproliferation Act.  Nor has he won any significant concessions
from India.  India refuses to agree to end its production of nuclear
weapons material, something the U.S., the UK, France, Russia and China
have already done.

This is where the president is likely to run into trouble.  Republicans
and Democrats in Congress are deeply concerned about the deal and the way
it was crafted.  Keeping with the administration’s penchant for secrecy,
the deal was cooked by a handful of senior officials (one of whom is now a
lobbyist for the Indian government) and never reviewed by the Departments
of State, Defense or Energy before it was announced with a champagne toast
by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.  Congress 
was
never consulted.
 Republican committee staff say the first members heard about it was when
the fax announcing the deal came into their offices.  Worse, for the
president, this appears to be another give away to a foreign government at
the expense of U.S. national security interests.

Bad Example

In addition to breaking U.S. law and shattering long-standing barriers to
proliferation, lawmakers are concerned about the example the nuclear
weapons deal sets for other nations.

The lesson Iran is likely to draw is simple:  if you hold out long enough,
the Americans will cave.  All this talk about violating treaties, they
will reason, is just smoke.  When the Americans think you are important
enough, they will break the rules to accommodate you.

Pakistani officials have already said they expect Pakistan to receive a
similar deal, and Israel is surely waiting in the wings.  Other nations
may decide that they can break the rules, too, to grant special deals to
their friends.  China is already rumored to be seeking a deal to provide
open nuclear assistance to Pakistan—a practice it stopped in the early
1990s after a successful diplomatic campaign by the United States to bring
China into conformity with the Non-Proliferation Treaty restrictions. 
Will Russia decide that it can make an exception for Iran?

Lawmakers loyal to President Bush are already signaling tough times ahead
for this deal.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on International
Terrorism and Nonproliferation offered the following statement after the
deal was announced:

“There is enthusiastic support on Capitol Hill for growing U.S.-India
ties. However, the U.S.-India agreement on civil nuclear cooperation has
implications beyond U.S.-India relations. In this process, the goal of
curbing nuclear proliferation should be paramount. Congress will continue
its careful consideration of this far reaching agreement.”

His subcommittee has oversight and legislative responsibilities over
nonproliferation matters.  Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has made no secret of his concerns, as
has Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), Chairman of the House International Relations
Committee.  Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) says, “America cannot credibly
preach nuclear temperance from a barstool.  We can't tell Iran, a country
that has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, that they can't have
[uranium] enrichment technologies while simultaneously carving out a
special exemption from nuclear proliferation laws for India, a nation that
has refused to sign the treaty.”

This looming Congressional battle will pit the proliferation fighters
against the nuclear lobby and the increasingly powerful India lobby.
Companies and countries (including France, Canada and Russia) are lining
up to sell fuel and reactors to India.  They will be joined by the
neoconservatives who seek to construct an anti-China alliance.  For them,
as one architect of the India deal reportedly said, “The problem is not
that India has too many nuclear weapons, it is that they do not have
enough.”

If President Bush was riding high in the polls and had a string of
national security victories behind him, this David and Goliath battle
would be won by the nuclear giants. But with sagging popularity, deep
concern over his leadership, and anger at the administration’s disregard
for laws and consultation, lawmakers more concerned about proliferation
than profits could block or amend this deal.  The president may have made
a fatal error in putting nuclear weapons at the heart of improved
U.S.-India relations. Lawmakers want the latter, but not at the price of
the former.

                            ***

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 

A Deeply Flawed India Deal 

By Caterina Dutto 
Published: February 28, 2006

In a February 14 letter to Congress, six nonproliferation experts and
former government officials detailed the serious problems with the
proposed US-India nuclear deal. Their core concern is that U.S. trade and
cooperation would directly assist India’s nuclear weapons program. This
would violate existing U.S. laws and the U.S. commitment in the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty “not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce
any non-nuclear weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear
weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”

The experts say, “Building upon the already strong U.S.-Indian partnership
is an important goal, and we remain convinced that it can be achieved
without undermining U.S. leadership efforts to prevent the proliferation
of the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

They caution, however, that “on balance, India’s commitments under the
current terms of the proposed arrangement do not justify making
far-reaching exceptions to U.S. law and international nonproliferation
norms. At a minimum, this requires permanent, facility-specific safeguards
on a mutually agreed and broad list of current and future civil Indian
nuclear facilities and material, as well a cutoff of Indian fissile
material production for weapons.”

For a pdf of the seven-page letter, click here.
http://www.armscontrol.org/pdf/20060214_India_Clarifying_Responses.pdf


------------------------------

BBC - Mar 2, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4766608.stm

Hurdles ahead for landmark nuclear deal

By Jonathan Marcus
BBC Diplomatic correspondent

The nuclear deal with India enshrines a shift in US policy with
far-reaching implications.

It underscores the special relationship between Delhi and Washington. And
it sends powerful - and in many ways contradictory - signals about the
Bush administration's attitude towards the nuclear non-proliferation
regime.

As far as the Bush administration is concerned, this is a win-win deal.

A friendly, democratic and powerful regional ally, India gains access to
civil nuclear technology to help power its industrial growth.

At the same time India will effectively have to segregate its nuclear
facilities into two programmes - one civil and the other military, with
the former coming under additional international safeguards.

Hurdles

Not so long ago, of course, India was one of the nuclear bad-guys.

t has steadfastly refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) and it has developed its own nuclear bomb.

The US applied sanctions against India and a battery of US legislation put
India into a kind of nuclear isolation.

Hurdle one for the Bush administration is to get Congress to unpick this
legislation.

Attitudes on Capitol Hill are mixed. There is a good deal of unease about
the agreement on non-proliferation grounds, a fear that India is being
rewarded despite its nuclear weapons programme and a belief that
Washington could have struck a tougher bargain.

There are concerns, for example, that India will still be able to produce
more fissile material for its bomb-making programme and thus will be able
to expand its nuclear arsenal.

Nonetheless, there is also a strong tide of pro-Indian sentiment among US
legislators.

Hurdle two is to persuade the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group - who
co-ordinate sales of nuclear technology - of the merits of the deal, where
again, opinion is divided.

'Useful benchmark'

Here the US has already had some preliminary talks.

Some countries back the US and India. Britain, Russia and France (Paris,
too, is eager to sell India nuclear technology) have all, in terms of
initial positions, been positive.

Ireland, Japan and the Netherlands have been far from enthusiastic.

Agreement at the group is not necessarily essential.

But its consensus view on nuclear transfers provides a useful
international benchmark.

Regional implications

Since so much of non-proliferation policy depends upon creating as broad a
diplomatic coalition as possible, it would be unwise of the US to break
this tradition of consensus.

The deal could have significant regional implications, especially if India
continues to develop the military side of its nuclear programme.

China's only comment so far has been a rather restrained call for any
US-India co-operation to be in line with the rules of the global
non-proliferation regime.

Though there are some strategic experts in Beijing who are carefully
watching the burgeoning US-India relationship for any sign that India is
being turned into a regional bulwark against China.

It is in the arms control community - especially among US experts - that
the deal has caused most concern.

Many fear that Washington is again signalling that international rules -
like the NPT - set standards that can be conveniently ignored in some
cases, while the Bush administration vigorously tries to apply them in
others.

© BBC MMVI

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