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Critics Warn That U.S.-Indian Nuclear Sharing Deal Could Face Tough Test in Congress
Critics of the planned U.S.-Indian nuclear sharing agreement said that lack of consultation with Congress or the foreign affairs bureaucratic community puts the deal at risk, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, March 31). U.S. nuclear officials said their concerns about the deal were ignored during negotiations. Experts are now urging Congress to make changes to the deal, a move that White House and Indian officials said would scuttle the plan. “There are times when you have to engage in incremental diplomacy and there are times you need someone who is willing to make a bold move,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said. “The president was willing a make a bold move towards India, and it is going to pay off for the United States now and into the future.” One official said that “it is no accident that (nuclear experts) were not included, because you didn't have to be a seer to know how much they would hate this.” There is also controversy over the deal in India, where close relationships with the United States raise suspicion. The eagerness of the White House to come to a deal took many Indians officials by surprise, the Post reported. Before U.S. President George W. Bush visited India last month, there was little support for the deal in the Cabinet of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, officials said. “I would say it is not only an act of statesmanship but an act of faith,” said Ronen Sen, Indian ambassador to the United States. “Both our countries were departing from something which has been well ingrained in the mind-sets of most of our people. We knew there was going to be significant opposition to change. Change is always viewed with suspicion and often viewed as subversive.” The deal had its beginnings in October 2001. U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill was urging a re-evaluation of the policy barring any nuclear cooperation with India, which possesses atomic weapons but remains outside of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, according to Ashley Tellis, a former Blackwill aide now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell pushed a cautious approach. “We also have to protect certain red lines that we have with respect to proliferation,” he said in 2003. During her confirmation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a written statement said that she anticipated no changes to law resulting from evolving Indian policy. Shortly afterward, the United States agreed to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. To appease India, Rice went to New Delhi and offered a broader relationship involving nuclear, economic and military cooperation. Rice’s proposal took India by surprise. “As Rice put across an unprecedented framework for cooperation with India, the establishment in Delhi was stunned,” wrote C. Raja Mohan in his book “Impossible Allies.” “Few had expected Rice to go this far.” India saw Rice’s proposal as a way to tear down nuclear barriers. “If you are going to be looking at India as a partner … then you have to treat India as a partner and not as a target,” said Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran. “Both these things cannot be done together.” Philip Zelikow, a longtime colleague and counselor to Rice, was one of the plan’s main architects. After Rice’s visit, Zelikow and Tellis began exchanging memos that led to a 50-page “action-agenda.” The document outlined a relationship between Washington and New Delhi as a way to offset China’s growing power. “If the United States is serious about advancing its geopolitical objectives in Asia, it would almost by definition help New Delhi develop strategic capabilities such that India's nuclear weaponry and associated delivery systems could deter against the growing and utterly more capable nuclear forces Beijing is likely to possess by 2025,” Tellis wrote. Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph and National Security Council official John Hood thought that the deal would limit plutonium production that would allow India to have only a minimal deterrent capability. They also pushed for India’s electricity-producing reactors to be subject to international inspections, meeting U.S. legal obligations that no U.S. technology be used for weapons. Senior officials, however, said many of the recommendations made by Joseph and Hood were not a part of the negotiating process leading up to the July 2005 announcement of the deal. “We never even got to the stage where we could negotiate them,” said one official. Indian officials were adamant that there would be no foreign influence over their nuclear program. “We knew well before Singh's arrival that the Indians wouldn't accept most of that,” a second official said. Joseph did not take part in final negotiations, leaving Hood as the only nonproliferation expert at the talks. Officials said Hood made strong arguments on concerns over the lack of fissile material production caps and rewarding a country that had clandestinely built nuclear weapons. Some administration officials said the deal would make it harder to deal with countries like North Korea and Iran. It was clear in the final talks that Indian demands were not in line with Bush administration thinking. Indian officials threatened to walk away rather than accept inspections of nuclear facilities. After coming to an agreement with Rice, Saran balked, only to be persuaded by the secretary to continue negotiations. India wanted to be recognized as a de facto official nuclear power despite not being a part of the international nonproliferation regime, the Post reported. “They were really demanding that we recognize them as a weapons state,” said a senior official familiar with the discussions. “Thank God we said no to that, but they almost got it. The Indians were incredibly greedy that day. They were getting 99 percent of what they asked for and still they pushed for 100.” U.S. officials said that Bush kept focused on India as a good actor in international affairs with a thriving democracy. He was willing to set aside old nuclear norms to make India one of the two or three closest partners of the United States. Congress was not briefed on the deal until after it was finalized. The lack of communication still resonates today. “The way they jammed it through is going to haunt us,” one official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 3). Meanwhile, Russia has shipped uranium to India for use in a nuclear power plant, Agence France-Presse reported. The first shipment of 20 to 25 tons of the material was delivered, with another shipment of 40 to 45 tons expected soon, according to reports. “With Russian supply of 60 metric tons of uranium, the plants will have fuel for the next five years and (will) run smoothly,” said S. Thakur, an official with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 2).
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