Nuclear Thread - 2

04-20-2006, 04:24 AM

Can somebody please comment on this ??

http://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebates/....asp?recno=1379

QUOTEThe fool or knave, Americaâs response, in counter, has always been to view the deal through a strategic prism, which is why the no-test clause, which is why the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said to Congress that India had agreed to a regional, South Asian FMCT involving Pakistan.

WTF is this "regional south asian FMCT" ??

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 04-20-2006, 04:41 AM by acharya.)

04-20-2006, 07:12 AM

acharya,
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04-22-2006, 01:17 AM

Moratorium on nuclear testing vital to N-deal: USQUOTEThe Bush administration has said that as far as the United States is concerned, India's public moratorium on further nuclear weapons testing is the linchpin of the US-India civilian nuclear agreement.

Following India's rejection on April 17 - after it was leaked that the preliminary draft of the bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreement called for a cap on nuclear testing, warning that cooperation would be immediately suspended if India were to detonate a nuclear explosive device - Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher said, "We all understand that India has a moratorium on nuclear testing and has made a public commitment itself, based on its own decision to continue that moratorium on nuclear testing."
...............

He added, "So it's not surprising to find that encoded in various forms in documents we write and statements we make. But it was India's decision to do that just as the major nuclear powers themselves have decided not to test."

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 04-27-2006, 11:48 PM by acharya.)

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Indo-US nuclear deal called âflawedâ and problematic

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has described the Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement, now before Congress, a âflawed deal with serious problems.â

Addressing a discussion organised by the US Institute of Peace on the nuclear agreement, Albright, a leading American expert on nuclear proliferation issues, said he simply cannot get âenthusiasticâ over the agreement and urged that the administration not try to rush it through, since there are several aspects of it that need scrutiny and careful analysis, given their grave implications for non-proliferation. He feared that if the agreement goes in its present form, it would lead to an arms race involving India, China and Pakistan. He said the agreement severely weakens nuclear suppliersâ control over dual-use technology. He pointed out that the separation plan prepared by India was not satisfactory, slanted as it was in favour of New Delhi. He said there is no guarantee that India will not revert to nuclear testing. He stressed that India should provide a guarantee, to be built into the agreement, that it would not make illicit purchases of nuclear materials that it has been making through offshore companies. The split between Indiaâs military and civilian facilities must be made more credible, he added. He said there are worries over retransfer of technology by India as well as reverse engineering. He described Indiaâs export control system as inadequate and emphasised that a strengthened export control regime must be made a part of the agreement.

Dr Seema Gahlaut of the University of Georgia and Dr Anupam Srivastava from the same university defended the agreement, which they saw as posing no danger to non-proliferation efforts. Dr Gahlaut said that 28 years of US sanctions against Indiaâs nuclear programme had yielded no results and the world had to find a place for India since without having signed the NPT it had done everything that is required of an NPT signatory. She said the deal between India and the US was much stronger than the one the US had signed with China. She also pointed out that there is no such thing as a âperfectâ export control system, while lauding the one India has set in place.

Former Indian foreign secretary Salman Haider, now a fellow at the US Institute of Peace, pointed out that it is no longer possible to maintain a sanctions regime against India, which must be treated as a global partner. The statutory downgrading of India has to end. India must be recognised as a nuclear power. He rejected the view that the Indo-US agreement would lead to an arms race in South Asia, arguing that India and Pakistan are engaged in a peace process which is moving forward. He said China would carefully assess the deal, given the fact that is has always been reluctant to accept India as a global power, viewing it as a regional player. This thinking, he added, has to change. He did not think Pakistan feels threatened by the deal.

He stressed that India is not to be bracketed with Pakistan as it has pulled itself into a different orbit, which is why the US has dehyphenated its South Asia policy. India, he said, has wider horizons and is no longer a creature of South Asian power dynamics. A ârelaxedâ India, he added, would be a better neighbour to the countries it is surrounded by.

During a lively question-answer session, Albright pointed out that Indiaâs ordering of 60 tons of fuel for its Tarapur nuclear facility from Russia was suspect since there was no emergency need for such a huge quantity. He called the Indo-US deal âbomb friendly.â He also pointed out that Canada maintains that India violated its treaty obligations when it used the Canadian-supplied CIRRUS reactor to produce material for its first nuclear weapon. He said the US must not make the same mistakes it has made in the past, but instead build in all necessary guarantees and commitments that India needs to furnish, in the agreement which is now before Congress. He also wanted to know why India wants 50 nuclear bombs a year, which it will have the capability of making once the agreement goes through. He also insisted that the US should not finalise the deal unless it becomes clear what kind of safeguards agreement India has concluded with the IAEA.

He said there is no cap in the agreement on weapon building or breeder reactors. One questioner, a former US foreign service officer, said he failed to see what there was for the United States in this agreement, though there was much in it for India.

04-27-2006, 11:45 PM

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/27brahm...?q=tp&file=.htm

India has sold its nuclear soul to the US : Brahma Chellany

-------------

A hard-hitting piece from Shri Chellaney. Must read. He has answered all the questions I had for the past several months listing all that India is offering in return for the deal - or the price of the deal.

I for one find this price unacceptable and the deal brokered in bad faith. Let us turn this down and wait for atleast 5 more years - when the price per gallon goes to $6 maybe things will start making more sense.

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 04-27-2006, 11:56 PM by acharya.)

Thursday, April 27, 2006

US Senate hears testimony for and against Indian N-deal

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: In a long hearing on Wednesday morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard from both critics and proponents of the Indo-US nuclear cooperation treaty, now before Congress for approval.

While the proponents of the treaty emphasised the beneficial aspects of the deal, its opponents argued that it would undermine the non-proliferation regime, have a blind eye turned to Indiaâs nuclear military programme and seriously damage a system that has kept the number of countries with nuclear weapons to a minimum in the last 50 years.

Senate Committee chairman Dick Lugar said some months ago, he had submitted 82 questions related to the agreement to the State Department to enable Congress to make an âinformed decisionâ. The answers sought were provided, but after Condoleezza Riceâs testimony, Lugar sent the Department another 90 questions which were also responded to. This alone illustrates the complicated nature of the deal that the administration seeks and shows that not all aspects of the arrangement are clear.

Sen Lugar cautioned that while the US pursues closer ties with India, the implications and risks of initiating a cooperative nuclear relationship must be carefully examined. He said among the many questions that needed to be asked was an evaluation of the potential benefits of drawing India into a deeper relationship with the IAEA. He urged India to work hard to conclude an agreement with the IAEA which should be effective and timely.

Sen Joseph Biden, ranking Democrat on the committee, pointed out that the Bush administration had not consulted the committee as it negotiated the July 18, 2005 joint statement issued by the president and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Little attention had been paid to the committeeâs concerns regarding Indiaâs plan for separating its civilian and military nuclear facilities. He pointed out that undoing the deal could do more damage in terms of US-India relations than approving it, with carefully crafted conditions. The deal brings risks which must not be minimised, either by Congress or by the administration, he warned. He said the administration still has to answer âour questions for the recordâ and it has yet to share its negotiating record or explain just what it agreed to when it accepted the idea of India-specific safeguards or corrective measures India may take in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies. Nor was it clear what assurances the US had given regarding fuel supply or the strategic reserve of nuclear fuel for India. The Senate still had not been given a complete list of Indiaâs civilian nuclear facilities. He said while the deal makes sense for India, it is not a âslam dunkâ.

Robert L Gallucci of Georgetown University said the deal proposed does not justify the cost to national security. While the US had good reasons for improving its relations with India, part of the calculation must turn on US uncertainties about China and whether it would turn out to be more of a strategic competitor than a partner in the decades ahead. The deal would give India what it has long sought: American acceptance of the country as a nuclear power. However, it would do nothing to help the US deal with the risks posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons. âThere is no reason why we should attach any positive value to Indiaâs willingness to submit a few additional nuclear facilities of its choosing to international safeguards, so long as other fissile material producing facilities are free from safeguards,â he said.

âIn truth, we would reward India with nuclear cooperation because we now place such a high value on improved relations with New Delhi, not because of its uniquely good behaviour.â The deal, he warned, proposes to allow India to expand its nuclear energy programme and expand its nuclear arsenal at the same time, which is why it will be a mistake.

The Senate also heard testimony from Ashton B Carter of Harvard, William J Perry of the Hoover Institution, Ashly J Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Ronald F Lehman of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Robert J Einhorn of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Centre and Stephen P Cohen of the Brookings Institution.

gangajal · 04-28-2006, 12:27 AM

It does not matter that US is insisting that their supply of nuclear materials for power production will depend on India continuing its moratorium on nuclear testing. Let me give the reason for that. I doubt very much if the world supply of uranium will last more than 50 years if all the major countries of the world start using the fission route to power. The stark truth is oil, coal, natural gas, uranium are all available only in finite quantities. India will hopefully shift to Thorium based power generation by 2050. After that it will not matter if US stops supplying nuclear materials. Moreover, most advanced countries are trying to go the fusion route. This agreement is only a stop gap measure that will preserve India's domestic Uranium supply. So it does not matter that India will not be able to carry out any explosions during this time-period. Once thorium, fusion and solar based power become available then this agreement will die a natural death.

**acharya** · 04-28-2006, 06:49 AM

Friday, April 28, 2006

US should reward Pakistan, not India: N-expert

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A leading nuclear expert told the Senate this week that Pakistan was a closer ally of the United States than India, and yet it was Pakistan which had been discriminated against and even humiliated.

In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said, âUnder any calculation of Americaâs strategic relations, Pakistan ranks higher than India. Pakistan is essential to our ongoing military and political efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan is also essential to our campaign against Al Qaeda. Without the aid of General Musharraf, we would have a much harder time accomplishing our goals in either of these endeavours. Pakistan is also a leading power in the Muslim world, a world with which the United States needs better relations. Yet, our deal with India is a blow to General Musharrafâs prestige at best, and at worst a public humiliation. We should not give General Musharraf more trouble than he already has. Israel, of course, has always been a close US ally, and will continue to be. Israel would like to have US nuclear cooperation. In addition, Israel is located in a part of the world that is of the highest importance to US foreign policy interests. In any competition for strategic favour from the United States, India finishes a distant third.â

He said the United States acted unilaterally when it made its deal with India, as there was no reported notification or coordination with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) before the deal was concluded. He told the committee during a hearing on the Indo-US nuclear deal that by violating the consensus norm of these regimes, the United States has invited other members to act the same way.

âIf they do, they may make unilateral deals with Iran or Pakistan without informing the United States. This risk has been created by our own action, and certainly does not make us safer. The regimes also require enforcement. The member countries are required to investigate and shut down unauthorised exports by their own companies. Since the attacks on 9/11, we have been asking the other countries to do more of this. But can we really ask them to crack down on companies that are exporting the same kind of goods to Pakistan or Iran that we are exporting to India?â he asked

He said, âEven if we can convince the other supplier countries to give lip service to an exception for India, it is unrealistic to expect them to follow through with enforcement against their own companies. Once we start tinkering with the regimes, they could unravel quickly. As one expert in the Pentagon told me, they are like a spring-loaded box. If you raise the lid, you may never get it closed again. What he meant was that the United States has always set the standard for export controls, and other countries have often taken a long time to follow the US lead in strengthening them. But if the United States decides to loosen controls, it will take only an instant for other countries to follow. The lid will fly off, and we may never be able to get it back on.â

Milhollin said on a recent trip to Jordan, he was asked why the United States had decided to make nuclear exports to India, a question, he added, neither he nor any other American can answer. âIndia, Pakistan and Iran all decided to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of peaceful nuclear cooperation. From this standpoint, they are indistinguishable. Why punish Pakistan and Iran but not India? They are all guilty. There is no persuasive reason for treating them differently. India is no different today than it was in 1998, when it tested a nuclear weapon.â

He wondered what the grounds for this discrimination was. âNone of us wants to think of the word religion, but it is a word that is in the mind of Muslim countries. If the United States is only against proliferation by countries it does not like, which now appears to be the case after the deal with India, why does it like some countries but not others?â he asked.

Milhollin told the committee that Congress should look deeply into these questions before approving the legislation. So far, he noted, it does not appear that this has been done, including by the administration. The administrationâs plan was arrived at hastily, with no consultation with other regime members, and virtually none with Congress. There was even little consultation with arms control experts within the administration itself. The proponents of the deal have presented it as if it were simply a matter of trade and diplomacy. Congress should insist upon a full review of the strategic impact, he urged. From a strategic viewpoint, it should be asked why the US is helping India. Of the three countries that have refused to sign the NPT, India is the least important strategically. He wondered if India was considered important because it was to become a counterweight to China? However, the notion that India might assist the United States diplomatically or militarily in some future conflict was âpure speculationâ. Indiaâs long history as the leader of the ânon-alignedâ movement points in the opposite direction. India will follow its own interests as it always has. India shares a border with China, he pointed out, and is keen to have good relations with China, and does have good relations with China. It will not sour such relations simply from a vague desire to please the United States.

The nuclear expert asked why in that case had India been chosen for âpreferential treatmentâ. He was of the view that India was being favoured because it is the biggest market.

It was India as a defence market that was really motivating the deal, he said. âIndia is shopping for billions of dollars worth of military aircraft, and the administration is hoping it will buy both the F-16 and the F-18 â¦ Officials in the defence industry and the Pentagon are saying that the main effect of the nuclear deal will be to remove India from the ranks of violators of international norms. And once this change in Indiaâs status occurs, there will be no impediment to arms exports â¦ Boiled down to the essentials, the message is clear: export controls are less important to the United States than money. They are a messy hindrance, ready to be swept aside for trade. But, a decision to put money above export controls is precisely what we donât want China and Russia to do when they sell to Iran â¦ If they see that we are willing to put money above security, and willing to take the risk that dangerous exports wonât come back to bite us, they will do the same. Everyoneâs security will diminish as a result. Thus, this legislation has clear costs to our security.â

Milhollin said the principal benefit cited by the administration is that India will place 14 of its 22 power reactors under inspection, but that leaves a great number of reactors off-limits. In fact, the reactors that are off-limits will be sufficient to produce enough plutonium for dozens of nuclear weapons per year. This is more than India will ever need. India is not restricting its nuclear weapon production in any way. Therefore, there is no ânon-proliferation benefitâ from such a step, he told the committee.

**acharya** · 04-28-2006, 07:04 AM

Friday, April 28, 2006
âUS-India deal will not trigger arms race with Pakistanâ

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Noted South Asia expert and author Stephen P Cohen told the Senate here on Wednesday that the Indo-US nuclear deal need not trigger an arms race with Pakistan, and it is certainly not a green light to India to build a thousand or more nuclear weapons.

In fact, he added, it provides the United States with an opportunity to work with India to help prevent a broader nuclear arms race, something that is certainly not in the interest of India, Pakistan, China, or America.

In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said that on balance, the deal should be welcomed. He reminded the committee that he had argued in print for a ânon-proliferation half-way houseâ since 1990, describing it as âan admittedly imperfect response to an imperfect situation, but far better than the status quoâ. He had also signed a letter, he added, which argues that the agreement enhances American strategic interests, and if properly implemented, it will advance, not retard, American non-proliferation objectives. The initiative will help India move to an energy strategy that makes it less dependant on imported oil and that will positively address American global environmental concerns. He said by minor modifications in the proposed legislation and changes in American policy the nuclear cooperation agreement with India could be further improved.

Cohen recalled that he was living in India during the major Indian debates over its nuclear weapons policy. In 1964-65 India debated its response to the Chinese nuclear test at Lop Nor. In 1967-68 it debated whether or not to sign the NPT, and in 1974, after its âphoney peaceful nuclear explosion,â India debated whether to weaponise. In the late 1980s, there was a major debate over the proper response to evidence of a Chinese-assisted Pakistani nuclear weapons programme. The Rajiv Gandhi âAction Planâ of 1988 was in part a last-minute attempt to forestall a response-in-kind to Pakistanâs programme. In the early 1990s, India grappled with the highly publicised American effort to cap, roll back, and eliminate its nuclear weapons programme and that of Pakistan. More recently, Cohen added, he spent a month in New Delhi observing the Indian debate over the Bush-Manmohan Singh initiative.

Cohen, who is head of the South Asia programme at the Brookings Institution, told the committee that that there were two major conclusions to be drawn from this 40-year history:

First, in most of these cases India was responding to nuclear developments elsewhere. Its strategic elite was sharply divide as to the utility and morality of nuclear weapons, and until the 1998 tests Indiaâs policy was one of maintaining an âoptionâ or a ârecessedâ â namely unannounced - deterrent. As opponents of this agreement have noted, India simply hid its small weapons programme and âviolated the spirit and the letter of agreements reached with foreign governments concerning the peaceful use of nuclear assistanceâ. For that India has been subjected to thirty yearsâ of sanctions, he added.

Second, Cohen pointed out, in all of these debates the military, and purely military calculations, have been notably absent. The Indian nuclear programme was nurtured by a small enclave of scientists and bureaucrats who were largely responsive, not pro-active in their thinking. There was - and remains - a curious blend of extravagant idealism, epitomised in the many plans for global nuclear disarmament generated in India over the years, and âKautilyan-Machiavellian realism,â epitomised by the secrecy that shrouded the covert weapons programme.

He went on to suggest that the nuclear agreement with India should eventually be folded into legislation that would develop criteria that would allow other states to enter such a ânuclear half-way house,â which would provide civilian nuclear assistance in exchange for an impeccable horizontal non-proliferation record. Right now India seems to meet most reasonable tests, as does Israel, but Pakistan and North Korea do not, he added.

Cohen called on the Bush administration to undertake an initiative that would constrain vertical proliferation via a nuclear restraint regime in Asia, and include India, Pakistan and China. Such a regime need not involve formal, negotiated limits, which would be very difficult to achieve, but could be based upon a fissile material cutoff, continued restraint on testing, and limited deployment of weapons. The first two, he pointed out, do feature in the US-India nuclear initiative, but they need to be made multilateral, especially to ward off an arms race between Pakistan and India. Chinaâs decision on renewing testing will be shaped by its response to the United States, he added, while the US can continue its own ban on tests indefinitely without damaging nuclear preparedness.

Cohen said with the agreement in place, New Delhi should feel less âparanoidâ about discussing its own nuclear capabilities. As long as India felt that the US was trying to strip it of its weapons programme, Indian officials talked on endlessly about global nuclear disarmament, but they refused to discuss concrete steps that would enhance Indiaâs security through cooperative agreements with others. The Indians, he noted, are still reluctant to allow their country to be the venue for such discussions by non-government organisations, unless they are strictly scripted. Under the auspices of the new Indo-US Agreement on Science and Technology, the US should assist India in setting up a centre to study âbest practicesâ gleaned from the American and Russian/Soviet nuclear and missile experience, and the experience of other states. Washington should also expect that India will eventually join the process of nuclear arms reduction that began with US and Russian nuclear cuts.

âI am disappointed that such a long-term goal was not even mentioned in the various US-Indian communiquÃ©s,â he said. âWe do not want to continue down the road of arms reduction only to see some of the new nuclear weapons states such as India and Pakistan pass us on their way up.â Cohen said that the agreement should be the initial step in a process of crafting a diplomacy that addresses wider complex arms control and security concerns, not just meeting Indiaâs energy needs. America has such concerns in an area that stretches from Israel to China, that includes at least five states that have nuclear weapons and two that may be trying to acquire them.

04-29-2006, 07:43 PM

Tarapore nuclear plant to go critical next monthQUOTEWith the criticality of the second 540 MW nuclear reactor at Tarapore, the country's total installed capacity of nuclear energy will go up to 3,890 MW from the existing 3,350 MW of electricity, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd officials said.

"The process of loading 5,096 fuel bundles (392 channels with 13 bundles each) was completed today, which is a major task before proceeding for the criticality," they said.

This will be followed by 'air-hold' and helium leak testing of coolant channels. Then heavy water will be injected into Primary Heat Transport System (PHTS), they added.

After getting clearance up to this stage from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the engineers will add heavy water into the moderator system of the reactor.

05-03-2006, 09:25 PM

QUOTETIME FOR A HARD LOOK
- The BJPâs view on the nuclear deal should be taken seriously 
diplomacy K.P. Nayar
It is time for the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to sit up and take a long, hard look at Indiaâs foreign policy, of which he has been directly in charge now for six months. He must do it quickly for his own protection because depth and insight are returning to the Bharatiya Janata Partyâs views on external affairs.

Less than three weeks ago, the BJP finally came round to a considered view that the nuclear deal between Manmohan Singh and the president of the United States of America, George W. Bush, is not in Indiaâs interest because of the way this agreement is presently structured. This decision â which will have long-term implications for Indo-US relations â was not an easy one for the leading opposition party in its present state of health.

An unintended fallout of L.K. Advaniâs Jinnah episode last year was the virtual turfing out of Yashwant Sinha from any role of consequence within the BJP, especially on matters of foreign policy. The accident of Sinhaâs shift from North to South Block during the second half of the Vajpayee governmentâs tenure had become an albatross around the partyâs neck after it lost power. Following the Jinnah episode, Sinha first lost his job as the partyâs spokesman, and soon afterwards, any influence on the decision-making process in the BJP on policy.

Jaswant Singh is now the final arbiter on external affairs in the BJP, and whatever else may be wrong with the party now, he is making an imprint within the ranks of the opposition in that role. As part of a laboured effort to reach an unambiguous stand on the Indo-US nuclear deal, Jaswant Singh has compiled three files of more than 300 pages on the follow-up to the deal, which includes American Congressional testimonies and policy speeches. They also include answers to 82 questions by the US state department to Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, which is currently scrutinizing the arrangement with India.

At Jaswant Singhâs prodding, several people in leadership positions in the BJP have now gone through these documents. In addition, he has been explaining the intricacies of the agreement and its implications to his partyâs MPs. It is proof of the thoroughness with which the former external affairs minister has ingested the complexities of the July 18 deal and its follow-up that he can quote almost verbatim from a testimony by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, or a Congressional question by Senator Paul Sarbanes, without opening his files or thumbing through its voluminous material.

What Manmohan Singh has to worry about is that what the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha has done by way of dissecting, analyzing and interpreting the agreement is much more than what can be said of anybody in his council of ministers. Not Anand Sharma, the minister of state for external affairs; certainly not E. Ahamed, the other minister of state in South Block. With his hands full, it is highly unlikely that Manmohan Singh himself has gone through every bit of documentation on the follow-up to the deal, the prime ministerâs formidable reputation for detail notwithstanding.

Thanks to such thorough work, the BJP now wants to pick holes in the prime ministerâs contention that his nuclear deal with Bush will bring about Indiaâs energy security. Jaswant Singh has told his party colleagues in parliament and outside that even the idea that eight per cent of Indiaâs energy-needs will be met in two decades if the deal is on track is illusory. The BJP has also come to the conclusion on the basis of developments in Washington and New Delhi, after Bushâs visit to India, that what the nuclear deal in its present form will bring for the country is worse than the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and equally, worse than the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The BJP now believes, after reconsidering the mood on Capitol Hill and Congressional testimony by Bush administration officials, that the promise to India in the July 18 White House joint statement by Bush and Manmohan Singh â of âsame benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the USâ â will remain a mirage as long as India is not accepted as a nuclear weapons state. What is extremely disturbing for the party is Riceâs unequivocal statement that âIndia is not and is not going to become a member of the NPT (as) a nuclear weapons stateâ, and that âthis initiative with India does not seek to renegotiate or amend the NPTâ. The only way India can gain the status of a nuclear weapons state is through the NPT, but that option has been shut by Rice on New Delhiâs face.

Under these circumstances, it is the BJPâs view that going ahead with the nuclear deal in its present format will be tantamount to India accepting a permanent backward status in the global nuclear arena. Jaswant Singhâs research has detected a growing dissonance between the Indian government and the Bush administration on the fundamentals of the agreement, with New Delhi insisting that its deal with the US is about energy, not about arms control or non-proliferation, and Rice poetically describing âenergy and non-proliferation as the two halves of the same walnutâ.

As the follow-up negotiations progress, between India and the US on the one hand and between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the other, the opposition intends to take the prime minister to task for going back on his commitment to parliament that New Delhi will negotiate an additional protocol with the IAEA only after the US has enacted legislation exempting India from American laws that prohibit Indo-US nuclear trade. The opposition will also object to Indiaâs ongoing discussions of that protocol with American officials even as the country is being kept in the dark about the content of these discussions.

A nine-page letter written by Jaswant Singh to Manmohan Singh is a long list of the BJPâs objections to the deal in the light of new, day-to-day developments. Among the more serious objections is the absence in the agreement of a mutually acceptable mechanism to determine if India is in violation of the safeguards on its nuclear plants, which will be in perpetuity. âWho, Mr Prime Minister, reports, then examines and finally judges whether there is any violation?â asks a concerned Jaswant Singh of the prime minister in his letter. It is an important question because a judgement of violation can make the agreement null and void, and overturn the entire energy edifice that is built on it.

Jaswant Singhâs thorough research into all aspects of the nuclear deal and its follow-up is reminiscent of the preparations on the Indian side that went into each of his meetings as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and later as external affairs minister with Strobe Talbott, Bill Clintonâs deputy secretary of state. Those meetings led to an easing of sanctions against India for Pokhran II and the dawn of a new era in Indo-US relations.

That said, the BJP is not against a nuclear deal with the US: it is only against the deal as it is structured now in terms of follow-up action to the July 18 agreement. Countries like Israel, which are sure of where it is going on an issue or a policy, often bring in the opposition to work with the government on such issues. Given Jaswant Singhâs success rate in Washington with Talbott, the prime minister should perhaps find a way of involving the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha in the negotiations with the US instead of just briefing him, if the nuclear deal is to be pushed through to its logical end.

05-11-2006, 03:26 AM

QUOTEPioneer, 11 May 2006
This day, that year 
C Uday Bhaskar
May is very hot in the plains of India and, by a combination of complex causal factors that include design and coincidence it is deeply associated with India's nuclear narrative. May 11, 1998, marked the Pokhran-II nuclear test that saw India declaring itself as a de facto nuclear weapon state (NWS) in the early months of the NDA Government. This was followed by another test on May 13 and the world had a sixth NWS. Pakistan followed with its nuclear tests in end May 1998 and the strategic profile of South Asia was definitively transformed.

But 1998 was preceded by the May 18, 1974, Indian PNE - or peaceful nuclear explosion - when under the stewardship of Indira Gandhi, India demonstrated its technological capability with an underground explosion. However, India chose not to be a NWS and this was impelled by a distinctive Indian strategic culture.

May is also associated with two purported nuclear crisis situations - the first in 1990 when the US White House under Mr Bush (Senior) sent its special envoy Robert Gates to ostensibly defuse a tense nuclear standoff in the subcontinent. Mr Gates was in Delhi and Islamabad on May 19 and 20 respectively and this was the focus of a very alarmist account put out by famous American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in 1993 about the nuclear Armageddon that was avoided by timely US intervention.

This has become the dominant interpretation among many Western analysts for over a decade and "May 1990" is synonymous in strategic circles with an Indo-Pak nuclear crisis. It was this incident that led former US President Bill Clinton to describe the subcontinent as the "most dangerous place on earth". However, it is only now that this scare scenario is being reviewed objectively and recent US scholarship is case in point.Â

The other notable punctuation in May was the Kargil war of 1999 when what seemed a routine incursion into Indian territory by irregulars turned out to be far more insidious tactical move by the Pakistani military under General Musharraf. By end May 1999 when the IAF was deployed, the anxiety about escalation mounted in various quarters. Thus one notices a pattern about May that appears to linked with the Indian nuclear experience and on the 8th anniversary of the May 1998 tests it is pertinent to reflect over India's nuclear trajectory.

An objective cost-benefit analysis would suggest that India's core national interests have been better served by May 1998 and paradoxically the Kargil war of May 1999. India's regional nuclear matrix had become very animated in the aftermath of the Cold War and both China and Pakistan forged a close and opaque nuclear weapon-missile cooperation programme that had very adverse consequences for India's security. Simultaneously, a clandestine nuclear Walmart under the deft control of Pakistani scientist AQ Khan was in operation though the details of this emerged only recently. In the mid-1990s the global community was also trying to corral India into signing CTBT. 

Against this backdrop, the national consensus veered towards exercising the nuclear option which was finally exercised by Prime Minister Vajpayee's team in May 1998. Almost immediately on May 13, India committed itself to a "no-first-use, minimum deterrent" doctrine to assuage global concerns; and this paid rich dividends in May 1999.

From 1999 onwards, India's strategic stock gradually went up leading not only to the Clinton visit of March 2000 but also the radical shift in US policy that followed under President Bush. The May 1998 nuclear tests and the rectitude associated with India post-1999 have enhanced the relevance accorded to Delhi in the emerging global matrix. It must be noted that India without nuclear weapons in 2006 would have counted for less in the global strategic stock exchange.

One may further argue that the recent agreement between India and the US beginning July 2005 and consolidated in March 2006 was enabled to a large extent by the events of May 1998 and 1999. Today, India is perceived as one of six nodes of relevance in the emerging global hexagon of the 21st century - the other five being the US, EU, China, Russia and Japan.

However, this is not a paean for the nuclear weapon or praise for India's current strategic profile. Since May 1998, India has remained hobbled by its own diffidence about what constitutes credible minimum deterrence. This ambivalence about the credibility index was most discernible in the public debate about the separation of Indian nuclear facilities into civilian and non-civilian as part of the India-US agreement.

India's nuclear policymakers must ponder our chequered experiences since 1974 and evolve a calibrated approach that would maximise the opportunities to harness nuclear energy. The conceptual challenge will be to shift the global focus from the military potential of nuclear technology to its more benign uses. The global community and India will benefit from such an ethical shift - ethics being enlightened self-interest.

(The writer is a defence and strategic affairs analyst. The views expressed here are personal)Â

05-17-2006, 08:44 PM

QUOTEThe burial of Pak nuclear scandal- By Brahma Chellaney

With global attention focused on the US-led face-off with Tehran over the nuclear issue, Pakistan has ingeniously seized the opportunity to give a quiet burial to the worst proliferation scandal in world history that involved the Pakistani transfer of nuclear know-how and equipment to three states â Iran, Libya and North Korea. Pakistan this week announced closure of the scandal-related case, as it freed from jail the last of the 11 nuclear scientists imprisoned more than two years ago for suspected role in the covert transfers. A 12th figure, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the ringâs alleged mastermind, was granted immunity from prosecution and has been made to stay at home under tight security since his February 2004 televised confession on illicit nuclear dealings.

Contrast the international crisis that is being contrived over Iran with the lack of any response to Pakistanâs defiant statement that, "As far we are concerned, this chapter is closed â¦ there is a closure to that case." Contrast also Prime Minister Manmohan Singhâs hawkish statements on Iran with his governmentâs conspicuous silence on Islamabadâs entombment of a proliferation scandal with far-reaching implications. And notice the dramatic irony that at the very time when Tehran is under pressure to come clean on its imports of Pakistani nuclear designs and items, the exporting country has announced closure of the probe into a scandal whose full international investigation can yield answers to several key unresolved issues relating to Iran cited by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its latest report last week.

No one till date has been charged, let alone put on trial, in Pakistan for involvement in a clandestine proliferation ring whose international-security ramifications exceed Iranâs enrichment of a minute amount of uranium so far. None of the actors in the scandal has been allowed by Pakistan to be questioned by the IAEA or any other outside investigators, although Pakistani ruler General Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged the transfers of bomb know-how or complete uranium-enrichment centrifuges to Iran, North Korea and Libya in the period from1987 to 2003.

In fact, the principal actors are not A.Q. Khan and his fellow scientists, but the Pakistan military and intelligence. It is to ensure that the role of the principal actors is not exposed that, first, the entire blame was pinned on a group of 12 "greedy" scientists led by Khan, and then these very men have been religiously kept away from international investigators. Whatâs more, the military â which has always controlled the nuclear programme â claimed that it wasnât aware that nuclear secrets were being sold until Libya and Iran began spilling the beans. As part of Pakistanâs nukes-for-missiles swap with North Korea, a Pakistani C-130 military transport aircraft, for example, was photographed loading missile parts in Pyongyang in 2002. Yet Musharraf claimed he was in the dark.

No country has concocted a more ridiculous tale than Pakistan as an excuse for roguish conduct. The uncovering of the proliferation ring should have persuaded Islamabadâs western allies to distance themselves from the military and invest in the only real guarantee for Pakistanâs future as a stable, moderate state â its civil society. Instead, the Bush administration went along with Islamabadâs charade because it sees the Pakistan military as central to US strategic interests in that country. It even lent a helping hand to the Musharraf regime to dress up the pretence as reality.

Such is Americaâs ability to shape international perceptions that the world has been made to believe that A.Q. Khan, on his own, set up and ran a nuclear Wal-Mart. And that Khanâs network of "private entrepreneurs" was limited to less than a dozen Pakistani scientists, including his right-hand man, Mohammad Farooq, who has just been freed from incarceration. It was Libya, seeking to re-enter the international mainstream, that first disclosed the existence of the Pakistani proliferation ring, but the US took the credit by stage-managing an event in October 2003. With the help of documents Tripoli had turned over to Washington, a German cargo ship, BBC China, was intercepted en route to Libya with centrifuge components routed through Dubai.

The 21st century fable of an A.Q. Khan-run nuclear supermarket busted by the US has now become part of American nuclear folklore. Long before Khan turned from a national icon to a national scapegoat, he had been a favourite of the US Central Intelligence Agency in the period when Washington knew that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but chose to ignore it. The US turned a

blind eye to the underground Pakistani bomb programme for the same reason that China aided Islamabadâs nuclear and missile ambitions. Not only did the CIA twice shield Khan from arrest in Europe, it also had a likely hand in the disappearance of Khanâs legal files from the Amsterdam court that convicted him, according to recent Dutch revelations.

As disclosed by former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers last August, the CIA protected Khan from arrest and prosecution in Europe in 1975 and 1986. The Dutch government did not take Khan into custody at the request of the CIA, which pretended that it wanted "to follow him." Khan was sentenced in absentia by Judge Anita Leeser in 1983 to four years in prison for stealing enrichment secrets from the Netherlands on the basis of which Pakistanâs Kahuta plant had by then been set up. After the conviction was overturned on a technicality, US intelligence may have influenced the Dutch decision not to bring new charges against Khan, whose case files, according to Judge Leeser, disappeared "on purpose."

Now, karmic justice has caught up with Khan, as it has with another onetime CIA favourite, Saddam Hussein. After having been assisted for years by the CIA, Khan has become the butt of US vilification. In the good old days, the CIA may have even used him and its high-level friends in the Pakistan military and intelligence to help entrap Iran in a violation of its NPT obligations. Consecutive IAEA reports have harped on the Iranian refusal to hand over a 1987 document from the Pakistani ring offering to supply "drawings, specifications and calculations" for an enrichment facility, along with "materials for 2,000 centrifuge machines" and data on "uranium re-conversion and casting capabilities." To "understand the full scope of the offer made by the network in 1987," the IAEA is also seeking a copy of a second 15-page document.

More broadly, the US should have foreseen the consequences of its action in winking at Pakistanâs covert nuclear programme. It is well documented how the Pakistan military helped build nuclear weapons with materials and equipment illegally procured from overseas through intermediaries in Dubai and front companies set up in Europe by the Inter-Services Intelligence. What could not be procured from the West was imported covertly from ally China. With the ISI as the spearhead of operations and Khan as the brain, the military ran the worldâs most successful nuclear-smuggling ring. That success only bred proliferation in the reverse direction â out of Pakistan.

There is a long history to Pakistanâs nuclear mendacity, aided by Americaâs pursuit of politically expedient foreign-policy goals. By whitewashing Islamabadâs official complicity in the sale of nuclear secrets, the US can only spur more rogue proliferation in the future. Today, despite a military quagmire in Iraq and instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US is itching to fashion a continuous arc of volatility between Israel and India by taking on Iran. The White House openly seeks to foment regime change in Tehran while simultaneously pursuing coercive diplomacy, backed by the tacit threat of military strikes.

Compare the Bush teamâs leniency towards Pakistan with its belligerence against Iran. The draft UN Security Council resolution circulated by Americaâs allies would strip Iran of its legal rights under the NPT by ordering it to cease all IAEA-safeguarded enrichment and reprocessing activities, including research and development and the construction of a heavy-water reactor. In contrast, Washington and its three Tehran-bashing friends â Britain, France and Germany â have said nothing on the Musharraf regimeâs use of the downward spiral on Iran to release the last remaining scientist from preventive custody and cheekily announce that the proliferation case is over, with no further investigation planned or required.

The logic of Americaâs indulgence towards Pakistan is hard for its own public to grasp. As the Washington Post editorially said some time ago, "the administration must confront the reality that Pakistanâs military leadership has done more to threaten US and global security with weapons of mass destruction than either Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein." Bush invaded Iraq to eliminate WMDs that were not there but has allowed Pakistan, with real WMDs and Al Qaeda sanctuaries, to escape international censure for its egregious nuclear transfers to three states.

The IAEA demands additional documentation or data from Iran regarding its P-1 and P-2 centrifuges (with "P" standing for Pakistan). But a good way to get round Tehranâs reluctance to share full information is for Washington and its gang of Iran bashers to facilitate IAEA investigations into the Pakistani ring. Key outstanding issues on Iran can be readily settled if the IAEA were permitted to do the obvious â probe the front part of the supply line in the country where it originated. Yet the US-backed Musharraf regime this week again rejected that idea, declaring, "There is no question of direct access."

A puzzling question is why the Indian PM has embraced the same double standards. How are Indiaâs interests aided by the PMâs strident tone on Iran and reluctance to say a word on either Pakistani proliferation or the need for democracy in Pakistan? Should he allow Washington to dictate Indiaâs silence on Musharrafâs closure of the proliferation case?

In recent weeks, the PM has repeatedly claimed in the context of Iran that, "We are very clear we do not want another nuclear-weapons state in our neighbourhood." Canât a nuclear Shia Iran serve as a counterweight to a Talibanised, nuclear-armed, Sunni Pakistan? With what moral or legal authority can India oppose a nuclear Iran? If Tehran wished to lawfully develop nuclear weapons, it could exercise its right to withdraw from the NPT and kick out IAEA inspectors â the route North Korea chose. That is exactly what coercive action against Iran will invite.

The PMâs line, more importantly, begs a fundamental question: how has he reached a conclusion that the IAEA has yet to arrive at â that Iran has a nuclear-weapons programme? A real Iranian weapons programme is unlikely as long as the IAEA is carrying out invasive inspections, as it has been doing ever since it discovered undeclared Iranian nuclear activity. By linking Iran again and again with nuclear-weapons development, isnât the PM lending legitimacy to the US-led campaign against Iran? In fact, it was Indiaâs critical vote against Iran at the IAEA governing board last September and February and refusal at Vienna to link the Iran case with the Pakistani proliferation ring that have helped set the stage for the present confrontation.

Having helped send the Iran matter from the IAEA governing board (of which India is a permanent member) to an institution where India has no role to play â the Security Council â the PM marginalised Indiaâs role in order to aid the anti-Tehran drive and open Iran to potential sanctions and military strikes. If the Third Bush War breaks out, the White House could thank Manmohan Singh for his unspoken contribution

**acharya** · 05-20-2006, 02:48 AM

d

Nuclear deal a surrender to U.S., says Rajnath

Special Correspondent

`It has raised suspicions among the people'

MANGALORE: The nuclear deal with the U.S. forced the country to "surrender" before the U.S., Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has said.

Addressing presspersons here on Friday, Mr. Singh said every nuclear-fuel-producing country was trying to bully India. The Indian foreign policy initiatives with the U.S., especially in the nuclear deal, had underplayed the issue of fuel, he said.

Mr. Singh said the deal raised "suspicion" in the minds of scientists and the common people.

Mr. Singh demanded a White Paper on the price index in the country as the prices of essential commodities were spiralling upwards.

He said inflation touched the two-digit figure after the United Progressive Alliance Government took over. This was mainly due to the Government's inability to control hoarders, speculators and black marketeers, he said. He recalled the economic reforms of the previous government, of the National Democratic Alliance, where a price control mechanism had been evolved.

Mr. Singh alleged that Maoists in Nepal, naxalites and Bangladesh insurgents had teamed up with the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan to carry out disruptive activities in the country. He alleged that these outfits were supported by the Left parties, and no action had been taken against the parties for fear that they might withdraw support to the Government.

He said the UPA had repealed POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) without reason.

On the performance of his party in the recent Assembly elections in five States, Mr. Singh said it had improved its vote share. He commended the Karnataka Government's "pro-farmer" budget, and said no other State had been able to announce farm loans at four per cent interest.

dhu · 05-20-2006, 07:45 PM

QUOTEIn national disinterest
Balbir Punj

How responsive is the UPA Government towards the external security imperatives of India? Two recent incidents put its obligation in grave doubt. On May 14, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while inaugurating the Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO's) new office adjacent to South Block, said that India would soon embark on production of cutting edge technology weapons in sensors, robotics, propulsion systems, stealth and fighting wars through remote technology. There is also a plan for precision-guided munitions and unarmed vehicle technologies in the 11th and 12th plan period.

Top defence scientist M Natarajan of DRDO, who is also the scientific advisor to the Defence Minister, said his organisation was technically ready with the IRBM, the 4,000-km range Agni-III, and awaiting a nod from the Government for test-firing. His emphatic words "fired-off" speculations that the distance between DRDO and South Bloc had increased.

That "nod" is unlikely to come from the Government. On May 15, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said India was not going ahead with the Agni-III test. "Self-imposed restraint" was cited as the reason adding "as responsible members of the international community, we want to keep our international commitments on non-proliferation."

Agni-III is capable of carrying a nuclear payload. But what does the testing of a missile have to do with "commitments to non-proliferation"? India, Pakistan and Israel are not members of NPT, and testing of a missile has little to do with proliferation. On the eighth anniversary of Pokhran-II tests on May 11, the well-known strategic analyst, Mr Bharat Karnad rued that India's status as a nuclear state is more notional than real. Mr K Subrahmanyam, who wrote India's nuclear doctrine, also felt that we did not go about the nuclear programme professionally, and our deterrence capacity is less than credible. This symbolic capacity, instead of lending India any geopolitical advantage, could prove to be a liability because of which potential nuclear adversaries could hit India hard.

At 20 kilotons, not only India's nuclear yield, is peanuts compared with neighbouring China (3.3 megatons), the range limitation of our trusted delivery system Agni I (700-800 km) and Agni-II (2,000 km) are obvious. The two IRBMs were developed as delivery systems by the NDA Government before being handed over to Army and Air Force in October 2003 as part of minimum deterrent capacity. Indira Gandhi had not followed the Pokhran-I (1974) test to its logical conclusion by developing a nuclear delivery system. But the Vajpayee Government did so with Agni-I and Agni-II missiles with booster system provided by ISRO. It would also have put Agni-III in its place, as a functional missile by 2003, but DRDO ran into some technical troubles that delayed its delivery.

The Agni-III uses a totally new system of booster vehicle that calls for extensive ground bed tests to ensure its reliability. The Defence Minister has given the permission for ground bed testing but withheld test firing. Mr Pranab Mukherjee's rhetoric - we must behave like a "responsible member of international community", and our "commitment to non-proliferation", "self-imposed restraint", etc., - seems inane when India does not have credible deterrent capability.

Such talks are reminiscent of Nehru who stalled the Army's campaign in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad when it was getting the better of Pakistan-sponsored tribal attack in Jammu & Kashmir. Brigadier LP Sen had called it the most unpatriotic order he received in his life. Mr M Natarajan has valid reasons to relate the same about Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

But this is half as fallacious compared to the Government's plan to pull out of Saltoro. As in the case of Agni-III, it highlights a mismatch between the South Block and Ministry of Defence on the one hand and the Armed forces and strategic experts' community on the other. The Army and Air Force have been stumped by South Block's proposal sent to Pakistanis through Track II that it was willing to consider demilitarisation of Siachen provided Islamabad agreed to authentication of the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL). New Delhi will host the next round of expert-level talks under on two long standing bilateral disputes - Siachen (May 23-24) and Sir Creek Channel (May 25-26).

The Army Commanders, taking part in a three-day conference in New Delhi (April 21-23), unanimously cautioned the Central Government against proceeding with the demilitarisation of Siachen without proper disengagement procedures from Indian and Pakistani sides. The motive of the Pakistani Army is no less suspect today than it was in 1984, when it had provoked the Indian Army to occupy the Saltoro ridge in Siachen. The proof of Pakistan's perfidy, the Kargil offensive of 1999, is still fresh in public mind. With the mastermind of that campaign occupying the President's chair in Pakistan, it only serves to increase the fear. Pakistan has a history of aggression and remains bound by the Quranic concept of war explicated by Brigadier SK Malik and endorsed by General Zia-ul-Haq.

If India vacates Saltoro Ridge without any strong guarantee; Pakistan is bound to capture it. India has no military doctrine to reclaim PoK; however, annexing the Indian part of Jammu & Kashmir is a priority for Pakistan. At present, the strategic advantage is with New Delhi, which explains Islamabad's desperation. Now the Indian Army is acclimatised, rather acculturated, to Siachen. The casualty rate is virtually down to nil. The economic cost of maintaining our base is a trifle of the defence budget.

If Pakistan has a history of aggression, India has a record of foolish generosity. Whether it is the retreat of the Indian Army from Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Kotli and Skardu in 1948 or allowing China to gobble Tibet or giving up Haji Pir in 1966 or the Simla Agreement of 1972 or for that matter mutely watching 'secular' Bangladesh turn Islamic, we have committed one blunder after another.

Colonel Todd, in his book, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, was not far wrong when he generalised an episode in life of Maharana Kumbha: "Abul Fazal relates this victory and dilates on Kumbha's greatness of soul in setting his enemy at liberty, not only without ransom but also with gifts. Such is the character of the Hindus; a mixture of arrogance, political blindness, pride and generosity. To spare a prostate foe is the creed of the Hindu cavalier and he carries all such maxims to excess." (Vol I, p 287) Is a similar tragedy waiting to touch new height over Saltoro?

05-20-2006, 08:47 PM

QUOTEIndia capped
Â
Stagecraft & Statecraft:Â
10 reasons for pakistan to celebrate India's nuclear deal

by Brahma Chellaney, Deccan Chronicle, May 20, 2006

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has claimed from the outset that his vaunted nuclear deal with the United States is about nuclear energy and not about India's strategic programme. Yet his own actions epitomise the intentional manner the deal has been allowed to ossify into a cap on India's nuclear military programme, with nuclear energy just the bait. With Dr Singh's deferential commitment "to work with the US for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty," the Americans have now introduced a draft FMCT whose principal target is India.

The PM's new, expanded list of Indian facilities â tabled in Parliament on May 11 â shows how in the name of gaining a meretricious right to import uneconomical power reactors, 37 establishments across the gamut of India's nuclear capability are being put under permanent international inspections or, in the case of two, being dismembered. From basic research to weapons-grade plutonium production capability, India's nascent nuclear deterrent is being delivered a body blow. Added to that is the unseemly rush to complete the proposed actions on most of the 37 facilities within the next four years.

No nation has ever done what India has set out to do. While the five established nuclear-weapons states together have only 11 installations under voluntary, revocable International Atomic Energy Agency "safeguards" at present, India singly is subjecting almost three-and-a-half times that number of facilities to perpetual, immutable inspections without even the escape hatch available to a non-nuclear nation in a state of national contingency â the right of withdrawal from a commitment. As Condoleezza Rice made clear on April 5, India's legal commitments are unilateral, unrelated to assured fuel supply, and per se "without condition," with the US reserving the right to leave India in the lurch if at any point it were to test or violate IAEA safeguards. Her remarks confirm India's backdoor accession to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty through the pending congressional legislation.

Also, India has gradually expanded the number of facilities it is sacrificing â from the "one or two" that the Vajpayee government offered to Dr Singh's furtive, incremental increases now totalling 37. To deflect attention from the gravity of what Dr Singh was preparing to do, the government earlier this year actually orchestrated a public charade on the fast-breeder programme to take credit for "saving" the tiny experimental breeder and the under-construction prototype breeder (which together, according to US national security adviser Stephen Hadley, have "very limited capability").

The deal's qualitative and quantitative ceilings succeed in "limiting the size and sophistication of India's nuclear-weapons programme," according to Joseph R. Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The deal has been designed to underpin a fundamental US goal â to deter the rise of India as a full-fledged nuclear power that could threaten US global or regional interests. Not only will the deal widen India's nuclear asymmetry with China, its US goal jibes well with Pakistan's strategic objectives.

It was M.J. Akbar who had the foresight to explain on these pages why Pakistan was lucky to escape President George W. Bush's nuclear embrace. Mr Akbar stated what nuclear boffins had missed out â that while a dreamy India had enmeshed itself in a web of onerous, US-fashioned obligations, Islamabad could be "held down to nothing." The more the deal has unfolded, the clearer India's disadvantage has become. And the bigger the US demands have grown.

Indeed, Pakistan's opposition to the deal has been misconstrued in India. Its opposition is less on substance (it welcomes the capability limits and one-sided obligations on India) and more on symbolism (rather than a special exception being carved out for India, it wants a common standard applicable to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's non-signatories). Islamabad's strong reaction also sprang from a foreboding that the deal could open the way for enlargement of the foothold the US gained in its nuclear programme following the proliferation scandal in which A.Q. Khan became the scapegoat. But given its obsessive fixation on parity with New Delhi and clear-eyed resolve to thwart India's regional pre-eminence, Pakistan has at least 10 reasons to celebrate.

1 The deal constricts India's freedom of action and thereby helps level the field for Pakistan. By playing to India's ego and desire for status, the deal paves the way for the US to stunt India's nuclear deterrent and influence its foreign policy. Islamabad can only be happy that India is going to stay condemned forever as a second-class, subcontinentally confined nuclear-weapons state without the latitude to develop power projection force capability to unpin its world-power ambitions.
Far from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, India has put even the maiden flight-test of the intermediate-range Agni III on hold for months now, in deference to the US. Islamabad, on the other hand, has tested in the past three months alone the Babur cruise missile, the Abdali short-range ballistic missile and the Shaheen 2, a potential counter to Agni III.

2Â The deal will balance the foothold the US has secured in the Pakistani nuclear programme with a corresponding foothold in the Indian programme. Just as Bush secured a handle on the Pakistani nuclear programme by forgiving Islamabad for its illicit export of nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea, he offered New Delhi a deal which, when implemented, will cap the size and quality of its deterrent and give the US for the first time, in the words of US undersecretary Nick Burns, "a transparent insight into India's nuclear programme."

After meeting General Pervez Musharraf on March 4, Bush said: "Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories." It is to satisfy "different needs" by recognising "different histories" that Bush has pursued parallel tracks with India and Pakistan to achieve the same objective â a greater US say in their nuclear and foreign policies. It thus makes little sense for Washington to bait Islamabad with the same deal it has ensnared India, especially when Pakistan had already been trapped. Today, nothing pleases Pakistan more than to see its rival in the same trap.

It is enlightening how those who walk into a trap begin to speak the lingo of enlightenment. Just as Musharraf discovered "enlightened moderation" after he, in cahoots with the US, made A.Q. Khan the fall guy to save his military's skin, Dr Singh embraced "enlightened national interest" after being enlightened by the US-drafted deal he signed. America's success in infusing enlightenment underscores why it prefers to cut deals with unelected leaders.

3Â Pakistan retains the advantage of enjoying an open line of covert nuclear and missile supply from China. US-imposed fetters on India and Pakistan will impair the Indian deterrent more. Among the non-NPT nuclear powers, India has always faced the biggest challenges because, unlike Pakistan and Israel, it has neither received tested warhead designs from an established nuclear-weapons state nor other clandestine transfers. That China's supply line to Pakistan remains open has been underlined by the tests in the past two months of Shaheen 2 and Babur, both Chinese-origin missiles.

Beijing will do whatever it can to profit from the Indo-US deal, using it as a pretext both to make further covert transfers and to sell its dubious power reactors to Pakistan. Yet the US has convinced itself that capping India's deterrent holds the key to persuading Beijing to halt illicit transfers to Islamabad and to corralling Pakistan's nuclear ambitions.

4Â The deal will remove from potential military use a large part of the Indian nuclear programme. Pakistan must be pleased that the deal will reduce to less than one-third the number of Indian facilities available to generate weapons-usable fissile material. Not only is India dismantling one of its two plutonium-production research reactors, it is also putting under permanent IAEA inspections one of its two existing industrial-scale reprocessing plants, 14 power reactors and two-fifths of its heavy-water capability.

Absent this deal, India would have remained free to use these facilities for military purpose. Pakistan's fissile-material production complex, in contrast, will stay unencumbered â until an FMCT takes effect.

5Â The deal opens a real opportunity for Pakistan to overtake India on nukes, as it has already done on missiles. Having fallen way behind China's deterrent capabilities, India now risks lagging behind Pakistan's nuclear-weapons drive. For a country given to painting illusion as reality, it must pain India when a former US President publicises the bitter truth â that despite Asia's oldest nuclear programme, "India so far has only rudimentary nuclear technology." In a recent op-ed, Jimmy Carter also said that while today China possesses 400 nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan have "40 each."

Given its far more limited scientific and economic resources, Pakistan has done an impressive job on deterrence. Such is its deterrent's credibility in Indian eyes that it intruded deep into enemy land and yet made India fight the entire 1999 Kargil War on Indian territory on Pakistani terms, with New Delhi needing America as a midwife to deliver a favourable outcome. Militarily, it matters little that China has fathered Pakistan's key nukes and missiles.

What matters is possession, not parentage. Not only is Pakistan set to surpass India on quantity, it also has done a better job integrating its nukes into its military doctrine and strategy. The point is that a dawdling India continues to drop further behind its regional defence needs. The PM cannot claim that India has even a minimal deterrent, let alone a credible one. Yet he has accepted restrictions on the deterrent. Is it an accident that none of those championing the deal inside or outside the government had wanted India to go overtly nuclear through tests?

6Â Pakistan has escaped the trials and tribulations of negotiating perpetual IAEA inspections on manifold facilities. By the time 37 Indian facilities come under external inspections, only six Pakistani installations will be subject to IAEA safeguards â the Chashma 1 and 2 and KANUPP power reactors, the teeny, pool-type PARR 1 and 2 research reactors, and the Hawks Bay depot. Pakistan has refused to open to outside monitoring a single indigenous facility. But India is gratuitously dismembering Cirus and Apsara research reactors and opening up 29 other indigenous facilities.

Worse, while Pakistan sustains its nuclear opaqueness like China (which has only three facilities under IAEA safeguards), India is to sever the symbiotic relationship between its civil and military programmes, agreeing to erect fail-safe, IAEA-supervised firewalls between the two. New-entrant China is likely to invoke the Nuclear Suppliers' Group's grandfather clause and supply Pakistan a couple of more power reactors without Islamabad having to carry out what India is being compelled to do â negotiate with the IAEA both everlasting inspections and an invasive "additional protocol." Islamabad, in any case, cannot afford to buy more than a couple reactors.

7Â "Unique India" is accepting not only fetters but also is going to cough up between $14.4 billion to $20 billion "to import eight power reactors by 2012," as revealed by Dr Rice. The eight-reactor imports (calculated at the current prices of Framatome ANP-Siemens' EPR-1600, Westinghouse's AP-1000 or BWR-90 and Russian Atomstroyexport's VVER-91) will cost far more than what India has invested in building nuclear weaponry since its 1998 tests.

According to Dr Rice, "Our agreement with India is unique because India is unique." It is easy to see why "India is unique": the Indian import commitment will entail New Delhi annually spending over the next six years between $2.4 billion to $3.3 billion â more than the $2.04 billion appropriations it has budgeted this year for its entire nuclear programme.

Pakistan has two reasons to be pleased: first, by creating a troublesome Indian dependency on external supplies of fuel and spare parts, the deal will serve to keep India on good behaviour; and, two, profligate imports will gobble up Indian resources that otherwise could go for augmenting indigenous capabilities. Others too have reasons to be pleased: "it will mean thousands of new jobs for American workers," as Dr Rice put up, while the Paris junkets by France signify its hunt for nuclear mega-deals after clinching the questionable Scorpene contract.

8Â Pakistan has little to lose as the US is seeking to build a strategic partnership both with New Delhi and Islamabad. Any Indian illusion that America is building a special strategic relationship with India and distancing itself from old ally Pakistan was shattered by Bush, who used Indian soil to hail Problemistan as "another important partner and friend of the US" and to seek Indo-Pak "progress on all issues, including Kashmir." After he returned home, a White House statement said the US "relationship with Pakistan, which has Major Non-NATO Ally status, follows a separate path" to buttress "close ties and cooperation."

Like in the past, America treats the maintenance of a balance of power as a central strategic goal in any region. Its strategy is unlikely to stop employing Pakistan to countervail India, even as it seeks to frame an option to leverage its increasingly cosy ties with India against China.

9Â America's avowed aim to promote nuclear and conventional balance on the subcontinent is music to Pakistani ears. Having agreed to sell its nuclear soul, India is getting one jarring message after another. Not only has a goalpost-shifting US presented a fresh demand no sooner than New Delhi has met one demand, it also now wants India to define its deterrent in the sole context of Pakistan.

That way it wants to draw India into further capability limits. While Dr Rice has put the emphasis on Indo-Pak "nuclear balance," her assistant secretary, Richard Boucher, went one step further, publicly asking India to enter into "mutual understandings" with Islamabad "in both conventional and nuclear areas." One such "mutual understanding" sought is an Indian military pullout from Saltoro Ridge, of which Siachen Glacier is a part.

The nuclear deal has only whetted the US appetite for parallel success on the conventional side. It had justified its decision to sell Pakistan F-16s, P-3C Orions, C-130s, TOW missiles, Aerostat surveillance ra-dars, 155mm self-propelled howitzers and Phalanx systems on grounds of maintaining a "military balance on the subcontinent." Now to underpin such a balance and ensure the Indian military can fight the next war only to a stalemate, it wants India to buy similar or countervailing weapons that the US military is phasing out, including P-3C Orions or P-8As, C-130s and F-16s or F/A-18s.

10 Islamabad will have the last laugh: after India has been put through the mill, it will gain access to whatever New Delhi might secure. The misbegotten nuclear deal will go through more tortuous twists and turns, but if in the end it does take effect, India will find it has gained little over Pakistan. Indeed, after India has been made to pay through the nose, Pakistan will be no less a beneficiary.

An opinion is already gaining ground in Washington and the NSG that rather than design a country-specific exception, new common export standards for non-NPT States would serve the non-proliferation regime better. India's action to import power reactors dependent on imported fuel by compromising on its vital strategic interests is the 21st century equivalent of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq's move in 1326 to shift his capital from Delhi to Devagiri, which he renamed "Daulatabad," or Abode of Prosperity.Â India today is being led up the path to a new Daulatabad where it can entrust its crown jewels for safekeeping.Â

http://deccan.com/Columnists/Columnists....a%20capped

**acharya** · 05-25-2006, 05:29 AM

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Why American Jewry is backing the Indo-US nuclear deal

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The American Jewish Committee, which has thrown its weight behind India as the Indo-American nuclear deal makes its way through Congress, believes that if successful, it would diminish the prospects of the advancement of the Iranian nuclear programme.

In an interview published here this week by India Abroad, Jason Issacson, the Jewish rights groupâs director of governmental and international affairs said, âFrankly, the cooperation between India and the United States in doing what it can to diminish the prospects of advanced Iranian nuclear programme ... from moving forward ... joining an international effort to contain Iranâs nuclear ambitions.â He added that cooperation on that count had been notable in the last year. âI would say that itâs just one more aspect of (the) relationship that is in the best interest of both the US and India,â he added.

Issacson, asked how confident he was of the successful passage of the enabling legislation introduced by the Bush administration in Congress to get the nuclear deal through, said, âIt is not a done deal. It is not a sure thing, but with the administration strongly supportive and with the very active efforts of the Indian embassy and the support of those of us who believe in this agreement, I believe there is a good chance. There will be a lot of work to do in the coming weeks and months. The case is a good one, the arguments are clear and the people are coming on board to know more about this relationship, to know more about India. I am confident that in time that argument will prevail.â

When told that some leading Jewish lawmakers like Congressmen Tom Lantos, Gary Ackerman and Brad Sherman had misgivings about the nuclear agreement, he replied that those congressional leaders were speaking in their individual capacity and not representing the views of the US Jewish community. Such voices should not be taken as being critical of the US-India relationship or their strategic cooperation, he cautioned.

Issacson said the American Jewish Committee had sent letters to members of Congress to support the deal, and it was going to follow that up with personal contacts. All 32 offices of the Jewish group across America would âdo what they can do to make our voices heardâ. He said the Committee also continues to be in touch with the Indian embassy and the Indian-American community. He repeated that âit is not a sure thing,â but he was still hopeful that in the end those backing the deal would carry the day. He said the Committee had discussed the deal and the issues surrounding the deal over a period of many months with Indian and American officials, officials in the administration and those on Capitol Hill. There had been extensive discussions with the Indian embassy and through the Committeeâs Mumbai office, with the Indian ministry of external affairs.

06-07-2006, 01:02 AM

QUOTEIndia capped- By Brahma Chellaney

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has claimed from the outset that his vaunted nuclear deal with the United States is about nuclear energy and not about Indiaâs strategic programme. Yet his own actions epitomise the intentional manner the deal has been allowed to ossify into a cap on Indiaâs nuclear military programme, with nuclear energy just the bait. With Dr Singhâs deferential commitment "to work with the US for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty," the Americans have now introduced a draft FMCT whose principal target is India.

The PMâs new, expanded list of Indian facilities â tabled in Parliament on May 11 â shows how in the name of gaining a meretricious right to import uneconomical power reactors, 37 establishments across the gamut of Indiaâs nuclear capability are being put under permanent international inspections or, in the case of two, being dismembered. From basic research to weapons-grade plutonium production capability, Indiaâs nascent nuclear deterrent is being delivered a body blow. Added to that is the unseemly rush to complete the proposed actions on most of the 37 facilities within the next four years.

No nation has ever done what India has set out to do. While the five established nuclear-weapons states together have only 11 installations under voluntary, revocable International Atomic Energy Agency "safeguards" at present, India singly is subjecting almost three-and-a-half times that number of facilities to perpetual, immutable inspections without even the escape hatch available to a non-nuclear nation in a state of national contingency â the right of withdrawal from a commitment. As Condoleezza Rice made clear on April 5, Indiaâs legal commitments are unilateral, unrelated to assured fuel supply, and per se "without condition," with the US reserving the right to leave India in the lurch if at any point it were to test or violate IAEA safeguards. Her remarks confirm Indiaâs backdoor accession to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty through the pending congressional legislation.

Also, India has gradually expanded the number of facilities it is sacrificing â from the "one or two" that the Vajpayee government offered to Dr Singhâs furtive, incremental increases now totalling 37. To deflect attention from the gravity of what Dr Singh was preparing to do, the government earlier this year actually orchestrated a public charade on the fast-breeder programme to take credit for "saving" the tiny experimental breeder and the under-construction prototype breeder (which together, according to US national security adviser Stephen Hadley, have "very limited capability").

The dealâs qualitative and quantitative ceilings succeed in "limiting the size and sophistication of Indiaâs nuclear-weapons programme," according to Joseph R. Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The deal has been designed to underpin a fundamental US goal â to deter the rise of India as a full-fledged nuclear power that could threaten US global or regional interests. Not only will the deal widen Indiaâs nuclear asymmetry with China, its US goal jibes well with Pakistanâs strategic objectives.

It was M.J. Akbar who had the foresight to explain on these pages why Pakistan was lucky to escape President George W. Bushâs nuclear embrace. Mr Akbar stated what nuclear boffins had missed out â that while a dreamy India had enmeshed itself in a web of onerous, US-fashioned obligations, Islamabad could be "held down to nothing." The more the deal has unfolded, the clearer Indiaâs disadvantage has become. And the bigger the US demands have grown.

Indeed, Pakistanâs opposition to the deal has been misconstrued in India. Its opposition is less on substance (it welcomes the capability limits and one-sided obligations on India) and more on symbolism (rather than a special exception being carved out for India, it wants a common standard applicable to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treatyâs non-signatories). Islamabadâs strong reaction also sprang from a foreboding that the deal could open the way for enlargement of the foothold the US gained in its nuclear programme following the proliferation scandal in which A.Q. Khan became the scapegoat. But given its obsessive fixation on parity with New Delhi and clear-eyed resolve to thwart Indiaâs regional pre-eminence, Pakistan has at least 10 reasons to celebrate.

1 The deal constricts Indiaâs freedom of action and thereby helps level the field for Pakistan. By playing to Indiaâs ego and desire for status, the deal paves the way for the US to stunt Indiaâs nuclear deterrent and influence its foreign policy. Islamabad can only be happy that India is going to stay condemned forever as a second-class, subcontinentally confined nuclear-weapons state without the latitude to develop power projection force capability to unpin its world-power ambitions.

Far from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, India has put even the maiden flight-test of the intermediate-range Agni III on hold for months now, in deference to the US. Islamabad, on the other hand, has tested in the past three months alone the Babur cruise missile, the Abdali short-range ballistic missile and the Shaheen 2, a potential counter to Agni III.

2 The deal will balance the foothold the US has secured in the Pakistani nuclear programme with a corresponding foothold in the Indian programme. Just as Bush secured a handle on the Pakistani nuclear programme by forgiving Islamabad for its illicit export of nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea, he offered New Delhi a deal which, when implemented, will cap the size and quality of its deterrent and give the US for the first time, in the words of US undersecretary Nick Burns, "a transparent insight into Indiaâs nuclear programme."

After meeting General Pervez Musharraf on March 4, Bush said: "Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories." It is to satisfy "different needs" by recognising "different histories" that Bush has pursued parallel tracks with India and Pakistan to achieve the same objective â a greater US say in their nuclear and foreign policies. It thus makes little sense for Washington to bait Islamabad with the same deal it has ensnared India, especially when Pakistan had already been trapped. Today, nothing pleases Pakistan more than to see its rival in the same trap.

It is enlightening how those who walk into a trap begin to speak the lingo of enlightenment. Just as Musharraf discovered "enlightened moderation" after he, in cahoots with the US, made A.Q. Khan the fall guy to save his militaryâs skin, Dr Singh embraced "enlightened national interest" after being enlightened by the US-drafted deal he signed. Americaâs success in infusing enlightenment underscores why it prefers to cut deals with unelected leaders.

3 Pakistan retains the advantage of enjoying an open line of covert nuclear and missile supply from China. US-imposed fetters on India and Pakistan will impair the Indian deterrent more. Among the non-NPT nuclear powers, India has always faced the biggest challenges because, unlike Pakistan and Israel, it has neither received tested warhead designs from an established nuclear-weapons state nor other clandestine transfers. That Chinaâs supply line to Pakistan remains open has been underlined by the tests in the past two months of Shaheen 2 and Babur, both Chinese-origin missiles.

Beijing will do whatever it can to profit from the Indo-US deal, using it as a pretext both to make further covert transfers and to sell its dubious power reactors to Pakistan. Yet the US has convinced itself that capping Indiaâs deterrent holds the key to persuading Beijing to halt illicit transfers to Islamabad and to corralling Pakistanâs nuclear ambitions.

4 The deal will remove from potential military use a large part of the Indian nuclear programme. Pakistan must be pleased that the deal will reduce to less than one-third the number of Indian facilities available to generate weapons-usable fissile material. Not only is India dismantling one of its two plutonium-production research reactors, it is also putting under permanent IAEA inspections one of its two existing industrial-scale reprocessing plants, 14 power reactors and two-fifths of its heavy-water capability. Absent this deal, India would have remained free to use these facilities for military purpose. Pakistanâs fissile-material production complex, in contrast, will stay unencumbered â until an FMCT takes effect.

5 The deal opens a real opportunity for Pakistan to overtake India on nukes, as it has already done on missiles. Having fallen way behind Chinaâs deterrent capabilities, India now risks lagging behind Pakistanâs nuclear-weapons drive. For a country given to painting illusion as reality, it must pain India when a former US President publicises the bitter truth â that despite Asiaâs oldest nuclear programme, "India so far has only rudimentary nuclear technology." In a recent op-ed, Jimmy Carter also said that while today China possesses 400 nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan have "40 each."

Given its far more limited scientific and economic resources, Pakistan has done an impressive job on deterrence. Such is its deterrentâs credibility in Indian eyes that it intruded deep into enemy land and yet made India fight the entire 1999 Kargil War on Indian territory on Pakistani terms, with New Delhi needing America as a midwife to deliver a favourable outcome. Militarily, it matters little that China has fathered Pakistanâs key nukes and missiles. What matters is possession, not parentage. Not only is Pakistan set to surpass India on quantity, it also has done a better job integrating its nukes into its military doctrine and strategy.

The point is that a dawdling India continues to drop further behind its regional defence needs. The PM cannot claim that India has even a minimal deterrent, let alone a credible one. Yet he has accepted restrictions on the deterrent. Is it an accident that none of those championing the deal inside or outside the government had wanted India to go overtly nuclear through tests?

6 Pakistan has escaped the trials and tribulations of negotiating perpetual IAEA inspections on manifold facilities. By the time 37 Indian facilities come under external inspections, only six Pakistani installations will be subject to IAEA safeguards â the Chashma 1 and 2 and KANUPP power reactors, the teeny, pool-type PARR 1 and 2 research reactors, and the Hawks Bay depot. Pakistan has refused to open to outside monitoring a single indigenous facility. But India is gratuitously dismembering Cirus and Apsara research reactors and opening up 29 other indigenous facilities.

Worse, while Pakistan sustains its nuclear opaqueness like China (which has only three facilities under IAEA safeguards), India is to sever the symbiotic relationship between its civil and military programmes, agreeing to erect fail-safe, IAEA-supervised firewalls between the two. New-entrant China is likely to invoke the Nuclear Suppliersâ Groupâs grandfather clause and supply Pakistan a couple of more power reactors without Islamabad having to carry out what India is being compelled to do â negotiate with the IAEA both everlasting inspections and an invasive "additional protocol." Islamabad, in any case, cannot afford to buy more than a couple reactors.

7 "Unique India" is accepting not only fetters but also is going to cough up between $14.4 billion to $20 billion "to import eight power reactors by 2012," as revealed by Dr Rice. The eight-reactor imports (calculated at the current prices of Framatome ANP-Siemensâ EPR-1600, Westinghouseâs AP-1000 or BWR-90 and Russian Atomstroyexportâs VVER-91) will cost far more than what India has invested in building nuclear weaponry since its 1998 tests. According to Dr Rice, "Our agreement with India is unique because India is unique." It is easy to see why "India is unique": the Indian import commitment will entail New Delhi annually spending over the next six years between $2.4 billion to $3.3 billion â more than the $2.04 billion appropriations it has budgeted this year for its entire nuclear programme.

Pakistan has two reasons to be pleased: first, by creating a troublesome Indian dependency on external supplies of fuel and spare parts, the deal will serve to keep India on good behaviour; and, two, profligate imports will gobble up Indian resources that otherwise could go for augmenting indigenous capabilities. Others too have reasons to be pleased: "it will mean thousands of new jobs for American workers," as Dr Rice put up, while the Paris junkets by France signify its hunt for nuclear mega-deals after clinching the questionable Scorpene contract.

8 Pakistan has little to lose as the US is seeking to build a strategic partnership both with New Delhi and Islamabad. Any Indian illusion that America is building a special strategic relationship with India and distancing itself from old ally Pakistan was shattered by Bush, who used Indian soil to hail Problemistan as "another important partner and friend of the US" and to seek Indo-Pak "progress on all issues, including Kashmir." After he returned home, a White House statement said the US "relationship with Pakistan, which has Major Non-NATO Ally status, follows a separate path" to buttress "close ties and cooperation."

Like in the past, America treats the maintenance of a balance of power as a central strategic goal in any region. Its strategy is unlikely to stop employing Pakistan to countervail India, even as it seeks to frame an option to leverage its increasingly cosy ties with India against China.

9 Americaâs avowed aim to promote nuclear and conventional balance on the subcontinent is music to Pakistani ears. Having agreed to sell its nuclear soul, India is getting one jarring message after another. Not only has a goalpost-shifting US presented a fresh demand no sooner than New Delhi has met one demand, it also now wants India to define its deterrent in the sole context of Pakistan. That way it wants to draw India into further capability limits. While Dr Rice has put the emphasis on Indo-Pak "nuclear balance," her assistant secretary, Richard Boucher, went one step further, publicly asking India to enter into "mutual understandings" with Islamabad "in both conventional and nuclear areas." One such "mutual understanding" sought is an Indian military pullout from Saltoro Ridge, of which Siachen Glacier is a part.

The nuclear deal has only whetted the US appetite for parallel success on the conventional side. It had justified its decision to sell Pakistan F-16s, P-3C Orions, C-130s, TOW missiles, Aerostat surveillance radars, 155mm self-propelled howitzers and Phalanx systems on grounds of maintaining a "military balance on the subcontinent." Now to underpin such a balance and ensure the Indian military can fight the next war only to a stalemate, it wants India to buy similar or countervailing weapons that the US military is phasing out, including P-3C Orions or P-8As, C-130s and F-16s or F/A-18s.

10 Islamabad will have the last laugh: after India has been put through the mill, it will gain access to whatever New Delhi might secure. The misbegotten nuclear deal will go through more tortuous twists and turns, but if in the end it does take effect, India will find it has gained little over Pakistan. Indeed, after India has been made to pay through the nose, Pakistan will be no less a beneficiary. An opinion is already gaining ground in Washington and the NSG that rather than design a country-specific exception, new common export standards for non-NPT states would serve the non-proliferation regime better.

Indiaâs action to import power reactors dependent on imported fuel by compromising on its vital strategic interests is the 21st century equivalent of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaqâs move in 1326 to shift his capital from Delhi to Devagiri, which he renamed "Daulatabad," or Abode of Prosperity. India today is being led up the path to a new Daulatabad where it can entrust its crown jewels for safekeeping.

**acharya** · 06-11-2006, 09:42 AM

Sunday, June 11, 2006

US team arrives in India to sort out N-deal

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: A US delegation will reach India on Sunday (today) to iron out differences between India and the US on implementing the nuclear accord agreed in the joint statements by George Bush and Manmohan Singh in July 2005 and March 2006.

The delegation, led by Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security Director Richard Stratford, will hold three-day talks with Indian officials.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will meet either Saturday evening or on Sunday to give guidelines to the Indian officials for the talks, which are described as crucial and the last chance to prevent the deal being put on back-burner by the United States.

The United States is pressuring India to agree to some of its conditions with a plea that it would help the Bush administration secure the approval of the US Congress.

Sources said Nicholas Burns, the US under secretary of state for political affairs, had assured Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran last month in London that the Bush administration was keen on finalising the civilian nuclear deal before the US Congress goes into recess in the first week of July and then goes into âelection modeâ.

Saran was also told that next weekâs talks in Delhi were crucial to enable the administration to put an end to the debate and ask the US Congress by the end of this month to vote for the nuclear deal by passing the needed legislation.

Sources said some of the new conditions slapped by the United States for implementation of the deal were âharshâ but India would have to accept them or the US Congress may otherwise not clear the deal.

The External Affairs Ministry is, however, keeping quiet on what transpired between Saran and Burns in London and has declined to comment on some of the new conditions the Americans are trying to push.

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