United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006

UNITED STATES AND INDIA NUCLEAR COOPERATION PROMOTION ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2006)

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, this agreement pours nuclear fuel on the fire of an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race. This agreement will free up 40 to 50 bombs worth of nuclear fuel for Indian nuclear bombs, and the consequence of that will be that Pakistan will respond, and Pakistan will respond with A.Q. Khan under house arrest in Islamabad, the Johnny Appleseed of nuclear weapons spread from Iran to Libya to North Korea.

And how do we know that? We know that because in Monday's Washington Post we learned from an outside source that Pakistan is building a facility that can create 50 plutonium nuclear bombs a year. We should be debating that out here on the House floor tonight.

This House has 2 days to reject a sale of 36 F-16 bombers that can take the 50 nuclear bombs which Pakistan can make each year in a radius of 1,500 kilometers, but we are not going to debate that. We are not going to debate Pakistan's nuclear program, which Congress was not told about, the American public was not told about.

Who is in Pakistan? A.Q. Khan is in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan. Al Qaeda is in Pakistan.

This agreement is going to fuel an arms race, a nuclear arms race in southeast Asia, and it is going to spread across the world, and instead of debating an F-16 bill, 36 of them to Pakistan, with this abomination of a nuclear program which they have, we are instead fueling it with this India program which Pakistan knows is cynical because it will free up 50 bombs worth of civilian domestic Indian nuclear fuel for their bomb program.

We must halt, we must stop this nuclear arms race in southeast Asia. We must vote ``no'' on this proposal. It is absurd. We should be debating Pakistan's nuclear program, Pakistan's F-16 program tonight, or else we will look back on this as an historic failure.

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, we are being told that we shouldn't worry, that this won't lead to a nuclear arms race.

Now, India is not a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. This agreement is in violation of the Nonproliferation Act of 1978 here in Congress. All of their facilities are not being put under full-scope safeguards.

Experts say that when we supply the nuclear fuel for their civilian program, it is going to free up nuclear fuel for their nuclear weapons program. It makes sense. But we are told, don't worry.

Now, right now, India makes about seven nuclear bombs a year, on average. That is the magnitude. That is the scope of their program. But experts say it will free up 40 to 50 bombs' worth of nuclear material if they wanted to build more nuclear bombs. We are told, don't worry.

But here is what else is going on. This week in the world, A.Q. Khan, under house arrest in Islamabad, this nuclear merchant that should be on trial in the world court for what he has done in spreading nuclear weapons materials around the world but yet the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to him and allowed Musharraf just to keep him under house arrest in a palace. Well, A.Q. Khan and his people now have a new program, it turns out, on the front page of the Washington Post this week, that will make it possible for them to build 40 to 50 plutonium nuclear bombs per year. Now they are going to do it. They are going to do it because they only have two to three nuclear bombs capacity per day right now, and they can scale up to 40 to 50.

Now what is interesting about these two charts about India and Pakistan, they are each now going to be capable of going from between two and seven up to 40 to 50.

We are told, don't worry. Well, I am worrying; and I think we should all worry. The Bush administration has not made public at all the fact that they have known for at least 2 years that Pakistan has this clandestine plutonium nuclear bomb program. It is the place where we should all be concerned that that al Qaeda operative buys a nuclear bomb and moves it into the Middle East, moves it to New York City, moves it to Washington, D.C. And instead we are told, don't worry.

Well, what kind of signal are we sending to the world when Iran, which is a signatory to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, is on trial at the Security Council to comply with the nonproliferation treaty because they are violating it, and we are turning a blind eye to what India and Pakistan, nonsignatories to the nonproliferation

treaty, are doing or will do if this deal goes through? We will make a mockery of the nonproliferation regime in the world.

And we know that President Bush doesn't care about it. Otherwise, we would know more about this Pakistani program which they have had satellite evidence of its existence for the last 2 years. We know that he doesn't care about it. Otherwise, he would be forcing India to put the full nuclear program in India under safeguards. He would be extracting a ban on the production of fissile material in India, in the same way that the United States and Russia and China and England and France now don't produce any more fissile material.

But, no, the President is allowing an exemption. This deal is like throwing a tinder onto an already raging fire in the most dangerous part of the world and pretending that there is no relationship between what we do here today and the response of Pakistan and Iran and other nations around the world.

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, this is a great amendment. Because right now this is how much nuclear material is needed by India to produce nuclear electricity in their country. It is used for electricity. However, once we provide them all of this nuclear material for their nuclear electricity, it is going to free up the same amount to make nuclear bombs.

So they can go from 7 a year to 40 to 50 nuclear bombs a year. Well, they are saying they do not want to do that. And the proponents of this treaty are saying, they are not going to do that. What the Sherman amendment says is, the President must certify each year that they do not do that. That is why the Sherman amendment is the deal maker, because it proves what is being said is actually the truth.

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