Bush administration pitches for Indo-US nuke deal acceptance

The US Administration appears to have begun the public sales pitch of the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement in right earnest after President George W Bush's return from the South Asia tour, with senior officials Nicholas Burns and Richard Boucher lined up to address meetings to garner domestic support for the landmark deal.

Burns, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs who played a key role in clinching the deal, will address a talk on "India and Pakistan: On the Heels of President Bush's Visit" on Monday.

Burns had briefed journalists accompanying Bush comprehensively in New Delhi on what the civilian nuclear deal was all about and on most of the finer details of the pact. Burns will be followed by Boucher, the New Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, who will be giving a talk this Thursday at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.

Though several members of Congress have come out in support of the agreement, there are prominent lawmakers like Senator Richard Lugar who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat in that Panel who have withheld unqualified support saying they are waiting to see the details of the agreement.

"The President is trying to ride the nuclear tiger. This thing has to be looked at very very carefully. I'm skeptical," Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, the Chair of the House Armed Services Committee has said.

"As we continue to develop a pool of technicians and scientists in India who have the capacity to work in the nuclear arena, those people can quickly move their talents from domestic energy production to weapons production," Hunter claimed.