Thank you for your support during our campaign to either block, or attach meaningful conditions to the US-India nuclear deal. As you have no doubt heard, on October 1, less than 4 weeks after the Nuclear Suppliers Group approved an exemption for India from its nuclear trade guidelines, Congress approved the US-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
Contrary to the claims of its advocates, the Agreement does not bring India into the non-proliferation mainstream. As Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, said after Congress approved the Agreement,
"India's so-called separation plan is not credible from a nonproliferation perspective:
- U.S. and foreign nuclear fuel supplies to India's civil nuclear sector would free up scarce domestic supplies for exclusive use for weapons production. This could allow India to increase its bomb production rate and accelerate Pakistan's bomb production;
- The agreement fails to prohibit India from extracting tritium (a radioactive gas used to boost the explosive power of nuclear bombs) for weapons from its "safeguarded" power reactors;
- As reported in the Sept. 18 edition of The Washington Post, India's nuclear technology procurement practices do not conform with those of responsible nuclear suppliers and they risk the leakage of sensitive information;
- India's civil-military separation plan would allow the free flow of personnel and information between safeguarded and unsafeguarded faciliites;
- Unlike the United States and other nuclear weapon-states, India has refused to sign the CTBT and halt the production of nuclear bomb material. The opposition BJP may not respect the current Indian government's nuclear test moratorium pledge."
Despite the powerful forces arrayed against us, we came very close to stopping the deal. We won the argument that the deal is a nonproliferation disaster and a grievous assault on the prospects for universal nuclear disarmament. We mobilized thousands of concerned people in dozens of countries to contact their governments. We shed some light on the otherwise secretive NSG and almost generated enough pressure to encourage our like-minded friends to hold out for basic conditions and restrictions on trade with India that might have been enough for India to walk away from the deal.
There are still a number of unresolved issues that deserve attention over the coming months and years, including the following:
- The NSG may consider as early as November an amendment to its Guidelines prohibiting transfers of sensitive technology (reprocessing, enrichment, heavy water) to countries that are not members of the NSG, have not ratified an IAEA Additional Protocol, are in violation of their NPT or safeguards commitments, or are in regions where such transfers might promote proliferation.
- Bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements might be signed at some stage in the future between India and other nuclear suppliers besides the US. France signed a nuclear cooperation agreement on September 30, the day before Congress approved the US-India Agreement.
- India still has to submit a declaration of facilities to be covered by IAEA safeguards.
- We have to find a way to move India and the other non-NPT states into the actual nonproliferation and disarmament mainstream.
- We also need to move the United States toward ratification of the CTBT, so it can press other CTBT hold outs to do so too.
- And we need to strengthen the NPT by getting the declared and defacto nuclear weapon states to recommit to and take real action on disarmament.
The US-India Deal Working Group has not made a formal decision about its future, but these and other related issues must be followed up in some way or other, regardless of whether the working group is the appropriate vehicle. Anything you can do to further the cause in your country is greatly appreciated.
Philip White
Coordinator, Abolition 2000 US-India Deal Working Group
9 October 2008
