Diverse Coalition Launches Campaign to Stop U.S. Nuclear Deal with India

Twenty-three organizations yesterday launched a coalition to stop the Bush Administration’s proposed nuclear trade agreement with India. The proposed agreement would exempt that nuclear-armed nation from longstanding U.S. and international restrictions on states that do not meet global standards to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade believes the agreement would: dangerously weaken nonproliferation efforts and embolden countries like Iran and North Korea to pursue the development of nuclear weapons; further destabilize South Asia and Pakistan in particular; and violate or weaken international and U.S. laws, including the Hyde Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to provide a framework for the bilateral U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement.

“When Congress takes a close look at the Bush Administration’s proposed agreement, it will find a dangerous, unprecedented deal,” said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World. “The proposal undermines over 30 years of nonproliferation policy, will increase India’s capability to produce nuclear weapons and its stockpile of nuclear weapons-material, and sends the wrong message to Pakistan during a time of crisis in that country. We feel confident that, under the Congressional microscope, the many flaws of this deal will be exposed, and it will ultimately be rejected for the sake of preserving national security and global stability.”

The U.S.-Indian bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement would allow the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology and material to India. However, it fails to hold India to the same responsible nonproliferation and disarmament rules that are required of advanced nuclear states. The deal will increase India’s nuclear weapons production capability, exacerbate a nuclear arms race in the region, undermine international non-proliferation norms, and encourage the creation of large nuclear material stockpiles. Its contribution to meeting India’s growing energy needs has been greatly exaggerated and it would create economic opportunities for foreign nuclear industries without any guarantees for U.S. businesses.

The pact must win approval from the U.S. Congress, which changed U.S. law in December 2006 to allow negotiation of the agreement, under several conditions that have not been met in the final language of the agreement. Those conditions include a new agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency for safeguarding Indian power reactors and changes to the international guidelines of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which currently restrict trade with India.

Members of the Campaign are working to educate the U.S. Congress and public about the dangers of the deal, and are working with experts and organizations in two-dozen countries to inform deliberation over the deal within Nuclear Suppliers Group and its member state governments.

The new coalition’s partners include: Council for a Livable World, Arms Control Association, Federation of American Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington office, United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Institute for Religion and Public Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, All Souls Nuclear Disarmament Task Force, British American Security Information Council, Women’s Action for New Directions, Americans for Democratic Action, Peace Action, Peace Action West, Arms Control Advocacy Collaborative, Beyond Nuclear, Bipartisan Security Group, Citizens for Global Solutions, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Nuclear Information Resource Information Service.

Advisors to the coalition include Ambassador Robert Grey (Ret.), former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and Director of the Bipartisan Security Group; Dr. Leonard Weiss, former staff director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs; Dr. Robert G. Gard, Jr., Lt. Gen., U.S. Army (Ret.), Senior Military Fellow, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; Subrata Ghoshroy, Director, Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Christopher Paine, Nuclear Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Campaign’s website is www.responsiblenucleartrade.com.

About the Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade
The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade, a partnership project of 23 nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, environmental and consumer protection organizations, opposes the July 2005 proposal for civil nuclear cooperation with India and the additional U.S. concessions made to India as a result of subsequent negotiations because they pose far-reaching and adverse implications for U.S. and international security, global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, human life and health, and the environment. More information about the campaign can be found at www.responsiblenucleartrade.com.

The U.S.-India nuclear deal keeps getting worse for everybody

Last year, Congress passed the Hyde Act, changing thirty-year old U.S. non-proliferation law to make a special exception for India to receive sensitive nuclear technology and material from the United States even though India has repeatedly rejected meaningful nuclear non-proliferation commitments (such as signing the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or ceasing the production of fissile material for weapons purposes in anticipation, as the five nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT have done). The Hyde Act substantially weakened U.S. non-proliferation law, undermined the NPT, and weakened the global norm against nuclear weapons proliferation.

However, the Hyde Act at least ensured that certain minimal non-proliferation conditions, including providing in section 106 that nuclear trade with India must cease if India conducts a nuclear weapon test. India balked at this condition, making sure that it was not included in the “123 agreement” it negotiated with the United States. Under the 123 agreement, it is unclear what the repercussion of an Indian nuclear test would be and subject to interpretation (which the Indians have been quick to use in their favor), and the requirement to cut off nuclear trade is gone.

Recently, NPR’s Steve Inskeep asked Undersecretary Burns about this blatant concession:

STEVE INSKEEP: Let’s talk about skeptics in the United States. You mentioned that Congress voted in support of this deal, but with a lot of conditions. And I wonder whether the negotiations are meeting those conditions. Here’s one. As I understand it, Congress said they want a deal that states that if India ever conducts another nuclear test, this civilian nuclear cooperation ends. Does your current deal do that?

UNDERSECRETARY NICHOLAS BURNS: Yes it does. We have a clear obligation under the Atomic Energy Act to react if a country like India conducts a nuclear test and the President, and any future President will always have that right under our law.

INSKEEP: Just so that I understand, you’ll have the right you say to end nuclear cooperation. Will the United States be required to end nuclear cooperation if there were another test under the agreement that you’ve negotiated so far?

BURNS: Steve, I believe that under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the President has the opportunity, the right, that’s how the law is written, and we have protected that right.

INSKEEP: Which means you wouldn’t necessarily end nuclear cooperation and the Indians seem to think that perhaps you wouldn’t.

BURNS: Oh I think it would be up to the American President at the time. But we have been very clear with the Indians that we do not want them to conduct another nuclear test and there is no indication that they have plans to do that any time soon. But protected the right and Congress was absolutely correct in asking us to do this.

INSKEEP: It sounds like you are right at the edge of what you might be able to get through Congress at some point and still you don’t have quite enough to bring Indians on-board.

BURNS: There are a lot of critics of this agreement but there are more people who support it.

Luckily, not in India, where the opposition parties – including the BJP and the Indian Communist party – have delayed the deal threatening to withdraw from Prime Minister Singh’s coalition if Singh goes forward with negotiations for the US-India deal.

However, despite these concessions, less distasteful to the Indian Communists may be a deal with Russia or France or Canada. Russia is already seeking to build four additional reactors at Kudankulam in India.

By making yet additional and dangerous concessions, the Bush Administration has not only further undermined U.S. law and international nuclear non-proliferation efforts, it has even failed to protect opportunities for American business.

Luckily for nuclear non-proliferation, the deal is still delayed in India.

Additional delay on the US-India nuclear deal

Amid encouragement from former Florida Governor Jeb Bush praising the US-India nuclear deal, and also from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei stating that India should be part of the “nuclear renaissance” and that a nuclear deal would remove restrictions imposed on India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, reports suggest that Prime Minister Singh was expected to call President Bush to announce that India would not press for the US-India deal, at least for now. In so doing, the Singh government seems to be shelving the nuclear deal, at least temporarily, to avoid the withdrawal of the UPA-Communists from the coalition government and early elections.

While India might still go forward eventually with negotiations at the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency, it appears that, barring a break-through with the UPA-Communist parties, it looks as though the deal may be on hold in India.

The very predictable slippery slope of the US-India deal

Reports that Pakistan and China are discussing the prospects for a nuclear deal similar to the one that the Bush administration has negotiated with India comes as no surprise to those familiar with how the global non-proliferation regime works. It further highlights how harmful the US-India nuclear initiative is for nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Already last fall, only days after the Senate approved changes to U.S. law to allow an exception for India, China expressed its intention to follow suit.

The United States seems to have opened the floodgates with this deal as France, Australia, and now Japan, are also leaping at the opportunity to sell their nuclear goods to India as the United States is pushing for an exception for India in international guidelines.

France signed an agreement with India in February 2006, and Australia recently announced its intent to sell uranium to India, reversing its long-standing policy not to sell uranium to non-NPT countries. Japan is also jumping into the fray as the heads of Japanese nuclear companies Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi are traveling to India this week with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to seek nuclear business opportunities. A senior Japanese official prefaced the trip with the comment, “The US has lost the technological edge for nuclear power plants. The world leaders in this technology now are Japan and France."

With international competition lining up to take advantage of the new rules, it remains uncertain whether U.S. businesses will benefit from this deal either in the nuclear arena or non-nuclear defense technologies.

This agreement is a bad deal for the United States on all fronts, and dangerously undermines international security by jeopardizing non-proliferation rules thirty years in the making.