ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATION PRESS BRIEFING
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2006
9:30 A.M. - 11:00 A.M.
PANELISTS
DAVID ALBRIGHT, PRESIDENT,
INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
LEONARD WEISS, FORMER STAFF DIRECTOR,
U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
DARYL G. KIMBALL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATION
Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.
DARYL G. KIMBALL: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Daryl Kimball with the Arms Control Association. I want to welcome you this morning to our briefing on the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal. We are hoping to provide you with a critical assessment of the proposal.
Many of you are familiar with the Arms Control Association. For those of you who are not, we are a non-partisan membership organization that has been around for 35 years, established in 1971 actually as a project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. We are pleased once again to be using Carnegie's facilities for another Arms Control Association event.
Almost seven months ago on July 18, President Bush and Prime Minister Singh issued a joint statement outlining their proposal for the resumption of full civil nuclear trade with India. And the United States of course and much of the rest of the world restricted trade with India following New Delhi's 1974 nuclear bomb test, which improperly utilized plutonium produced by a Canadian-supplied reactor and U.S. heavy water that were supposed to be used only for peaceful purposes.
Since July, the two governments have been negotiating the details of India's pledge to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities. These negotiations are continuing as we speak and are not expected to reach a conclusion before President Bush's scheduled trip to India and Pakistan some two weeks from now.
President Bush has said that once the details of the plan are resolved, Congress will be asked to make exceptions to existing U.S. nonproliferation law and to approve a separate agreement for nuclear cooperation with India.
Of course current law, the 1978 Nuclear Nonproliferation Act, bars trade with states like India that do not accept full-scope international safeguards. And I would also note that Article I of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) forbids the United States from assisting another state's nuclear weapons program in any way.
If Congress and also the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group do approve this deal, countries could supply nuclear fuel and equipment to India for civil purposes under international safeguards. And in exchange India has said that it will, "assume the same responsibilities and practices of the five original nuclear-weapon states."
Now, the Arms Control Association and my colleagues here today organized this briefing to take a closer look at the proposal and to shed some light on what we consider to be some of the key issues that are at the center of this arrangement and at the center of what Congress should be evaluating.
Our overarching message today is that it's important that the United States and India continue to build their relationship and strengthen the nonproliferation system. However, the purported benefits of the July 18 proposal for nuclear cooperation are negligible and the risks are actually very substantial. And unless Congress legislates significant changes to the original plan when they receive proposals from the administration, the damage to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group will be severe.
So this morning our panelists and I are going to examine three main issues upon which the nuclear cooperation deal hinges. First, David Albright from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is going to examine the technical implications of the civil military separation scenarios that are reportedly under consideration.
As you might know, for the moment, the proposed cooperation arrangement is hung up on differences between the Bush administration and the Singh UPA government over which facilities will fall into the civilian and which will fall into the military sectors. And those civil facilities would also have some kind of safeguards to guard against the diversion of foreign nuclear technology assistance or fuel for weapons purposes.
Now, David is a physicist, as I said the president of the Institute for Science and International Security. He conducts extensive research on the weapons programs of various states and is best known perhaps for his seminal work on plutonium and highly enriched uranium, world inventories, capabilities, and policies.
Second, we are going to hear from Leonard Weiss who served for more than two decades as a staff director for the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. From 1977 to 1999 he served as Senator John Glenn's advisor on arms control, science, technology, and energy, and was the chief architect of the 1978 Nuclear Nonproliferation Act. He is going to address the cost-benefit equation of the proposed nuclear cooperation agreement.
And then following their presentations I am going to come back and summarize the concerns and the bottom-line recommendations of several fellow experts about the nuclear cooperation proposal, which are outlined in a letter that is in your packet that was delivered yesterday to the House and Senate offices. That was a response to State Department responses to questions from Senator Lugar and Congressman Edward Markey. And then afterwards we are going to take your questions.
So with that we'll invite David to the podium. Thanks for being with us, David. And please if you have cell phones, switch them into the silent mode.
DAVID ALBRIGHT: Thank you, Daryl. What I would like to try to do at least is outline or add some clarity to this whole discussion of splitting or separating the Indian military and civil programs. And then I would like to touch upon another area involving export controls and the risks that India could become an important place where onward proliferation can occur. And I may not have as much time to go into that as I want but happy to talk about it.
We're certainly going to be releasing things in the future on that because a lot of focus at ISIS is on elicit nuclear trade and particularly how onward proliferation can happen from the best of your friends. And we don't think India is prepared for it.
Let me go back to the basic topic that I have been assigned, which is to discuss the separation of the military and civilian programs in India. And one of your handouts is a study we did in December where we outlined what we thought was a good split based on a very simple criteria: What everyone else does. And we looked at what do the weapon-states do? What do they call civilian? What do they call military? What do the non-weapon states do when they have been - before they join the Nonproliferation Treaty and were thinking about things?
And in all cases, the facilities that are subject to safeguards or put on a civilian list are power reactors, civil research facilities, research reactors, reprocessing plants that reprocess the power reactor fuel and breeder reactors - everywhere. And in fact, I must say, one of my first tasks in the early 1980s when I started my career in nonproliferation was an informal cooperation with the U.S. government to stop France from militarizing its Super-Phoenix breeder reactor.
And it never reached a head although the U.S. government clearly stated to the French in demarche that you cannot do that. And I won't go into the reasons why. I have an old article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that I can refer you to, but the idea was if you have a lot of non-nuclear-weapon states involved in a project you can't - and it involves their nuclear material, you can't use it for military purposes.
I must say when we published this study I was surprised by the reaction in India. I expected a critical reaction but I didn't expect to be called an Ayatollah. (Laughter.) I'm a president of an institute but I wasn't quite prepared for the kind of the viciousness of the response. And I will come back to that later because I think it is part of the problem India faces in trying to integrate with the rest of the world.
In our plan we also added a centrifuge plan in India. And certainly we knew that would be controversial. But what we based it on was that if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is going to go in and do safeguards in India, it shouldn't create a precedent that will make its job harder elsewhere. And right now the IAEA is safeguarding naval enrichment plans in Brazil, and the Brazilians have accepted that safeguards would be put on their naval enrichment plants.
Some of you may know there is another enrichment plan in Brazil called the Resende Plant, but these are two naval enrichment plants at naval facilities that are under safeguards, both by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the regional organization ABACC (Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials). So we didn't feel that it was useful for the IAEA to create an exemption in India that Brazil or others may try to exploit.
Again, we understand it's controversial, but we also think that if this facility, the centrifuge plant is for naval fuel, which we think it's principally for - it's expanding as we speak. They are trying to increase the output of the plant - that it should be under safeguards and would not produce material for nuclear weapons. That would also include the prototype naval reactor, which started recently in Kalpakkam.
The Indian plan, which we were aware of before, and we have learned a lot more since, I think, is a very minimalist plan and I would say it reflects old thinking, isolationist thinking; the thinking of a nuclear establishment that isn't comfortable integrating with the world's nuclear community, prefers its indigenous nature. At some level, I think, it's threatened by this U.S.-India agreement, and I think some of the reactions have reflected that.
Many of the reasons they have given, such as the IAEA is going to spy on them don't hold any water. Many countries have crossed that bridge and have not felt that the IAEA releases proprietary information. They are certainly not going to slow down the transfer of fuel from the breeder to a reprocessing plant. That was an Indian official's comment. And so I think many of the reasons given by the Indians are simply not true and insult the intelligence of the international community.
The other part of it is, is that it's kind of a - I would call almost a greedy effort to try to have as much of a plutonium production capability for nuclear weapons as possible, way beyond the needs of India. And in fact it makes me wonder what are Indian plans to build nuclear weapons? Is it that we have to be prepared to build a thousand, two thousand, two hundred, one hundred? And I think that unfortunately this effort to grab everything and put it under some kind of military umbrella also doesn't serve India's interests.
And let me focus on the breeder reactor, which ultimately, I think the argument will be that it is for military purposes. And, yes, a breeder is a marvelous instrument to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. The prototype reactor that they are building, prototype reader in - what is called its blanket, it is what surrounds the core, we'll probably be able to make about 50 to 75 kilograms of super-grade plutonium a year.
And that is why the French were interested in the Super-Phoenix reactor; that it was such a marvelous source of plutonium for nuclear weapons - very high grade, which means you can actually dilute it and have more or you can use it in special types of weapons. So, again, it's a very appealing material.
For background, India makes about 25 to 35 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium, slightly lower quality, but fine for nuclear weapons in the Dhruva and CIRUS reactors. And historically that has been more than enough for their needs and I would assert that it is enough for their needs in the future. India doesn't have the kind of capability to suddenly build 50 nuclear weapons in a year. It just doesn't have the infrastructure or I think the appetite for such a large increase, but its arsenal will be increasing relatively slowly over time.
Another reactor complex that they want to reserve as military is the MAPS one and two reactors (located at Madras), and we have always suspected that in the past those reactors have been used to make weapon-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons, but we're in a key part. I hear that they want to reserve those. They are near the Kalpakkam reprocessing plant, and so you'll have kind of a militarized Kalpakkam facility with the reprocessing plants, MAPS, and the breeder reactor. The prototype is located near there.
The MAPS reactors are not optimized to make plutonium for weapons. And I will say, there is a lot of disinformation, misinformation in the India press. Reactor grade plutonium is not what bomb makers want to make nuclear weapons. Certainly you can do it, but it really mucks up your yield estimates, your manufacturing complex.
It's very undesirable to build a nuclear weapons complex where you don't know the type of plutonium coming in, whether it's weapon grade or reactor grade. And I doubt very much that the Indian's nuclear establishment, nuclear weapons establishment is looking to use reactor-grade plutonium in its bombs. But you could use MAPS to make weapon-grade plutonium.
And the signal they are sending, again, since MAPS are two power reactors, each one has five-times the output of the Dhruva reactor. It is quite a weapon-grade plutonium capability that they are keeping on hand - 200 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium a year roughly. Again, why would India want this? What is it really talking about doing with all of this weapon-grade or super-grade plutonium?
I would say that it's a debate that the Indians should have. Is this going to be a no-holds bar effort to get nuclear weapons or is this just stubbornness and an old way of thinking that says we need to have the capability to make so much plutonium that our leaders will be satisfied under all cases, even the most extreme worst-case assessments? And that is fine; that is for India to decide.
But if you want to militarize breeders, don't expect the international community to welcome you with cooperation on breeders. Japan, Germany, France, whoever are not going to want to sit down at the table with people who are using a breeder to make super-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons, and it also poisons the well in terms of openness. I mean, I visited the Dhruva reactor in 1992 in India. I used to visit India.
We wanted to find out about the gas centrifuge program in the early 1990s. And I have always found the Indian establishment pretty open to a point, but there is a lot of secrecy in the nuclear establishment. And so it was rather amusing to me that I would go visit the Dhruva reactor in 1992 and the reactor manager is open about everything. Yet, if you asked him anything about the spent fuel he was closed. And obviously the spent fuel was sent to the reprocessing plant to be reprocessed and used in Indian nuclear weapons. You can't do that in an international cooperation project on breeder reactors. And so India has to choose. Does it want nuclear weapons capabilities or does it want international cooperation?
Alright, let me briefly talk about export controls. In our interviews with U.S. officials, dealings with companies, India is known to be targeted by proliferate states. And with its rapid industrialization, much of which is based on pretty good technology from developed countries, India's attractiveness to proliferate states can be expected to increase. And Indian national export controls are the main defense against illegal or dangerous exports from Indian companies.
However, India's control system is poorly implemented and its export control officials are inexperienced. And many Indian companies are unaware of their own national export control laws and government outreach programs are only in their infancy. And with private Indian companies committed to sales both domestically and internationally, Indian export controls are inadequate to provide assurances that dangerous exports will not occur.
Now, what does this mean? We have just gone through this horrendous situation with the Khan network. And one of the surprises of the Khan network was that the two very important nodes were located in our allies: South Africa and Switzerland, both countries with very good export controls on the books, but both countries were unable to implement their export controls to stop major proliferation involving centrifuge components, centrifuge equipment, nuclear weapons design information.
You have to ask yourself is this deal moving too fast, way beyond the ability of India to manage onward proliferation? And I would say it is and there needs to be some careful thinking about how you increase trade with India and make sure that it doesn't end up in the hands of Iran either through retransfer or through reverse engineering and sales.
And given the experience in the Khan network is that it doesn't - it's almost worse if India is our friend, and the reason is - and we saw this over and over again in the case of South Africa is that companies relax their standards and they freely send things - they freely send things to South Africa and those things were then retransferred or used within equipment that then was sent to the Libyan nuclear weapons program.
And so if you don't have robust export controls that are implemented effectively then you are extremely vulnerable to onward proliferation. Let me stop there. I'll be happy to take questions. I could go on but I think I have talked too much. Thank you.
KIMBALL: All right, thank you, David. We will come back to questions after all three of us are done. Len Weiss, please come to the podium. Len is going to cover the cost-benefit equation on non-proliferation.
LEONARD WEISS: The administration claims that the agreement will enhance nonproliferation efforts, but I have to say after examining at least what has been released thus far, it's very hard to come to that conclusion. My view is that unless the agreement as it stands right now is substantially modified as a result of the ongoing negotiations, the U.S.-India nuclear deal will contribute to an increased risk of proliferation and nuclear war and will do so in at least five ways.
First, it permits India with few concessions to accelerate its production of nuclear weapons by reserving its entire indigenous production of uranium and its stockpile of plutonium for weapons manufacture or weapons-related. Second, it undermines the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by devaluing the commitments made by non-nuclear-weapon states in order to receive peaceful nuclear technology assistance and by weakening weapons state commitments under Article I of the treaty.
Third, it strengthens the resolve of Iranian nationalists to defy the international community by creating a bad precedent for treating violators of nuclear agreements.
Fourth, it demolishes the norm of full-scope safeguards as a criterion for exporting nuclear materials, equipment, and technology to non-signers of the NPT.
Fifth, it raises questions about the commitment of the nuclear-weapon states to nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the NPT.
I would now like to discuss in detail these five points. First, on India's weapon production. Currently, as we know, India has to divide its indigenous uranium production between military and civilian applications. One of the reasons that India is interested in a nuclear deal is that it doesn't have the uranium fuel production capacity to fulfill its weapon and civilian nuclear power goals simultaneously. So the U.S.-India deal enables India to ramp up its weapons production.
Now, Pakistan, having fought three wars with India since 1948 is sure to follow suit in ramping up its own production of nuclear weapons perhaps with foreign help, thereby accelerating the nuclear arms race in South Asia. In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Steve Coll recounts how over a few months between December 2001 and May 2002 India and Pakistan went to the brink of war as a result of vicious jihadist attacks on India that the Indians believe were assisted by Pakistan. At the same time Pakistan believes that India provides covert support for insurgent groups in Pakistan including the separatists in Baluchistan.
Both are probably correct in their beliefs and are using surrogates to inflict damage on each other. But as Coll points out, the surrogates are not completely controllable; they have their own agendas and they might even conclude that their cause could benefit from war between India and Pakistan. Terrorist attacks as we have seen in our own country can put an attack nation in a jingoistic mood and cloud judgment. During the crisis in 2001 and 2002, some Indians were quoted as boasting they could lose Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta, and still annihilate Pakistan.
This kind of talk contributed to a discussion of evacuation plan by our embassy, then headed by Ambassador Robert Blackwill, a major proponent of the U.S.-India nuclear deal. The national security advisor to then Prime Minister Vajpayee told Coll that India did indeed come very close to launching an attack on Pakistan but that Vajpayee decided against it because he wanted to retire being known as a man of peace.
The jihadi groups are still operating and the risk of an event that could bring on war between India and Pakistan still exists. That war could very well be a nuclear war. The question is this a time to provide impetus for both sides to ramp up their weapon production and how is this in the U.S. national security interest.
The second point about the NPT: There are 189 countries in the world that have signed the treaty. Except for the recognized five weapons states, and leaving aside North Korea, that leaves 183 nations that have pledged to not make nuclear weapons and have their pledge verified through full-scope safeguards applied by the IAEA. In return under Article IV of the treaty, those countries are entitled to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and to receive assistance in that development.
For at least some of those countries, including Japan, Germany, and Brazil, the decision to give up their right to make nuclear weapons was not an easy one. So let's compare what these countries must do to receive nuclear trade with what the Indians must do under the U.S.-India agreement.
First, as mentioned, the non-nuclear-weapon states under the NPT cannot make nuclear weapons while India can make all of the weapons it wants. Second, all of the non-nuclear-weapon states under the NPT must accept safeguards on all of the nuclear materials and facilities. Under the U.S.-India agreement, India need only accept safeguards on its designated peaceful nuclear facilities. Moreover, the Indians are arguing for voluntary safeguards which can be removed at any time similar to what the nuclear-weapon states under the NPT now do.
The Indians have also indicated, as David pointed out, that they will oppose placing safeguards on their breeder program, including their breeder R&D program and the reactors needed to produce plutonium for the breeder. If this demand is met, it would mean a large-scale future increase in India's weapon production capacity. This is in contrast to NPT parties with breeder programs like Japan whose programs are completely covered by IAEA safeguards.
Although the administration has indicated that the U.S. has no intention of assisting the Indian breeder program, it's difficult to see how the U.S. will avoid doing so indirectly via sales of dual-use equipment and technology, sales that will also likely help India's weapon program more broadly. It's not a stretch to argue that in carrying out this agreement, the United States will be in violation of its commitment under Article I of the NPT to not assist in any way a non-nuclear-weapon state as defined under the NPT - and that includes India - to make nuclear weapons.
The apparent double standard that allows India to escape full-scope safeguards and still obtain nuclear assistance while countries like Japan, Germany, and Brazil are held to a tougher standard is a prescription for trouble. Countries may not leave the NPT over this issue, although one can't be absolutely sure of that. But the commitments of countries to the treaty will surely be weakened and may show up in lower support for tough measures of enforcement for violators or nuclear norms. It will make it easier for China to assist Pakistan in its nuclear weapons program and for Russia to assist Iran without anyone suggesting that those countries are in violation of Article I.
Now speaking of Iran, the aggressive stance taken toward Iranian nuclear safeguard violations stands in sharp contrast to the forgiveness of Indian transgressions represented by the U.S.-India nuclear agreement. Indeed, the chief Iranian negotiator, Ali Larijani referenced the deal with India in one of his statements complaining of discrimination against Iran. The administration has tried to soft pedal India's nuclear violations in its answers to a series of questions posed by Senator Lugar about the nuclear deal.
Please recall that India claimed at the time of its 1974 test explosion that it was a "peaceful nuclear explosion," and was therefore in keeping with the contract it signed with the Canada and the U.S. for the reactor and the heavy water that was used to produce the plutonium for their explosive device. In its answers to Lugar, the administration said it was not possible to determine whether India's actions in 1974 were inconsistent with the peaceful-use pledge for the heavy water.
It said that that was due to the factual uncertainty as to whether U.S.-supplied heavy water contributed to the production of the plutonium used for the device and the lack of mutual understanding of the scope of the 1956 contract language pertaining to the U.S. heavy water in India.
Well, that answer leaves out two important facts. First about the heavy water: The administration has raised an issue which was actually raised and settled at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs 30 years ago, in 1976. The State Department of the Ford administration at that time had claimed that the heavy water provided by the U.S. to India for the CIRUS research reactor, which had begun operating in 1960 was gone by 1974 due to a leakage rate of 10 percent per year in the reactor.
However, Canadian nuclear scientists told the committee at that time that the leakage rate was closer to 1 percent per year. A simple calculation shows that even with a loss rate of 10 percent per year, the percentage of U.S. heavy water in the reactor would still be about 23 percent in 1974, and of course most of the plutonium for the test was produced earlier than the date of the explosion. It is undoubtedly the case that there was a high likelihood of U.S. heavy water involved not only in 1974 but in the 1998 tests as well.
Now, as to the mutual understanding of the heavy water contract, four years before the Indian test in 1974, the U.S. government presented India with a second aide-memoire that reiterated and clarified what peaceful purposes meant. I learned about this document during the Senate debate over the application of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act to a proposed nuclear fuel shipment to the Tarapur reactors in India.
On behalf of Senator Glenn, for whom I was working at the time, I asked the State Department to declassify the document, and they did so on September 19th, 1980. For some reason this document has not played much of a role in the debate thus far over the U.S.-India agreement so I would now like to read this. It's two pages. It is attached to my statement as an appendix because it shows the utter disingenuousness of the State Department answer to Senator Lugar.
Here is what the document says, and I'm reading it as it was written:
"The United States government has noted various affirmations of Indian interests in developing the technology of peaceful nuclear explosions as well as statements that the government of India is not planning for a nuclear explosion.
Occasionally in the public debate on the nuclear issue, the question has been raised as to whether under extant agreements the government of India could legitimately use foreign-supplied nuclear technologies or materials to manufacture an explosive device to be used in a detonating a peaceful nuclear explosion."
We are talking now - this document is from 1970.
"We believe the government of India is aware of the American interpretation of agreements under which the United States has assisted India's development in the field of atomic energy. However, we would like to reiterate the American view in the interest of clarity and to obviate any misunderstanding.
"The American position reflected in the Nonproliferation Treaty is that the technology of nuclear explosives for peaceful uses is indistinguishable from that of nuclear weapons and that any nuclear explosive device that would be intended for benign economic purposes could also be used for destructive purposes.
"The development of such explosives therefore is tantamount to the development of nuclear weapons. Any other position would be inconsistent with the United States obligations under the Nonproliferation Treaty and the United States Atomic Energy Act.
"Consequently, the United States would consider it incompatible with existing United States-Indian agreements through American nuclear assistance to be employed in the development of peaceful nuclear explosive devices. Specifically, for example, the use for the development of peaceful nuclear explosive devices of plutonium produced there from would be considered by the United States a contravention of the terms under which the American materials were made available.
"The United States interprets the safeguards and guarantees provisions of the Tarapur agreement as prohibiting the use of American materials and equipment or materials produced from such materials and equipment for research on or development of any nuclear explosive devices regardless of stated applications.
"The contract under which the United States sold heavy water to India for the CIRUS reactor states the heavy water sold hereunder shall be for the use only in India by the government in connection with research into and the use of the atomic energy for peaceful purposes. The United States would not consider the use of plutonium produced in CIRUS for peaceful nuclear explosives intended for any purposes to be research into and the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes."
Okay, now I think that demolishes the administration's argument at least in terms of their answer to Senator Lugar.
Now, let me just say a word about - oh, let me just mention one other thing. There was a quote - Raj Ramanna, the former director of India's nuclear program, speaking to the press trust of India on October 10th, 1997, said this, quote: "The Pokhran test" - that is the 1974 explosion - "was a bomb, I can tell you now. An explosion is an explosion. A gun is a gun, whether you shoot at someone or shoot at the ground. I just want to make clear that the test was not all that peaceful."
Independently of the amount of U.S. heavy water still extant in the CIRUS reactor, India has for over 30 years been in continuous violation of the peaceful-use requirement that Canada placed on the reactor. Is it any wonder that Iranian nationalists could look at this record and conclude that they are being singled out for adverse discriminatory treatment?
More to the point, if the Indians do not acknowledge publicly that their claim of not having violated the CIRUS related contracts was a false claim, then how we can be sure that a similar sham interpretation of a new nuclear agreement with the U.S. will not occur again that might allow a cross over of civilian activities into the military program?
The fourth point is about full-scope safeguards. Full-scope safeguards has basically evolved into a global norm. It was initially in U.S. law under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978; it was adopted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 1992, so all of the suppliers agreed to have that as an export criterion, and it has been reaffirmed in two meetings of the NPT parties - the review conferences of 1995 and 2000.
The United States-India agreement basically shreds this export criterion, and the United States will seek to change the law and to get the nuclear suppliers group to allow an exemption for India in order for this, for full-scope safeguards not to be applied.
It's hard to see how the United States if it does this will persuade additional countries to agree to the more intrusive safeguards associated with the so-called additional protocol to IAEA safeguards agreements. Cooperation from other countries to accept more intrusive safeguards than they currently do will be much more difficult to get if we give India this favor.
And finally, India and the nuclear-weapon states: What is particularly amazing about the U.S.-India deal is that it not only recognizes and legitimizes India's nuclear weapons, it actually requires less of the Indians than what the five recognized nuclear-weapon states have already committed to do in furtherance of their obligations under Article VI of the treaty.
Unlike India, the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, and China have all agreed to cease production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and all have signed onto the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), although the U.S. is yet to ratify the treaty. India's agreement to continue its voluntary moratorium on testing is less binding than a signature on an international treaty.
Moreover, although the U.S. has backtracked from its agreement with the other weapon states at the 2000 NPT review conference, to follow the so-called 13 practical steps to fulfill their obligation to pursue systematic and progressive efforts to implement Article VI, the basic requirement of pursuing good-faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament is still extant.
The U.S.-India agreement puts no such requirements on the Indians, thus the Indians are being treated more favorably than the nuclear-weapon states under the NPT. This will be interpreted by some as blatant evidence of contempt by the United States and other weapons states toward the requirements of Article VI. The fight over the inclusion of Article VI at the time of the negotiations of the NPT suggests that this will be a continual irritant every time the NPT review conference convenes with unpredictable consequences for nonproliferation in the future.
To sum up, unless the negotiations with the Indians produce a clear nonproliferation benefit, including at the very least an end to fissile material production for nuclear weapons, the deal is a net loss in the fight against the spread of nuclear weapons and raises the risk of nuclear war. Thank you.
KIMBALL: Alright, thank you very much, Len. I would like to focus just a little bit further just for a couple of more minutes before we get to questions, on one of the issues that Len just touched upon. The supply of foreign nuclear fuel to India, which is one of the things that India very much wants out of this arrangement, would free up India's existing capacity to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium for weapons and allow for the rapid expansion of India's nuclear arsenal.
And as you suggested, this could constitute a violation or at least a contradiction of the United States' own commitment under Article I of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to assist in any way the nuclear weapons program of another state. Now, this is not an idle concern. There are some in India, including K. Subrahmanyan, who have openly argued that in order to expand India's arsenal, it should categorize as many reactors as possible as civilian to facilitate foreign refueling and conserve India's scarce native uranium fuel for weapons-grade plutonium production.
Now, as David Albright said, India has plans, ambitions to produce a substantially larger arsenal that it's believed to have today - somewhere in the low hundreds is what some of the plans suggest. Now, in response to questions from Congress on this very point, the State Department in their January 17 responses does not deny this possibility, the freeing up of India's domestic capacity, and it simply asserts that, "The growth of India's nuclear program is evidently not constrained by access to natural uranium."
Now this response does not take into account several scenarios that could allow India to use newly allocated domestic uranium to support fissile material production for weapons purposes. Now, some of these are related to how the civil military separation plan comes down and David was outlining some of the other scenarios that could allow India to increase its arsenal.
So for instance, if India built a new plutonium production reactor or designated some of its existing civilian heavy water reactors like the MAPS reactors that David mentioned for the military program to augment its two existing plutonium reactors, CIRUS and Dhruva, the additional increased consumption of domestic uranium supplies for plutonium production would be compensated for - by access to imported uranium for safeguarded power reactors. And if India no longer needs to rely on domestic uranium to fuel its power reactors, it could also expand the small-scale centrifuge enrichment program to make highly enriched uranium to support the weapons program.
Now, in our letters to Congress, the November 18th letter that was originally sent and the letter that was just delivered yesterday, we recommended that Congress seek remedies that ensure that India commits to halt fissile material production for weapons purposes pending a fissile material production cutoff treaty (FMCT). And as we note, as Len just did, that the five original nuclear-weapon states are all believed to have suspended fissile material production for weapons purposes. If India is going to live up to the responsibilities of the advanced nuclear-weapon states, this is one of those responsibilities.
Now, Indian officials insist that this proposal for nuclear cooperation should have nothing to do with India's strategic weapons program. They say that a fissile material production cutoff is just not on the table. And as Foreign Secretary Saran said I think from this very podium in December, "These suggestions are deal breakers." Well, perhaps they are, but if India is really only interested in a minimum credible deterrent, there is no need for additional fissile material production.
And there are consequences that the United States needs to keep in mind if India does continue to expand its fissile material production and its arsenal relating to Pakistan's program and China's program, which does continue to expand. And I would argue that it's in the U.S. and India's interest to cap the programs, cap the growth of the nuclear arsenals amongst these three countries.
Now, Indian officials are quick to note that when they reject the idea of a fissile material cutoff, that India supports a verifiable global treaty to cut off fissile-material production for weapons purposes. This was actually noted in the July 18th statement. However, we have to remember that has been India's position for many years, and that is very good.
But at the same time, U.S. opposition to a verifiable fissile material cutoff treaty is right now blocking progress on its negotiation. You just have to look back to Dafna Linzer's Washington Post story from July 2004, which reported that the Bush administration had come to the conclusion that a fissile material cutoff treaty is not verifiable and therefore the Bush administration will not support negotiations of this treaty at the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament.
The FMCT has been on the international arms control agenda since the original NPT negotiations in the late 1960s. And it is not likely going to be concluded, so long as the United States maintains its current position, and so long as no other state presses the United States to change its position.
Now, this U.S. view on the FMCT defies logic. Verification of the FMCT, which by the way would only focus on those states that have the capacity to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium, could be accomplished via a system nearly identical to the IAEA's comprehensive safeguards system, which is the very system that the Bush administration would like India to accept for the facilities it declares to be civilian.
Now, failing to pursue a fissile material production cutoff in South Asia also defies U.N. Security Council Resolution 1172. Many of us forget that in 1998 after the Indian and Pakistani nuclear test explosions, the Security Council adopted this resolution. It calls upon India and Pakistan to immediately stop their weapons development programs, halt fissile material production for weapons purposes, and to sign the CTBT among other non-proliferation measures.
So to conclude on this point, given that negotiations on a verifiable FMCT, which are supported by every state except for the U.S., given that these would likely take some time, even if the U.S. changes its position, the U.S. along with India, Pakistan, and China and all other states capable of producing fissile material could and should announce unilateral reciprocal moratoria on all fissile material production for weapons, pending the completion of a verifiable FMCT.
Now, it's of course, as David Albright mentioned, up to India to choose whether it wants to keep its nuclear weapons options open. Why it should, I'm not quite sure, but it is up to India to do that or to decide whether it wants to expand its nuclear energy production sector. However, we have to note here, and I would remind those who are reporting for papers in India, that it is the responsibility of the president of the United States and Congress not to aid another country's nuclear weapons program. And so indeed, this I think needs to be an issue that the Congress takes a close look at and continues to press other states to restrain fissile material production.
Now, just to conclude our entire session here, I'd also just like to note that as proponents of the nuclear cooperation deal argue, there is every reason to believe that the United States and India will continue to work side-by-side on various issues for years to come, whether it's fighting terrorism, energy cooperation, human development, military-to-military contacts, that will continue. And if Congress acts in ways to address this nuclear cooperation deal's proliferation risks, bilateral Indo-U.S. relations should still survive quite well and prosper in fact. Otherwise, the basic premise of a strategic partnership between the United States and India is deeply suspect. So to conclude, making far-reaching exceptions to existing nonproliferation rules might only be justified if the nonproliferation and disarmament benefits of this arrangement significantly strengthened the nonproliferation system. But as of now, they do not. And we hope that Congress will consider the full implications of the proposed arrangement in the coming months, and pursue additional stipulations that might result in a more positive outcome for U.S. and international security.
So with that, we'll open up the floor to your questions. I think we do have a microphone, which will come to you when you raise your hand. Please identify yourself and we'll get started. Anyone have a question? Yes, sir.
QUESTION: I am Sean Battier (sp). I am the foreign editor of Deccan Herald Newspaper from Bangalore. Leonard, if I might ask you my question first. Why are you projecting this in a kind of we're the good guys, they're the bad guys sort of dimension, and why aren't you looking at the U.S. role in effectively conniving in proliferation over so many years? I'm thinking, for example, of how the U.S. responded to China's repeated violations of the NPT by supplying design technology to Pakistan, how the United States connived in effect in the Khan network. I remember interviewing President Zia in the 1980s when he disclosed to me that Pakistan had started to enrich uranium. I think in those days to 15 percent. And I remember going to the U.S. Ambassador at the time in Islamabad and he said, "so what?" So I mean, could you just address these issues please? And I suppose you could also put into this U.S. connivance by supplying the heavy water to India? So it all fits into a pattern. I mean, the pattern seems to me that the NPT is a dead duck and has been - I mean, with all due respect to yourself - has been for a long time.
WEISS: Well, first of all, if you have been reading the stuff I have been writing over a period of years, you would notice that I have in fact attacked the United States for its policy in Pakistan. You are quite right about the U.S. involvement in allowing the Pakistanis to obtain nuclear weapons. As far as the U.S. sending the heavy water to India, please remember that there was no NPT at the time that contract was signed. It was signed in 1956. The agreement called for peaceful purposes only, as I read in the document, and so the United States could been said, perhaps, to be a little naïve at the time in having signed such a contract and not have verifiable safeguards attached to the agreement. But that was the case with nuclear technology sales and assistance almost everywhere at that time.
With respect to - coming back to the Pakistan issue, I think there is no question about the fact that the United States probably could have rolled up the Khan network - the original Khan network that enabled Pakistan to get the bomb. At the time, there must have been a number of statements from CIA people who were following the program to that effect. We didn't do it, and as a result, Dr. Khan was able to expand his network in a way that allowed nuclear weapons technology to go to Iran and North Korea and Libya, and perhaps other countries as well. But I am certainly not whitewashing the United States role in pointing out the transgressions of India in the past 30 years.
KIMBALL: Okay. Yes, sir?
QUESTION: I'm Bruce Fein from the Litchfield Group. I have two questions for Mr. Weiss. If the nuclear cooperation agreement does not go forward, do you expect that the Article VI obligation of the nuclear-weapons states to seek disarmament in good faith will proceed with some alacrity? And the second question is, if the agreement does not go forth, do you expect India would in some way renounce its nuclear weapons program and lead to a safer military dispensation in Southeast Asia?
WEISS: All right, let me take the second question first. I do not expect India to renounce its nuclear weapons program. I don't think that's the point. The point is, is it right for the United States to provide some sort of assistance for that program essentially to advance and to increase India's weapons production capability. The Indians, of course, have every right to make nuclear weapons. They did not sign the NPT. That doesn't mean that we ought to support them in the exercise of that right. It is important, I want to say, for the United States and India to have good bilateral relations. I am not arguing against having good bilateral relations with India. But please remember that the nuclear program of India, its peaceful nuclear program, represents only 3 percent of the amount of generated electricity in India. It is not a major contributor to India's energy development. And by assisting the Indians, we are sending signals that we don't believe ourselves in the Nonproliferation Treaty. And we're in essence going to change our laws if this deal goes through in a way, which people will interpret as a lack of seriousness on the part of the United States.
The first question about Article VI - no, I don't. If the agreement doesn't go through, that does not mean that the nuclear-weapon states are going to agree to the ultimate goals of Article VI with any further amount of alacrity than they have shown thus far. But the fact of the matter is that Article VI does exist. It is part of the so-called grand bargain that was struck when the NPT was negotiated and anything that the weapon states do to indicate to the rest of the world that we don't believe in the ultimate goal of Article VI is a detriment to the health of the treaty.
KIMBALL: Let me just also note on this point that - I mean, one of the things we're trying to point out here is that the nonproliferation system has established certain norms and standards. This agreement seeks exceptions to these norms and standards. So if the nonproliferation system is to survive - and I think it can and it must - this is not the time, especially when it is under such enormous stress from the twin challenges of North Korea and Iran, to deal it further blows by eviscerating the full-scope safeguard standard, by diminishing the importance of progress by all states on disarmament. So just to back up what Len is saying, I think those are a couple of additional points. We have the gentleman up here in front and then we'll go to the back row.
QUESTION: I am Naim Zalik (ph) from Pakistan. I would like to ask the question from both David and Len. Is there any possibility that this deal for augmenting India's nuclear energy program may have been offered by the U.S. to prevent India from going ahead with the gas pipeline deal with Iran?
KIMBALL: You want to try that one?
ALBRIGHT: I hate to do a Scott McClellan, but you should ask the State Department. (Chuckles.)
KIMBALL: Yeah, I think we haven't brought up the Iran issue, and it's purposeful because that's another issue. I mean, there are some proponents of this arrangement who believe that the deal is going to draw India into the U.S. sphere of influence or that the promise of this deal may encourage India to vote certain ways at certain boards of governors meetings. I think in the end, especially over the long-term, I mean, such suggestions are - they're inappropriate and they're not realistic, because India has a long history of being independent, and it will continue to be independent. And it is seeking good relations with all of its neighbors. So if anyone in the administration is trying to use this deal or trying to persuade India not to build this gas pipeline that would bring energy from Iran to India, I think they are probably mistaken. But that's not what we are really addressing here, but those are some thoughts on that. Yes, if you go to Chuck, please.
QUESTION: Charles Ferguson, Council of Foreign Relations. I'd like to bring up the issues of nuclear terrorism that hasn't really been raised yet, and I'd like to direct my question to David Albright. I'd like you to comment on India's possible use of highly enriched uranium in the civilian sector. I've talked to a MIT nuclear engineering professor recently, and he said that India might use highly enriched uranium - which is the easiest material for terrorists to use in a nuclear weapon - that's very well known - India might use this in their breeder reactors to get them started. And then recently I asked an Indian official, a former official, is there any plans for India to use highly enriched uranium in their breeder program. He said oh no, absolutely not. So I'd like David to comment on that and talk about possible uses of this dangerous material in the civilian sector. Thanks.
ALBRIGHT: I don't know what they're planning to do on the breeder. I mean, our estimates are they're short on separated plutonium. I mean, we may be wrong but they're going to have trouble fueling the prototype, particularly if it starts in around 2009, and particularly having enough separated plutonium in the pipeline to guarantee continued operation if a problem develops. I mean, often in these breeders, they really have a startup problem. Part of the reason the conflict between the United States and France never materialized on Super-Phoenix is the reactor just never operated very well. And it quickly shut down. But they had to have a second core ready for that reactor, and they may have had to implement that strategy. So in that plan they needed to have ten tons of plutonium fuel made for that reactor.
And in Indian case, I'm not sure they have enough. And so, maybe they would consider highly enriched uranium. I mean, we see that they're trying to expand the capacity of the RMP and they don't need it for naval, and I don't think they want to use it for weapons. Again, our estimates are it's a slowly increasing nuclear arsenal. There isn't a rush to build. And so perhaps they are creating a backup to be able to make highly enriched uranium, because again, as you know, many breeder reactors had their first cores made out of highly enriched uranium, so it's not unheard of and it may be an intention.
Now, in terms of beyond that, India, I think on research reactors, at least one they've talked about building they've been part of the effort on the ITER program so that the fuel would be low enriched uranium. They have one small civil research reactor that uses highly enriched uranium, but it's about no more than a kilogram a year and it often doesn't operate very well. So I think the Indians have stayed away from highly enriched uranium and that's to be commended and I hope it continues.
WEISS: Can I make a point about this? I have no idea what the Indian plans are for increasing their enrichment capacity in the future. But if they intend to do so in a big way, even though it is the case that centrifuge enrichment does not require as much electricity to drive it as a gaseous diffusion plant does, India may have to - or may feel that they need to have more a nuclear electrical-generating plant for the purpose of producing electricity to drive a future large-scale enrichment facility, in which case, if that's the case, and if U.S. assistance enables that to happen, we would in another way be contributing to the Indian nuclear weapons program because an electrical generating plant used to drive a centrifuge enrichment plan, and also to produce electricity for other purposes would not be detectable as an element of the India nuclear weapons program.
KIMBALL: Yes, sir, right here.
QUESTION: Thank you very much. My name is Masa Ota with Japanese Wire Kyodo News. I will question to any member of the panel, including Mr. Kimball. Two weeks ago, Secretary Bodman, Energy Department, he made a new announcement about a global nuclear energy partnership (GNEP). This new idea came up so abruptly and Indian officials so far have sounded support over this idea. So can any panel member analyze any linkage or connection between these two factors in the U.S. nuclear deal and those who are GNEP factor? And also what kind of an impact would this U.S. and the Indian deal have on the future GNEP program? Thank you very much.
ALBRIGHT: Let me make one simple point. It's just I think if India safeguards most of its nuclear facilities including the breeders, the reprocessing plants, the world nuclear community may welcome India into many international initiatives that would benefit India. If it chooses to isolate itself through limiting safeguards, then I don't think it will gain much from those programs.
KIMBALL: But, as I understand the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Indian participation is still dependent on the changes to U.S. nonproliferation law and nuclear cooperation agreement that this July 18th nuclear cooperation proposal would require. In other words, the GNEP proposal involves the supply of fuel for nuclear reactors, the return of that fuel to the United States and Russia, and the United States and Russia would dispose of that. So another aspect of possible Indian participation is that it might be involved in advanced reprocessing technology research. At this point, it is not clear to me what type of participation the United States is offering to India as part of this deal. But it would seem to me that on the basis of what we've seen so far that that cooperation would still be dependent on making the changes to U.S. law that this July 18th proposal would require.
We have a question here and then we'll go to the two gentlemen in the back.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) - India Globe/Asia Today. My question is that - sorry, for coming late. I had another function. What can we expect from that commitment of President Bush to India and also the agreement, which was July 18th signed here at the White House between the Prime Minister of India and President Bush. As strategic relationship and the U.S.-India relationships are concerned, what is coming out of this and is he going to take anything with him as far as this agreement is concerned so that he can make his case and the prime minister can make his case with the opposition leaders back home in India that what they have and what they can expect from this.
KIMBALL: Alright, well, I think I'll take a cue from David, an answer to an earlier question. I'm not Scott McClellan and I don't know what the president is taking to India. You know, it appears from the press reports - we're reading the same things you're seeing - that there are difficulties in reaching an agreement between Washington and New Delhi on the civil military separation plan. And until such time as that is concluded, the progress on this entire arrangement is going to be slow. And the administration has said they're not going to forward legislation to Congress to make changes.
So and I've also read, as many of you have read, the comments of the commissioner of the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, which make clear that the position of India going into the December talks with Undersecretary Burns and the January talks was to exclude a large number of facilities - civilian facilities - from international safeguards. This is what David Albright was talking about in his remarks. And so, even that separation plan is unacceptable to the Bush administration according to my understanding and according to the responses that the State Department has sent back to Capitol Hill. So it is quite possible that the deal could remain hung up on this issue before it even gets to Congress or the Nuclear Suppliers Group. So I'm looking forward to seeing what happens during President Bush's trip as you are.
Yes, a couple of folks back here.
QUESTION: Hi. Scott Morrissey. This is a question for the panel. A few months ago, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei voiced something he has said elsewhere that he actually supports the Indian nuclear deal. From what you're saying, that would complicate their efforts to get wide ratification of the additional protocol and get Brazilian naval facilities under safeguards, and as far as I can tell, in other ways just dig the IAEA's own grave. Can either of you either explain or otherwise critique this logic?
KIMBALL: David, do you have any insights about -
ALBRIGHT: Yeah, I've never asked him why do you support this? I mean, I've had discussions with senior safeguards people who have very mixed feelings. I mean, if India accepts sort of the ISIS plan, it's the biggest increase in safeguards since the NPT, because India has so many facilities and these power reactors are tough to safeguard, because they're these CANDU-type, and so you have online refueling. And in fact their preference would be that if we're going to safeguard India, focus on the reprocessing plants and enrichment plants. And I heard clear signal that they felt that they would like (inaudible) under safeguards. So I think they're in a sense the practitioners. They have to the think about the costs, how to implement it, and I don't think they see much benefit in safeguarding everything in India, and they prefer to focus on the things that really give you some clarity about a civil/military split, namely the reprocessing plants and enrichment plants.
I can speculate. ElBaradei likes to see things increase or go in a general direction. I mean, I don't know what he'll respond in the end when an agreement is actually signed and the IAEA is turned to and say, okay, go safeguard these places and you come up with the money.
WEISS: Please remember that the charter of the IAEA makes the agency a promoter of nuclear energy and ElBaradei may very well have been expressing an opinion based upon his position as the head of an agency that is in business not just to safeguard nuclear facilities, but to promote nuclear energy generally. I think that, again agreeing with what David said, the expansion of the agency's mandate in India to more facilities is something that would be a plus in a certain sense. But I think it is also the case that we'll probably have to wait and see how the agreement really shakes out when the negotiations are over before we know precisely what ElBaradei may think of it.
KIMBALL: And we have to keep in mind one other thing is that even after the Congress and the NSG would approve this, it would be up to the IAEA to negotiate the safeguards agreement with India on these facilities. Okay, one of the issues that is now in play, now under debate is what kind of safeguards? We didn't really talk too much about this, but this is vital. The Indian government is still - seems to prefer the so-called voluntary safeguards offer that the P-5, the original five nuclear-weapon states, observe. These are symbolic safeguards, meaningless in terms of preventing diversion. The Bush administration is on the record insisting that India accept permanent facility-specific safeguards on all these civilian facilities. In IAEA parlance, those are the CIRC/66 safeguards. India already has four facilities under these kinds of safeguards. So that's one of the fundamental necessities here. It would be up to ElBaradei to negotiate that with India.
QUESTION: I have a question for Len. Given the fact that the Congress is going to play a major role in what happens, I think it would be useful if he could clarify what Congressional legislation exists that would oppose this arrangement, including the Symington Amendment and the Glenn Amendment. And what action would have to be taken by the administration with Congress in order to go ahead with the deal as it appears to be emerging and what the prospects are that Congress will take a serious and hard look at that kind of legislation.
WEISS: Well, the law that is the biggest block to U.S.-India cooperation in the nuclear area at this point is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978, because it requires full scope safeguards for exports of nuclear technology to any non-nuclear-weapon state. And under the definition provided by the NPT, India is considered a non-nuclear-weapon state. The administration would have to either amend the law by simply coming in with an amendment for it for Congress to pass, or it could have Congress introduce what's called a stand-alone bill that would say something to the effect - notwithstanding any other element of U.S. law, we provide an exception for India to receive nuclear technology, or words to that effect, which is the more likely way that I think the issue would be addressed.
Now, there are other laws that apply to the Indians as well. One is the Symington and the Glenn amendments, which apply to all non-nuclear-weapon states. If anybody imports or exports nuclear enrichment technology, equipment, or materials without safeguards, they would be cut off from U.S. military and economic cooperation. And the Glenn amendment, which does the same thing with respect to reprocessing technology. The problem here is that there are presidential waivers, which are built into the law that can be exercised, number one.
And number two, the president of course would have to actually declare a violation in order for the law to be applied. And the violation would have to occur from the time of the last waiver, whenever that was actually passed either by Congress or by presidential executive action. Obviously, this is something that would be difficult for the president to do once he signs an agreement for U.S.-Indian cooperation, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't happen.
The final law, which I think applies in this case is the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act, which was an expansion of the Glenn amendment to say that if a nuclear test is done by a non-nuclear-weapon state, then a whole variety of sanctions come into play automatically. This in fact happened in 1998 when both India and Pakistan did their nuclear tests, but the Congress immediately came in with an exemption for India and Pakistan with respect to agricultural exports, and then another law, another amendment was passed the following year, which hallowed basically the president to determine whether the law should be implemented. So he issued a waiver that removed all of the sanctions, but if another test were to take place, he would have to issue another waiver in order to prevent the end of nuclear cooperation or the end of the other sanctions, which included many other things besides nuclear.
KIMBALL: Now, Spurgeon, you had asked about the likelihood that Congress would take a close look. I'll just say a word about that. I mean, Congress, it appears, is in a wait and see mode. In my conversations with a number of offices, they are waiting to see the legislation that would make the changes necessary to these laws that would make this cooperation possible. And I would also note that in preparing this letter that several of us sent to Capitol Hill yesterday, we were reviewing 150-some pages of administration responses to some 90 questions from members of Congress. So the questions are coming in. There have been three hearings by the House International Relations Committee and one by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There will be more hearings to come. So I'm pleased that Congress is looking closely. What they do is not clear yet. It depends a great deal on what the administration presents them and what this separation plan actually looks like, whether it's credible or not.
QUESTION: I am Paul Walker with Global Green USA. You've all a little bit speculated on the administration rationale for this, but it seems to me very illogical to raise this issue particularly at this point in time, as you've pointed out Daryl, with regard to North Korea and Iran. So I wondered if you all would speculate a little bit more as to what's the real driving rationale for this at this point in time? Is it important in 2006? Is it business interests? Is it promotion of rebuilding of nuclear power industry, globally or in the United States? Or is it something more that we're not quite seeing in this picture?
And secondly, my second question somewhat unrelated is, do any of you know about the physical security practices in India of nuclear power generation and spent fuel storage? As you know, there is a lot of concern over the design basis that Congressman Markey has raised over the years here, and the vulnerability of nuclear sites to - particularly attack from terrorist groups - and I'm just wondering if there is a proliferation of nuclear energy far above - what is it - 3 percent now that India uses for its nuclear energy production in India, should there be also some stipulation of in fact the physical security at these sites as well. Thank you.
ALBRIGHT: Yeah, I don't actually know. On the fissile material side, there has been continuing concern that not enough is known here about Indian practices on fissile material, and so it's always been ranked up there in these kinds of analysis. I mean, you first have Russia, but then you have this clustering of China, India, Pakistan. And Pakistan is certainly above India and China, but it's driven by a lack of knowledge, anything seen in other activities that lower your confidence that all the lessons of physical protection have really sunk in and been implemented. I would argue though that one of the reasons to engage India, and I'm certainly not in favor of this agreement going forward except in an extremely slow way, but certainly one of the reasons to engage India is to get U.S. people there, Europeans there who are experts in these kinds of questions on physical protection and work with the Indians to significantly raise their capabilities, because they certainly are targeted by terrorists, and they have an increasing amount of separated plutonium. You've raised this issue of attacking reactors. It makes me worried. I hadn't thought about it, but certainly it's a concern that one would hope India is dealing with and would be open to cooperative efforts with other states that have dealt with it for years and probably dealt with it more effectively.
WEISS: I don't know whether India has permissive action links on their nuclear weapons. I assume that they probably have some version of them. And I also assume without knowing for sure that the United States has been engaged in discussions with the Indians about that on some level, since we have also been doing something similar with respect to the Pakistanis. On the question of nuclear power or as to why the administration has gone ahead with this agreement up to now, it seems to be a combination of things, and I have no idea what weight to give to each individual element in the combination. But it does include, for example, a desire to push forward nuclear power as an element in sort of a worldwide energy production mix.
The interesting thing is that the United States is not likely to be the biggest beneficiary of the U.S.-Indian nuclear agreement with respect to our nuclear industry. I mean, it's much more likely, for example, that the French and the Russians would end up selling nuclear reactors to India than the United States, so we would probably be able to sell nuclear fuel and components of some sort. But I think the big buck items are more likely to go to the French and the Russians. Secondly, as reported in The Washington Post, some of the big U.S. defense contractors are likely to benefit from the agreement, because apparently the Indians have told us that they are prepared to spend anywhere from $5 to $15 billion on high-tech, non-nuclear defense technology, which would be a big benefit to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and perhaps others. And finally, there is, of course, the sort of geopolitical issue of whether India could be used or helped by the United States to be a counterweight to China with respect to U.S. interests in Asia. All of these, I think are in play, and as I say, I have no idea what weight to give to each one of them.
ALBRIGHT: Let me add one thing. In our work on this issue, one thing that surprised me - I forget who asked the question - but the opposition from the U.S. bureaucracy. Over and over again, we hear they were rolled, senior level decision, many the middle level bureaucracy is not comfortable with this agreement for all these reasons we've been talking about. Export controls is a very big one. How does India make this split and make it credible? I haven't heard this - well, let me say this. One of the ironies of this is where India is in its own actions is making it look like it wants an incredible number of nuclear weapons, and so I don't think that was expected, and I think it's a miscalculation on the part of the Indian nuclear establishment. But why would U.S. government officials want to be part of a deal or encourage a deal where India is seizing a right that they've given up and all the other weapons states have given up. Israel isn't launching an expansion of its nuclear arsenal. We don't even think Pakistan is. So India is sort of seizing this moment to create an incredible nuclear weapons production capability beyond any other state in the world. So I am sympathetic to the officials, I must say, and it's certainly affecting our thinking that you don't see much support for this agreement within the bureaucracy.
KIMBALL: And I think what David just mentioned, I mean, it kind of sums up the overriding concern that we have here, and one of the reasons why we've put this together. And you know to reiterate - we believe that the U.S.-India relationship needs to improve, but we don't think that it needs to be improved at the cost of sacrificing efforts to hold back proliferation worldwide. So you know, at a minimum, the things that the Congress ought to be looking for and expecting in order to avoid the worst is making sure that the civil/military separation plan includes the broadest possible list of civilian facilities, that the safeguards are meaningful, they're permanent safeguards on all material and facilities, and that India makes some sort of commitment to cut off the production of fissile material that would be necessary to expand its arsenal.
Thank you very much for being here. We have a number of materials on the table outside relating to some of the presentations, and there is more information on the Arms Control Association website . Thank you. (Applause.)
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