U.S. House all set to vote on Indo-U.S. nuclear deal

Washington, Sept 27 (PTI) The U.S. House of
Representatives looks all set to vote the legislation
approving the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal after a known opponent
Congressman Howard Berman made a U-turn while the fate of the
bill in the Senate is not that clear.

The House, which completed a lively debate that saw
another critic Ed Markey putting up a stiff opposition to the
deal with India, is expected to take up the issue at 10 am
Saturday (1930 hrs IST).

However in the Senate, an anonymous lawmaker put a "hold"
on consideration of the bill which must be lifted before the
agreement is brought to the Senate floor or approved by a
unanimous consent agreement.

The latest hiccup in the Senate is actually a counter to
the attempt of the leadership to "hotline" the Senate Bill
through unanimous consent without debate and vote.

The schedule of the Senate is still fluid but it is
meeting Saturday with a possible meeting Sunday and
re-convening on Wednesday after taking a break on Monday and
Tuesday on account of Jewish holidays.

After much drama and persuasion with a call from
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Berman, the Chairman of
the House Foreign Affairs Committee, withdrew his original
bill and introduced another version which was identical to the
one cleared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to
ensure its smooth passage.

Opening the debate in the House, Berman said he continued
to have concerns about ambiguities in the Indo-U.S. agreement
and sought unanimous consent to insert several documents into
the record to clarify certain "issues".

"It is my view that ... this bill also gives the right to
disapprove a presidential decision to resume civil nuclear
cooperation with any country, not just India, that tests a
nuclear weapon.

"It will also ensure that India takes the necessary
remaining steps to bring its I.A.E.A. safeguards agreement
fully into force and include an additional protocol," said the
senior Democrat, who has long been a critic of the U.S.-India
nuclear agreement on non-proliferation grounds.

"I will be voting for H.R.7081 (bill)," said Berman, who
had recently released a letter of the Administration to him
that spoke of ceasing U.S. cooperation on fuel supplies in
case of India conducting a test.

The top opponent of the Berman bill, Massachussetts
Democrat Markey took a final swing at the civil nuclear
agreement questioning not only the judgement of the Bush
Administration in going for the deal but also the
non-proliferation gains.

"Flashing a green light to India sends a dangerous signal
to all of those countries because these policies are
interconnected," he said, noting that it was not a debate on
India but on Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Venezuela or about
any other country in the world that harbours the goal of
acquiring nuclear weapons.

Markey, who insisted on a recorded roll call vote on the
bill, said "with this vote we are shattering the
non-proliferation rules and the next three countries to march
through the broken glass will be Iran, North Korea and
Pakistan and there are others with their nose set up against
the window getting ready as well."

He wanted to know whether Pakistan would just watch India
ramp up it nuclear weapons production and do nothing.

"Pakistan will respond. Pakistan warned us this summer
that this deal, and I quote, threatens to increase the chances
of a nuclear arms race. Right now, according to non-
proliferation experts, Pakistan is building two new reactors
to dramatically increase its nuclear weapons production."

He said the first of these new reactors could come on
line within a year. Pakistan was essentially telling India
that they were in this game too and they would match India
step for step.

"This is an all-out nuclear arms race. That is what
President Bush should be working on, not fuelling it but
trying to negotiate an end to it," Markey said.

Yet another Democrat from California, Lynn Woolsey, rose
in opposition to the U.S.-India agreement and the Berman bill.

"... By approving this nuclear agreement, an agreement
with India, we will permanently and irrevocably undermine
decades of non-proliferation efforts.

"This agreement says that India, but no other country,
can live outside the international nuclear controls system.
It sets a frightening precedent. If a country is unhappy about
the rules of nuclear possession, it can simply go
around them, breaking them," Woolsey maintained.

"And what does it matter India ignored international
agreements? Any sanction? Any punishment? Nope. Just a
lucrative deal with the United States of America. If we
approve this deal, we lose our moral high ground," she added.

The schedules of both the House and the Senate are
critical for the nuclear deal amid a bipartisan conviction
that the agreement will be cleared, but not without heartburn
until the very end.

Republican sources are confident that the legislation in
the Senate will move and have quickly distanced themselves as
being the party of the "hold".

In fact without mentioning any names, many are quietly
pointing to those lawmakers in the Senate who have in one
fashion or another opposed the civilian nuclear legislation.

In 2006 during the time of the voting on the Hyde Act, 12
Senators opposed the Act.

On September 23 this year at a Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Mark Up, two Senators opposed moving the Senate
version of the Bill of Approval to the Floor while four voted
for the Feingold Amendment that essentially called on the Bush
Administration to strike an agreement with N.S.G. that there
will not be transfers of enrichment and reprocessing
technology to any country which is not a party to the N.P.T.

The 12 Senators who opposed the Hyde Act were all
Democrats; the two Senators who opposed the moving of the bill
of approval to the Senate Floor were also Democrats and the
four lawmakers on the Senate panel who backed the Feingold
Amendment were Democrats too.

"The Senate leadership will have to resolve this,"
quipped a source well versed with the goings on.