[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2446-E2447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

INDIA'S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS

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HON. DAN BURTON

of indiana

in the house of representatives

Friday, December 22, 1995

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to the attention
of my colleagues two articles from the December 15, 1995, New York
Times and the December 16, 1995, Washington Post which report that
India may be preparing for another nuclear weapon test near Pokhran,
India.
My colleagues may recall that India exploded a nuclear device at this
very site back in 1974. Since then, India's nuclear program has
advanced rapidly making significant progress in the development of
ballistic missiles.
All these activities on the part of India pose a direct threat to
Pakistan's security. Despite these threatening moves, Pakistan has
displayed considerable restraint. In fact, Pakistan has indicated on
numerous occasions its willingness to accept nonproliferation measures,
including accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, if India
were to accept the same. While Pakistan, who has been a longtime ally
of the United States, has come under United States sanctions, India has
been allowed to pursue its nuclear program without any consequence.
Indian activities at the Pokhran site not only threaten security and
stability in South Asia, but also adversely impact United States
efforts to have a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty concluded
during 1996.
Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that India should give up its nuclear
ambitions and cooperate with Pakistan and its other neighbors in South
Asia in banishing forever the chances of nuclear war in South Asia.

[From the New York Times, Dec. 15, 1995]

U.S. Suspects India Prepares To Conduct Nuclear Test

(By Tim Weiner)

Washington, Dec. 14.--American intelligence experts suspect
India is preparing for its first nuclear test since 1974,
Government officials said today.
The United States is working to discourage it, fearing a
political chain reaction among nuclear nations.
In recent weeks, spy satellites have recorded scientific
and technical activity at the Pokaran test site in the
Rajasthan desert in India. But intelligence experts said they
could not tell whether the activity involved preparations for
exploding a nuclear bomb or some other experiment to increase
India's expertise in making nuclear weapons.
``We're not sure that they're up to,'' a Government
official said. ``The big question is what their motive is. If
their motive is to get scientific knowledge, it might be
months or years before they do the test. If it's for purely
politician reasons, it could be this weekend. We don't know
the answer to those questions.''
Shive Mukherjee, Press Minister of the Indian Embassy here,
said today that the activities at the nuclear test site were
army exercises whose ``movements have been absurdly
misinterpreted.''
The Congress Party of India, which has governed the country
most of the years since independence in 1947, is facing a
serious challenge from a right-wing Hindu nationalist party,
United States Government officials say a nuclear weapons test
could be used by the Congress Party as a symbol of its
political potency.
Despite efforts to persuade the world's nuclear powers to
sign a comprehensive test ban treaty, China and France have
tested nuclear weapons in recent months. If India follows
suit, its neighbor, Pakistan, with which it has tense
relations, may also test a nuclear weapon, Government and
civilian experts said. Neither country has signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
``It's going to have a nuclear snowball effect,'' said Gary
Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms
Control in Washington and a leader civilian expert on the
spread of nuclear weapons. ``It also jeopardizes the
possibility that the world will sign a comprehensive test ban
treaty next year.''
A State Department official who spoke on condition of
anonymity said that if India exploded a nuclear bomb, it
``would be a matter of great concern and a serious setback to
nonproliferation efforts.''
``The United States is committed to the early completion of
a comprehensive test ban,'' the official said. ``We are
observing a moratorium on nuclear testing and we have called
upon all nations to demonstrate similar restraint.''
But not all nations have heard the call.
India says publicly that it wants the complete elimination
of nuclear weapons. But its nuclear hawks argue that the
United States and Russia will never live up to that ideal and
that a comprehensive test ban that is not linked to drastic
reductions in the world's nuclear arsenals could leave India
a second-rate or third-rate nuclear power.
Mr. Milhollin said India did not have a great archive of
test data for nuclear weapons that could be mounted on a
warhead and placed on a missile. ``Once the test ban treaty
comes in, they will be data-poor,'' he said. ``A test now
would supply them data, it would be a tremendous plus for the
Congress Party, it would give them a big boost in the
elections.''
Political pressure for a nuclear test is building among
India's right wing. ``They are saying: `What are we sitting
around for? Why should we sign a test ban treaty not linked
to the reduction of nuclear weapons' '' said Selig S.
Harrison, an expert on South Asia at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace.
In 1974 India exploded what was believed to be a Hiroshima-
sized bomb equal to 12,000 tons of TNT, which is called a
``peaceful nuclear explosion.'' It renewed its program some
years later, and in 1989 the Director of Central
Intelligence, William H. Webster, testified that India had
resumed research on thermonuclear weapons.
While India has sought to limit the nuclear abilities of
China, it is most concerned about the nuclear-weapons program
of Pakistan, although Pakistan has not acknowledged it has
one. The two countries have had three wars, unending
political tensions and constant border disputes since they
were formed by the partition of India in 1947 after its
independence from Britain.

[[Page E2447]]

A subnuclear experiment, which would not involve a nuclear
explosion, might not have the political effect of a full-
fledged detonation. But Administration officials said they
feared that any test would create pressure on Pakistan to
follow suit.
``We look at this in a balance with Pakistan,'' a White
House official said:
____

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 16, 1995]

Possible Nuclear Arms Test by India Concerns U.S.

(By R. Jeffrey Smith)

U.S. officials are concerned that India may be preparing to
set off its first nuclear blast since 1974, an act they fear
could ratchet up a nuclear arms race with neighboring
Pakistan.
Both countries are said by Washington to be working busily
on improvements to their small nuclear stockpiles, including
developing new designs for more powerful weapons. Pakistan is
relying on significant assistance from China to construct a
reactor that will give it access to plutonium for use in such
arms.
U.S. officials said these developments made the region the
most likely nuclear flashpoint in the world, even though the
risk of war between the two long-standing enemies is not
considered imminent.
The U.S. concerns about India are based on recent spy
satellite imagery that recorded what one official described
as ``activities going beyond what we've seen in the past'' at
India's Pokaran nuclear test site in the Rajistan desert.
The site has been routinely maintained by India for the
past two decades, but U.S. intelligence officials recently
noted efforts to clean out a deep underground shaft for
lowering a nuclear weapon into the earth. They also noted
``possible preparations for instrumentation'' of a blast to
determine whether it occurred as predicted, the official
said.
``We take these preparations very seriously and are in the
process of raising the issue with the Indians'' at a senior
diplomatic level, the official said without providing
details. Washington is not aware of any decision by Indian
authorities to go through with such a test, he added.
The world's major nuclear powers are attempting to reach
accord on the terms of a global nuclear test ban that could
take effect next year, and the alleged Indian preparations
may reflect a conviction in New Delhi that steps should be
taken before then to improve the country's small nuclear
stockpile, the officials said. ``We're concerned,
obviously, at any signs that any power might be testing a
nuclear weapon,'' State Department spokesman Glyn Davies
said yesterday. ``If there were to be an explosive test by
India, it would be a dramatic departure from India's own
long-standing position against testing [and] a setback to
disarmament efforts internationally.''
An Indian government spokesman in New Delhi termed a report
yesterday about the test preparations by the New York Times
``totally speculative'' but stopped short of denying it,
according to Reuter news agency. Another Indian official was
quoted as saying the site where preparations allegedly are
underway is ``an area where there are routine exercises
always.''
U.S. intelligence officials have said Indian scientists are
trying to develop more powerful ``boosted'' atomic arms as
well as a hydrogen bomb.
In Pakistan, they said, construction of a nuclear reactor
is continuing at the city of Khushab; China is providing
technical advice to the Pakistani engineers and also may be
providing vital equipment.
``This may be inconsistent with China's obligations'' under
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bars the transfer
of nuclear components to projects that are not subject to
international inspection and also bars any contribution to
efforts by non-nuclear states to build nuclear arms, a U.S.
official said.
``There is a danger of an eruption, where one state takes a
step and the other matches it and goes beyond,'' said
Carnegie Endowment Senior Associate Leonard S. Spector, a
nuclear proliferation expert. ``They could claim they have
nuclear warheads for their missiles, and declare they are
nuclear powers. . . . The whole complexion of this problem
could change dramatically.''

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