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Critics Slam U.S.-Indian Nuclear Technology Deal By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — Prominent nonproliferation experts today called on the U.S. Congress to seek fundamental changes in the budding U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation arrangement to reduce the likelihood that it would promote weapons proliferation (see GSN, Feb. 13). Washington’s plan to share nuclear energy technology with New Delhi would constitute a major exception to U.S. policy toward countries not subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The three critics, two of whom joined other experts in writing members of Congress yesterday to express their concerns about the bargain, said today at an Arms Control Association discussion that India's nonproliferation commitments under the current deal would not justify such an exception. “Unless the agreement as it stands right now is substantially modified as a result of the ongoing negotiations, the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal will contribute to an increased risk of proliferation and nuclear war,” said former U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Staff Director Leonard Weiss, a key figure behind the 1978 U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation Act. The U.S. administration announced the deal last July and plans to submit it for congressional approval this year. President George W. Bush is slated to visit India next month amid continued talks between the two countries on the question of how India will separate military and civilian facilities under the agreement. Weiss said today that while U.S. technology and materials would be used only for Indian civilian nuclear facilities subject to international monitoring, the arrangement would free up the nuclear-armed country's domestic production capacity for increased work on weapons. The danger of that chain of events is particularly acute given the tense relations between India and nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan, Weiss said. Weiss added that the deal would devalue the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitments of nonweapon countries by effectively rewarding India for developing nuclear weapons outside the pact. The resulting precedent would strengthen the resolve of countries such as Iran to develop nuclear weapons. It could also call into question the five traditional nuclear powers’ commitment to Article 6 of the treaty, Weiss said. In that article, weapon countries vow to pursue nuclear disarmament and commit to an eventual “treaty on general and complete disarmament.” India is seeking to have the deal approved despite safeguards commitments that would fall short of what the five NPT weapon states have in place, said Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright. “I would call it almost a greedy effort to try to have as much of a plutonium production capability for nuclear weapons as possible,” Albright said of India's stance on safeguards exemptions. India, he said, is trying to “grab everything and put it under a military umbrella” as a way of keeping facilities free of safeguards. Such efforts may be the result of simple “stubbornness,” Albright said, as strategic and production-capacity concerns would not warrant a major escalation of weapon production. “India has to choose,” Albright said. “Does it want nuclear weapons capabilities, or does it want international cooperation?” Albright also criticized India's export-control establishment, which he called poorly organized and inexperienced. “India's attractiveness to proliferant states can be expected to increase” with the advent of U.S. nuclear cooperation, he said. “Is this deal moving too fast, way beyond the ability of India to manage onward proliferation? I would say it is.” Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball said Congress should insist that India cut off fissile-material production as a condition of the agreement. India has parried such suggestions by stressing its support for negotiating an international fissile material cutoff treaty, but according to Kimball, U.S. opposition to that pact renders such support moot. “The FMCT right now remains a distant goal, and leaders in New Delhi know that,” Kimball said. In a press release issued yesterday by the U.S. State Department, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Nuclear Nonproliferation Andrew Semmel said the India agreement would further nonproliferation goals. “This initiative recognizes India's critical energy needs, which can be partly met through nuclear power, as well as the benefits of drawing India into closer harmony with the nonproliferation regime,” Semmel is quoted as saying Feb. 9 at American University here. Semmel highlighted Indian commitments to better export controls, international guidelines on nuclear and missile transactions, IAEA safeguards over facilities designated as civil and continuing a nuclear-test moratorium. Such promises would bring India closer to international nonproliferation standards, he said, stressing that U.S. assistance would not apply directly to Indian weapon programs. “We continue to support NPT universality and encourage all NPT nonparties to adhere to the treaty as non-nuclear-weapon states,” he said, “although India has stated clearly that it has no intention to do so for the foreseeable future.”
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