The US's nuclear cave-in - US/India deal violates US and international law

[bigtree]

By Joseph Cirincione
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC04Df03.html

To clinch a nuclear-weapons deal, Bush had to give in to demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large portions of the country's nuclear infrastructure from international inspection.

The Indian leaders and press are crowing about their victory over the United States. For good reason: President Bush has done what Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and his own father refused to do - break US and international law to aid India's nuclear-weapons program. In 1974, India cheated on its agreements with the United States and other nations to do what Iran is accused of doing now: using a peaceful nuclear energy program to build a nuclear bomb. India used plutonium produced in a Canadian-supplied reactor to detonate a bomb it then called a "peaceful nuclear device". In response, president Richard Nixon and Congress stiffened US laws and Nixon organized the Nuclear Suppliers Group to prevent any other nation from following India's example.

Bush has now unilaterally shattered those guidelines, and his action would violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) proscription against aiding another nation's nuclear-weapons program. It would require the repeal or revision of several major US laws, including the US Nonproliferation Act. Nor has he won any significant concessions from India. India refuses to agree to end its production of nuclear-weapons material, something the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China have already done.

In addition to breaking US law and shattering long-standing barriers to proliferation, lawmakers are concerned about the example the nuclear-weapons deal sets for other nations. The lesson Iran is likely to draw is simple: if you hold out long enough, the Americans will cave. All this talk about violating treaties, they will reason, is just smoke. When the Americans think you are important enough, they will break the rules to accommodate you.

Pakistani officials have already said they expect their country to receive a similar deal, and Israel is surely waiting in the wings. Other nations may decide that they can break the rules, too, to grant special deals to their friends. China is already rumored to be seeking a deal to provide open nuclear assistance to Pakistan - a practice it stopped in the early 1990s after a successful diplomatic campaign by the United States to bring China into conformity with the NPT restrictions. Will Russia decide that it can make an exception for Iran?

full article: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC04Df03.html

[bigtree]

1. Bush double-standard

International Herald Tribune

The nuclear deal with India, if approved by U.S. Congress and America's allies, will strengthen ties with a country that has already begun to be more aligned with the United States, but it also complicates efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and other foes, diplomats and experts say.

Critics both in the U.S. Congress and abroad focused on what they maintained was a double standard embraced by the Bush administration: In effect allowing India to have nuclear weapons and still get international assistance, but insisting that Iran be given no such waiver.

"People are worried about the precedent of establishing a full- fledged cooperation with India while we're wagging our finger at North Korea and Iran," said a Republican aide on Capitol Hill, who requested anonymity because he was describing matters still being weighed in private discussions.

"The comparison between India and Iran is just ludicrous," R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said Thursday in a telephone interview. "India is a highly democratic, peaceful, stable state that has not proliferated nuclear weapons. Iran is an autocratic state mistrusted by nearly all countries and that has violated its international commitments." What the accord seems to reflect is an increasing American tendency under the Bush administration to rely less on international norms like the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to govern the spread of nuclear technology, and more on a case-by-case approach in which friendly countries are rewarded and unfriendly ones punished.

full article: http://www.13wham.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=00F15ECC-78B7-447F-911B-31258C711B6A

[opihimoimoi]

2. Bush is INSANE... shoulda never got to be President....

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. This is such a big story that's been pretty much ignored

Aside from the massive hypocrisy vis-a-vis Iran, it's hugely worrying. Just think, Clinton imposed sanctions on India (& Pakistan) for it's rogue development of nukes - crazy days.

[Up2Late]

4. Joseph Cirincione was on NPR's Talk of the Nation today!!!

(If this article isn't enough to convince folks, you should here the TOTN segment with Joseph Cirincione, he makes a very convincing and passionate argument.)

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5247773>

Examining the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal

Listen to this story...(at link above)

Talk of the Nation, March 6, 2006 ·
A new agreement gives India access to U.S. nuclear power
technology and opens up India's civilian power plants to
international inspectors. But first, the deal must pass Congress.
Our guests discuss questions about India's nuclear weapons arsenal and the future of non-proliferation.

Guests:

Joseph Cirincione, senior associate and director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

AmbassadorRaminder Singh Jassal, charge d'affaires of the Indian Embassy

Rep. Joseph Crowley, Democrat from New York (favors the deal)



Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts; ranking Democrat on the House Energy Committee (Strongly against the deal)

:kick:

[upi402]

5. rewarding illegal nuke development will come back at us

BushCo is _____________________!

[Eric J in MN]

6. Does the Senate have to rafify a treaty for the deat to go through

or is it already done?

[bigtree]

7. this has to be approved by Congress

should be interesting.

The deal must clear two large hurdles before it can take effect. Bush must overcome concerns by lawmakers in both parties that the United States is rewarding one of only three countries that refused to sign the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/168444/

[PsychoDad]

8. Could this be the reason for the port deal...

Or vice versa.

Not as if congress is going to not rubber stamp either of them any faster than they did Aleito... But perhaps * will drop one in exchange for the other, as a token appeasement to congress.

[Up2Late]

9. To use the actual words of * before someone told him to change his words

..."What this agreement says is things change, times change ... this agreement is in our interest and therefore I am confident we can sell this to our Congress."

<http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-02T110929Z_01_DEL148011_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDIA-BUSH.xml>

India, US seal nuclear deal amid anti-Bush rallies

Thu Mar 2, 2006 6:09 AM ET7
By Steve Holland and Simon Denyer

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India and the United States sealed a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation pact on Thursday, the centerpiece of President George W. Bush's first visit to the world's largest democracy. The pact marks a major breakthrough for New Delhi, long treated as a nuclear pariah by the world, as it allows it to access American atomic technology and fuel to meet its soaring energy needs -- provided U.S. Congress gives its approval.

It is also expected to allow atomic trade between India and other nuclear powers if the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an informal group of nations that controls global nuclear transactions, follows suit by lifting curbs on New Delhi. "We have concluded an historic agreement today on nuclear power," Bush told a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after their summit talks.

"I am looking forward to working with our United States Congress to change decades of law that will enable us to move forward in this important initiative," he said.

"What this agreement says is things change, times change ... this agreement is in our interest and therefore I am confident we can sell this to our Congress."

(more at link below)

<http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-02T110929Z_01_DEL148011_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDIA-BUSH.xml>