US Congress gives thumbs up to landmark N-deal

Final approval came as the Senate voted to ratify the deal, 86-13, sending the legislation to Bush to sign into law. The Senate's move came just ahead of an expected trip to India this weekend by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Bush said he looks forward to signing the bill into law.

"This legislation will strengthen our global nuclear nonproliferation efforts, protect the environment, create jobs, and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs in a responsible manner," Bush said in a statement.

But critics say the deal does grave damage to global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, by letting India import nuclear fuel and technology even though it has tested nuclear weapons and never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"The US-Indian Agreement for Nuclear Cooperation is, nonetheless, a nonproliferation disaster," said Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association.

"Contrary to the counterfactual claims of proponents and apologists, it does not bring India into the "nonproliferation mainstream."

The ACA is a non-partisan Washington-based arms control policy organization.

India has a yawning energy deficit, and the accord opens up this market worth billions to American companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse Electric, a unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp.

Rice spent much of the past month in an all-out effort to persuade Congress to approve the pact, which the Bush administration says will transform the US-India relationship. Bush wanted the deal approved before leaving office in January; Congress is expected to adjourn soon for elections.

The accord enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, where many lawmakers favored it as a way to create jobs in the US civil nuclear industry while cultivating the small but affluent Indian-American community.

Critics said the deal was deeply unwise, overturning decades of US policy of refusing to sell nuclear technology to nations lacking full safeguards against that technology's diversion into nuclear weapons programs.

IRAN CONCERNS

"Why are we rushing to pass this gravely flawed agreement?" demanded Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, before the vote. There was nothing in it, he said, to prevent India from resuming nuclear testing....