Indo-US nuclear deal Meets Condi's Skullduggery

I'm really pleased to see that our very own (WA-02) Congressman Rick Larsen is one of those pushing to keep all of the nonproliferation provision in the legislation for the Indo-US nuclear deal. He's part of a group of Congressional Democrats headed by Ed Markey.

It seems that Bush, with the help of Condi, is up to nukular no-good:

Apparently, the Bush Administration has entered the nuclear twilight zone! It can go to war in Iraq to disarm imaginary WMD, but then turns to give a huge nuclear gift to India and specifically tells Congress NOT to ask India to stand up to Iran’s WMD programs? Whose foreign policy is the administration promoting? " (FROM: STATEMENT BY REP. ED MARKEY (D-MA))

'Maintain nonproliferation provisions in nuke deal'

Washington, Dec. 5 (PTI): Ahead of the US Congress meet to work out a legislation on Indo-US nuclear deal, a group of Democrats have asked Chairman of the House International Relations Committee and the Ranking Member to make sure that nonproliferation provisions contained in the Senate and House bills are included in the final legislation.

"This has always been a bad deal. It's a nuclear giveaway to India that strikes a harsh blow to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. Now President Bush trying his best to make it even worse," leader of the group Edward Markey said in a letter to Chairman of the House International Relations Committee Henry Hyde and Ranking Member Tom Lantos.

The group of law makers asked Hyde and Lantos to make sure that some areas of the current legislations that are seen as problematic and outside the scope of the July 2005 agreement between the leaders of India and US are retained.

" ..all of us consider halting the proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies to be a paramount national security and foreign policy interest of United States. We therefore wish to strongly urge you to ensure that several critical nonproliferation provisions contained in the Senate and House bills are included in any final conference report," Markey and his colleagues have maintained.

"Why in the world would Secretary Rice ask that Congress remove all of the provisions which would strengthen nonproliferation, such as requiring India to help the United States prevent Iran from going nuclear?," the Massachussetts Democrat said in reference to a recent letter written by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to some senior law makers.

Apart from Markey those who signed the letter included Jane Harman, Adam Schiff, Rick Larsen, John Spratt, Ellen Tauscher and Robert Andrews.

Rice in that letter cautioned law makers against retaining provisions in the final legislation that would be unacceptable to India or force the re-opening of negotiations on a deal that is generally seen as a historic move in the bilateral relationship.

She further made the point to law makers that relations with India would suffer if problem areas in the legislations are not addressed.

Congressman Markey and his colleagues are pressing to retain several key provisions including a requirement that India fully support US efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. ...(full article)