On the eve of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations and the House International Relations Committees on the India-US civilian nuclear agreement and why it is imperative that the US Congress approve the deal, Congressman Gary Ackerman has lamented that the Bush administration's blitz may be a little too late.
In an exclusive interview with rediff India Abroad, Ackerman, a senior member of the House International Relations Committee, also predicted that Committee Chairman Congressman Henry Hyde would attach conditions to an independent piece of legislation that he would introduce, which could ultimately scuttle the deal.
Both the Bush administration and India have said any conditions attached to the legislation already introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives by Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Hyde, on behalf of the administration, even though they have not endorsed it themselves, would be 'deal-breakers' and would unravel the carefully negotiated agreement that took nearly a year to hammer out.
Ackerman, the Democratic co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, was the first lawmaker Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran met with on Capitol Hill during his whirlwind visit to Washington, DC last week to meet with senior Bush administration officials and lawmakers to push for the agreement to be passed by the US Congress.
"The administration has not been fully engaged in this thing," Ackerman said, and criticised the White House for "not preparing the American people as to what this is all about."
"The American people don't have a clue as to what this is all about other than a country that hasn't signed (the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) is now going to be getting nuclear stuff," Ackerman said.
The Democratic lawmaker also criticised Republican Congressmen, especially those belonging to the India Caucus, for trying to distance themselves from President Bush for fear that his declining popularity would impact them in the November Congressional election.
"They are going to jump on every issue to distance themselves from him," he said, adding, "So this (the India-US nuclear deal) is his policy and they don't lose anything by not supporting it."
"It is left for the likes of a couple of people like us to keep trying to gather support and we need the complete and full engagement of the Indian embassy and the Indian-American community," he added.
"Every door has to be knocked on, and they have not really done a lot of knocking yet. The deal doesn't sell itself," Ackerman said.
Asked if the Bush administration is looking toward the India Caucus to deliver the deal, Ackerman said, "They haven't indicated that at all. But the India Caucus, I don't know who we have on the Republican side," who has supported the deal.
He said the Republican co-chair of the Caucus, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has not come out in favour of the nuclear deal, and while acknowledging that a lot of American lawmakers have legitimate questions, "there is nobody from the administration answering them. It is only now that Condoleezza Rice is coming to tell us what the administration thinks this is all about."
"I know Henry Hyde (who also met with Saran, but gave him no assurance of support for the legislation he introduced on behalf of the administration) is not in favour of the administration bill. He introduced the bill on their behalf, on their request, which means, 'I don't like it, (but) I'll put it in,'" Ackerman asserted.
"If truth be known, he is going to take a shot at writing his own bill, (and) it has nothing to do with the president's agreement with the prime minister (Manmohan Singh) during his visit," Ackerman said.
Asked if there is the possibility that Hyde in his legislation would attach some conditions to the deal, Ackerman replied: "It is not just possible, you can bet your sacred cow on it! You bet they are going to put conditions. They are not going to make it easy."
"Besides, these guys are going to condition it to death. I don't know what they have in mind, but since the administration didn't tell them (initially about the deal), they are not consulting the administration," he added.
"The embassy hasn't been around to make their case yet, (and) the Indian- American community has to get fully engaged -- there's isn't anyone else to do it. There ain't no one else," he complained.
Asked if he has any idea of how the votes in the committee would go if the legislation was voted on today, he said, "Nobody has polled anybody, nobody has asked. The very fact that only I endorsed (the deal), (Congressman Joe) Crowley endorsed, and except for (Republican Congressman) Joe Wilson, give me one other Republican who has endorsed it."
"Just three people and three people does not a deal make," he said.
He said Ros-Lehtinen "has not been heard from on this other than to say it is an important relationship -- what that means I don't know (in terms of support for the deal)."
Ackerman said President Bush, after calling a group of lawmakers to the White House after his return from India to brief them on his visit and ask for their support for the nuclear deal, has not compelled legislators in his Republican party to support the agreement in the US Congress.
During that meeting in the White House, Ackerman revealed he was the only one who unequivocally said he supports the deal, although warning Bush that he would be up against a major challenge.
"The support was deafening in that room," he disclosed. "You had 14 people in that room on the legislative side, Democrats and Republicans, Senators and House members, who were going to shake this thing and what you got was a bunch of abstentions there."
"Maybe I am a bit cynical, maybe, I am a bit sceptical, but maybe, it is what the administration wanted from the very beginning. They came up with a deal that looked good, and smells good and made a lot of sense and they said, 'We are not doing anything until the Indians show they can separate the civilian from the military side of the ledger and then figured that was not going to happen,'" Ackerman said.
"But the prime minister courageously stepped up to the plate and he and his team did a very effective job selling it domestically so that this could happen and made the White House look like a bunch of amateurs on our side. And, maybe, that was intelligent design," he added.
Asked if there is any chance of a critical mass forming in the House in support of the deal, Ackerman, known for his sense of humou, said, "Far from a critical mass, what we see is an anemic skeleton."
The portly lawmaker, added, "I am a big guy, but critical mass I am not."
