Article III states of non nuclear weapon states that, “The safeguards required by this Article shall be applied on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere” in other words precisely what are called “full scope safeguards”. Frum wants to give the impression that that is not the case but notice that it is.

I am sure that Tellis, who you state was “a member of the US delegation that negotiated the 123 agreement”, should tell us how wonderful the agreement is and details are slowly starting to emerge demonstrating that Tellis has helped to water down the Hyde Act let alone previously long standing US nuclear non proliferation policy. See http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1592/more-on-the-india-123

Just simple cool headed rationality would dictate that firm conclusions cannot be reached from so suspect a source something which Frum may seek to dismiss as being a “petty canard.”

Frum further skirts the issue that this deal sets a precedent for “legitimate” proliferation by de facto recognizing India as a nuclear weapon state.

Be that as it may his further analysis is faulty. He states that India has enough uranium at home for a nuclear weapons programme. But India does not have enough uranium for both a weapons programme in the context of a regional arms race and an expanded civil programme. Any conclusion to the contrary based on what India is currently, i.e. pre expansion, doing is not only suspect as to source but flawed logically, as is obvious

This is especially the case when Frum gives us the following citation of Tellis: “India already has the indigenous reserves of natural uranium necessary to undergird the largest possible nuclear arsenal it may desire” so presumably India would have enough uranium for the “largest possible” arsenal that “it may desire” even in the absence of a trade deal and an expanded civil nuclear programme?

If so, why come to Australia? Tellis has succeeded in negotiating a shonky deal and demonstrated his lack of skill as a propagandist but to be fair to him the shonky deal makes this difficult in principle.

Err...

http://www.nti.org/db/China/iaeasg.htm

"The NPT does not, however, obligate exporters to require recipients to adopt full-scope safeguards."

and....

Testimony of Dr Condeleeza Rice to the US Senate - written reply to questions regarding NPT article I and III commitments:

"The U.S. and Canada engaged in nuclear cooperation with India before and after the NPT entered into force. The supply of fuel under facility-specific (INFCIRC/66) safeguards agreements was understood to satisfy our obligations under the NPT. Even after India’s 1974 detonation, fuel was provided to India’s safeguarded Tarapur reactors by the United States, France, and Russia. Such fuel supply was understood to be consistent with the NPT. The Nuclear Suppliers Group did not make the political decision to adopt full-scope safeguards as a condition of supply until 1992, reflecting the fact that nuclear supply to a country without full-scope safeguards was not prohibited under the NPT."

"In essence, nuclear cooperation under safeguards does not fundamentally differ from other forms of energy cooperation (e.g., oil supply, clean coal technology, alternative fuels). All such energy assistance would arguably relieve India of its reliance on domestic uranium for energy production. Yet such energy assistance clearly could not be viewed as assisting India in the manufacture of nuclear weapons."

Ashley Tellis:

"India is widely acknowledged to possess reserves of 78,000 metric tons of uranium (MTU).. the total inventory of natural uranium required to sustain all the reactors associated with the current power program (both those operational and those under construction) and the weapons program over the entire notional lifetime of these plants runs into some 14,640-14,790 MTU"

"If the eight reactors that India has retained outside of safeguards were to allocate 1/4 of their cores for the production of weapons-grade materials—the most realistic possibility for the technical reasons discussed at length in the forthcoming report—the total amount of natural uranium required to run these facilities for the remaining duration of their notional lives would be somewhere between 19,965-29,124 MTU. If this total is added to the entire natural uranium fuel load required to run India’s two research reactors dedicated to the production of weapons-grade plutonium over their entire life cycle—some 938-1088 MTU—the total amount of natural uranium required by India’s dedicated weapons reactors and all its unsafeguarded PHWRs does not exceed 20,903-30,212 MTU over the remaining lifetime of these facilities. Operating India’s eight unsafeguarded PHWRs in this way would bequeath New Delhi with some 12,135-13,370 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which is sufficient to produce between 2,023-2,228 nuclear weapons over and above those already existing in the Indian arsenal."

The text of the US-India 123 agreement on Nuclear Cooperation has been released

http://www.hindu.com/nic/123agreement.pdf

Err…

Let us cite the actual treaty text rather than a secondary source

Article III.2 states,

2. Each State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subject to the safeguards required by this article.

Article III.1 states,

The safeguards required by this article shall be applied to all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere.

QED