[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 59 (Tuesday, May 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3027-H3029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              INDIA'S DETONATION OF THREE NUCLEAR DEVICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) 
is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised by all the 
media hype and the reaction of certain nations around the world, 
including our own country, concerning India's most recent announcement 
of detonating three nuclear bombs.
  Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues may recall, India exploded its first 
nuclear device in 1974. Since then over the years India has pleaded 
with the five nuclear nations, namely China, France, then the Soviet 
Union, now Russia, Great Britain, and the United States and with the 
nations of the world that if the world is serious about the 
implementation of the 1970 Nonproliferation

[[Page H3028]]

Treaty and the terms of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, it is 
imperative that the five nuclear nations must, over a period of time, 
dismantle their nuclear arsenals if these two treaties would ever have 
any real meaning at all.
  Mr. Speaker, I suggest to my colleagues and to the administration, 
let us not be too quick to condemn the most populous democratic nation 
in the world, India, with a population of approximately 980 million 
people, for exploding these three nuclear devices, by the way, in their 
own backyard.
  Mr. Speaker, for some 24 years India and its leaders have pleaded 
with the five nuclear nations and the nations of the world to stop this 
nuclear madness. Mr. Speaker, I submit it is quite hypocritical for the 
five nuclear nations to tell the world to sign on to the 
Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty against 
testing, but these same nuclear nations can keep their nuclear bombs to 
maintain their nuclear options, and I suppose to use these nuclear 
weapons of mass destruction against their enemies?
  Mr. Speaker, in order to maintain our own nuclear bombs ready for 
use, our Nation is expending about $35 billion a year to sustain our 
nuclear options. I raise the question, Mr. Speaker, if the American 
taxpayers know that our nuclear program alone costs approximately $35 
billion a year, do we need to have these weapons? Is the cost worth the 
effort?
  Mr. Speaker, the issue of nuclear nonproliferation now has come to 
the forefront. The issue is not that India has exploded these nuclear 
bombs. The issue is whether the five nuclear nations are willing and 
committed to the proposition that the manufacturing and production of 
nuclear bombs is not in their interest and certainly not for the world 
as well.
  Mr. Speaker, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently 
issued a statement and a tabulation or record of nuclear tests or 
nuclear bombs that were exploded in the past, and that these nuclear 
explosives were conducted by the five nuclear nations. For example, 
China, since 1964, when it started its nuclear testing program, has 
exploded over 45 nuclear bombs on this planet. France started its 
nuclear testing program in Algeria, and after Algeria gained its 
independence against French colonial rule, the French decided, they 
needed to go somewhere else. Guess where they went? In the middle of 
the South Pacific Ocean. Did they ask the French Polynesians whether 
they wanted nuclear bombs there? No. President DeGaulle decided to go 
there unilaterally and test over 210 nuclear bombs, which were exploded 
in the atmosphere, on the surface, and under the ocean surface.
  Let us look at the record of the Soviet Union or now Russia, which 
started its nuclear testing program since 1949. It exploded 715 nuclear 
bombs; 715 nuclear bombs. The British exploded nuclear bombs in a 
number of 45. And now our own Nation, we exploded 66 nuclear bombs in 
the Marshall Islands immediately following World War II. It was in 1954 
that we exploded the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever known to mankind; 
known as the Bravo shot, that hydrogen bomb was 1,000 times more 
powerful than the bombs we exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now 
India has exploded only four.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit to my colleagues and to the American people, 
India's explosion of these nuclear bombs is because its own national 
security is at risk. China having a nuclear arsenal; if you were among 
the 980 million Indians living in a country like India, I would feel 
very uncomfortable if my neighbor has nuclear bombs and I do not have 
any to defend myself. But that is not the issue. The issue here is 
whether the five nuclear nations are willing to dismantle their own 
nuclear arsenals and let us get rid of this nuclear madness.

    [From Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 11, 1998]

                   India Tests Three Nuclear Devices

                 (By Joseph Cirincione and Toby Dalton)

       India first demonstrated its nuclear capability when it 
     conducted a ``peaceful nuclear experiment'' in May 1974. 
     Twenty-four years later, India has conducted its second 
     series of tests today. Included in this series, according to 
     Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee, were a ``fission device, a 
     low-yield device, and a thermo-nuclear device.'' This breaks 
     an international moratorium on nuclear tests; China conducted 
     its last test in 1996. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 
     banning all tests everywhere, has been signed by 149 nations 
     and ratified by 13 of the required 44 nations.

                           WORLD NUCLEAR TESTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                           First                 No. of
                Country                     test    Last test    tests
------------------------------------------------------------------------
China..................................       1964       1996         45
France.................................       1960       1996        210
Russia/USSR............................       1949       1990        715
United Kingdom.........................       1952       1991         45
United States..........................       1945       1992       1030
India..................................       1974       1998          4
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       Below is a summary of the Indian nuclear program, current 
     capabilities, and delivery options, derived from Tracking 
     Nuclear Proliferation 1998, forthcoming from the Carnegie 
     Endowment.


                       nuclear weapons capability

       After years of building larger-scale plutonium production 
     reactors, and facilities to separate the material for weapons 
     use, India is estimated to have approximately 400 kg of 
     weapons-usable plutonium today. Given that it takes about 6 
     kg of plutonium to construct a basic plutonium bomb, this 
     amount would be sufficient for 65 bombs. With more 
     sophisticated designs, it is possible that this estimate 
     could go as high as 90 bombs.


                            delivery options

       India has two potential delivery options. First, India 
     posses several different aircraft capable of nuclear 
     delivery, including the Jaguar, Mirage 2000, MiG-27 and MiG-
     29. Second, would be to mount the weapon as a warhead on a 
     ballistic missile. It is thought that India has developed 
     warheads for this purpose, but it is not known to have tested 
     such a warhead. India has two missile systems potentially 
     capable of delivering a nuclear weapon: Prithvi, which can 
     carry a 1000 kg payload to approximately 150 km, or a 500 kg 
     payload to 250 km; and Agni, a two-stage medium-range 
     missile, which can conceivably carry a 1000 kg payload to as 
     far 1500-2000 km. Reports in 1997 indicated that India had 
     possibly deployed, or at least was storing, conventionally 
     armed Prithvi missiles in Punjab, very near the Pakistani 
     border.


                        non-proliferation regime

       India had not been a party to any aspect of the 
     international non-proliferation regime until 1997, when it 
     signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. Among the significant 
     treaties it has not signed are the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
     Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and India has a 
     very limited safeguards agreement with the International 
     Atomic Energy Agency that does not cover any of its nuclear 
     research facilities. In this sense, there is no multilateral 
     mechanism through which to sanction India for its recent 
     nuclear tests. However, the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention 
     Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1994 with the leadership 
     of Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio), imposes automatic and severe 
     sanctions. These provision, codified as section 102(b) of the 
     Arms Export Control Act, are detailed below:


sanctions under the nuclear proliferation prevention act of 1994 (sec. 
                                826(a))

     Sanctions For Nuclear Detonations or Transfers of Nuclear 
         Explosive Devices
       If . . . ``the President determines that any country, 
     [after 4/30/94] (A) transfers to a non-nuclear-weapon state a 
     nuclear explosive device, (B) is a non-nuclear weapon state 
     and either--(i) receives a nuclear explosive device, or (ii) 
     detonates a nuclear explosive device,''
       Then . . . ``The President shall forthwith impose the 
     following sanctions:
       (A) The United States Government shall terminate assistance 
     to that country under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 
     except for humanitarian assistance or food of other 
     agricultural commodities.
       (B) The United States Government shall terminate--(i) sales 
     to that country under this Act of any defense articles, 
     defense services, or design and construction services, and 
     (ii) licenses for the export to that country of any item on 
     the United States Munitions List.
       (C) The United States Government shall terminate all 
     foreign military financing for that country under this Act.
       (D) The United States Government shall deny to that country 
     and credit, credit guarantees, or other financial assistance 
     by any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United 
     States Government, except that the sanction of this 
     subparagraph shall not apply--(i) to any transaction subject 
     to the reporting requirements of title V of the National 
     Security Act of 1947 (relating to congressional oversight of 
     intelligence activities), or (ii) to humanitarian assistance.
       (E) The United States Government shall oppose, in 
     accordance with section 701 of the International Financial 
     Institutions Act (22 U.S.C. 262d), the extension of any loan 
     or financial or technical assistance to that country by any 
     international financial institution.
       (F) The United States Government shall prohibit any United 
     States bank from making any loan or providing any credit to 
     the government of that country, except for loans or credits 
     for the purpose of purchasing food or other agricultural 
     commodities.
       (G) The authorities of section 6 of the Export 
     Administration Act of 1979 shall be used to prohibit exports 
     to that country of specific goods and technology (excluding 
     food

[[Page H3029]]

     and other agricultural commodities), except that such 
     prohibition shall not apply to any transaction subject to the 
     reporting requirements of title V of the National Security 
     Act of 1947 (relating to congressional oversight of 
     intelligence activities).''
       Waiver: [None]. The President may delay the sanction for 30 
     days.

                          ____________________