nuclear-news

India’s secret nuclear weapons building city

India Is Building a Top-Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons, Experts Say The weapons could upgrade India as a nuclear power — and deeply unsettle Pakistan and China. Foreign Policy.com BY ADRIAN LEVY DECEMBER 16, 2015 “………..Only after construction on the site began that year did it finally become clear to the tribesmen and others that two secretive agencies were behind a project that experts say will be the subcontinent’s largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories, and weapons- and aircraft-testing facilities when it’s completed, probably sometime in 2017. Among the project’s aims: to expand the government’s nuclear research, to produce fuel for India’s nuclear reactors, and to help power the country’s fleet of new submarines.

But another, more controversial ambition, according to retired Indian government officials and independent experts in London and Washington, is to give India an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel that could be used in new hydrogen bombs, also known as thermonuclear weapons, substantially increasing the explosive force of those in its existing nuclear arsenal.

India’s close neighbors, China and Pakistan, would see this move as a provocation: Experts say they might respond by ratcheting up their own nuclear firepower. Pakistan, in particular, considers itself a military rival, having engaged in four major conflicts with India, as well as frequent border skirmishes.

New Delhi has never published a detailed account of its nuclear arsenal, which it first developed in 1974, and there has been little public notice outside India about the construction at Challakere and its strategic implications. The government has said little about it and made no public promises about how the highly enriched uranium to be produced there will be used. As a military facility, it is not open to international inspection.

But a lengthy investigation by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), including interviews with local residents, senior and retired Indian scientists and military officers connected to the nuclear program, and foreign experts and intelligence analysts, has pierced some of the secrecy surrounding the new facility, parts of which are slated to open in 2016. This new facility will give India a nuclear capability — the ability to make many large-yield nuclear arms — that most experts say it presently lacks.

A nuclear stockpile in a dangerous neighborhood

The independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)estimates that India already possesses between 90 and 110 nuclear weapons, as compared to Pakistan’s estimated stockpile of up to 120. China, which borders India to the north, has approximately 260 warheads…..

India, according to former Australian nonproliferation chief John Carlson, is one of just three countries that continue to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons — the others are Pakistan and North Korea. The enlargement of India’s thermonuclear program would position the country alongside the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Israel, France, and China, which already have significant stockpiles of such weapons.

Few authorities in India are willing to discuss these matters publicly, partly because the country’s Atomic Energy Act and the Official Secrets Act shroud everything connected to the Indian nuclear program and in the past have been used to bludgeon those who divulge details. Spokesmen for the two organizations involved in the Challakere construction, the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), which has played a leading role in nuclear weapons design, declined to answer any of CPI’s questions, including about the government’s ambitions for the new park. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs also declined to comment.

The secret city emerges

Western analysts, speaking on condition of anonymity, say, however, that preparation for this enrichment effort has been underway for four years, at a second top-secret site known as the Rare Materials Plant, 160 miles to the south of Challakere, near the city of Mysore.

Satellite photos of that facility from 2014 have revealed the existence of a new nuclear enrichment complex that is already feeding India’s weapons program

Satellite photos of that facility from 2014 have revealed the existence of a new nuclear enrichment complex that is already feeding India’s weapons program and, some Western analysts maintain, laying the groundwork for a more ambitious hydrogen bomb project. It is effectively a test bed for Challakere, they say, a proving ground for technology and a place where technicians can practice producing the highly enriched uranium the military would need……..

Gary Samore, who served from 2009 to 2013 as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, said there was little misunderstanding. “I believe that India intends to build thermonuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrent against China,” said Samore. It is unclear, he continued, when India will realize this goal of a larger and more powerful arsenal, but “they will.”

A former senior British official who worked on nuclear issues likewise said intelligence analysts on both sides of the Atlantic are “increasingly concerned” about India’s pursuit of thermonuclear weapons and are “actively monitoring” both sites. U.S. officials in Washington said they shared this assessment. “Mysore is being constantly monitored, and we are constantly monitoring progress in Challakere,” a former White House official said.

Robert Kelley, who served as the director of the Iraq Action Team at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1992-1993 and 2001-2005, is a former project leader for nuclear intelligence at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He told CPI that after analyzing the available satellite imagery, as well as studying open source material on both sites, he believes that India is pursuing a larger thermonuclear arsenal. Its development, he warned, “will inevitably usher in a new nuclear arms race” in a volatile region.

However, Western knowledge about how India’s weapons are stored, transported, and protected, and how the radiological and fissile material that fuels them is guarded and warehoused — the chain of custody — remains rudimentary. After examining nuclear security practices in 25 countries with “weapons-usable nuclear materials,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, in January 2014 ranked India’s nuclear security practices 23rd, above only Iran and North Korea. An NTI analyst who asked to remain unnamed told CPI that India’s score stemmed in part from the country’s opacity and “obfuscation on nuclear regulation and security issues.”

But the group also noted the prevalence of corruption in India and the insecurity of the region: the rise ofIslamist jihad fronts in India and nearby Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as homegrown leftist insurgencies. “Many other countries, including China, have worked with us to understand the ratings system and better their positions.” But India did not, the NTI analyst said.

A culture of quiet

Like the villagers in Challakere, some key members of the Indian Parliament say they know little about the project. ….http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/16/india_nuclear_city_top_secret_china_pakistan_barc/

December 18, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, weapons and war