However, a lone lawmaker stood between the Senate granting more authority to President Clinton to waive sanctions in other areas as well. Ohio Senator John Glenn argued that should the President be given more powers and should he use it to ease sanctions even more, it would send out wrong signal to nuclear proliferators.

Faced with the threat of filibuster by Glenn, a champion of nuclear non-proliferation, other lawmakers backed down. In the end, the legislation turned out to be a tame farm bill despite expectations that it would lift sanctions substantially.

The immediate beneficiaries of the bill, which swept through by a 98-0 margin after a two-hour debate, will be grain farmers in the United States, who sell significant quantities of wheat to Pakistan. India buys almost no food from the United Statesalthough Washington has long been trying to break into the fairly well-protected Indian food market.

In fact, it transpires that the immediate provocation for the bill, which was rushed to the floor of Senate bypassing the usual passage through committees that reviews legislation, was an imminent transaction by Pakistan.

Islamabad has put out a word that it is planning to buy 350,000 metric tonnes of wheat in the open market. Panicky American farmers, who are said to be facing ruination due to a glut in the market and falling prices, began putting pressure on lawmakers to allow sales to Pakistan. The deal will be worth $ 37 million.

``Whether the Pakistanis buy US wheat, Canadian wheat or some other wheat isn't going to make a difference on a dinner table in Islamabad, but it sure will in Topeka,'' said Senator Mitch McConnell, the principle author of the farm bill.

In fact, listening to the American lawmakers, it seemed US farmers were facing rack and ruin and not Pakistan, which is only days awayfrom financial disintegration. ``We, in the Pacific north west, are six days away from disaster,'' said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. ``Sanctions are supposed to squeeze the targeted country, not the American producer. We should not sacrifice our farmers in an effort to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle,'' argued McConnell.

Some of the most enthusiastic support for the bill came from lawmakers of Washington state, which sells to Pakistan some 35 per cent of its wheat worth some $ 300 million annually. Pakistan bought 2.2 million metric tonnes of US wheat last year.

Clinton welcomed the passage of the legislation. ``I am pleased the Senate has passed legislation today that is consistent with my view that US food exports should not become an unintended victim of an important non-proliferation law. Food should not be used as a weapon, and I will resist any action that would lead to a de facto grain embargo,'' Clinton said in a statement. Clinton also indicated that he was looking for a further easingof sanction in other areas, saying he looked forward to working with Congress to make sure this legislation ``or separate legislation gives us the broadest possible flexibility to further our non-proliferation policy without putting American businesses and farmers at an unfair disadvantage.''