A Future So Bright, Ya Gotta Wear Bollywood Shades

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recent U.S.-India nuclear agreement was so hastily concluded the Bush administration is only now beginning to figure out how to implement it in the face of tough questions from the U.S. Congress and nonproliferation experts.

The agreement, announced July 18 after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Bush at the White House, upends decades-old nonproliferation rules and will require changes in U.S. law and international policy.

U.S. officials are optimistic the Republican-controlled Congress will approve steps to fulfill Bush's promise to sell civilian nuclear technology to India.

Such sales are now prohibited under U.S. law because India refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, and is producing nuclear weapons banned by the pact and other agreements.

With the new deal, the United States in effect accepts India as a nuclear-weapon state.

U.S. and Indian officials had aimed to conclude an agreement before Bush makes an expected trip to India in early 2006. But the atmosphere seemed ripe while Singh was in Washington, so U.S. and Indian negotiators worked around-the-clock to seal a deal.

Early grumblings among lawmakers and experts who believe the accord weakens nuclear-weapons controls suggest Bush could face a battle to amend or waive U.S. law. Congressional sources say a growing Indian-American community will be a factor in supporting the accord.

So far, ``the administration has no clear plan'' to implement the agreement, said a Republican participant in a recent briefing for congressional staff. The participant said officials had ``no good answers'' on how the deal would affect international security...

The Plan: Bechtel and General Electric and the whole Carlyle Crew make a big pile of money. Then, there's the money to be made on Pakistan trying to play catch-up. Not to mention futures in fighter airplanes and missiles and all the other goodies the Company's subsidiaries all sell to either side.

But there's another reason, of course. With Bu$hCo there's always another reason, because there are so many weasels in this crew. It's not just the Pakistani push and pull.

Let's look at what Hong Kong's Asia Times has to say about the deal:

...American investments in India, especially in new technology areas, will help US companies to reduce costs and become more competitive globally. US firms are already leading the foreign investment drive in India. I believe 400 of the Fortune 500 are already in India."

Among the significant initiatives that were unveiled at the meeting between Singh and US President George W Bush has been the launch of a high-level bilateral CEO forum. The forum is intended to provide effective private sector participation in the economic dialogues between India and the US. The CEO forum brings together 10 top businessmen each from India and the US to promote Indo-US economic cooperation in the coming years. Not conceived as a pressure group on the two governments, the forum has been designed to provide a practical and hands-on body influencing economic policymaking in both countries.

Hell, no pressure. These boys own the governments:

...The Indian CEOs in the forum are Ratan Tata (Tata group), Mukhesh Ambani (Reliance), Nandan Nilekani (Infosys), Yogesh Deveshwar (ITC), Dr Pratap Reddy (Apollo Hospitals), Baba N Kalyani (Bharat Forge), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Biocon India), Deepak Parekh (HDFC), Ashok Ganguly (ICICI) and Analjit Singh (Max India). Those in the American team are Charles Prince (Citigroup), Warren Stanley (Cargill), Steven Reinemund (Pepsi), David Cote (Honeywell), Paul Hanrahan (AES Corporation), William Harrison Jr (JP MorganChase), Harold McGraw III (McGraw-Hill Companies), Thomas J O'Neill (Parsons Brinckerhoff), Christopher Rodrigues (Visa International) and Anne M Mulcahy (Xerox).

The US is India's biggest trading partner and its largest investor. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) totaled over US$4 billion in 2004, more than double the figure in 1998. Trade in merchandise stood at $21.7 billion last year. But these figures are still puny compared to the trade and investment figures between China and the US. "Our focus remains on instituting policies of high growth aimed at encouraging investment flows and expanding trade. We are currently receiving about $6 billion annually as foreign investment. We need several times this amount," Singh said.

There you have it. They're trying to make a competitor for Team Xinhua. You play Tigers against Tigers in the world of Bu$hCo-style poker. The real humor is in their failure to understand when you run out of meat for the growing Tiger, he's much more likely to eat you than another Tiger.