[Mb-civic] Senator Boxer on India's Nuclear Program

[U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer]

Dear Friend:

Knowing of your interest in foreign affairs, I am sending along
my recent remarks when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing
on U.S.-India Atomic Energy Cooperation.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

Secretary Rice, thank you for your testimony.

I share your view that a strong bilateral relationship with
India is important.   India is a thriving democracy with a
growing economy and developing closer ties between our two
nations is something I strongly support.

However, I do not share the view that closer U.S.-India ties
will be a counterweight to China, which seems to be the
unstated yet driving force behind this deal.  This type of
thinking is not only outdated and dangerous, it flies in the
face of reality.

Last April, India and China signed 12 separate agreements on
issues such as trade, security and transportation.  Indian and
Chinese leaders have even declared 2006 as the year of
“India-China friendship.”

Clearly, India has no interest in being a “hedge” against China
and it is naive to think otherwise.

So efforts to improve U.S.-Indian relations as a stand alone
policy not tied to the China card are to be supported, and I do
not fault the Administration for seeking an agreement on
nuclear cooperation with India.

But such an agreement should be a win for our bilateral
relationship as well as for nonproliferation.  This agreement
does not meet that test.

Secretary Rice, I have five areas of concern about this deal

First, it rewards a nation for not signing the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Second, it will give India the capability to produce more
fissile material and more nuclear weapons than it otherwise
could.

Third, it requires a change in current law, which is a bad
precedent.

Fourth, the timing of the deal negatively impacts our policy
toward Iran and North Korea.

Fifth, the United States gave away more than it received.

I want to expand on each of these points.

First, this deal rewards India for not signing the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970.

This treaty, known as the NPT, is the keystone of international
nonproliferation efforts. Thanks to the NPT, more than 180
nations have not developed nuclear weapons.

One of the great incentives of the NPT is that non-nuclear
weapon nations are given access to civil nuclear assistance. 
By allowing India to receive civil nuclear assistance while it
continues production of nuclear weapons, India is being
rewarded.

Second, this deal will give India the capability to expand its
arsenal of nuclear weapons.  While U.S. nuclear assistance will
only be used for civil purposes, uranium fuel imports from the
United States will allow India to dedicate more of its scarce
indigenous uranium ore for military use.

Experts believe that this deal could allow India to vastly
increase its production of nuclear weapons from about six per
year to about 50 a year. 

This could touch off an arms race in the region that would not
be in any country’s interest, including our own.

Third, the draft legislation proposed by the Administration
requests that Congress exempt the U.S. - India civil nuclear
agreement -- which has not yet been finalized -- from several
key sections of the Atomic Energy Act, including one that
prohibits the export of nuclear material or technology to any
non-nuclear-weapon state which has detonated a nuclear device.

India needs an exemption because in 1974 it detonated a nuclear
device -- and did so by improperly using U.S. and Canadian
civil nuclear technology.

In addition, there is a troubling report that the Institute for
Science and International Security has uncovered “a
well-developed, active, and secret Indian program to outfit its
uranium enrichment program and circumvent other countries'
export control efforts.”

Fourth, the timing of this deal negatively impacts our policy
on Iran.

I understand that there is no comparison between India and Iran
or India and North Korea.  But we still have to be consistent
in terms of our policy.  Either we want to limit the spread of
nuclear weapons or we don’t.

There is growing evidence that the timing of the U.S.-India
agreement is complicating our efforts to pressure Iran.  Just
last Wednesday, Germany's foreign minister said that the timing
of the U.S.- Indian nuclear agreement was “certainly not
helpful” to attempts to ensure that Iran does not develop a
nuclear bomb.

As the Los Angeles Times editorialized last month, “the message
to Iran, North Korea and other nuclear wannabes couldn’t be
clearer or more destructive.  These regimes and others will
rightly conclude that the United States is interested in
stopping the spread of nuclear know-how and technology only to
regimes it dislikes...This undermines U.S. moral leadership on
the single most dangerous threat to humankind: the spread of
nuclear weapons.”

And now my final concern: the United States gave away more than
we received in this deal.

As former Senator Sam Nunn recently said, “India was a lot
better negotiator than we were.”

Under this deal, India will be able to produce nuclear weapons
while receiving all of the benefits of civil nuclear
cooperation that non-nuclear weapon states enjoy under the NPT.

To sum it up, this deal rewards India's illegitimate
acquisition of nuclear weapons while placing into question our
commitment to nonproliferation.

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