Daryl G Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, who coordinate a coalition of the US non-proliferation lobby opposed to the deal, said in a missive, "One of the central issues about the proposal is how the supply of US and other foreign nuclear fuel to safeguarded India nuclear power reactors would allow India to use more of its existing domestic supply of uranium for the purpose of producing fissile material (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) for nuclear weapons."
"No only would such indirect assistance of India's bomb program run counter to the United States' own nuclear non-proliferation treaty commitments, it could foster greater nuclear arms cooperation with Pakistan and China," he warned.
Kimball said this is why it is imperative that the amendments by Congressmen Howard Berman and Brad Sherman have to be supported because the former's amendment would "...require India to join the five recognised nuclear weapon-states in a fissile material production cutoff before the United States provides nuclear fuel to India," and why the latter's amendment would ensure that "...US nuclear assistance does not indirectly facilitate an increase in India's nuclear bomb material production rate."
He dismissed as a myth the contention by some proponents of the deal like strategic affairs expert and self-confessed card-carrying supporter of the agreement Ashley Tellis who have claimed that India has large reserves of uranium already and India's nuclear bomb program is not now constrained by its domestic uranium stockpile.
Tellis has said in a recent report that US and other foreign nuclear fuel supplies would not facilitate increased bomb material production by India and would only alleviate India's shortage of nuclear fuel for nuclear energy production.
Debunking this report, Kimball said while acknowledging that India does indeed have 'uranium reserves,' said, "The fact is that India has been unable to exploit these reserves to the extend that advocates for the nuclear deal have claimed. As a result, India would be hard pressed to maintain, let alone increase, the rate of production of fissile material for weapons while expanding its nuclear energy output, unless it can significantly expand domestic uranium mining and milling, and/ or get access to the international fuel market."
He said, "Simply put, India's production of weapons grade plutonium is currently constrained by the requirements of its nuclear power reactors on its limited domestic supply of natural uranium."
Kimball said,"This is why K Subrahmanyam, the former head of the National Security Council Board, wrote, "Given India's uranium ore crunch and the need to build up our minimum credible nuclear deterrent arsenal as fast as possible, it is to India's advantage to categorise as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refueled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapons grade plutonium production."
He said this is also why an Indian official 'close to the prime minister' had told the BBC on July 26,2005, that "...the truth is we were desperate. We have nuclear fuel to last only till the end of 2006. If this agreement had not come through we might have as well closed down our nuclear reactors and by extension our nuclear program."
Kimball claimed that the bottom-line is that "...absent a decision by New Delhi to halt the production of fissile material for weapons purposes, the proposed Indo-US nuclear trade deal would allow India not only to continue but also to potential accelerate the build-up of its stockpile of nuclear weapons materials."
More from rediff