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Controversy over the nuclear deal

P.K. Iyengar

Once we sign the deal we will be at the mercy of the U.S. and the NSG.

AT THE time it was struck, the July 2005 India-U.S. nuclear agreement appeared historic. The compromises by both sides looked acceptable then. The U.S. seemed to agree to recognise India as a nuclear weapons country, and to not interfere with its nuclear doctrine, strategic programme, or further development of its nuclear arsenal, which includes design, development, and testing of new nuclear weapons. Secondly, the U.S. recognised the need for more nuclear power in India, and was willing to do commerce in civil nuclear power, and encourage the Nuclear Suppliers Group to do the same, subject only to the condition that such reactors and their fuel would be under IAEA safeguards specific to India. In March 2006, the U.S. gave assurances that in order to avoid situations like Tarapur, where fuel was denied to us after the 1974 Pokhran test, they would guarantee fuel supplies to these imported reactors for their lifetime, and, if necessary, help us build fuel stockpiles.

The U.S. also agreed that our efforts for nuclear energy based on a three-stage programme could continue unrestricted, with fast breeders and thorium reactors, and that we would have the opportunity to collaborate with the U.S. on their R&D efforts for a new generation of nuclear reactors. The Prime Minister repeated these promises in Parliament many times, and it was said that the only thing we were committing was the continuation of our voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing and a separation plan such that our strategic programme and R&D would not be subject to IAEA inspection. It was claimed that this separation plan would be entirely voluntary.

However, when subsequent changes in the U.S. position made the deal unpalatable for India, the Indian negotiators failed to hold to the Prime Minister's stand. Delivery of fuel was linked to non-testing and fuel supply was no longer guaranteed. Reprocessing, which is essential for our three-stage programme, was specifically disallowed. Instead of participating as an equal in R&D programmes, India would now only be a bystander. All these changes were codified in the Hyde Act — an appropriate name, given the Jekyll and Hyde act that the U.S. government is pulling!

These serious changes alarmed the community of nuclear scientists. A number of us who have led the civilian and strategic nuclear programmes in the past found it necessary to express our grave reservations in writing. This had its effect, with the Prime Minister giving a detailed reply and categorical assurances in Parliament that India would not play a game with "shifting goalposts." However, our statement also received criticism from some quarters, which alleged that this was tantamount to interference in the government's executive rights and responsibilities. This criticism is obviously unjustified because it is was not just our right but also our responsibility, as people with the relevant technical expertise, to provide appropriate advice to the people, Parliament, and government of this country.

In this context it is interesting to recall a letter written by Hans Bethe to President Clinton in April 1997, advising him to cease all research, even computer simulations, into a new generation of nuclear weapons:

"As the Director of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos, I participated at the most senior level in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic weapons. Now, at age 90, I am one of the few remaining senior project participants. And I have followed closely, and participated in, the major issues of the nuclear arms race and disarmament during the last half century. I ask to be permitted to express a related opinion. It seems the time has come for our Nation to declare that it is not working, in any way, to develop further weapons of mass destruction of any kind. In particular, this means not financing work looking toward the possibility of new designs for nuclear weapons. And it certainly means not working on new types of nuclear weapons, such as pure-fusion weapons...

"The underlying purpose of a complete cessation of nuclear testing mandated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is to prevent new nuclear weapons from emerging and this certainly suggests doing everything we can to prevent new categories of nuclear weapons from being discovered. It is in our national and global interest to stand true to this underlying purpose."

In his reply, President Clinton's wrote:

"Thank you for sharing your thoughts on nuclear weapons with me... I am fully committed to securing the ratification, entry into force and effective implementation of the CTBT. By banning all nuclear explosions, the CTBT will constrain the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and end the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons. In this way, the Treaty will contribute to the process of nuclear disarmament and the prevention of nuclear proliferation, and it will strengthen international peace and security... I have also directed that the United States maintain the basic capability to resume nuclear test activities prohibited by the CTBT in the unlikely event that the United States should need to withdraw from this treaty..."

Look at the tone of Prof. Bethe's letter. Now imagine the consternation if an Indian scientist were to use such a tone in a letter to the Prime Minister!

The reply from President Clinton is also interesting. He openly states America's willingness to resume nuclear testing should such a situation arise in the future. He also indicated that the national laboratories will maintain an alert group to redesign new weapons of mass destruction, for which new facilities are being approved. We now know that even this exit clause was not considered sufficient, and the U.S. Congress refused to ratify the CTBT. In June 1996, India withdrew from the CTBT Conference because of its discriminatory nature, and because the way to nuclear disarmament is not through imposing such limited agreements on some, while others are carrying out research towards discovering new weapons.

Such research is probably not restricted to the Americans. In June 2006, the Russian Foreign Minister told the Duma the Americans are already experimenting with deep penetrating mini-nukes called `bunker-busters.' This suggests that perhaps even Russia is trying such innovations. In spite of agreeing not to develop anti-missile defence systems in the 1970s, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from that treaty. The Chinese have even demonstrated recently that they could bring down satellites in orbit.

The supporters of the nuclear deal argue it is essential to augment nuclear power to support our rapid growth, and that this requires the nuclear deal. The first part of the argument is correct. Where they err is in not understanding that the nuclear deal will not achieve this goal, that we will lose more than we gain through the deal. For one, we are getting neither nuclear fuel nor reactors for free or at a low cost but at the prevailing market price, and this is definitely more than the cost of indigenous nuclear power. Secondly, the promise of nuclear technology rings hollow — it comes too late and offers too little. Today we are quite self-sufficient in the technology of heavy-water reactors, and are world leaders in the technology of fast-breeder reactors. These are the technologies we have chosen for our three-stage nuclear programme, with good reason.

The light-water reactors (LWRs) we may buy use only 0.5 per cent of the uranium mined, leaving the rest to be stored if the fuel is not reprocessed and reused, as in the once-through cycle. It is more profitable to reprocess and extract the plutonium from heavy-water reactors and use it as fuel for the fast-breeder reactors, which is the essence of our three-stage programme. They have also been shown to be more economical in terms of capital cost and tariff. Imagine the benefits that would accrue if we succeed in burning up to 10 per cent of the uranium mined as well as the thorium that we use, in a once-through cycle. Efforts are on to achieve this through our own research and development.

Yes, we would be happy to have more reactors if they are economically viable, such as the LWRs we are buying from Russia — without having to sign any nuclear deal from them. But the price we are being asked to pay by the U.S. is too high: no testing, no reprocessing, no guarantees of future fuel supplies. Once we sign the deal we will be at the mercy of the U.S. and the NSG for our energy security. This is hardly a situation a country that sees itself as a future superpower should place itself in. There is another solution to the problem of generating more nuclear power: rapid expansion of the indigenous programme with more capital for more reactors, greater exploitation of our uranium resources, greater urgency to our fast-breeder programme and thorium utilisation.

Scientists ignored

Unfortunately, in India scientists no longer have influence on the nuclear policy of the government. Technical realities and long term programmes based on scientific expertise and the collective wisdom of half a century are dismissed with neither thought nor debate. The vision of a self-reliant nuclear India that Jawaharlal Nehru and Homi Bhabha envisioned, and which Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi nurtured and sustained, seems now ready to be consigned to the dustbin of history. It is true that there are new pressures and new imperatives in a changing India. But equally, there are no quick fixes. FDI will not turn nuclear power economical, and `outsourcing' nuclear power will not ensure our energy security. It is the creativity of Indian scientists and their work in Indian laboratories alone that can prove beneficial to the future of this country. It seems to me that already great damage has been done to our strategic planning. Nine years after the Pokhran II tests, we haven't evaluated the detailed requirements for a minimum credible deterrent, including delivery systems. Our R&D limps on, while elsewhere a new generation of efficient nuclear weapons and their delivery systems is being actively worked on. Decisions need to be taken, and urgently, for the civilian and strategic nuclear programme, but not without thought, consideration, consultation, and an appreciation of scientific realities. This is a time not for politics but for statesmanship.

(The author is a former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.)

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