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India has launched its first nuclear submarine. And the US is close to a deal that would allow India to re-process spent US nuclear fuel. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Henry Sokolski, of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, who is concerned about both developments.
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LISA MULLINS: President Obama has made it US policy to strive for a world free of nuclear weapons. As you just heard, US officials talked with the Israelis today about how to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. Washington is also trying to put the brakes on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. But India seems at least, to be getting a free pass. The United States is apparently about to allow India to re-process spent US nuclear fuel. And yesterday, India launched its first home-built nuclear-powered submarine. Henry Sokolski is the Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington. He’s concerned about what nuclear-powered submarine could lead to.
HENRY SOKOLSKI: More nuclear weapons aimed at countries like Pakistan and China, more assertiveness by India to take control of the Indian Ocean. Not exactly a move that will make going to lower levels of nuclear weapons easier for other countries like China, and perhaps if one extrapolates out another decade or so, even countries like Russia and the United States.
LISA MULLINS: Alright, lets talk about the deal that the United States right now is pretty close to agreeing on a deal under which India will be allowed to reprocess spent US nuclear fuel.
HENRY SOKOLSKI: Correct.
LISA MULLINS: The reason that you are against that, despite the administration’s insistence on oversight and guidelines is what?
HENRY SOKOLSKI: Well, they’re overselling what you can do. They know, and have taken a sound set of positions with regard to blocking and objecting and discouraging reprocessing in the case of middle eastern states, and Iran, because they know, and we’ve had first hand experience that international inspectors cannot keep track of materials that are being made in nuclear fuel plants, and the activity is so close to bomb making that by the time you got a warning, they would have a bomb before you could do anything about it.
LISA MULLINS: You’re saying that the agreement that is reached with India in terms of reprocessing of nuclear fuel is different from any agreement, and in fact, different from the [INDISCERNIBLE], the administration, has been putting forth on nuclear power elsewhere?
HENRY SOKOLSKI: Absolutely. The administration made a decision in May of this year to go forward with nuclear cooperation with an Arab state as a model agreement for other up states. The United Arab merit that forced them to foreswear reprocessing. In addition, the administration backs the UN resolution, as much as the previous administration, not to allow Iran to reprocess. Finally, on the 29th of June, the president announced that he was terminating initial licensing proceedings, called an Environmental Impact Statement, to consider having commercial reprocessing occur here in the US. Now all those found decisions, fly in the face of this decision that, oh, well, in the case of the Indians, none of that ought to apply. And it just looked silly. It makes a hash of what they’re doing.
LISA MULLINS: Is it that difficult though to follow spent nuclear fuel and to find out what’s being done with it once it’s reprocessed? Does it not have a kind of signature that either Indian officials organized [INDISCERNIBLE] could follow?
HENRY SOKOLSKI: [OVERLAPPING] Let me give you an example. My center did a two-year analysis of the IEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, those are the international inspectors that watch nuclear activities, their so-called inspection, or safe guards procedures, and how well they worked in the case of nuclear fuel making. The first thing that we discovered is that they IEA is rightly, and although, all too quietly pointing out that they cannot be relied upon to find illicit plants. But more import, the cleared plans are very difficult to monitor in a way that would allow you to know what’s being produced per year. In the case of Japan, which reprocesses, they have a plant that they’ve just begun where it’s expected that about 50 bombs worth of plutonium will not be accounted for every year. Now that’s just not the kind of margin you wanna have if you are moving towards the world that has fewer nuclear weapons, and fewer countries that can get nuclear weapons. That’s just not something you want to encourage.
LISA MULLINS: It was quite a while ago that India joined the nuclear club. I mean, it already has nuclear weapons. Is the point then moot of the reprocessed fuel the US is selling it?
HENRY SOKOLSKI: I don’t think so. And here’s the reason why, the nuclear rules, which are to be found as something called the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which every administration, including this one, claims it wants to strengthen, is very clear, in its very first prohibition that no country, no weapon state, nuclear weapon state will help any other state become a weapon state if it didn’t have nuclear weapons as of 1967. So, that’s India. Now, if you start bending that rule, you run into problems with regard to countries that don’t have nuclear weapons. They point to that and say, well, if you’re gonna help them make nuclear fuel, you’re gonna look the other way as they make more nuclear weapons, why are you being so tough on us? So that’s your first problem. I think the second problem with looking the other way with regard to reprocessing and saying cavalierly, oh, well, it’s gonna be safe guarded because people over inspectors from Vienna are gonna look at it, what is to stop every middle eastern country, and every country including North Korea or Burma saying, well we’d like the same treatment. We think it’s safe guardable and we wanna make nuclear fuel.
LISA MULLINS: Except those countries are not democracies and they’re not US allies.
HENRY SOKOLSKI: Ah, now we’re getting to the nub of is. So is the policy in the United States that if you are a country we like, rules are different for you. And if you change your form of government, the rules will be different.
LISA MULLINS: So what is your main fear here then?
HENRY SOKOLSKI: I think we’re undermining sound rules for absolutely nothing in exchange, and the administration should be rock back on its heals on this. It’s not a smart move.
LISA MULLINS: Alright. We appreciate your talking to us. Henry Sokolski was a senior non-proliferation official in the administration of the first president bush, he is now executive director of the non-proliferation policy education center in Washington, DC.
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Mr. Sokolski would be on firmer ground if he demonstrated any instance of India actually proliferating its technology to other nations, which he failed to do. He also failed to mention that part of the nuclear non-proliferation regime was to pressure the established five powers to reduce and eventually abolish their stockpiles. They have no done so. Finally, it is a bit much to chastise India for violating the terms of a treaty it never signed.