Senate close to okaying Indo-US nuke deal

WASHINGTON: The US Senate is poised to approve the Bush administration’s nuclear deal with India after lawmakers rejected the first attempt to kill the agreement by a 73-26 margin.
Both Republican and Democratic senators came together to decisively vote down an amendment brought to the floor by New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman which would have required the President to determine that India committed to a cap on its fissile material production before Washington could proceed with nuclear exports to India.
The administration had said such a condition would not be agreed to by India and would amount to a deal killer, and a majority of Senators agreed with this assessment. The vote on this amendment, the first of many that will follow, offers a broad indication of how much support the deal has.
While most Republicans voted against the Bingaman deal-killer amendment and kept the deal alive, several prominent Democrats joined them in support – among them Senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Paul Sarbanes and Joe Lieberman.
The non-proliferation constituency that supported the amendment that could kill the deal included Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and Barack Obama.
Voting on two other killer amendments are in progress at the time of writing and voting is expected to follow the pattern of the first. The final vote on the bill will come later in the evening and if the roll call on the amendments is any indication, the bill is as good a through in the Senate.