March 6, 2008 US Critics Raise
Questions about N-deal By Arun Kumar
Washington
As India and the US make renewed efforts to conclude their civil
nuclear deal, four US critics of the accord have asked the Bush
administration to make public its responses to lawmakers' questions
about it.
The four in a statement Wednesday asked the State Department to drop
a virtual "gag" order on its unclassified responses to over 40
questions sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last
October.
"The administration's responses should be made publicly available so
that US and Indian lawmakers and the public can evaluate whether the
draft US-Indian accord conforms to the terms and conditions
established by Congress," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director
of the Arms Control Association (ACA).
"The administration's unwillingness to make their answers more
widely available suggests they have something to hide from either US
or Indian legislators," he said.
Joining him were two former senior non-proliferation officials, Fred
McGoldrick and Henry Sokolski, and Sharon Squassoni, senior
associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The State Department said the US-India civil nuclear agreement
complied fully with US law and the administration had provided
extensive briefings to Congress on the matter, including public
testimony by top State Department officials.
"We've handled answers to sensitive questions in an appropriate way
that responds to congressional concerns. We're going to continue
with that approach," State Department spokesperson Tom Casey said.
According to the ACA, questions the House committee asked the State
Department to answer included:
* Will the government terminate nuclear trade with India if it
resumes testing?
* Whether the US intends to transfer sensitive nuclear technology
through the agreement, or outside the agreement that can be used to
make nuclear weapons material?
* Will the new safeguards agreement between India and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) apply in perpetuity as
called for in law, or be subject to unspecified "corrective actions"
as India demands?
* Will the government be legally required to help India secure
nuclear fuel supplies from other states even if nuclear cooperation
is suspended?
"Given that the administration's answers are not classified, they
should be willing to share them with all members of the Congress and
with the public," said Fred McGoldrick, former director of
non-proliferation and export policy at the State Department.
"This proposed agreement with India will have profound and adverse
consequences for the international non-proliferation regime. The
draft text contains numerous ambiguities, and the Congress and the
public need to know how the administration interprets various
provisions in the text," he said.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Non-proliferation Policy
Education Centre, said: "Sitting on the answers to these questions
is no way to clear the air on the deal's controversial provisions,
which the Indian public is rightly worried about."
"The proposed nuclear cooperation agreement papers over key
differences between Washington and New Delhi, such as whether
nuclear cooperation would be cut off if India tests a nuclear
device," said Sharon Squassoni.
For months, Indian officials have insisted that they seek full
nuclear cooperation, including access to uranium enrichment and
plutonium reprocessing technologies, which can be used to produce
nuclear bomb material.
They also have sought to secure nuclear fuel supply guarantees and
multi-year fuel reserves to give India the option to resume testing
without penalty, the ACA said.
"As a result, the agreement contains undefined terms, and unorthodox
approaches which make it unlike any other agreement the United
States had previously signed. All members of the Congress and the
public deserve to see the administration's responses to the many
questions about the Indian nuclear deal," Squassoni said
Indian officials have also made contradictory statements about the
relevance of the restrictions and conditions on nuclear trade in the
Hyde Act and international nuclear trade with India, the arms
control lobby said.
"Clear responses about the proposed Indian nuclear trade deal are
needed now, not later, because decisions may soon be taken by other
nuclear supplier states that could undermine non-proliferation law
and policy," Kimball said.
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