With the Iranian nuclear crisis about to land in the Security Council, the events that led up to the war in Iraq point clearly to what needs to be done.
The threat of bioterrorism has been greatly exaggerated. There are fewer state bioweapons programs today than 15 years ago and to date, no state is known to have assisted any nonstate or terrorist group to obtain biological weapons.
Unlike the United States, European Union (EU) member states do not have an EU legal obstacle to surmount in order to renew nuclear trade with India. But before any EU nation embarks on trade, it will need the U.S. Congress to act.
U.S. President George Bush last week struck a deal with India that directly violates the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, as well as several major U.S. laws, setting off waves of criticism in the states and around the world. Canadian officials have not been part of that criticism. Instead, the nation that helped India build its first nuclear weapon may now help India build dozens more.
Ashley J. Tellis explains the strategic logic of a U.S.-India bilateral relationship, and provides an overview of the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, including India’s civilian-military nuclear separation plan.
There are many alternatives short of war for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the wrong compromise today will only lead us all back to the brink tomorrow.
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. (Read More)
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.
The Bush administration's particular approach towards the India civil nuclear agreement was ill-considered, in essence giving India, or attempting to give it, everything, and throwing out all the rules in return for too little.
