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REGION: US had prior intelligence about Indian nuclear tests

NEW DELHI: US agencies last year obtained information that led them to conclude that three organisations responsible for India’s nuclear weapons programme had sought clearance for a series of nuclear tests, says a media report.

The report, in the April 14 edition of NuclearFuel, quoted unnamed Indian defence officials and American government officials as saying that clearance had been sought from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for fresh nuclear weapons tests, the first since India tested five devices in May 1998.

NuclearFuel is a US publication that covers issues related to nuclear energy and non-proliferation. Indian defence sources were quoted as saying that “for strategic deterrence reasons related to India’s rivalry with China, new tests must be carried out to develop a nuclear-capable payload of at least 160 KT for the Agni-IV missile”.

Though India has denied it is currently working on an inter-continental ballistic missile called Agni-IV, the report said such a missile “is in early stages of development”.

Indian defence officials reportedly told NuclearFuel in March that “the Indian government had learned through back-channel diplomatic sources that the US had informed other Western governments that India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)” had sought permissio for the tests. US officials were quoted as saying that about six months ago, the Indian organisations filed the request for new tests with Vajpayee.

Indian officials also told NuclearFuel that “while DAE, BARC and DRDO have urged the government to allow them to test again, fresh tests may not be technically required for several years at least” as Agni-IV was still in development.

“But according to US officials, it was not a coincidence that the nuclear weapons programme planners requested the permission last fall to test,” said the report.

India shocked the world with its nuclear tests in 1998, which came 24 years after its first test of a nuclear device. The Indian tests prompted Pakistani nuclear blasts the same month, following which the South Asian rivals declared themselves nuclear weapon powers. The US officials said that “in their view, the permission to test was handed up to the (Vajpayee’s) office at a time when Indo-Pakistani sabre-rattling and tension over Kashmir had flared up, with leaders and politicians in each country asserting that their respective state would win a military conflict in which nuclear weapons might or could be used.

“Indian defence sources, however, denied that bilateral tension between India and Pakistan had anything to do with the move by India’s nuclear programme directors to ask for more nuclear weapons tests,” the report said.

“The US seems to think that the only reason we want to move this programme forward is in reaction to what goes on (along) our border with Pakistan,” one expert close to Vajpayee was quoted as saying. “They couldn’t be more wrong.”

The Indian sources said more tests were necessary for experts to confirm the reliability of a thermonuclear bomb design first tested in 1998. “India seeks to have an H-bomb with a confirmed yield of between 160 and 200 kilotons (KT),” these sources said.

The H-bomb test has been shrouded in controversy. Indian organisations like DAE and BARC have said it was successful and the H-bomb produced a yield of just over 40 KT.

President APJ Abdul Kalam, who played a guiding role in the 1998 tests in his then capacity as scientific advisor to the defence minister, too has said the H-bomb test was successful.

But the NuclearFuel report said US government laboratory analysts immediately disputed such claims. It also noted that a former DAE head, whose H-bomb team was tasked to build a thermonuclear weapon during the 1980s, had “asserted that the 1998 H-bomb test did not ignite all the fuel in the secondary stage of the device”. American officials said the DAE was “apparently convinced that the US would first object to fresh Indian tests as an obstacle to ties between the two countries, and then would brush off the issue after two or three years.

“The officials said DAE’s view is based on US official diplomatic behaviour since the 1998 tests and the US courting of India in its war on global terrorism,” the report noted.

The report claimed the US government had moved “for warmer overall ties to New Delhi and greater bilateral nuclear cooperation, despite deep opposition to such a development by non-proliferation officials in the Department of State”.

“Western officials surmise that India may believe it prudent to carry out any further tests sooner rather than later, since currently Indo-US nuclear cooperation is limited to a programme for nuclear safety work between the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board,” the report said.

“If we test now there wouldn’t be any serious damage” to existing US-Indian nuclear ties, one Indian expert said.

A US official concurred: “They might as well test now because, if they wait, the potential damage would be greater should they miscalculate” and the US were to halt cooperation that developed after then-NRC chairman Richard Meserve visited India in February.

This official also said New Delhi was now betting that any US sanctions that could be imposed on India after new tests “would be lifted in about two or three years,” given how Washington responded to the 1998 tests.

The US suspended bilateral nuclear and defence cooperation after the 1998 tests but Meserve, during his visit, restored cooperative programmes and added two more issues to the Indo-US nuclear agenda that had been sought by India. —IANS

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