Concerns remain over US-Indian nuclear agreement

Washington: In January 2006, an Indian government agency purchased newspaper ads seeking help in building an obscure piece of metal machinery.

The details of the project, available to bidders, were laid out in a series of drawings that jolted nuclear weapons experts who discovered them that spring.

The blueprints depicted the inner workings of a centrifuge, a machine used to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.

In most Western countries, such drawings would be considered secret, but the Indian diagrams were available for a nominal bidding fee, said David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector. He said he acquired the drawings to prove a point.

"We got them for about $10 (Dh36.7)," said Albright, who called the incident a "serious leak of sensitive nuclear information."

India has since tightened its bidding procedures, but the incident has fuelled concerns among opponents of a US-Indian civilian nuclear deal that Congress is expected to consider in the coming weeks.

The accord, first announced in 2005 by the Bush administration, would lift a decades-old moratorium on nuclear trade with India, allowing US companies to share sensitive technology despite that country's refusal to ban nuclear testing or sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Backers of the deal say it will cement US ties with India and reward a country that has been a responsible steward of nuclear technology since it first joined the nuclear weapons club in 1974.

Implications

But opponents say India's record on nonproliferation is not as unblemished as is claimed by the White House, which regards the nuclear pact as one of the foreign-policy highlights of the Bush administration's second term.

Critics, including former US diplomats, military officers and arms-control officials, accuse the White House of rushing the agreement through Congress without considering the long-term implications.

"This deal significantly weakens US and international security," said retired Army General Robert Gard, chairman of the Washington-based Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

On Wednesday, a group of 34 arms-control advocates and former government officials urged Congress to reject the deal in its current form.

Administration officials have repeatedly lauded India's efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear technology, contrasting its behaviour with that of Pakistan, the home base of Abdul Qadeer Khan, who delivered weapons secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Nicholas Burns, the former undersecretary of state for political affairs and a chief supporter of the landmark accord, said in a recent forum that India was "playing by the rules of the nuclear club but not allowed to join the club."

Burns said the agreement "strengthened the international nonproliferation regime because it resolves an inherent contradiction in the regime."

Likewise, India's government says it deserves the trust of the world's nuclear gatekeepers.

"India has an impeccable nonproliferation record," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said last week.