The myth of safeguards
Amjed Jaaved

AS vetted by US Senate’s House Foreign Affairs Committee, the US-India nuclear deal stands approved by House of by an overwhelming 298 to 117 vote. The bill carries a rider that calls for immediately halting the transfer of nuclear equipment, materials and technology from the US and other Nuclear Suppliers Group countries if New Delhi conducts a nuclear test. To India’s chagrin, the Committee approved the deal in the form of an enabling resolution stating that the deal will be subject to provisions of the Hyde Act and Atomic Act which all exert clear penalties in the event of a resumption of nuclear testing by India. Some critics have called the N-deal `an American chop suey laced with arsenic’.
India’s foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon said in New York: “I am not going to comment on internal process in the US. We have the right to test and they have the right to react”. India’s view is that only the text of the 123 Agreement is binding on India. Legislation under the US Atomic Act, outside the environs of the 123 Agreement, is as good as nullity for India. The US House of Reps may call for halting nuclear supplies to India if India goes ahead with further nuclear tests. But, such a resolution will remain unbinding mumbo jumbo to India in the light of pro-India provision in the 123 Agreement. The 123 Agreement merely calls for discussions in the event New Delhi decides to test again. It adds that the US will call a meeting of “friendly” countries like France and Russia to ensure that India’s fuel supplies are not suddenly disrupted.
American companies, including Boeing, Lockheed, Martin, Cargill, Citigroup and other large corporations, as well as US-India Business Council has created the impression that the deal would create more jobs for the USA and would benefit it in several other ways. The US Chamber of Commerce says that a modest share of the potential $150 billion business could support 250,000 high-tech American jobs. The Chamber claims to be the “world’s largest business federation representing more than three million businesses of every size, sector and region” said the deal offered US companies a “tremendous opportunity.” But, the South-Asia and nuclear expert, Michael Krepen controverts the Chamber’s view. In his down-to-earth analysis, he has concluded that there is no justification for wishful thinking about economic gains.
It is a pity that the US House of Reps is concerned only about economic utility of the 123 deal and fall-out of India’s further tests. But, it is unconcerned about the extension of lopsided favours to a non-NPT state. The Arms Control Institute, in a media advisory, has described the Bush administration’s attitude towards India as a setback to non-proliferation and counter-proliferation effort.
If American legislature has an iota of concern about preventing a proliferation cascade, it should not approve the nuke deal without bringing India within fold of the NPT, and the related Additional Protocol or the Small Quantities Protocol. The IAEA safeguards sans India’s signatures on NPT would be ineffective. Of course, even the NPT could be violated, but with a heavy price in the form of sanctions and wrath of the world community on an NPT signatory.
Having signed the IAEA Safeguards Agreement, but not fettered by the NPT, India is free to misuse the NSG’s waiver for nuclear commerce and diversion of nuclear materials. The IAEA or the UNSC cannot do much to inflict befitting punishment on India for safeguards violations. The IAEA regulations say that it is at the discretion of the IAEA board of governors to consider a matter for referral to the UN Security Council. Why would the IAEA exercise its discretion against India, a de facto nuclear power with no commitment to NPT/Additional Protocol, if it is sure that the outcome would be zero?
India being a de facto nuclear power, it appears that it will be useless to even conduct inspections of her nuclear facilities. Diane Fischer, a senior safeguards analyst of the IAEA has drawn attention to this bitter reality. He says: “What’s the point of inspecting a nuclear-weapons state like India”. He made these remarks while speaking on the topic of `Atomic Detectives’ in the Euroscience Open Forum-2008 meeting. She pointed out that inspections are very expensive and the IAEA has to make a ‘trade-off of resources spent (on inspections) versus benefits’. The IAEA would prefer to carry out inspections in states that are on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons, rather than de facto nuclear powers.
She concludes that it may just not be worthwhile to conduct safeguards inspections in India as there is nothing that India is doing which is clandestine. She also mentioned that inspecting just one facility would cost whopping Euro 1.2 million to the agency in year 2009. Because of the prohibitive costs, there are almost no visits by safeguards inspectors to the five de jure nuclear-weapons states that are USA, Russia, China, Great Britain and France.
Let us have a bird’s-eye view of the IAEA Safeguards’ System. The Safeguards include activities such as: (a) Comparing `safeguarded’-facility records with submitted reports. (b) Verifying declared inventories and flows of nuclear materials through item-counting, material sampling, etc. (c) Applying containment and surveillance measures like installing cameras that transmit pictures directly to the IAEA headquarters. (d) Taking environmental samples to confirm absence of undeclared activities like unreported nuclear production at reactors, or undeclared use of reprocessing or enrichment plants or hot cells, so on. Avid readers may access the details of the safeguards at <http//www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/safeg_system.pdf.p12>.
Flouting safeguards or carrying on a secret-weapons programme requires, in essence, managerial expertise. In the past, Robert Oppenheimer (USA), Igor Kurchatov (Russia), and Homi Bhabha (India) succeeded in nuclear proliferation, because they were effective managers (The IISS dossier on `Nuclear programmes in the middle east’, p.147). The dossier highlights several ways in which nuclear materials could be diverted notwithstanding the safeguards (pp. 141-149, ibid.). Even strengthened provisions of the Additional Protocol cannot forestall proliferation effort by a determined country like India.
The Institute, in its afore-quoted publication, has devoted a whole chapter to elaborate how the safeguards could be eluded (chapter titled “Assessing the proliferation risks of civilian nuclear programmes, pp.141-151, ibid.). It appears that this aspect stayed out of focus of the seminar, jointly held under Institute of Strategic Studies and South Asian Strategic Stability Institute at Islamabad on September 23, 2008.
Nuclear materials could be diverted in several ways like: (a) By falsifying operation records of unaccounted-for materials to conceal diversion of material to a clandestine facility from a declared facility, working at higher-than-declared capacity factor. (b) Enrichment of secretly-obtained uranium at a clandestine reactor completely divorced from a `safeguarded’ reactor. A country like India, operating both uranium mines and enrichment facilities, is best positioned to do so. (c) Masking the development of some components of a dedicated covert-production facility by enabling them to be disguised as declared infrastructure facilities. (d) Carrying out a concealed-weapons programme through a dedicated facility, without support of civilian-energy generation facilities. (e) Clandestine removal and reprocessing of fuel assembly of a large power-reactor, containing four to six kilogrammes of plutonium (normally required for a nuclear weapon). (f) Clockwork operation of required sequential steps to block IAEA cameras and replacement of diverted assemblies with dummy replicas, yielding similar radiation signatures. (g) Using a declared reprocessing centre to aid a clandestine weapons programme by using its hot cells to study, simulate and support operation of a larger clandestine reprocessing centre located elsewhere. (h) Modifying the piping configuration of a portion of the declared plant so as to effectively create a new cascade with which to re-enrich the extra lightly-enriched uranium, created by excess production, to highly-enriched–uranium level. The piping modification could be reversed to the original specification before the next IAEA inspection (p. 146 ibid.).
It is time the US House of Reps realised consequences of approving the Indo-US Cooperation Agreement which could open new vistas of proliferation. India should be forced to sign the NPT/Additional Protocol before the 123 deal is approved.

Revisiting earthquake-2005 volunteering efforts
Muhammad Hanif

PAKISTAN observes October 8, as “Disaster Awareness Day” every year so as to built a culture of safety and resilience at all levels. On this day in 2005, a most devastating earthquake in Azad Kashmir and some parts of the NWFP took heavy human toll making hundreds of thousands homeless, while damaging the entire infrastructure including roads, bridges, telecommunication system, etc. At this time of distress and agony, the people of Pakistan side with the families who have lost their dear ones in the disaster and share the grief with them. They acted as a source of inspiration to reinvigorate our volunteering efforts against any natural or made-made catastrophe. As the natural calamities come all of a sudden, it is generally difficult to face it and assess the magnitude of the disaster. Aftermath of Oct 8 earthquake has necessitated the need to crystallize permanent disaster management authority into a proper organization with well qualified staff. No government can take the risk of remaining ill-equipped against threats of such disasters.
The Northern Pakistan earthquake of 2005 was an earthquake that occurred at 08:50:38 Pakistan Standard Time on October 8, 2005 with the epicenter in Azad Kashmir and Northern parts of Pakistan. The disaster, the deadliest in Pakistan’s history, took the toll of 73,000 innocent people, left 3.5 million people homeless, destroyed more than 600,000 homes, 6,000 schools and 188 hospitals & healthcare centres in Azad Kashmir and northwest Pakistan. 90% of infrastructure of Garhi Habibullah, Rawalakot, Muzaffarabad and Balakot had been completely wiped out in the earthquake. What was built in decades was lost in seconds. We had thousands of orphans, paraplegics, amputees, quadriplegics and above all traumatized people who needed a lot of psychological care.
Every country, after colossal natural disasters, deploys the army for rescue and rehabilitation work. Even after three years of the disaster, Pakistan Army is still engaged in mammoth rehabilitation work in earthquake-ravaged area. The role of the Pakistan armed forces officers, men, engineers, doctors and aviation pilots had been commendable and the personnel were in high spirit with unflinching responsibility for protecting the country from both external and internal threats. Within no time after the deadly earthquake, relief and rescue operations were started by the Pakistan Army on war footing. A total of 186,188 injured patients were treated in the CMHs, Military Hospitals. When the earthquake happened, communications were disrupted, our supply lines were broken but it was 14 Engineers battalions assisted by Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) which opened all major roads in the affected areas within 36 hours after the earthquake. By the beginning of wintry season, every affected person was provided with a shelter. Army Logistic Directorate which was responsible for dispatch of relief goods at Chaklala base, managed to dispatch 2,375 tones of relief items including 138,269 tents and 1,048,297 blankets. The Pakistan army had done a fantastic job by opening roads, repairing bridges and made arrangements for accessibility to mountainous areas.
Pakistan’s brilliant volunteering spirit was discovered during 8th Oct earthquake. It ignited unprecedented enthusiasm and spirit amongst Pakistanis to help settle the survivors of the earthquake. It was tragic for the nation as a whole which lost its enterprising generation, but it was undoubtedly soul stirring to see people from different walks of life, galvanized in making all out efforts to voluntarily help the quake victims with unflinching alacrity of purpose. The fellow-countrymen showed extraordinary willingness to help those in need of food, blankets, medicines and warm clothing. It was because people really wanted to help. The Nation recognizes the heroes who acted promptly in the face of extreme oddities and saved precious human lives.
To bring back these regions to life was a challenge for our spirit of volunteerism. It was a challenge as the cities of Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Balakot would have to be systematically planned and rebuilt with quake-proof construction technologies and livelihoods of residents to be restored in a sustainable mode. In order to take reconstruction and rehabilitation venture on the long term, the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) was established. ERRA is doing a commendable service to the nation’s re-constructional efforts. ERRA is in a process of reconstructing some 349,806 houses. Under a comprehensive training programme, some 310,436 people have been given general training. Social mobilization training was provided to 110,750 persons at the Union Council level to encourage participatory development and ownership of projects by communities. An amount of Rs 5 billion was disbursed among the vulnerable households (261,171 families) in two phases. But we should not forget the work that is still being done to rebuild lives.
The lesson learnt from Earthquake-2005, is a dire need to place an efficient and credible national disaster management apparatus to cater for the entire spectrum of natural as well as manmade disasters. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) already positioned in 2006, is managing all kinds of disasters by moving away from response to relief-oriented approach and by adopting a disaster risk reduction perspective from the local government level upwards. In the wake of atrocious suicidal attacks on Marriott Hotel on Sept. 20, 2008, which took the toll of 63 innocent lives with 282 injured, the need for improving the set-up of disaster management became more pervasive. During the rescue efforts, it was observed that a lot of life-saving time was lost by the Islamabad Fire Brigade due to the lack of modern equipment and technology. However, the Marriott bombing is a moment to cohere divergent forces into a unified and well-knitted national commitment to root out terrorism in Pakistan. The Marriott carnage reminds us of the altruistic spirit of volunteerism displayed during rescue operation of Eathrquake-2005.




Afghan war is not winnable
Linda Heard

WE’RE not going to win this war,” a British commander in Afghanistan, Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, recently disclosed to the Sunday Times. He suggests the most that can be hoped for is to dampen the insurgency, which he believes will still be active once the foreign armies have left unless efforts are made to negotiate with the Taleban, who, until now, have refused to sit down with “invaders”. Australia’s Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon agrees that a decisive military victory may not be attainable, while NATO’s secretary-general wants to find a diplomatic solution to end the conflict.
These statements came on the heels of an article in the French weekly Le Canard Enchaîné quoting the British Ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles as warning, “The American strategy is destined to fail”. According to the article, the ambassador believes that the coalition forces are part of the problem rather than the solution. Now that two of the most senior people on the spot have spoken up, the British people should be asking their government “What are we doing there?” and demanding a swift exit if they don’t get a satisfactory response. The news from US officials is almost as bleak. The American commander in charge of Afghanistan operations Gen. David McKiernan warned on the weekend of a flood of “well trained” militants pouring into Afghanistan eager to stand with insurgents against NATO. The fight is a lot tougher than anyone expected, he added.
YET, he’s doubtful that an Iraq-type troop “surge” would be effective, contradicting the views of the gung-ho McCain-Palin camp. “What I don’t think is needed — the word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is the word ‘surge’”, he told The Washington Independent. “There needs to be a sustained commitment of a variety of military and nonmilitary resources...” Afghan President Hamid Karzai seems to have got the message. He has reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to help facilitate a peace deal between his government and moderate Taleban elements. It’s a good idea but why did he and his US backers wait such a long time? Surely, they must have known early on that they couldn’t kill all their enemies and the day would come when they would have to reach a compromise. In fairness to Karzai, shortly after the taking of Kabul in 2001 he was keen to give amnesty to Taleban fighters willing to lay down their arms and allow Taleban leader Mullah Omar to live in dignity.

—Arab News