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U.S. Lawmakers Surprised by Bush Administration Move to Lift Nuclear Sanctions on India
U.S. lawmakers from both major parties were taken aback by President George W. Bush’s announcement Monday that he would propose ending nuclear sanctions on India, the Financial Times reported (see GSN, July 19). Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) was only informed of Bush’s decision Monday, said one source. In addition, U.S. officials had not indicated previously that Washington was prepared to lift the ban on nuclear cooperation with New Delhi. Former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton opposed doing so during the first Bush term, and his successor, Robert Joseph, said prior to his confirmation that the administration had no plans eliminate the restrictions, the Times reported. Debate over the issue is unlikely to fall along partisan lines, said one Senate aide. Concerns are likely to be raised about the decision’s impact on proliferation and on efforts to persuade countries like Iran to relinquish nuclear programs. A Democratic aide said a significant push by the White House could persuade Congress to lift the restrictions (Daniel/Johnson/Sevastopulo, Financial Times, July 20). Lugar said he expected the White House to explain how the change would affect overall U.S. nuclear policy, the Washington Post reported today. “We’re going to have a lot of conversations,” he said (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, July 20). Meanwhile, the House Energy Conference Committee adopted a resolution yesterday preventing export of nuclear technology to countries, like India, that have conducted a nuclear weapons test but are not signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Agence France-Presse reported. Washington would be setting a dangerous precedent if it allowed nuclear-related exchanges with such countries, some analysts said yesterday. Bush’s move “does nothing” to stem India’s nuclear weapons development and could weaken the treaty, said Jon Wolfsthal, an expert on WMD proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Now [other nations] would look at the decision by the U.S. and say: when India can have nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors too, then why not us,” he said. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, however, defended the action by saying that India has carefully followed nonproliferation procedures. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei about the decision and he seemed “supportive of what we have done,” Burns added (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, July 20). Rice also spoke with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday to explain the U.S. move. She “reaffirmed the central importance of Pakistan as a strategic partner in the war on terrorism,” Burns said Burns said the growing India-U.S. partnership is not aimed at countering any prospective adversary in the region, the Associated Press reported. “This is a significant point of departure for our foreign policy, not just in South Asia but worldwide,” he said (George Gedda, Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, July 20). Elsewhere, a former Indian official questioned New Delhi’s decision to cooperate so closely with Washington on nuclear issues, The Indian Express reported. “The promise made yesterday in Washington means that we are accepting a cap on the size of our nuclear deterrent with a small number of nuclear weapons,” said former Indian national security adviser Brajesh Mishra. New Delhi had offered to put a “couple of existing nuclear facilities under full scope guards but the offer was never accepted” by Washington, said Mishra. “The idea was that there would be enough fissile material from the reactors not under safeguards for India’s minimum credible deterrent. … But by effecting a separation between civilian and nuclear facilities, India would in fact be agreeing to the basic provision of a future fissile material cutoff treaty even before an international treaty on that crucial subject is negotiated and put into effect by other nuclear weapon states,” he said (Gupta/Mohan, Indian Express, July 19).
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