Taking India's fight to the
Hill By Ramtanu Maitra
Recent reports indicate that the Indian
Embassy in Washington, following consultations
with New Delhi, has appointed Washington's
lobbying heavyweight, Barbour Griffith &
Rogers International (BG&R), which could get
down to business as early as next month.
The news should not come as a complete
surprise to Asia Times Online readers. This
author, in an article The man who oils India's
wheels, dated January 25, informed
readers that soon after his resignation from the
State Department, former US ambassador to India,
Robert Blackwill, was hired as president by
BG&R in November 2004.
According to
BG&R's web site, its clients include the
Republic of China (Taiwan).
His
appointment was not only a "Good Samaritan" act by
Blackwill's friends; it also enhanced BG&R's
prestige and made it a potent competitor for a
host of contracts in Iraq, India and
elsewhere, the author
predicted. It is apparent that the auspicious
moment has arrived and the appointment could not
be delayed any further. The article indicated that
BG&R was going to be hired by the Indian
Embassy as lobbyists.
What triggered the
appointment is the India-US nuclear deal, which is
expected to be discussed in the US Congress next
month. The July 18 agreement between US President
George W Bush and the visiting Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh called for nuclear
cooperation between the two nations. The Bush
administration indicated readiness to embark on
full civilian nuclear energy cooperation, amending
its domestic laws and policies while adjusting
international regimes to achieve this.
This will not only secure fuel for India's
Tarapur atomic power plants 1 & 2 (TAPP 1
& 2) supplied by GE in the 1960s, but will
also open up the possibility of fuel supply for
other safeguarded reactors. Bush also got the US
to refrain from vetoing fuel supplies by other
countries (Russia, France) as it had in the
past.
In return, India agreed to identify
and separate civilian and military facilities in a
phased manner, placing its civilian facilities
under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
safeguards and signing an IAEA Additional
Protocol. A number of existing policies were also
reiterated by India, among them a unilateral
moratorium on nuclear testing, working toward
conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material
Cut-off Treaty, non-transfer of enrichment and
reprocessing technologies, securing nuclear
materials and technology through export control
and harmonization with the Missile Test Control
Regime and the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines.
Bush-Manmohan agreement The
India-US nuclear agreement, often cited by New
Delhi as "historic", is by no means a done deal. A
very cursory look indicates that the accord on
civilian nuclear energy cooperation will
contravene the control guidelines laid down by the
nuclear suppliers group, according to a study
prepared for the US Congress.
Referring to
the agreement of July 18, a Congressional Research
Service (CRS) report said if implemented, the
cooperation between the US and India for civilian
nuclear energy "would dramatically shift US
non-proliferation policy and practice towards
India".
"Such cooperation would also
contravene multilateral support control guidelines
of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was formed
in response to India's proliferation," the report
suggested.
Beside the report's apparent
misgivings about the agreement, it is also evident
from the rumblings heard on Capitol Hill that the
agreement will face serious opposition from both
sides of the aisle. It is almost a certainty that
the minority Democrats will oppose the agreement
more in unison than their opponents.
The
first salvo was issued by none other than Strobe
Talbott, a close associate of the pro-India former
president, Bill Clinton, in his July 21 piece in
the magazine, Yale Global. Calling it the "Good
Day for India, Bad for Non-Proliferation", Talbott
pointed out that the Bush administration gave up
on all tradeoffs and granted India the privileges
of a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
signatory member with very little in return. He
said the US had, for much of the past seven years,
tried to work out an agreement that would give
India more access to technology necessary for its
civilian nuclear energy program in exchange for
meaningful constraints on its weapons program,
consistent with its own declared policy of wanting
to have only a "credible minimum deterrent".
Talbott argues against Talbott
says the Indians have received more leniency than
the five established nuclear "haves" had asked for
themselves: The US, Britain, France, Russia and
China say they have halted the production of the
fissile material that goes into nuclear bombs,
while India has only promised to join a universal
ban that would include Pakistan - if such a thing
ever materializes. Yet that pledge, in the future
conditional tense, was apparently enough for the
Bush administration.
What seems to worry
some Democrats is that both India, historically,
and the US, under the Bush administration, have
shown a penchant for going it alone - India in
defying the international community (including the
US) with its tests, the Bush administration in
attacking Iraq over the objections of the United
Nations and many of its own closest allies. If the
Indian and American versions of unilateralism
reinforce one another, it will work to the
detriment of institutions such as the United
Nations and risk turning treaties like the NPT
from imperfect but useful mechanisms into
increasingly ineffectual ones, Talbott argued.
In short, Talbott, who was engaged in
long-winding negotiations with the then-Indian
external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, in the
aftermath of the second round of Indian testing of
nuclear explosives in 1998 to eventually ease the
Clinton administration's relations with India, is
making it plain that the Bush-Manmohan agreement
is detrimental to the NPT and the UN as a whole.
It is likely that Talbott is speaking on behalf of
a large number of members of the US Congress,
particularly those who belong to the Democratic
Party.
The CRS report The CRS
report said: "Observers note that US-India
cooperation could have wide-ranging implications
for the international nuclear non-proliferation
regime, and could prompt other suppliers, like
China, to justify their supplying other
non-nuclear-weapon states (as defined by NPT),
like Pakistan ... There are no measures in this
global partnership to restrain India's nuclear
weapons program. India has a self-imposed nuclear
test moratorium but continues to produce fissile
material for its nuclear weapon program, despite
support for the Fissile Material Cut off Treaty
(FMCT)."
From a technical verification
perspective, the report contends, "The existence
of India's nuclear weapons program negates
potential non-proliferation assurances that
nuclear safeguards on civil facilities might
provide. A significant question is how India, in
the absence of full-scope safeguards (ie IAEA
safeguards on every nuclear establishment,
military and civil), can provide adequate
confidence that US peaceful nuclear technology
will not be diverted to nuclear weapons purposes."
The report, however, concedes that unlike
Pakistan, there is little evidence to suggest that
India has transferred sensitive nuclear
technologies to other non-nuclear weapon states.
There is no doubt that those in the US Congress
who would support the agreement would consider
this as an anchor.
Arms sales in
progress In addition to the nuclear
agreement, the new India-US relationship also
includes arms purchases by New Delhi. Reports
indicate Indian and US officials are preparing to
discuss the possible sale to New Delhi of US
weaponry - including Aegis missile systems, an
amphibious platform dock ship, anti-submarine
patrol aircraft and Patriot Advanced Capability
(PAC)-3 air defense systems. These could be
concluded when Lieutenant-General Jeffrey Kohler,
the Pentagon's Defense Cooperation Security Agency
chief, visits New Delhi next month.
Asia
Times Online has reported that the Indian Defense
Ministry is negotiating the purchase of the USS
Trenton, a decommissioned Austin-class amphibious
transport dock, built in 1971 and used in
transporting large numbers of troops over long
distances.
The Indian navy also wants to
buy US Aegis combat systems for its ships. One
navy official said the system could monitor large
areas of the Indian Ocean, keeping an eye on
Chinese ships and submarines. The Aegis system can
defend Indian sea-based assets from short- and
long-range missiles, added the navy official, who
strongly advocated the purchase of this system,
news reports claim.
Nonetheless, since so
much is at stake, New Delhi cannot afford to sit
by quietly and leave the lobbying at the Hill
entirely to the Bush administration. This is the
reason the big guns were hired to punch some holes
in the opposition battery.
By recruiting
BG&R, India has hired a number of powerful
people linked to the Bush administration. There is
no question that Blackwill has a special service
to offer BG&R with regard to India. Considered
a highly successful ambassador, Blackwill
mesmerized Indians with his pro-India and
pro-Israel policies.
Serving in Delhi at a
time when the anti-Muslim and pro-Israel Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) was leading the National
Democratic Alliance, Blackwill seized on the deep
involvement of Islamic militants in the September
11 attacks to push Washington closer to New Delhi.
New Delhi, for its part, found this a
great opportunity as well to move closer to Israel
and the US. India hoped to influence Washington to
accept India's nuclear weaponization and its
unquestionable importance in the region. To that
effect, Blackwill played a very important role for
India during the period 2001-2003.
Power on the Hill In addition
to the presence of Blackwill as president,
BG&R is partnered by Haley Barbour, now the
Republican Governor of Mississippi. Beyond that,
Barbour was chairman of the Republican National
Committee (RNC) from 1993-1996. Barbour served as
executive director of the Mississippi Republican
Party from 1973 to 1976 and as a top political
adviser in the Reagan White House in the mid-1980s
before becoming RNC chairman.
Barbour is
now chairman and CEO of BG&R, one of
Washington's top-ranked lobbying firms, and is
part-owner of the Caucus Room, a Washington
restaurant that caters to the political set. His
role as a prominent Washington lobbyist -
representing corporate giants such as Lockheed
Martin and Microsoft - helped make Barbour a
millionaire.
In essence, Barbour is an
extremely powerful backroom player in Washington
DC. He put together something called the National
Policy Forum (NPF) in 1993. Barbour called NPF a
"think-tank" and compared it to the Heritage
Foundation. But the NPF was anything but a
think-tank - it got its money from big corporate
contributors, including several foreign sources,
by promising their executives a role in Republican
Party policy development, critics say.
Washington's insiders point out that
BG&R also has its eyes on the huge budgets
allocated for the Iraq war. It is only natural
that it would gear up to mobilize around the new
business opportunities popping up in Baghdad. One
of the most conspicuous newcomers is New Bridge
Strategies, which was created for this purpose.
Its vice chair is Ed Rogers, a founding partner in
BG&R.
Another BG&R principal,
Jennifer Larkin, ran the House Conservative Action
Team, now called the Republican Study Committee,
which their website calls "the largest, most
influential Republican member organization in
Congress". Yet another BG&R officer, Keith
Schuette, helped start and run the International
Republican Institute, which represents the party's
interests overseas and was named in helping some
of "color" revolutions that took place in Central
Asia recently.
New Bridge's chairman is
Joe Allbaugh, who was often referred to as the
third point, with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, in
the president's "iron triangle". Allbaugh served
as national campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 2000.
Since then, he has trained for Iraq's
reconstruction as head of FEMA, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
All in all,
New Delhi has decided to hire the heavy duty
Republican guns to push the agreement through
Congress, where Republicans enjoy a definite
majority. It is a sound strategy, but it still may
run into heavy weathers.
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