May 24, 1998

Maybe A Good Thing That Asian Nations Testing Bombs

Biggest explosion set off by India last week was that of the myth of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Of course, the so-called big-five nuclear powers -- United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- signed a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty after they had exploded scores of experimental bombs and perfected long-range missiles to deliver them.

Wannabes like India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and Israel plugged away with secret tests of models. A 1995 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed by 149 nations in hopes of confining the nuclear genie. Only Britain and France of the Big Five, and 11 other nations, have ratified the treaty.

India detonated five nuclear devices -- indicating there were plenty more where those came from. One was described as “thermo-nuclear,” that is, a city-buster hydrogen bomb. India’s neighbors, particularly Pakistan, shivered. Pakistan declared it would ignore its signature to the test-ban treaty and explode a couple of experimental bombs to “protect itself.” That country and India have fought two wars over boundaries and religion without settling either issue.

President Clinton called upon Pakistan to “show restraint” before resuming a nuclear arms race. This passes for statesmanship, but it is just posturing. The original rush to develop nuclear weapons never ceased.

The troubling fact is that atomic bombs are devilishly easy to make -- once you get a modest amount of weapon-grade uranium.

Extracting enriched uranium from ore is extremely expensive and time consuming. However, spent fuel from a nuclear power reactor can be converted to weapon grade plutonium in an easily concealed centrifuge (spinning) device.

A large reactor produces 250 kilograms of plutonium each year. Only eight kilograms -- about the size of a grapefruit -- are needed for an Hiroshima-type city buster. There are hundreds of nuclear power reactors scattered across the globe, all the owners of which are anxious to sell their leftovers.

The U.S. and Australia produce most of the raw U-238 uranium, or “yellowcake,” for reactor fueling. Plutonium and weapon technology are available on every street corner.

Israel made the plutonium for its nuclear weapons from 200 tons of uranium hijacked from a ship in the Mediterranean.

Australia supplies uranium to France and Germany, according to SEA-US, an Australian anti-nuclear organization. German firms helped

South Africa and Argentina build enrichment plants. France and Britain provided a nuclear plant for Iraq. Russia built two nuclear reactors for Iran. Netherlands trained a Pakistani scientist in enrichment techniques. China assisted North Korea and Algeria in construction of plutonium reactors.

President Clinton says a U.S. law automatically invoking sanctions against countries producing nuclear weapons will go into effect against India -- maybe. If India will sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he will overlook last week’s explosions.

United Nations leaders profess fear that India and Pakistan will be at each other’s throats now that they have unlimbered the terror weapon. Little Pakistan’s 133 million Muslims would be blown away in the first hour of a nuclear exchange with India’s one billion Hindus. The real menace is China -- as India states. Clinton’s tilt to China and his upcoming visit there next month spooked India. China also has a population over a billion. The exact numbers of people there and in India are guess-timates. Their citizens are born and die at rates impossible to gauge accurately. When such giants fight, midgets are trampled in the melee.

Asia today is in turmoil. The North Korean, Cambodian, Indonesia and Philippine economies are in shambles. South Korea and Japan are sliding downhill. China struggles to run a capitalist economy with communist policies.

India is sustained with the help of foreign aid from the U.S., Japan and other nations with an economic stake in that over-populated country.

India and China have been fighting, off and on, for 50 years over their common border. Should either miscalculate and indulge their appetite for more living space, Armageddon!

It is callous to say, but leaders of the two Asian giants might not be terribly upset over the loss of a half-billion lives each. That would solve a lot of their population problems.

As for the penchant of both to test nuclear weapons, perhaps this is desirable. The aim of experimentation is to deliver punch in smaller, more accurate missiles. As long as the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, controlling it is more important than letting it careen indiscriminately.

Here at home, it is well to keep our nuclear guard up. The euphoria following victory in the cold war with Russia must give way to the reality that the rest of the world is still a dangerous place.

PARTING SHOTS

Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the House committee investigating campaign finance, called President Clinton a “scumbag” in an unguarded moment with a newspaper reporter. The trouble with Burton is that he says what he thinks without thinking.

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Inside every large problem, there is a small problem struggling to get out.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers