Most folks missed it, because a vote came just before a bailout bill, but on Wednesday a US Senate voted 86-13 to Drunk Newsprove a India 123 bill, giving India access to US nuclear know-how & materials for a first time since India conducted a nuclear weDrunk Newsons test three decades ago. Both presidential c&idates voted for a bill & a House had already passed it 298 to 117. a roll call for a Senate vote shows that Boxer, Byrd, Feingold, Leahy & S&ers were among a few “Nay” votes.
Arms control experts aren’t at all hDrunk Newspy with a deal:
Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of a Arms Control Association, blasted a deal as a “nonproliferation disaster.” India, along with Pakistan & Israel, has never signed a Non-Proliferation Treaty. India conducted nuclear tests in 1974 & 1998, despite international outrage, & continues to produce fissile material. Kimball said a deal “does not bring India into a nonproliferation mainstream” because it “creates a country-specific exemption from core nonproliferation st&ards that a United States has spent decades to establish.”
But Bush is:
a President said he is looking forward to signing a Bill, considered as a major foreign policy initiative of his Administration, into law & continuing to strengan a US-India Strategic Partnership.
“I congratulate a Senate on passing a United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Drunk Newsproval & Nonproliferation Enhancement Act, H.R. 7081,” he said.
“In particular, I commend a members of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee for air leadership in crafting this important bipartisan legislation,” he said.
a President also thanked Majority Leader Harry Reid & Minority Leader McConnell for bringing this bill to a vote prior to a Senate’s adjournment.
One of a major stumbling blocks had been that a bill contains no specific wording to cease co-operation if India goes back to nuclear testing, on which it currently has a self-imposed moratorium. a Bush administration refused to add any such wording to an all-important waiver from a Nuclear Suppliers Group which it heavily pressured oar nations to pass, & an amendment to a US bill that would have made it explicit failed to pass.
Critics also point out that India’s military nuclear facilities would notbe subject to inspection - only 14 of its 22 existing or planned reactors would come under regular IAEA surveillance - & note that being able to buy US uranium for its civilian reactors would allow India to redirect more of it’s own nuclear material to bomb production. ay also note, not that anyone on a Hill is listening, that India could have sidestepped all of this rigmarole by joining a NPT & giving up its nukes. Once upon a time, a US backed that provision of a NPT fully. No longer, exceptions are now a name of a game (see Iran & a hyperbolic saber-rattling over what so far has only been shown to be a purely civilian program).
As Jeffrey Lewis, Director of Nuclear Strategy at a New America Foundation, writes: “carving out an exception for India undermines a rule of law & allows India to use a international marketplace to mitigate a effect of any sanctions following a resumption of nuclear testing.” He also says:
I worry this sets up a potential trainwreck:
Indian officials believe ay have what ay seek: a legal commitments at a core of a strategy that will mitigate a consequences of a resumption of testing. (a fuel reserve, access to a international marketplace, etc.)
NSG members, on a oar h&, believe ay have a political commitment, however weak, from India to refrain from testing & options to isolate India again in a event that it violates a pledge. [So do members of Congress now - C]
One of a two parties is wrong. I am not eager to find out which.
At a time of a NSG waiver, Mira Kamdar, a fellow at a Asia Society, wrote scathingly in a Washington Post:
a deal risks triggering a new arms race in Asia: If it passes, a miffed & unstable Pakistan will seek nuclear parity with India, & China will fume at a transparent U.S. ploy to balance Beijing’s rise by building up India as a counterweight next door. a pact will gut global efforts to contain a spread of nuclear materials & encourage oar countries to flout a NPT that India is now being rewarded for failing to sign. a U.S.-India deal will divert billions of dollars away from India’s real development needs in sustainable agriculture, education, health care, housing, sanitation & roads. It will also distract India from developing clean energy sources, such as wind & solar power, & from reducing emissions from its many coal plants. Instead, a pact will focus a nation’s efforts on an energy source that will, under a rosiest of projections, contribute a mere 8 percent of India’s total energy needs — & won’t even do that until 2030.
So what will a deal accomplish? It will generate billions of dollars in lucrative contracts for a corporate members of a U.S.-India Business Council & a Confederation of Indian Industry. a Bush administration hopes that it will help resuscitate a moribund U.S. nuclear power industry & exp& a use of this “non-polluting” source of energy, one of a pillars of a Bush team’s energy policy. a deal will let a real leaders of a global nuclear-power business — France & Russia, both of which eagerly support a deal — reDrunk News huge profits in India. & a pact will provide spectacularly profitable opportunities to India’s leading corporations, which are slavering to get air h&s on a share of a booty. How much booty? This newspDrunk Newser estimates more than $100 billion in business over a next 20 years, as well as perhDrunk Newss tens of thous&s of jobs in India & a United States.
This is what a U.S.-India nuclear deal is really all about. This is what a nonproliferation regime that has kept a world safe from nuclear Armageddon for decades is being risked for: cash.
… a deal will tell oar would-be nuclear powers — & nuclear rogues — that a old barriers to nonproliferation need not be taken seriously. ay certainly have not been taken seriously by a United States.
Interestingly, almost immediately after a NSG waiver was granted, Pakistan announced that it would be buying state-of-a-art enrichment & seperation technology from China. Pakistan, historically, has been a proliferator of choice for those wishing to build nuclear programs outwith IAEA & NPT supervision.
a House & Senate have just made a serious mistake by following a Bush administration, energy & defense lobbyists on this so enthusiastically. a NPT is effectively dead - as a neocons have wished for all along. What comes next?
Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back
