[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2446-E2447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       INDIA'S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS

                                 ______


                            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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