U.S.-India Deal Passes, Nuclear Arms Race Feared

NEW YORK, Oct 2 (OneWorld) - Peace and disarmament advocacy groups have denounced the U.S.-India nuclear trade deal, saying Wednesday night's Senate vote to approve the agreement posed a serious threat to non-proliferation efforts worldwide.

"Congress missed an important opportunity to remedy many problems with the agreement and prevent the damage to non-proliferation efforts," said Leonor Tomero of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, an independent think tank in Washington, DC.

The 86-13 vote in the Senate was the last hurdle in a legislative process that began when a deal was reached between U.S. and Indian officials some three years ago.

The agreement will give India access to U.S. nuclear technology in return for inspections of its civilian nuclear facilities -- but not its military facilities.

India says U.S. nuclear cooperation is vital to meet its growing energy needs. But critics think the deal creates a dangerous precedent and will likely lead to a new nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Since the 1947 partition of the Indian sub-continent, India and Pakistan have gone to war with each other three times. Currently, both countries are in possession of a sizable arsenal of nuclear weapons.

"Rushing this agreement without careful consideration of its implications, just so outgoing administrations in both the United States and India could add it to their legacies, was a mistake that will come back to haunt us," said Tomero, who, like many others, fears that the U.S.-India deal will create further complications in negotiations with Iran and North Korea.

"At a time when the greatest threat to the security of the United States is the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials, the Bush administration, Congress, and India should be working to strengthen, not unravel, the NPT," Tomero added in a statement, referring to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The current deal allows India to expand its nuclear industry without requiring it to sign the NPT. The United States had, until now, avoided any kind of nuclear cooperation with India for more than 30 years.

The House of Representatives gave its nod to the agreement last week.

Opening the Doors to Nuclear Trade Worldwide

The nuclear trade pact contains no guarantee that India will sign contracts with U.S.-based companies. This week, the Indian government also signed a nuclear cooperation deal with France and showed interest in buying French fighter aircraft.

Tomero thinks Russia and other major powers are equally responsible for helping the U.S.-India deal overcome international barriers intended to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.

"The U.S. nuclear industry has pushed hard for this deal," she said in a recent interview with OneWorld. "[However], Japan, Russia, and France will also gain from this because they think more nuclear competition is profitable."

David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a long-time critic of U.S. nuclear policy, thinks the U.S.-India pact will not only undermine the security of the American people, but the security of people everywhere.

"Other countries will be looking at this deal as a model that will serve their own interests as well," he said in a statement. "If the United States can do it with India, why not China with Pakistan? Or Russia with Iran? Or Pakistan with Syria?"

Last month, a global conglomerate of 45 nations that sets the nuclear trade rules approved the U.S.-India deal by accepting New Delhi's assertion that its cooperation with Washington was meant only to meet its growing energy needs.

According to the Uranium Resource Center, currently India is running as many 14 civilian nuclear reactors, which account for about 3 percent of the country's total electricity production.

At the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting in Vienna, a small group of countries, including Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland, strongly opposed the deal, but eventually failed to sustain their principled stand in the wake of intense diplomatic pressure from the United States.

The six countries had requested conditions be placed on the deal requiring India not use the technology to expand its nuclear arsenal. In response, top Indian officials assured delegates that their country was fully opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons.

But for critics like Tomero and Krieger that is hard to believe because, like two other nuclear armed states, Israel and Pakistan, India remains unwilling to sign the NPT.

Breaking Treaty Commitments

"As one of only three countries that has never signed the NPT and by continuing to refuse to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, India has shunned meaningful nonproliferation commitments," said Tomero.

In addition to calling for actions against the spread of nuclear weapons, the NPT requires the five declared nuclear powers -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China -- to engage in "good-faith negotiations" for disarmament.

The agreement with India puts the United States in violation of its international treaty commitments, says Krieger. In signing the NPT, the United States agreed "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, or control over such weapons or explosive devices."

India is a "non-nuclear-weapon State" by the treaty’s definition. "By supplying nuclear material and technology to India, [the agreement] will allow India to use all of the uranium and plutonium from its military reactors, which are not subject to inspection, to be used for increasing the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal," charges Krieger.

Some analysts also see the deal as a gross violation of UN Security Council resolution 1172, which prohibits the export of technology that could in any way "assist programs in India or Pakistan for nuclear weapons.''

The 1998 resolution was adopted with consensus soon after both India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices in defiance of international agreement against the spread of nuclear weapons.