- U.S. President George Bush last week
struck a deal with India that directly violates the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, or NPT, as well as several major U.S. laws, setting off waves of
criticism in the states and around the world. Canadian officials have not
been part of that criticism. Instead, the nation that helped India build
its first nuclear weapon may now help India build dozens more.
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- The Bush deal would directly encourage
and assist India's nuclear bomb program, in contradiction to Article 1
of the NPT that prohibits any signatory nation from helping another nation
develop nuclear weapons. Fortunately, before President Bush can sell one
gram of uranium to India, the U.S. Congress will have to approve changes
to U.S. laws. Congress could block or amend the agreement. Senior members
of both parties have indicated their deep concerns about the deal and the
precedent it sets for other nations, including Iran. The reaction has been
so negative that the Indian ambassador to the United States complained,
"the nonproliferation ideologues have high jacked the debate."
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- Still, other nations, including France,
Russia and Canada, are tempted by the profits to be made in nuclear sales
to the world's second most populous nation. The nuclear industries in these
countries are salivating at the prospect of billions of dollars in trade
and hoping that the construction of dozens of new reactors in India and
China could restart their long-stalled industry, launching a new wave of
nuclear power around the world. So-called "realists" in the foreign
policy establishments dismiss proliferation concerns, focusing instead
on the need to forge strong ties with India. Neoconservatives are eager
to forge a grand alliance against China. For them, as one architect of
the deal told my colleague, the problem is not that India has nuclear weapons;
it is that it does not have enough nuclear weapons.
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- Canada will play a key role in determining
whether this deal lives or dies. Canada has a special responsibility in
this matter. More than any Indian scientist, Canada can be called the true
mother of the Indian nuclear bomb.
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- Canada began its nuclear cooperation
with India fifty years ago. In 1955, Canada agreed to build a 40MW research
reactor for India, known as the CIRUS (Canada-India Reactor, US) reactor.
India promised that both the reactor and the related fissile materials
would only be used for peaceful purposes. Canada supplied half the initial
uranium fuel for the reactor and the United States supplied the other half,
plus heavy water to moderate the nuclear reactions. Canada signed two cooperation
agreements that provided India with designs for the CANDU-type reactor.
Many of India' s nuclear reactors, both operational and planned, are based
on CANDU technology and designs received from Canada.
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- All were supposed to be exclusively for
peaceful use. But in 1974, India cheated on its commitments. It took out
fuel rods from the CIRUS reactor, extracted the plutonium from those rods
and detonated its first nuclear test. India called it a "peaceful"
nuclear explosion, but the country now admits it was a test of a weapon
design. In response, Canada ceased all nuclear cooperation with India.
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- Now, following the US lead, Canada has
begun to revive that cooperation. In September 2005, Canadian Foreign Minister
Pettigrew met with Indian External Affairs Minister Singh and agreed to
forget this history and let bygones be bygones. Significantly, they agreed
to develop a broad bilateral cooperation framework, possibly by mid-2006.
Canada agreed to open the supply of nuclear technology to any Indian civilian
nuclear facility. This means that Canada, too, will violate the NPT. It
will break Canadian laws that now require that a nuclear cooperation agreement
only be concluded with a state that has signed the NPT (which India refuses
to do) or has accepted full-scope safeguards (which India has not).
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- Full-scope safeguards means that a country
agrees that all its nuclear facilities will be open to thorough inspection
by the International Atomic Energy Agency. These inspectors will make sure
that no nuclear fuel is diverted to weapons purposes. But the Bush India
deal exempts fully one-third of India's reactors from any inspections.
It does not matter that inspectors will be allowed in to the others. If
the deal stands, India will use foreign fuel for its power reactors, freeing
up Indian uranium for its military reactors. India will be able to double
or triple the number of weapons it can make annually. They could go from
the 6-10 they could currently produce to 30 a year.
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- The consequences could be severe. Regionally,
it could ignite a new nuclear arms race. Pakistan will not stand idly by,
nor will China. What will Japan do, a country that signed the NPT, but
now sees India reaping the benefits of standing outside the treaty?
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- Globally, the deal cripples the main
diplomatic and legal barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons. The United
States is now trying to restrain the Iranian program by relying on the
very treaty it has just weakened with the India deal.
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- There are ways to fix this deal to minimize
the damage, including getting India to promise to cease all further production
of nuclear bomb material (the way all other nuclear weapon states have,
save Pakistan). Canadian officials can help. But they must now decide if
they want to. A bit of reflection on their past history with India wouldn
't hurt.
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- II. http://nobmdeh.blogspot.com/2006/03/canada-true-mother-of-indian-bomb.html
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- Saturday, March 11, 2006 Canada: 'True
Mother of the Indian Bomb' A couple of days ago, I took a poke at the Globe
& Mail for not devoting enough attention to the Canadian angle on the
story about George Bush's plan to increase nuclear cooperation with non-NPT
signatory India.
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- To give credit where it's due, I thought
I'd point out that the Globe today published a strong op-ed by Joseph Cirincione
of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace entitled 'Let's not help India build
more nuclear weapons.'
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- Cirincione's 'more' of course, refers
to Canada's own history of contributing to India's nuclear weapons program.
As he points out,
-
- [Canada] has a special responsibility
in this matter -- more than any Indian scientist, this country can be called
the true mother of the Indian nuclear bomb. In 1955, Canada agreed to build
a 40MW research reactor for India, known as the CIRUS (Canada-India-Reactor-United-States).
-
- India promised that both the reactor
and related fissile materials would only be used for peaceful purposes.
Canada supplied half the initial uranium fuel for the reactor; the U.S.
supplied the other half, plus heavy water to moderate the nuclear reactions.
Canada signed two co-operation agreements with India: Many of its nuclear
reactors, both operational and planned, are based on CANDU technology and
designs.
-
- All were supposed to be exclusively for
peaceful use. But in 1974, India cheated on its commitments. It took fuel
rods from the CIRUS reactor, extracted the plutonium and detonated its
first nuclear test. India called it a "peaceful" nuclear explosion,
but the country now admits it was a test of a weapon design. In response,
Canada ceased all nuclear co-operation with India.
-
- Former foreign affairs minister Pierre
Pettigrew announced Canada's about-face on the policy last fall, as some
of this blog's readers may recall.
-
- Cirincione puts it this way:
-
- In September, then-foreign affairs minister
Pierre Pettigrew met with his Indian counterpart, Natwar Singh, and agreed
to let bygones be bygones. Significantly, they agreed to develop a broad
bilateral co-operation framework, possibly by mid-2006. Canada agreed to
open the supply of nuclear technology to any Indian civilian nuclear facility.
-
- In other words, Canada, too, will violate
the NPT. It will break Canadian laws that now require that a nuclear co-operation
agreement only be concluded with a state that has signed the NPT (which
India refuses to do) or has accepted full-s cope safeguards (which India
has not).
-
- As I pointed out in my recent post, Pettigrew
also made highly misleading comments when he announced our government's
policy change, claiming last September that an Indian policy firmly separating
military from civilian nuclear activity was already effectively in place,
even though that claim was at odds with the facts then, as it is today.
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- Like other critics of the recent shifts
in nuclear cooperation policy by the US, Canada and France, Cirincione
asks us to look beyond short-term political and economic gains and think
about the bigger nuclear non-proliferation picture.
-
- It amounts to this: how can we be holding
Iran to every jot and tittle of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
while carving out exceptions for India that effectively ignore our own
obligations under that same treaty?
-
- (Not that ignoring obligations is limited
to this Indian deal, of course: in my view, all of the nuclear powers ought
to be doing a lot more to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of
the NPT to eliminate their nuclear weapons.)
-
- Taking a similar approach to Cirincione
is Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, who has recently offered
a number of salient criticisms of the proposed deal on Indian nuclear cooperation.
Here's one:
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- The import of nuclear fuel from foreign
suppliers also would free up India to use its limited domestic reserves
of uranium for the sole purpose of building weapons. India previously had
to choose between using this material for energy or bombs.
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- So, will Canada's planned increase in
nuclear cooperation with India come into play here? It seems likely, given
that we're a major uranium exporter, and are now re-thinking our policy
on nuclear cooperation with India.
-
- Kimball also points out that deals weakening
the NPT by creating exceptions for India could set a dangerous precedent.
Suppose China decides in a couple of years that it wants to establish an
India-style deal with Pakistan, Kimball asks?
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- The U.S.-India deal would create a precedent
that other countries might attempt to exploit. The United States may not
advocate a similar initiative for Pakistan, but China might. China and
Pakistan have a history of nuclear cooperation and have reportedly discussed
ways to expand this relationship. China is a member of the 45-member NSG
[Nuclear Suppliers Group], which operates by consensus, and could tie its
consent to the U.S.-India deal to a similar exception for Pakistan.
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- Even though Pakistan is a known proliferator,
it's not impossible that China, countering American efforts in the region,
might decide to create its own 'nuclear side deal' with India's nuclear
rival, Pakistan.
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- The prospect is not comforting, to say
the least.
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- Now, Cirincione concludes his op-ed by
saying that Canadian 'officials' face a crucial choice: will they help
strengthen the international non-proliferation regime, or will they help
weaken it by going along with Bush's policy on nuclear cooperation with
India?
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