Despite condemnation of India’s recent nuclear tests, the Clinton administration had earlier approved export of U.S. technology to Indian nuclear facilities over Pentagon objections.
The technology, which may have aided India’s clandestine efforts to build a bomb, ranges from high-speed computers to radiation warning badges worn by workers. It was delivered over the last few years to nuclear research centers and reactor sites throughout India to improve safety, Pentagon sources said.
The exports were approved by the Commerce Department despite opposition from the Pentagon, which argued in 1995 that the transfers could contribute to India’s long-stated ambition to develop a nuclear weapons program.
“The provision of such technology serves to undercut international and U.S. counter-proliferation policies,” warned a Sept. 14, 1995, position paper from the Pentagon’s Defense Technology Security Administration, which has been a frequent opponent of the administration’s export policies.
Though White House officials insist there is no evidence that U.S. exports have contributed to India’s bomb program, there is growing concern over the level of nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and India. Last week, the Department of Energy told its 30 national laboratories, including those doing weapons research, to suspend any current visits by Indian and Pakistani scientists.
The department does not know how many such scientists are working in its labs, but a federal audit conducted last year found that 814 Indian and 30 Pakistanis visited three top weapons labs–Lawrence Livermore in California and Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico–from 1994 to 1996. The General Accounting Office audit noted that it found one scientist from an Indian defense lab working with beryllium, a metal used in nuclear weapons, during his visit to Los Alamos. Another was found conducting algorithm research, which the auditors noted “has applications related to national security, such as non-proliferation and satellite image processing.”
The Commerce Department, headed by Chicago’s William Daley, halted exports of sensitive technology to India after that nation tested three nuclear weapons May 11 and two more May 13. The tests dramatically raised ever-present tensions with neighboring Pakistan, which announced its successful test of six nuclear devices two weeks later. Since then, the White House has imposed economic sanctions on each country.
Commerce officials said U.S. exports to India were largely composed of environmental-monitoring equipment intended to prevent nuclear accidents and the radiation exposure of workers at civilian facilities.
“A few of them were approved for humanitarian purposes, and some were denied if we felt there was not a compelling case for approval,” said Iain Baird, a deputy assistant secretary of commerce. “I think everyone was on the same track, that these were solely for humanitarian purposes.”
Specialists within the Pentagon’s Defense Technology Security Administration, however, argued in the 1995 position paper that U.S. companies should not export nuclear-related technology to facilities that refuse international inspections.
The security administration also contended that environmental-monitoring equipment would only help India better conceal its weapons program. It noted that historically the president had allowed nuclear-safety exports to countries that refuse inspections only in the event of a “radiological emergency.”
In addition, some proliferation experts argue that such exports reduce the risk to Indian scientists involved in weapons research.
“You’re making it safer for them to make bombs,” said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a Washington-based research group. “It’s like teaching a terrorist how to make a bomb that won’t go off in his basement. You’re making it possible for him to do it with less risk to himself.”
India has a sizable civilian nuclear power network that, in the absence of international inspections, also provides knowledge and an infrastructure base for its weapons activities. It has 18 research and power reactors, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as uranium-enrichment and reprocessing centers. It also has several laboratories that simultaneously conduct civilian and military nuclear research.
Sensitive U.S. technology shipped to India in 1997 included $2.6 million worth of nuclear equipment, $4.4 million in goods related to missiles, and $94.7 million that the Commerce Department classified as national-security items. Many are goods that, just a few years earlier, would have been kept from all but the United States’ closest allies.
A Pentagon summary of goods shipped to Indian facilities in recent years includes oscilloscopes and mass spectrometers for analyzing electrical impulses and data, nuclear fuel fabrication technology, specially designed piping and valves for nuclear fuel processing, machine tools, robotics technology, high-speed electrical switches, and software with physics applications. Some goods, government sources said, went directly to research labs and facilities that are not subject to international inspections.
Particularly troubling, Pentagon sources and proliferation experts said, is the export of high-speed computers that can be used to simulate future nuclear tests, making underground testing unnecessary.
As recently as March, the Commerce Department approved the sale of a powerful Sun Microsystems computer to Tata Consultancy, which is part of the Tata Enterprises, a large Indian conglomerate that conducts a variety of businesses, including defense work. The computer is capable of 2,062 million theoretical operations per second (MTOPS).
Because of concerns that fast computers will be used for weapons development, manufacturers are required to notify the Commerce Department if they are exporting machines with speeds of 2,000 to 7,000 MTOPS to certain countries, including India. Exports of computers above 7,000 MTOPS require a department license.
Anne Little, a Sun Microsystems spokeswoman, said the computer sold to Tata will be used for messaging and file management, not weapons research.
IBM also has supplied India with a powerful computer, according to a Chicago computer magazine. High Performance Computing and Communications Week reported in May that IBM had supplied an 11,000-MTOP computer to India’s Supercomputing Education and Research Centre, a facility that the Milhollin said is on a British intelligence watch list for suspected weapons research.
Milhollin recently disclosed the sale of a powerful Digital Equipment Corp. computer to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Spokesmen for IBM and Digital, now owned by Compaq Computer Corp., said they are confident that the computers won’t be used for nuclear work.
The sale of computers and other goods to India is just the latest contentious chapter in a long-running debate over the administration’s steady relaxation of rules governing the export of dual-use technology, items that have civilian and military applications.
Since coming into office in 1993, the president has steadily stripped away the Cold War-era rules that restricted the export of computers, sophisticated machine tools, rocket and satellite components, telecommunications technology, and a number of other items that were once categorized as dual-use. Many of those items no longer require a government license for export.
While good for U.S. businesses, the looser trade rules have raised security concerns. Powerful computers intended for civilian use have ended up in defense facilities in Russia and China. Machine tools that were supposed to help China build airliners made their way to a factory that manufactures Silkworm missiles.
It was recently disclosed that the Commerce Department granted Loral Space & Communications Corp. approval to export satellites and technology to China despite objections by the State Department. Loral Chief Executive Officer Bernard Schwartz was the largest Democratic donor during the 1996 presidential campaign, giving President Clinton and the Democrats more than $1 million. Schwartz denies that the money was intended to win approval for the satellite licenses.
Against that backdrop, India’s nuclear tests have raised more doubts about the use and misuse of U.S. technology. Washington’s nuclear relationship with India began in the 1950s when the U.S. and Canada helped India establish a 40-megawatt research reactor known by the acronym Cirus (Canadian-Indian-Reactor-U.S.). In the late 1960s, the U.S. built two power reactors for India at Tarapur, near Bombay. Canada also provided two reactors at Rajasthan.
The four U.S.- and Canadian-built reactors–other than Cirus–are the only nuclear facilities in India that are subject to inspection by International Atomic Energy Agency. India has refused to allow similar inspections at its other reactors, labs and uranium-enrichment facilities.
India first exploded a nuclear device in 1974. Plutonium for that test came from Cirus. Plutonium from Cirus also was used in the nuclear devices tested last month, said Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a proliferation watchdog group.
In recent years, the Clinton administration has urged India and Pakistan to restrain their nuclear programs while opening a dialogue on nuclear energy and safety concerns. India suffered a serious reactor fire in 1993, and U.S. officials said that poor maintenance and procedures in Indian facilities are still a major concern.
The administration’s nuclear diplomacy with India in recent years has included trips to India by a number of high-level officials, among them two chairmen of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a secretary of the Energy Department, the U.S. ambassador to the UN and several State Department officials.
“There’s nothing dirty or bad or wrong about nuclear-safety cooperation,” said a White House official. “A number of nations do peaceful nuclear research, and working with them on safety issues is not a proliferation concern.”
Critics of the U.S.-Indian nuclear dialogue said the stepped-up exchanges and technology transfers left India with an impression that testing would be tolerated.
“India and Pakistan both exploited civilian nuclear technology for their weapons programs,” Leventhal said. “I believe we gave them a signal that they interpreted to mean that they could test and get away with it.”
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