House Approves Nuke Deal With India

The House has approved the deal with India to allow nuclear fuel and civilian technology sharing.

WASHINGTON - The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow U.S. shipments of civilian nuclear fuel and technology to India, handing President Bush a victory on one of his top foreign policy initiatives.

Rep. Tom Lantos said the proposal, which reverses decades of U.S. anti-proliferation policy, is "a tidal shift in relations between India and the United States."

"We are at a hinge of history, as we seek to build a fundamentally new relationship," said Lantos, the top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and a strong champion of the plan.

The House approved the measure 359-68.

The Senate has yet to vote on the plan, which must clear several more hurdles before nuclear trade between the two countries could begin.

For Bush to implement his accord with India, lawmakers must first exempt New Delhi from U.S. laws that bar nuclear trade with countries that have not submitted to full international inspections.

Congressional action is needed because India built its nuclear weapons program outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which provides civil nuclear trade in exchange for a pledge from nations not to pursue nuclear weapons.

Before the vote, lawmakers made last-ditch attempts to attach conditions they said were needed to make sure the United States was not supporting a massive increase in India's nuclear stockpile. Supporters of the accord quashed proposals they said would cause India to balk and the delicately worded deal to collapse.

Several lawmakers strongly questioned the initiative, arguing that it would undermine the world's premier nonproliferation treaty.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., portrayed the plan as a "historic failure" that "pours nuclear fuel on the fire of an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race." Pakistan, India's nuclear-armed archrival and neighbor, has not been offered a similar deal by the United States.

Pretty lopsided victory.